"How Do You Manage?"

by Angie Ahlgren 

[Angie Ahlgren’s article on stage managers appeared in the Fall 2024 issue (volume 41, number 1) of American Theatre; it was posted on the AT website on 2 December 2024.  AT has published previous articles on stage management and other backstage work: “Managing the Stage, and Managing Expectations” by Jerald Raymond Pierce (29 September 2020), “Take the Hell Out of Hell Week” by Pierce (23 October 2018), and “‘10 Out of 12’: How the Other Half Techs” by Diep Tran (15 June 2015).

[I like to post articles that define, describe, or explain the work of theater pros which isn’t generally known or understood by non-theater people (whom one of my teachers liked to call “civilians”).  On 14 January 2014, I posted “Stage Hands,” “Two (Back) Stage Pros” on 30 June 2014, and “Stage Managers” on 30 January 2017.

[I ran articles that profiled theater photographer Teresa Castracane, set designer Eugene Lee, and wig-designer Paul Huntley; on 28 November 2015, I posted “Broadway’s Anonymous Stars,” an article about actors who replace original stars on stage.  On 9 March 2016, I ran a collection of pieces about “swings” and on 22 August 2018, I posted an interview with Tony Carlin, a Broadway and Off-Broadway understudy or stand-by.

[I ran a whole series on lighting designers and their work called “‘Light the Lights” in October and November 2018, followed by a series on arts administrators in December 2020 and one on sound design in March and April 2021.  There’ve also been others over the years.

[I’d like to remind ROTters that in a recent post, I remarked: “Just about the only theater worker who can get a gig for the asking, I’d guess, is the stage manager.  The need’s so great for a good one who’s willing to work Off-Off-Broadway, that when a theater manager or director finds one, she’s snapped up faster than a New York minute.  The only problem is keeping her.”]

Who better to take the pulse of a changing industry than with the folks at the hub of the wheel: stage managers.

In November 2022, Lisa Smith [b. 1968] was weighing whether to continue stage managing or to scale up her part-time job at a gardening center into a full-time gig. She’d been stage managing in the Twin Cities for 20 years, 15 of those as a member of Actors’ Equity Association (AEA [the labor union representing theatrical actors and stage managers in the United States]), when the forced break of the pandemic [12 March 2020] reminded her what a full night’s sleep felt like. When theatres opened again [14 September 2021] and she returned to stage management, she grew wary of some companies’ plans for reopening and their failure to create contingency plans for any personnel but performers. Understudies are great—but what happens if the stage manager gets Covid and there is no backup?

“We literally can’t call in sick,” she said ruefully. “We’ve all done shows puking in the booth.”

As the theatre industry has begun to recover from the pandemic, workers on- and offstage have been questioning the punishing norms built into the profession. As Jesse Green asked in an August 2022 article in The New York Times headlined “Shutting the Door on the Hard-Knock Life,” “Can the theatre . . . find a way to uphold [its workers] more holistically as humans, even as they continue to gut themselves every night?” [This article is reposted on this blog as “‘The Reformation’ – Article 3,” 29 September 2022.] Bound up in this question are legacies of racism and sexism that have always been part of the industry but which got a fresh spotlight after George Floyd’s murder in 2020 [25 May; asphyxiated by a Minneapolis police officer] and the aftershocks of the #MeToo movement.

Stage managers often spend more time in rehearsal rooms and theatres than other workers, and it is their job to handle myriad interpersonal issues. Mythologized as unassailably capable people, stage managers have plenty to say about burnout, overwork, and the state of U.S. theatre in the post-Covid-lockdown era.

In conversations with 10 stage managers from around the country over the course of a year, they spoke about their career trajectories, working conditions, and the unique challenges of labor that’s not only invisible to the public but can also be opaque to those they work alongside. [“Invisible labor,” a term coined by sociologist Arlene Kaplan Daniels (1930-2012) in 1986, is work, most often done by women and racial minorities, that, though essential, is unseen, unvalued, or undervalued.] For some, the pandemic halted just-blossoming stage management careers. For others it meant choosing to leave solid careers in New York for more affordable cities. For a few, like Smith, the pandemic lockdown gave them a tempting glimpse of less demanding career paths. All found themselves reflecting deeply on the demands of life as a stage manager and its sustainability as a long-term career.

Evolution of a Job

Stage management as we now know it began to take shape only about a century ago. According to Jennifer Leigh Sears Scheier’s 2021 history of the profession, up until the late 19th century, directors and prompters guided theatrical productions in the United States. As theatrical styles shifted toward realism, the director began to assume more aesthetic control over productions, and the stage manager emerged as a figure in charge of technical production elements. Prompters continued to supply lines in rehearsal and call cues for actors in production. Eventually the director and technical director became distinct positions, and the stage manager assumed some of the prompter’s duties, along with production management.

Tracking changes in the stage manager’s title and job duties from the 1870s through the 1980s, Scheier’s research shows that while the role evolved significantly over a century, the job has always been ill-defined and nebulous, with the stage manager taking on duties that don’t strictly fall to anyone else. She attributes this in part to a historical lack of formal professionalization for stage managers, who are organized with Equity (a vestige of the days, nearly a century ago, when they also frequently performed as actors in shows they were working on).

