Past Village Awardees: Movie Theaters and Playhouses
One of Village Preservation’s most beloved traditions is our Annual Meeting and Village Awards, at which we celebrate our achievements of the past year and honor invaluable leaders, institutions, businesses, places, and organizations in our neighborhoods. Fondly referred to as the “Oscars of the Village,” these awards showcase the remarkable people and places that have made a significant contribution to the special quality of life in Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo.
Submit your nominations for the 2026 Village Awards today! Through March 16th, you can nominate one or more local small businesses, residents, community groups, public spaces, new designs, or restoration by providing your input.
The businesses, organizations, and people who have received a Village Award run the gamut, representing the true diversity and variety of institutions in our neighborhood. Today we will take a look at a small slice of this variety, particularly theaters, playhouses, and cinemas that have brought stories to life in our neighborhoods — on stage and on screen.
2023: La MaMa Restoration of 74A East 4th Street
Founded in 1961 by theatre legend Ellen Stewart, La MaMa is the only original Off-Off-Broadway venue still in operation. Ellen established La MaMa as a haven for underrepresented artists to experiment with new work, without the pressures of commercial success.
The experimental theater originally operated out of the basement of an East 9th Street tenement, and was nomadic for the first few years of its existence. That is until Stewart purchased the building at 74 East 4th Street in 1967, rescuing it from possible demolition. The building was in rough shape when she purchased it: no roof, no flooring, and no back wall. Through the vision and care of Stewart, an extremely passionate and charismatic woman who was also the theater’s original artistic director and producer, La MaMa grew to become a pioneer and powerhouse of the Off-Off-Broadway movement in the East Village.
74 East 4th Street was designed by German-born architect August H. Blankenstein and constructed in 1873. This four-story red brick-clad building was originally known as the Aschenbroedel Verein (“Cinderella Society”), a professional orchestral musicians’ association formed in what was then known as Kleindeutschland.
The theater has recently reopened following a $24 million renovation by architecture firm Beyer Blinder Belle. The interior was gut renovated to accommodate updated technology and state-of-the-art theater amenities, as well as ADA accessibility, and the original façade was thoughtfully and painstakingly restored and celebrated. The cast-iron pilasters were restored, as were all of the decorative elements, a number of which had been eroded or lost over time. These were painted an historically accurate light cream color, which makes a beautiful contrast to the original brickwork.
A new glass-and-aluminum storefront was installed to replace the later brick infill that had been there for some decades. Now the ground floor harmonizes with the historic façade above, while the lobby interior is visible to passersby, inviting them into the theater.
Ellen was often asked, “‘How does [La MaMa] keep going?’” She replied: “I know at this moment, in every corner of the earth, there are people whose energies and heartbeats, some part of which is directed towards La MaMa. With that kind of thing holding us up, honey, we don’t sink.” Thanks to her pioneering spirit and that of her successors and stewards of the company, the restored theater will be kept afloat for years to come.
2020: Cinema Village
Cinema Village, located at 22 East 12th Street, is the oldest continuously operated cinema in Greenwich Village and one of the oldest continuously operated art cinemas in the city. Located in an altered former firehouse built in 1898, the theater opened to the general public on October 5, 1964 with Ingmar Bergman’s All These Women.
Through most of its early years, Cinema Village was one of the city’s many repertory cinemas, showcasing vintage movies, cult classics, and contemporary favorites on double bills (aka double features) that would usually change three times a week. By the late 1980s – and due to the surge in home video, buyouts by large-name theaters, and real estate development – commercial repertory cinema all but disappeared in New York City. Cinema Village escaped closure, surviving by presenting limited engagements of unconventional first-run shows, as well as some special midnight shows such as David Lynch’s first film “Eraserhead”, which ran for a year.
Cinema Village has been owned and operated by Nick Nicolaou since the 1980s. Cinema Village remains a family-owned and operated business, and is now managed by Nick’s children. Nick truly has a love and passion for historic movie theaters and also owns the historic Alpine Cinema in Brooklyn and Cinemart Cinemas in Forest Hills, Queens.
2018: Theater for The New City
Theater for The New City (TNC), located at 155 1st Avenue in the East Village, was founded in 1970 and has served its community with a wide variety of programming for over 50 years.
Crystal Field, George Bartenieff, Theo Barnes, and Lawrence Kornfeld formed TNC at Westbeth. It was named “Theater for the New City” after a speech in which then-Mayor John V. Lindsay envisioned a “new city” for all. It officially opened in March 1971. Its first two seasons included plays by Richard Foreman, Charles Ludlam, Miguel Piñero, and Jean-Claude van Itallie.
In 1986, TNC purchased an underutilized 30,000-square-foot former WPA building at 155 First Avenue with the help of Bess Myerson, Ruth Messinger, and David Dinkins. The First Avenue Retail Market was built in 1938 as part of Mayor Laguardia’s efforts to remove pushcarts from city streets. TNC converted the market building into a vibrant community arts center. This transformation was a critical factor in the cultural and commercial revitalization of the surrounding East Village neighborhood.
TNC premieres more than thirty full-length dramas, comedies, and musicals each year. Its writers include emerging and established playwrights who present widely divergent cultural perspectives. TNC’s art gallery in its expansive lobby provides scenic designers and other visual artists – especially local East Village/Lower East Side artists – with much-needed exhibition space. TNC is dedicated to nurturing and developing theater artists and groups whose work reflects the breadth of the American experience.
2016: Jaffe Art Theater Interior Restoration
Currently housing Angelika’s Village East cinema, 181-189 Second Avenue was built in 1925 as the Yiddish Art Theater. Funded by Brooklyn lawyer and Jewish community leader Louis Jaffe, the theater was designed as an elaborate, 1,265-seat live theater for the Yiddish Art Theater company, which was directed by Maurice Schwartz. The interior was designed in the Moorish Revival style that was popular in synagogues at the time, and included a forty-foot ornamental ceiling with a spectacular Star of David in the center that is still present today.
The theater was listed on both the National and New York State Registers of Historic Places in 1985. The façade is a mix of multicolored brick and fancifully ornamented cream-colored pigmented cast stone. The interior is a confection of ornament executed entirely in plaster. After decades of use as a Yiddish and later Off-Broadway theater, the building was converted into a cinema in 1991, which it continues to exist as today. The building is remarkably intact, retaining its landmarked lobby and domed auditorium as well as Mr. Schwartz’s impresario’s apartment.
Some years ago, it became clear that the ornate plaster ceiling of the interior landmark auditorium was deteriorating and the owners undertook an extensive restoration. A scaffolding system and netting allowed the team to safely and carefully work overhead. Above the ceiling, the plaster panels are suspended by wires or thin cables to a structure that needed to be reinforced for both safety reasons, as well as to ensure the integrity and longevity of the ceiling itself.
The architects researched possible solutions and specified a liquid polymer product containing shredded fiberglass that was applied to the cables, thickening them so that when dry, their structural capacity was strengthened. Much of the ceiling retained its original paint, facilitating the restoration.
Inspired by the stories of these past Village Awardees? Submit a nomination for your favorite people and places today!