Theatre Row
410 West 42nd Street
Theatre Row started in the 1970s when this part of 42nd street was a low-rent neighborhood of prostitution and peep shows. Playwrights Horizons was the first in 1975, followed by a several more theatres opened by the 42nd Street Development Corporation to renew this desolate block West of 9th Avenue.
The theatres are protected by a land-use covenant, but they were gutted and entirely rebuilt in a 2000 project that included new revenue-producing residential towers as well as the new Playwrights Horizons space and the steroidally commercial Little Schubert.