As productions became more technically complex over the 20th century, stage managers took on more responsibility for calling a larger number of cues and managing teams of workers. Stage managers once called shows from the wings, whereas many are now stationed in a tech booth, where they can see more of the stage picture.

The work didn’t only get more technical in this time, Scheier [assistant professor of stage and production management, Point Park University, Pittsburgh; freelance AEA and opera stage manager and stage management historian; b. 1986?] notes, writing, “The labor moved beyond technical know-how to a position where emotional intelligence became paramount to a job well done.”

Up until some time in the first half of the 20th century, stage managers were also predominantly men. It’s not clear who was the first recorded woman to serve in the role, but we do know that as late as the 1950s, female stage managers on Broadway were still rare enough to be newsworthy. Ruth Mitchell’s work on West Side Story [1957-59] was widely publicized in the New York press, though she already had more than a decade of work under her belt at that point [Broadway managerial début: assistant to the director, Annie Get Your Gun, 1946]. Coverage was also unsurprisingly sexist, with papers reporting information about her marital status, beauty, coloring, and weight.

Along with Mitchell [1919-2000], other notable women, such as Elaine Steinbeck [1914-2003], made careers as Broadway stage managers. Mitchell went on to become a prominent producer, working alongside Harold Prince [director and producer; 1928-2019] on his projects until her death in 2000. By the early years of the 21st century, the vast majority of stage managers were women—a heartening development, though it brings with it new issues. Is it any surprise, after all, that a role often defined by its invisibility, and by catch-all job duties designed to help other people shine, has increasingly fallen to women?

Emotional Labor

“I am not your mother” was a resounding theme in the interviews I conducted. Even male-identified stage managers I talked to acknowledged that the job comes with the expectation of caretaking labor often associated with women.

Today stage management is one sector of the performing arts dominated by women, who made up between 66 and 71 percent of respondents to David McGraw’s Stage Manager Survey between 2006 and 2023, with those identifying as nonbinary hovering around 10 percent once the survey moved away from collecting gender data on a binary basis. In terms of backstage labor, the percentage of woman-identified workers is rivaled only by costume designers and technicians.

This trend only solidifies tropes about the job and perceptions of feminized labor. Stage managers are expected to withstand social slights and have the flexibility to maintain composure in unexpected situations. As “professional problem solvers” and “the hub of the wheel” of the production process, stage managers encounter a huge range of human behaviors from people in different parts of the theatrical hierarchy.

In the 1980s, sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild [b. 1940] coined the term “emotional labor” in her book The Managed Heart [The University of California Press, 1983] to describe the work of flight attendants, identifying it as work that “requires one to induce or suppress feeling in order to sustain the outward countenance that produces the proper state of mind in others.” Emotional labor, in other words, is the work of producing (usually positive) emotional performances, which may be at odds with true internal emotions, for the sake of those being served. Not coincidentally, flight attendants at the time were almost exclusively women serving largely male clientele.

Some stage managers I spoke with specifically invoked the term “emotional labor,” while others discussed the way gender dynamics influence their work. As one gay man of color from Minneapolis told me, stage managers are sometimes relied on implicitly as quasi-therapists or mental health experts, roles for which they are not trained.

“Everybody likes a lady who has a lot of good ideas but doesn’t need to be in charge,” is how Victoria Rayburn (not her real name), a Washington, D.C., stage manager, put it. She even noted how her socialization as a woman has contributed to her success as a stage manager. “As a woman, personality management is built in—‘Like, oh my gosh, a man with an ego?!,’” she joked. “That’s absolutely part of everyday life, in all aspects of my life. It’s not just that I learned that at work; I learned that in my house with my brother!”

Lisa Smith also described her style as motherly, explaining that rather than using conflict or confrontation as strategies for getting people to do what she wants, she leverages “guilt and disappointment.” She never yells at people if they’re late; instead, she expresses concern and asks what she can do to help next time.

While this may be a successful approach to working with actors, Smith said she has encountered blatant hostility from backstage workers simply for being a woman in charge. On one show, she recalled, an all-female stage management team encountered a troubling degree of resistance from the all-male union backstage crew. Of one man in particular, she said, “I would speak to him and he would talk to someone else to tell me something—truly, a grown-ass man in his 60s who wouldn’t regard me as a human being.”

She laughed as she related this story, but noted more somberly that she regrets not reporting the behavior. (Both of her fellow stage managers did.)

Stage Management as an Art

But stage managers are not simply glorified babysitters or under-compensated human resources professionals. Most enter and remain in the field because of their affinity for the work onstage. As Smith put it, stage managers now “are not just a stopwatch.” As technology and culture have shifted over the past 30 years, “what a stage manager has to do has become more graceful. It is an art to do it well.” Said Rebecca Skupin, a stage manager in Houston, “I definitely consider myself an artist.”

Certainly stage managers need to understand basic dramaturgy, lighting, and theatrical timing to rehearse and call shows, but seldom are their artistic abilities recognized publicly. This may be changing: In 2021, Minneapolis-based Elizabeth MacNally [b. 1979] won a prestigious McKnight Foundation Artist Fellowship for her work as a stage manager—the first time the organization has recognized stage management as an artistic practice in its own right. [The McKnight Foundation is a family foundation based in Minnesota that supports programs in the arts, sciences, and the environment.]

