Westside Theatre (New York City, New York)

 theatre, interesting place

3-story Romanesque-revival theater originally completed as a church in 1890. Designed by Henry Franklin Kilburn, it was home to the Second German Baptist Church until the 1960s, when the site was then occupied by various nightclubs until its establishment as a theater in 1976. Formerly known as the Chelsea Theatre Center and the Westside Arts Theatre, the building was renovated in 1991. There are two separate theaters in the building, one upstairs and one downstairs, staging different productions. The Upstairs Theatre seats 270, and the Downstairs Theatre, which features a thrust stage, has a seating capacity of 249.

The ground floor is clad in rough-faced, rusticated sandstone, with a central, square-headed opening flanked by two windows, and round-arches at the ends, both with diminutive medieval pillars. Above, two stories of reddish-orange brick are complemented with brownstone trim. There are three windows grouped in the middle of both upper levels, and single-windows at the ends. The middle windows at the top floor are round-arched, and metal louvers replaces with windows in the openings at the ends. Brick corbels on either side of the central mass added to the small amount of architectural embellishment. A triangular gable tops the middle section, with a stone coping and a small, circular window in the center. A small marquee now covers the middle entrance, and projecting flagpoles are mounted above the center of the 2nd and 3rd floors.