Bil Baird Marionette Theater

59 Barrow Street | also 25 Commerce Street | West Village | built 1909

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.

1964
Puppeteers Bil and Cora Baird buy 59 Barrow Street as home, theater and film studio
In 1964 the puppeteers Bil and Cora Baird bought the six-story building at 59 Barrow Street to serve as their home, marionette theater and filming studio. Some neighbors objected to a theater on a residential block. The Bairds had also staged the marionette number The Lonely Goatherd for the 1965 film The Sound of Music.
Source: Village Preservation
1966
December 24
The Bil Baird Marionette Theater opens at 59 Barrow Street with Davey Jones' Locker
After free summer programs for underprivileged children in 1966, the Bil Baird Marionette Theater opened officially on December 24, 1966, with Davey Jones' Locker. The 193-seat theater on the ground floor gave children's matinees and adult evening revues, while the Bairds lived on the fourth floor and kept a film studio on the second. At least 30 of its performers later worked with Jim Henson.
Source: Village Preservation
1987
Bil Baird, the puppeteer of 59 Barrow Street, dies at his home there, and his puppets are auctioned
Cora Baird died in 1967, but Bil Baird kept performing until shortly before his own death in 1987 at his Barrow Street home. A New York Times obituary pictured him laboring in a workshop whose walls and ceilings dripped with puppets and marionettes. Over 600 of his handcrafted puppets were sold at auction after his death.
Source: Village Preservation

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