MacNally worked frequently with the late director Marion McClinton [1954-2019] at Pillsbury House Theatre in Minneapolis. By her account, McClinton’s approach to directing was to get out of the way of the story, and MacNally said she similarly sees herself “as a stage manager of the story. Are we getting in the way of the story? And if we are, how do we get ourselves out of that and get back to the story? The last thing we want to have happen is the audience gets smarter than us.”

Rosey Lowe [b. ca. 1995], who had been working in Minneapolis and Chicago when we spoke, came to stage management from an acting background. They joked that rather than run a tight ship as a stage manager, they prefer to run rehearsals like a “very functional loose canoe.” The artistic process needs flexibility, she explained, because “you sometimes can’t plan for when a breakthrough is going to happen.”

Out of the Shadows

Still, aesthetic or otherwise, much stage management labor goes unrecognized.

“I am perfectly happy working in the shadows,” said Lyndsey Goode [b. 1979] of Arlington, Texas, “except to the extent that networking is how you get your next gig.” Rayburn concurred on the double-edged sword of invisibility, saying, “If you are in theatre and you don’t know what a stage manager does, or at least what your stage manager does, you’re not appreciating the people you work with.”

Invisibility can also translate to monetary devaluation. As Goode pointed out, “A stage manager is never going to sell a ticket,” and on Broadway name recognition comes with more power to negotiate a contract. Ultimately, she said, any producer can decide “if you’re not going to take it for minimum, they can find somebody else who will.”

This may be why, partly enabled by Zoom communication, some stage managers have spent the past four years building collective knowledge and power. New York-based stage manager Amanda Spooner [b. ca. 1985] started the Year of the Stage Manager project in 2020, and the connections continue via a Facebook group.

Meanwhile there has been material progress: Houston’s Skupin, elected as one of Equity’s Western Region Stage Manager Councilors in 2022, sounded hopeful when we spoke in 2023, noting that contract negotiations included a number of gains for stage managers, including more ASM [assistant stage manager] contracts, reduced workweeks and increased rest hours, and better overtime policies. Additionally, according to a request for proposal from 2023, the union is also taking steps toward a name change “inclusive of all its members.”

From their unique position as conduits, funnels, or hubs, stage managers naturally accrue responsibilities and knowledge. They are therefore ideally positioned to advocate for the culture of rehearsals to change.

In the meantime, they must also advocate for themselves. Goode left for the Dallas-Fort Worth area when gigs in New York dried up during the pandemic, eventually landing a job as a company manager for a ballet company in Dallas [Texas Ballet Theater], a position in which she utilizes stage management skills and continues to work in the arts. MacNally left Pillsbury House Theatre for a position as the associate director of event production at the Walker Art Center, also in Minneapolis.

For her part, Smith is still on the fence about how much of her professional life she wants to devote to the theatre. She has stage-managed one show a year since we spoke in 2022, and is trying to strike a balance between work that simply pays the bills and work fueled by passion and creativity. She said she is working with a career counselor to help her sort through these decisions and launch her into her next chapter.

Whichever path she chooses, it will be her own.

“I can’t fix this industry,” she said. “There’s not time in my lifetime to make this better.”

[Angie Ahlgren (she/her) is a writer based in Duluth, Minnesota, and owner of Ahlgren Consulting, LLC, a consulting and coaching business for academics in the arts.  She started out as a stage manager at Minneapolis’s Theater Mu in the late ’90s, and her academic research has focused on stage management, gender, and invisible labor.

[Ahlgren’s writing has appeared in Theatre History Studies, The Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, and Women and Music, and she’s the author of Drumming Asian America: Taiko, Performance, and Cultural Politics (Oxford University Press, 2018). 

[Research for this article was supported by a faculty fellowship with the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, and a short-term fellowship from the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.]

Rick's Guide to New York, Part 3

A Special Installment of “A Helluva Town”  

[This section of “Rick’s Guide to New York” covers mostly various “sites of interest” in Manhattan—a tourist guide, so to speak.  They’re largely places that I think are interesting, which is not to say that there aren’t many others that are worth seeing.  “The famous places to visit are so many / Or so the guidebooks say,” as the sailors in On the Town (see Part 1) sing in “New York, New York”: this city is, after all, “a visitor’s place.”

[This is the final installment of my New York City guide, but additions to “A Helluva Town” will continue to appear from time to time as topics I find worthy of a spotlight come up.]

Willkommen! Bienvenue! Welcome!

To the Big Apple 

Some local sites of interest: There are some quite interesting things to note right around the area where I live.  For more detail and a really good guide to local historical and cultural sights, get one of the many tour books for Manhattan.  I recommend Gerard R. Wolfe’s New York: A Guide to the Metropolis (1st ed.: New York University Press, 1975; 2nd ed.: Mcgraw-Hill, 1994) which contains fascinating and well-thought-out walking tours of each Manhattan neighborhood, including SoHo, Greenwich Village, the East Village, Chelsea, and the Flatiron.

In SoHo, beside the boutiques and galleries, there are hundreds of wonderful cast-iron buildings from the 19th and 20th centuries.  Many have been restored, and it pays to look up at the façades as you pass.  A particularly good example of the architecture of the area which has been elegantly restored is the Puck Building at 295 Lafayette Street on the corner of Houston (remember: that’s HOW-ston).  You should also note the wonderful trompe-l’oeil painting by Richard Haas (muralist; b. 1936) along the east wall of 112-114 Greene Street (at Prince Street).  Look for the cat in one of the fake windows!  

