Mary Woodard Lasker Biomedical Research Building

3952 Broadway | also 3956 Broadway, 3960 Broadway, 1121 St Nicholas Avenue | Washington Heights | built 1900

Open on the map6 entries

The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

  1. 1912

    William Fox builds the Audubon Theatre and Ballroom, designed by Thomas W. Lamb, on the Lasker site

    Film producer William Fox hired theater architect Thomas W. Lamb to design the complex at Broadway and 165th Street. It had a theater of about 2,500 seats and a second-floor ballroom, and hosted vaudeville, films and political meetings. The terra-cotta facade has foxes between the second-floor windows and a colorful figure of Neptune on a ship. Columbia's Lasker Building was later built over part of this older building.

    Source: Wikipedia

  2. 1965

    February 21

    Malcolm X is assassinated while speaking at the Audubon Ballroom

    After leaving the Nation of Islam in 1964, Malcolm X founded the Organization of Afro-American Unity, whose weekly meetings were held in the Ballroom. He was killed there on February 21, 1965, while giving a speech. The Lasker Building was later built over part of this earlier building.

    Source: Wikipedia

  3. 1983

    Columbia receives the Audubon Ballroom site, seized by the city for unpaid taxes

    The city had taken the block after the owners fell behind on taxes. Columbia, which wanted a biotechnology research park beside its medical campus like Stanford's and MIT's, was handed the property in 1983. The provost promised a hub for labs in the new field of biotech.

    Source: gothamcenter.org

  4. 1990

    A compromise saves the Ballroom's facade and part of its interior from demolition

    Student and community protests, including the Save the Audubon Coalition, opposed razing the Ballroom. Borough President Ruth Messinger threatened to veto Port Authority loans, and the design was reworked. The compromise added city funds to restore 55 percent of the Ballroom and preserve its facade, and Mayor David Dinkins called it a fitting memorial.

    Source: gothamcenter.org

  5. 2001

    February 9

    The Lasker Building houses 15 start-up biotech firms as the Audubon park's first building

    Built with the city and state, the Mary Woodard Lasker Biomedical Research Building works as an incubator for new biotechnology and biomedical companies, with 15 tenants by 2001. Columbia described it as central to New York's effort to win a share of the biotechnology industry through collaboration between industry and academic science.

    Source: cuimc.columbia.edu

  6. 2005

    May 19

    The Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Educational Center opens in the restored Ballroom

    The memorial opened on May 19, 2005, which would have been Malcolm X's 80th birthday. It holds documents about Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz and has a 63-foot mural of his life, a bronze statue and interactive kiosks built with Columbia's Digital Knowledge Ventures and Professor Manning Marable.

    Source: Wikipedia

Nearby

All 23 buildings with stories in Washington Heights