place

Astor Place Theatre

1968 establishments in New York CityAstor PlaceOff-Broadway theatersTheatres in Manhattan
Astor playhouse
Astor playhouse

The Astor Place Theatre is an off-Broadway house located at 434 Lafayette Street in the NoHo section of Manhattan. The theater is located in the historic Colonnade Row, originally constructed in 1831 as a series of nine connected buildings, of which only four remain. Though it bears the same name, it was not the site of the Astor Place Riot of 1849. Designed in Greek Revival style and fronted by imposing marble columns, the buildings served as residences for the Astor and Vanderbilt families, and are among the oldest structures in the city. They were designated as New York City landmarks in 1963. Bruce Mailman bought the building in 1965. On January 17 1968, the theater opened with Israel Horovitz’s The Indian Wants the Bronx starring newcomer Al Pacino. Since then, it has gained a reputation for introducing works by aspiring and often experimental playwrights, including Tom Eyen (Women Behind Bars, The Dirtiest Show in Town) and John Ford Noonan (A Couple White Chicks Sitting Around Talking). Established writers like Terrence McNally (Bad Habits), A.R. Gurney (The Dining Room, The Perfect Party) and Larry Shue (The Foreigner) also have premiered plays here. The musical revue, Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris enjoyed a successful run in 1974.Since 1991, the theater has served as home to the Blue Man Group, which purchased the theatre in 2001.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Astor Place Theatre (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Astor Place Theatre
Lafayette Street, New York Manhattan

Geographical coordinates (GPS) Address Nearby Places
placeShow on map

Wikipedia: Astor Place TheatreContinue reading on Wikipedia

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 40.7293 ° E -73.9922 °
placeShow on map

Address

Lafayette Street 434
10003 New York, Manhattan
New York, United States
mapOpen on Google Maps

Astor playhouse
Astor playhouse
Share experience

Nearby Places

Indochine (restaurant)

Indochine is a French-Vietnamese restaurant founded in the 1980s in New York City by restaurateur Brian McNally (who had previously co-founded The Odeon with his brother Keith McNally) and music producer John Loeffler. Opened “among the auto body shops of gritty Lafayette Street” it sits in a historic row of buildings across from the Public Theater known as La Grange Terrace, which was, at times, the home of Vanderbilts, Astors, Julia Gardiner Tyler (wife of President Tyler), and Warren Delano Jr. (grandfather of FDR). Opening in 1984 with a dinner honoring artist Julian Schnabel, Indochine quickly became a popular gathering place for members of what is referred to as the East Village art scene, which included Jean-Michel Basquiat, Kenny Scharf, and Andy Warhol. In 1992, McNally sold the business to Jean-Marc Houmard — who had started at the restaurant as a waiter in 1986 — along with partners Michael Callahan and chef Huy Chi Le. The restaurant retained much of its original design, including the signature palm leaf motif and low lighting, as well as its unique menu, considered by many as an early example of the fusion cuisine trend in the United States. Critical reception has varied over time. A 1984 review in The New York Times which described it as offering “some invigorating food from Southeast Asia.” In a follow-up piece, they remarked that the "still-trendy-after-all-these-years” restaurant served "vivid and authentic" spring rolls; another review by The Infatuation called the same signature rolls "entirely generic." However, in 2004 Times critic Frank Bruni remarked that “food was beside the point,” calling Indochine “the epitome of cool” and the living idea of a restaurant as a "badge of knowingness and belonging.” In 2009, marking its 25th anniversary, Rizzoli published Indochine: Stories, Shaken and Stirred, a photo book featuring archival images of high-profile guests in the restaurant over the years, such as Madonna, Kate Moss, Grace Jones, Marc Jacobs, Bruce Weber, and Valentino with many of the photos taken by Patrick McMullan, Roxanne Lowit, and Patrick Demarchelier, published alongside stories by writers such as Salman Rushdie, Anthony Haden-Guest, and Moby, and artworks by Francesco Clemente, Helmut Lang, Ruben Toledo, Tom Sachs, and more. Around this time, Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour described Indochine as “virtually unique in New York – and pretty much everywhere else, for that matter.”