Just above SoHo, across Houston Street at West Broadway in NoHo, is a small patch of land that looks like just an overgrown abandoned property.  It’s not; it’s Time Landscape by landscape artist Alan Sonfist (b. 1946), a recreation of the topography and flora of Manhattan before it was colonized by the Europeans, unveiled in 1978. 

North of NoHo is the East Village where you’ll find the late Joe Papp’s (1921-91) Public Theater at 425 Lafayette Street, formerly the Astor Library, built starting in 1849.  Across from it is Colonnade Row, built in 1833.  Just north of these is Astor Place, the site of the famous theater riot in 1849 resulting from a feud between the fans of American actor Edwin Forrest (1808-72) and his British rival, William Macready (1793-1893).  (They were performing in competing Macbeths.) 

The Astor Place subway entrance for the IRT line has been restored to resemble a Victorian kiosk.  Nearby is Cooper Union, between 3rd and 4th Avenues at Cooper Square, built in 1859.  Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865; 16th President of the United States: 1861-65) delivered his famous “Right Makes Might” speech here on 27 February 1860.  (Cooper Union, an engineering, design, and art school of some renown, charges no tuition.) 

In the midst of the Ukrainian neighborhood is McSorley’s Old Ale House at 15 East 7th Street, claiming to be the oldest saloon in the city, dating from 1854.  (See “Pete’s Tavern,” below.)  Along 2nd Avenue north of 8th Street was known as the Yiddish Rialto where most of the old Yiddish theaters of the turn of the century were located.  Some still exist now as Off-Broadway commercial houses and movie theaters. 

Along St. Mark’s Place, between 2nd and 3rd Avenues where 8th Street ought to be, are the kicky and funky boutiques of the East Village, featured in Susan Seidelman’s Desperately Seeking Susan of 1985.  At 10th Street and 2nd Avenue is St. Mark’s Church, built in 1799 in Greek Revival style which includes the burial site of Petrus (Peter) Stuyvesant (ca. 1610-72; see Part 1), and on Broadway at 10th is the Gothic Revival-style Grace Church, built in 1846.

West of 5th Avenue and centered on Sheridan Square on 7th Avenue is Greenwich Village, the historic center of New York’s artistic and bohemian life.  Washington Square Park is the hub of New York University’s (chartered in 1831) “campus”—the university owns much of the property here—and the “source” of 5th Avenue.  The famous Washington Arch, designed by Stanford White (architect; 1853-1906), was built in 1891-92. 

Nearby are two famous private streets, Macdougal Alley and Washington Mews, south of 8th Street off of Macdougal Street and 5th Avenue respectively.  Just south of Washington Square West, at 133 Macdougal Street, is the famous Provincetown Playhouse, home to early Eugene O’Neill (1888-1963) works by the Provincetown Players (founded in Provincetown, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod in 1915; moved to New York City, 1916; disbanded, 1920). 

On Washington Square South at Thompson Street is the Judson Memorial Church, built in 1892 by Stanford White.  On Washington Square East at Washington Place is an NYU building now known as the Brown Building (23-29 Washington Place); built in 1900, it was originally known as the prophetically-named Asch Building and contained the Triangle Shirtwaist Company which burned at great loss of life on 25 March 1911. 

At 8th Avenue and 14th Street, inside the subway station for the 8th Avenue IND and crosstown BMT Canarsie Lines, is one of New York City’s most unique art installations.  (You have to pay the subway fare to get in to see it—but I say it’s worth it.  Of course, you can just get off the train here if you’re using this line, check out the art, and then get back on.) 

It’s called Life Underground by sculptor Tom Otterness (b. 1952) and it comprises 140 (or more—the total seems uncertain) cast bronze statues most of which are no more than 8-10 inches tall.  They’re scattered in corners, on banisters, in the crooks of I-beams, and on ledges all over the corridors, stairways, and platforms of the two subway lines that use this station. 

Even if you’re not looking for them, you’re bound to see two or three, but it’s worth making a point of searching them out in their various hiding places.  (See my post “Tom Otterness & Life Underground,” 27 April 2011.  There are works of art of many different genres in the New York City subway system; see “A Helluva Town, Part 2,” 18 August 2011, for a run-down.)

Farther west in the Village is the High Line, an elevated linear park, greenway, and rail trail created on an abandoned New York Central Railroad spur on the west side of Manhattan in New York City.  It originates in the Meatpacking District (West 14th Street south to Gansevoort Street, and from the Hudson River east to Hudson Street.) and runs from Gansevoort Street—three blocks below 14th Street—through Chelsea to the northern edge of the West Side Yard on 34th Street near the Javits Center.  The line runs three stories above the streets, mostly 9th and 10th Avenues.

The High Line, which is a city park, so it’s free to enter, opened in phases during 2009, 2011, and 2014.  The Spur, an extension of the High Line that originally connected with the Morgan General Mail Facility at Tenth Avenue and 30th Street, opened in 2019.  The Moynihan Connector, extending east from the Spur to Moynihan Train Hall, an expansion of Pennsylvania Station into the former main post office building, the James A. Farley Building, opened in 2023.

