Building a Downtown Destination

If you’re a theater person, you’ve probably been to one of the theaters on East 4th Street between Second Avenue and Bowery — most likely, New York Theatre Workshop or La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club.Still, you might not wander down to East 4th Street on a Friday night and expect to find something you’d like to see — if not a show at NYTW or La MaMa, then a screening at Millennium Film Workshop, or a performance at the women’s collective WOW Café Theatre.But that’s exactly what a not-for-profit association called Fourth Arts Block wants people to do: to think of the block as a cultural destination. And with $16 million from the city, the block’s cultural organizations are about to embark on several construction and “streetscape improvement” projects that they hope will promote the area’s arts offerings.“People have no idea that they’re in a cultural district,” the executive director of Fourth Arts Block, Tamara Greenfield, said. Ms. Greenfield said that the streetscape improvements, which include new signage, new historic lampposts, tree plantings, lighting on residential buildings, and lighting projections from the cultural buildings onto the sidewalk — “so that street itself becomes its own marquee” — are intended to reinforce the sense of the block as a destination.In 2006, the city sold to the cultural organizations, for the sum of $6, the four buildings they occupied, plus two vacant buildings and two empty lots. One of the vacant buildings, 70 E. 4th St., was purchased by a youth theater company, Downtown Art, and Alpha Omega Theatrical Dance Company, a Hispanic/African-American dance company that teaches in public schools. They are now turning the building into a four-story Youth Arts Center. The other, 72 E. 4th St., was purchased by NYTW, which will start construction in June on a new, “green” scenic design and costume shop.(In an unfortunate irony, because of the loss of income from the closing of “Rent,” NYTW recently laid off its entire production staff. “That is an adjustment to a current operating budgetary situation,” NYTW’s artistic director, James Nicola, said. “We assume in two years, when we’re back to full steam, we’ll have staff to operate the shops.”)Another building, 62 E. 4th St., which is owned by Rod Rodgers Dance Company and Duo Theater, will get a renovation of its historic façade. The three theater companies that own 64 E. 4th St. — Choices Theater Project, Teatro Circulo, and Instituto Arte Teatral Internacional — are renovating the building to create new rehearsal and office space and a new black-box theater.59-61 E. 4th St., which houses Creative Time, WOW, Works in Progress (a T-shirt design and production company that offers training to young people and underemployed workers), the Cooper Square Mutual Housing Association, and the Cooper Square Committee, is also being renovated.Uses for the two vacant lots, which are behind 62 E. 4th St. and 70 E. 4th St., have not yet been determined, Ms. Greenfield said.FAB is currently experimenting with other ways of promoting the area. On May 9, as part of an initiative called “FAB Friday,” they rolled a kiosk out to the corner of East 4th and Bowery, and sold discount tickets for weekend shows at various organizations on the block. (Last week’s “FAB Friday” was canceled due to rain.) They have also started offering a “FAB Pass,” which gets the holder ticket discounts at all the theaters on the block. By fall, the goal is that anyone who purchases a ticket at any of the theaters will receive a FAB Pass.“We did a study, and we estimate that about 200,000 people go to shows here a year,” Ms. Greenfield said. “The idea is to start with the people who already know one or two of the theaters on the block, and encourage them to try others.”On Wednesday morning, the organizations on the block are holding a ceremonial “groundbreaking” outside of the La MaMa Annex at 66 E. 4th St., to mark the launch of the $16 million of capital improvements. Rod Rodgers Dance Company and Teatro IATI will do short performances; La MaMa’s founder, Ellen Stewart, and the playwright Paul Rudnick will be among the presenters.Ms. Greenfield said that the purpose of Wednesday’s event is partly to recognize the financial support FAB has received from the Department of Cultural Affairs, the president of Manhattan, Scott Stringer, and FAB’s local councilwoman, Rosie Mendez.“It’s against the trend for the city [to keep] artists in the community that they’ve been in for decades — especially considering how much development is going on around us,” Ms. Greenfield said.

Building a Downtown Destination

More from the New York Sun

Luxury Minivans Are Having a Moment

Trump Vows To Keep Strait of Hormuz Open as America Sends Warships, Global Coalition Forms

Americans and South Koreans Train by Building a Bridge in ‘Real War’ Exercise

Texas Convictions Validate Trump Move To Label Antifa as Domestic Terrorist Organization

Trump Names Diplomat To Replace Kari Lake at Helm of America’s Overseas Broadcasters

Man Linked to Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett’s Security Detail Dies in Dallas Police Standoff

Two Billy Joel Tributes Honor New York’s Utmost Piano Man

Trump Releases Renderings of ‘New, Highly Improved’ Kennedy Center