Theatre 80
80 St Marks Place | also 78 St Marks Place | East Village | built 1920
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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
Howard Otway buys 80 St. Marks Place, a former Prohibition speakeasy
In 1964, Howard Otway buys the building at 80 St. Marks Place, when his son Lorcan is nine years old. During Prohibition the space was a speakeasy called Scheib's Place, said to be the favorite of the New York City Council. Jazz performers including Thelonious Monk, Harry "Sweets" Edison, John Coltrane, and Frank Sinatra played there when it was a nightclub.
Source: Village Preservation
- 1967
You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown premieres at Theatre 80
The musical You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown has its premiere at Theatre 80 in 1967. Money from the production helps the Otways keep the theater. Lorcan Otway and his father had restored and renovated the building before opening it as a theater in the 1960s.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1971
Theatre 80 turns to showing movie musicals
By 1971, Theatre 80 has moved from live theater to cinema, starting with screenings of movie musicals. Howard Otway felt that television showings of these films, in poor and cut versions, spoiled them for viewers. He also works with studios to find lost films and strike new prints from better source material.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2023
The Theatre 80 building sells at auction for $8.8 million
The Otways file for bankruptcy on December 30, 2021, to stop a sale of the building amid a dispute with their mortgage lender. In May 2022 they are told to vacate by August, and they are evicted in April 2023. The building sells at auction that May for $8.8 million.
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- Theatre 80Wikipedia
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