The park's attractions include naturalized plantings, inspired by plants which grew on the disused tracks, and views of the city and the Hudson River.  The High Line also has cultural attractions as part of a long-term plan for the park to host temporary installations and performances.  There are also food vendors that sell light meals, drinks, and snacks all along the route.

There are stairs from the street level at many access points along the line’s route, plus elevators at four locations.  Information is available on the line’s website.  (I have a post, “High Line Park,” 10 October 2012, on this blog that might be informative.)

Deep in the Village, at 75½ Bedford Street, is the city’s narrowest house, only 9½ feet wide.  It was once the home of Edna St. Vincent Millay (poet and playwright; 1892-1950).  It is near the Cherry Lane Theatre (38 Commerce Street), the Village’s oldest Off-Broadway theater, built in 1923.  Also in the deepest West Village is the White Horse Tavern, at 567 Hudson Street (near 10th Street at Abingdon Square), a favorite drinking place of Dylan Thomas (Welsh poet and writer; 1914-53).  The poet died after a drinking bout here in 1953 (his last words were recorded as “Seventeen whiskies.  A record, I think”) and his ghost is said to haunt the place, rotating his favorite corner table as Thomas did in life. 

Near Sheridan Square at 165 Waverly Place is the Northern Dispensary (built in 1831), actually located at Waverly Place and Waverly Place!  (You figure it out.)  A few blocks east along Christopher Street is Gay Street, the site (and film location) of the basement apartment in My Sister Eileen (play by Joseph A. Fields [1895-1966] and Jerome Chodorov [1911-2004], 1940; film, 1955).  At 53 Christopher is the Stonewall Inn, where the gay-rights movement was born when drag queens rioted against police harassment on 28 June-3 July 1969. 

On 6th Avenue and 10th Street is the Jefferson Market Branch of the New York Public Library.  The art deco building used to be the Jefferson Market Court House, and its garden was the site of the New York Women’s House of Detention (the only art deco jail ever built).  (La MaMa founder Ellen Stewart [1919-2011] was incarcerated there a few times in the ’60s and Mae West was jailed there for indecency.)

(The women’s jail is the setting for scenes—and “10th and Greenwich,” considered the first lesbian love song in Broadway history—in Melvin van Peebles’s [b. 1932] Ain’t Supposed to Die a Natural Death [Broadway musical, 1971].)

The library, a wonderful building built in 1874-77, was seen in Woody Allen’s (b. 1935) 1986 Hannah and Her Sisters as one of the architect character’s (David, played by Tony Roberts) favorite buildings; I suspect it’s one of Allen’s, too.  (It’s one of mine.)  Note particularly the clock tower; the bell was restored in 1996 and rings on the hour during the day.

Off of 10th Street are two wonderful little streets, Patchin Place and Mulligan Place; note particularly the iron gate of Mulligan Place.  Theodore Dreiser (novelist and journalist; 1871-1945) and e. e. cummings (poet, painter, essayist, author, and playwright; 1894-1962) used to live on Patchin Place. 

Across 6th Avenue, on 11th Street, is the remains of the Second Cemetery of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue (Beth Haim Sheni), consecrated in 1805 and functioning until 1830.  (Beth Haim means ‘House of Life’ in Hebrew; it’s a common name for ‘cemetery’; sheni or shenee means ‘second.’  The third [shelishi] cemetery is on West 21st Street, the first is at Chatham Square in Chinatown, and the congregation, Shearith Israel, is currently at 8 West 70th Street).

(Shearith Israel, an Orthodox Sephardic congregation, is the oldest Jewish congregation in the United States.  It was established in 1654 in New Amsterdam by Jews who arrived from Brazil, fleeing the scourge of the Spanish Inquisition that had followed them from Europe.  Until 1825, when Jewish immigrants from Germany established a congregation, it was the only Jewish congregation in New York City.)

Above the Village is Chelsea, established in 1750.  On 21st Street just west of 6th Avenue is the Third Cemetery of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue (Beth Haim Shelishi).  On 22nd Street west of 9th Avenue (# 436) is the home of actor Edwin Forrest.  On 23rd Street between 9th and 10th Avenues stood the house of Clement Clarke Moore (writer, scholar, and real estate developer; 1779-1863), the author of “A Visit from St. Nicholas” (“‘Twas the Night before Christmas . . . “) and grandson of Thomas Clarke (1692-1776), who named Chelsea. 

At 222 West 23rd Street, west of 7th Avenue, is the renowned Hotel Chelsea, built in 1883 and residence at various times of Mark Twain (writer; 1835-1910), Thomas Wolfe (novelist; 1900-37), Dylan Thomas, Brendan Behan (Irish poet and playwright; 1923-1964), O’Henry (short story writer; 1862-1910), Sarah Bernhardt (French actress; 1844-1923), Lillian Russell (actress and singer; 1860-1922), Edgar Lee Masters (poet and dramatist; 1868-1950), Larry Rivers (painter; 1923-2003), Arthur Miller (playwright and screenwriter; 1915-2005), Tennessee Williams (playwright and screenwriter; 1911-83), Virgil Thompson (composer; 1896-1989), Jackson Pollock (painter; 1912-56), Yevgenii Yevtushenko (Soviet-Russian writer of many genres; 1933-2017), and Sid Vicious (English musician; 1957-79) of the Sex Pistols (who killed himself and his girlfriend there).  In 1989, En Garde Arts, a theater company specializing in site-specific works, staged At the Chelsea about some of the hotel’s residents in the rooms, with the residents themselves. 

