Gramercy Theatre Venue

 building, theatre, Streamline Moderne (architecture)

Streamline-Moderne style theater completed in 1937. Designed by Charles A. Sandblom, it was originally known as the Gramercy Park Theatre to avoid confusion with the existing Gramercy Theatre at 310 First Avenue, which had 521 seats. After the old Gramercy Theatre succumbed to TV competition in the early 1950s, the newer theater dropped "Park" from its name.

In the early 1970s, it was a dollar-theater, showing third run movies. In the early 1980s, the theater showcased first-run movies. In 1992, City Cinemas closed the theater after using it briefly as a Hollywood classics revival house. In 1995, Amit Govil, a real estate investor, revived the theater into the only movie house in the five boroughs to exclusively feature films made in India. Immediately before that, it was the home of an anti-drug agency. In 1998, the theater was renovated into a 499-seat playhouse to present Off Broadway theatrical productions, the largest in the city. Soon after, in 2002, the Museum of Modern Art used the theater as a temporary film-house, while its location on 53rd Street in Midtown Manhattan was remodeled. From 2002 to 2004, the theater was simultaneously used as a film-house and an Off-Broadway playhouse. In 2004, the theater was shut down after its last production of Lee Summers' From My Hometown, which ran from April 12 to July 12, 2004. MoMA stopped using it as a cinema in April 2004. In 2006, Live Nation bought the space with the intention of turning it into an intimate concert venue.

The facade is clad in brown brick, with a black metal-and-glass box office at the ground level with two sets of double-doors. There is a small storefront on the right, and two on the left. A large box marquee extends out over the main entrance. Above, there is a row of white concrete outlines squares, and then a series of concrete vertical lines extending up to the roof line. There is a small single-window with iron grilles on either side of the row of vertical bars. At the roof line, the outer section both step up towards the ends in a series of five small steps, each topped by a stone coping.

The storefronts are occupied by I'Milky Bubble Tea, Blank Street Coffee, and a Candy & Tobacco shop.

www.thegramercytheatre.com/