This morning the Landmarks Preservation Commission voted to designate Henry Street Settlement’s Neighborhood Playhouse an historic landmark. The 1915 building at 466 Grand Street was already on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Commission called the playhouse one of New York’s first experimental theaters, which “gave rise to the Off Broadway movement.” The three-story red brick neo-Georgian-style structure was built by Alice and Irene Lewisohn, the daughters of a wealthy German-Jewish philanthropist, and, the Commission noted, was “completely controlled by women.” In 1967, the theater was renamed for Harry de Jur, a former Henry Street Settlement director.
Today the theater is the home of the highly regarded Abrons Arts Center.