At 23rd Street and 6th Avenue was the location of the Edwin Booth Theatre, which the esteemed actor (1833-93) built in 1869 when this area was the center of the entertainment district.  The actual building no longer exists.  At 14 West 23rd Street was the birthplace of Edith Wharton (writer and designer; 1862-1937), though the building has been greatly altered. 

Chelsea has become a center for dining and drinking and the hip lifestyle of many of the city’s homosexuals.  The strip of 6th Avenue from 14th to 23rd Streets, once known as the Ladies’ Mile for its many elegant dress shops, has been restored and is again a shopping mecca, though somewhat more eclectic than of old.  (Many of the buildings are cast-iron architecture, restored in the 1970s.)

At 5th Avenue and 23rd Street, on a triangle of land on the east side of the avenue formed by the intersection of Broadway, stands the Flatiron Building, built in 1902, for a few years the tallest building in the city.  The area from here south, bordered by Chelsea on the west, Greenwich Village on the south and west and the East Village and Gramercy Park on the east has now become known as the Flatiron District. 

The location of the building—23rd Street—was a particularly windy spot, blowing women’s long skirts enough to show a little ankle occasionally.  Girl-watchers gathered to catch a glimpse and were often shooed away by the traffic cops in the intersection, hence, supposedly, the origin of the phrase, “Twenty-three skidoo!”  True or not, it’s an amusing anecdote. 

Just north of the Flatiron is Madison Square Park; the home of P. T. Barnum’s (1810-91) original Madison Square Garden in 1880 (and its replacement designed by Stanford White in 1890 was at Madison Avenue between 26th and 27th Streets, just north and east of the park).  In the traffic island at the intersection of Broadway and 5th Avenue is often a piece of whimsical public sculpture.  In the past it has been a giant ear of corn or a wooden statue of an ox. 

(From 8 May to 2 September 2024, a “video portal” connecting Dublin, Ireland, to New York City’s Flatiron District, essentially a large live-streaming screen where people in both cities can see and interact with each other in real-time, was installed in that traffic island, across 23rd Street from the Flatiron Building (now designated the Flatiron South Public Plaza).  The installation, by Lithuanian artist Benediktas Gylys, is called The Portal.

(As soon as the portal was installed and covered in the news, it reminded me of the portal in the Star Trek episode “The City on the Edge of Forever” [Season 1, Episode 28; 6 April 1967].  I’m a big fan of Star Trek, and old enough to have watched the original series [1966-69—I was in college].  I looked at pictures of both the ST portal and the video one, and they are unmistakably visual avatars of one another—but no commentator ever mentioned a connection.  Was I the only one who saw it‽)

Across 5th Avenue, at No. 200, is the Toy Center South, the headquarters of many of America’s major toy and game companies.  (One of those toy companies was Horsman Dolls, my grandfather’s business; see “Horsman Dolls,” 14 February 2017.)  Between 23rd and 24th Streets on the west side of 5th Avenue is one of the few remaining—and operating—sidewalk clocks.  The cast iron clock was manufactured in 1880 and still runs perfectly. 

You should note, by the way, that West 28th Street from Broadway to 5th Avenue was the heart of “Tin Pan Alley.”  A block north, at 29th Street and 5th Avenue, is the Marble Collegiate Reformed Church where Dr. Norman Vincent Peale (1898-1993) was pastor (1932-84).  East on 29th Street, halfway to Madison Avenue, is the famous “Little Church around the Corner,” whose true name is the Church of the Transfiguration.  Since 1870, it has been associated with actors (see “Mark Twain & The Little Church Around The Corner,” 5 March 2010). 

Across 21st Street, a half a block east of Park Avenue, is Gramercy Park, the only remaining private park in Manhattan.  At 16 Gramercy Park South is The Players, a very special club founded by Edwin Booth in 1888 in his own home which he had remodeled by Stanford White.  It was the last home Booth, America’s first internationally famous actor, ever owned, and his room is preserved as it was at his death in 1893.  Besides the club, The Players (not the Players Club, by the way) has a research library, established by actor Walter Hampden (1879-1955), specializing in Booth and New York theater.  There is also a collection of Boothiana throughout the building (including a human skull he used as Yorick’s skull—“Alas, poor Yorick!”—in Hamlet). 

Number 15 Gramercy Park South, right next door, is the National Arts Club, formerly the home of New York Governor Samuel J. Tilden (1814-86; 25th Governor of New York: 1875-76) who resigned to run as Democratic candidate for President against Rutherford B. Hayes (1822-93; 19th President of the United States: 1877-81) in 1876.  He won the popular vote but lost the election in the electoral college. 

The National Arts Club is a nonprofit members club founded in 1898 by Charles DeKay (1848-1935), a linguist, poet, and critic, to “stimulate, foster, and promote public interest in the arts and to educate the American people in the fine arts.”

Across the street, inside the Park—for which a key is necessary—is a statue of Edwin Booth in his most famous role, Hamlet, unveiled in 1918.  At 28 East 20th Street, between Broadway and Park Avenue, is the reconstruction of the birthplace of Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919; 26th President of the United States: 1901-09). 

Down Irving Place, a charming little street between Park and 3rd Avenues that runs only from Gramercy Park to 14th Street, is Pete’s Tavern, 66 Irving Place at 18th Street.  Pete’s dates from 1864 and calls itself the oldest saloon in New York, a claim disputed by McSorley’s Old Ale House on East 7th Street (see above). 

Pete’s also claims to be a favorite watering hole of O’Henry, but it’s a debatable assertion.  55 Irving Place, at 17th Street, is the site of the residence of William Sidney Porter (O’Henry), but little remains of the original house. 

No. 40, across the street, is the Washington Irving House, though it was actually his nephew’s home.  Irving was a frequent visitor, however.  Further east, at 327 East 17th Street, was a house in which Anton Dvorak (Czech composer; 1841-1904) lived for a while.  (It was demolished in 1991 by Beth Israel Hospital, to great local protest.)

West of Irving Place at 14th Street is Union Square Park, named for neither the federal union nor the labor organizations located near and around the square, but because it was located at the “union” of two major roads exiting the city during the 19th century.  Originally built in 1831, it was substantially renovated and beautified in the 1980’s, and the surrounding sidewalks and parking area was redesigned in 2002.  (Note the historical bronze plaques in the new sidewalk outside the park.) 

Once famous for radical soap-box oratory—the park is still a venue for protests and rallies—it now sports an outdoor restaurant (during the warm-weather months only, of course).  On Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, Union Square is the site of one of New York’s Greenmarket farmers’ markets, one of the largest and most popular in the system (see the “Greenmarkets” section in “A Helluva Town, Part 3,” 9 January 2012).  Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the Union Square Holiday Market sells handcrafts at the south end of the square.

Two of Union Square’s subway entrances have been reconstructed as they might have appeared in the 1890’s.  Aside from the several statues and monuments inside the park, there is a 1986 statue of Mahatma Gandhi (Mohandas K. Gandhi, Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist, and political ethicist; 1869-1948) at a spot once known as “Dead Man’s Curve” at 14th Street and Union Square West. 

On the east side of the square, between 14th and 15th Streets, is a huge, new condominium complex called the Zeckendorf Towers, completed in 1987.  It stands on the site of Klein’s on the Square, once one of old New York’s most famous department stores.  (Remember the line from “Marry the Man Today” in Guys and Dolls (1955): “In Wanamaker’s and Saks and Klein’s / A lesson I’ve been taught. / You can’t get alterations / On a dress you haven’t bought”?  Wanamaker’s, by the way was at 770 Broadway at 8th Street), 

A little further east on 15th Street is the present location of the Strasberg Institute, the theater school founded by Lee Strasberg (theatre director, actor, and acting teacher; principal theorist of Method acting; 1901-82) for would-be actors who weren’t ready for his more famous Actors Studio (the incubator of Method acting). 

On the corner of 17th Street, at No. 100, is the old Tammany Hall.  It’s currently a union hall and houses the Union Square Theatre (which is said to be haunted by a ghost who inhabits a crawl space). 

Among the popular department stores that made the Union Square area a shoppers’ haven at the turn of the century was the original Macy’s at 56 West 14th Street, among the cheap clothing and electronics stores that now line 14th Street. 

The façade of one of the new buildings on East 14th Street, across from the park, is an elaborate and complex sculpture representing “time”—clock time, geological time, astronomical time, etc.  The sculpture is called Metronome (1999) by Kristen Jones and Andrew Ginzel, and it’s on the front of a high rise at 1 Union Square South at the corner of 4th Avenue and East 14th Street.  (I find it pretentious and obscure, but there is an explanation of the symbolism in a New York Times article.  See if you can figure it out.)

A little south of 14th Street is an apartment building at 20 East 11th Street in which Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) leased an apartment as a pied-à-terre from 1933 to 1942.  It’s not open for visitors, but there’s a plaque on the façade that attests to the residence of FDR’s First Lady there.

Fort Tryon Park is at the northwest side of Manhattan between Henry Hudson Parkway and Broadway, from 190th Street to Dyckman Street.  Besides its wooded acres is The Cloisters, part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art focusing on medieval art and architecture (also covered in “A Helluva Town, Part 3,” referenced above).  In the fall they hold a medieval crafts fair, with jousting and entertainment from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.  Definitely see The Cloisters—even if medieval art isn’t your thing, and it isn’t mine, the building and the display is wonderful.  And if the weather’s fine, the park is beautiful alternative the city.  (For the Medieval Festival in Fort Tryon Park, if you like that kind of entertainment, check out the city’s website.)

Lincoln Center, home of the Metropolitan Opera (212-362-6000), New York City Ballet and New York City Opera (New York State Theatre, 212-870-5570), New York Philharmonic (Avery Fisher Hall, 212-874-2424), Lincoln Center Theater (Vivian Beaumont, Mitzi Newhouse, and Claire Tow Theaters, 212-239-6200), the Juilliard School and the  New York Public Library for the Performing Arts (Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center, 212-930-0800)), is between Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues, from 62nd Street to 65th Street.  It also contains Alice Tully Hall, a concert venue (212-362-1911), and Damrosch Park with the Guggenheim Bandshell (not to mention several works by prominent artists in the plaza, such as Alexander Calder [1898-1976] and Henry Moore [1898-1986]).

Other performance spaces around the city include New York City Center, home of the Alvin Ailey Dance Company, Joffrey Ballet, and the Manhattan Theatre Club, 131 West 55th Street (212-581-7907), and Carnegie Hall, 7th Avenue and 57th Street (212-247-7800).

St. Patrick’s Cathedral, seat of the Catholic archdiocese of New York, is on 5th Avenue at 50th Street; the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the Episcopal cathedral and the world’s largest Gothic cathedral, is at Amsterdam Avenue and 112th Street in Morningside Heights (behind Columbia University).  Temple Emanu-El, 1 East 65th Street, is the world’s largest reform synagogue.  Shearith Israel, an Orthodox Sephardic congregation at 8 West 70th Street, is the oldest Jewish congregation in the United States.

Central Park runs from 59th (CPS) to 110th Street (Cathedral Parkway) and from 5th Avenue to CPW (8th Avenue).  It contains, aside from many walks, playing areas, and 843 acres of green space—like the Sheep Meadow, the Delacourt Theatre (212-861-7277), where the New York Shakespeare does free “Shakespeare in the Park”; the Wollman Memorial Ice Skating Rink (212-517-4800), renovated for ice-skaters by Donald Trump; the Great Lawn, where summer concerts are often held, and the Central Park Zoo (212-439-6500), now a new children’s zoo; The Carousel (212-879-0244), built in 1908 (the fourth one on this site); The Hans Christian Andersen Statue where storytellers do their thing Saturday mornings (beginning at 11:00 a,m.) most Saturdays, June to September; The Swedish Cottage Marionette Theatre (212-988-9093); Belvedere Castle (Central Park Learning Center – 212-772-0210) with children’s workshops on park history and ecology.

Rockefeller Center covers West 48th to West 52nd Street between 5th and 6th Avenues.  Radio City Music Hall, home of the world-renowned Rockettes, is on 6th Avenue at 51st Street.

The Jacob K. Javits Convention Center (212-216-2000), between 11th and 12th Avenues and 34th and 39th Streets, named for the New York Congressman from 1947 to 1954 and United States Senator from 1957 to 1981, is the largest facility of its kind in the Western Hemisphere.

The Main Library (the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building) and Bryant Park (where you can get reduced-priced tickets for Broadway and Off-Broadway shows) is between 40th and 42nd Street and 5th and 6th Avenues.  (This is the non-circulating research library.  The circulating library near there is the Mid-Manhattan Branch at 40th and 5th on the east side of the avenue.  The Jefferson Market Branch is at 10th Street and 6th Avenue—in a wonderful building that used to be a courthouse (see Part 2).  The library garden used to be the site of a women’s jail.)  Bryant Park now has a skating rink in the winter.

The Empire State Building is at 5th Avenue and 34th Street.  Aside from the breathtaking views of New York City from the 86th floor (and thoughts of King Kong), it houses the Guinness Book of World Records exhibit (opened in 1976).

The Chrysler Building (my favorite skyscraper) is at 405 Lexington Avenue at 42nd Street.

The United Nations complex is at East 42nd-48th Streets and 1st Avenue.

Trump Tower (assuming “The Donald” hasn’t lost it to someone who’s changed its name) is at 56th Street and 5th Avenue.

The Theatre District centers on Times Square (Duffy Square, the north end of Times Square, has been officially dubbed “Actors’ Square”) and spreads east and west of Broadway several blocks from 41st Street to 53rd Street.  Theatre Row, home to many of New York’s Off-Broadway theaters and companies, is 42nd Street between 9th and 10th Avenue (unofficially extended to 11th Avenue).  Restaurant Row, with many wonderful little places to eat, is 46th Street between 8th and 9th Avenues. 

The Diamond Center is along 47th Street from 5th to 6th Avenues.  Museum Mile is along 5th Avenue from the Guggenheim (88th Street) to the Frick (70th Street).  Ladies’ Mile is in the Flatiron District: along 6th and Broadway from 24th to 15th Streets.  Fashion Avenue is 7th Avenue in the women’s Garment District, the 20’s and 30’s.

Sheridan Square, the heart of Greenwich Village, is at 7th Avenue South where West 4th Street and Christopher Street intersect it.  (Christopher Street is a famous center of the gay community.) 

Gramercy Park is a private park (you need a key to get in) at 20th and 21st Streets where Irving Place becomes Lexington Avenue.  Besides being elegant, old New York, at #16 Gramercy Park South is the last home owned by Edwin Booth, first internationally famous American actor and brother of John Wilkes Booth (1838-65).  The home is now The Players, a club for actors started by Booth 100 years ago.  Edwin’s statue in his most famous role, Hamlet, is in the park. 

Washington Square, with its famous century-old arch at the foot of 5th Avenue, one block below 8th Street, is the center of the NYU campus and, unfortunately, the drug trade in the area.  It is also the spiritual heart of New York’s art and literary avant-garde, starting in the mid-19th century.

City Hall is at Broadway and Murray Street in City Hall Park.  Built in 1811, it is a beautiful example of Federal period architecture.

The New York Stock Exchange is at 20 Broad Street in the heart of the Financial District, commonly known as Wall Street.  Nearby are St. Paul’s Chapel, Broadway and Fulton Street, where George Washington worshipped, and Trinity Church, Broadway and Wall Street, which has Manhattan’s oldest cemetery, including the graves of Alexander Hamilton (1755-1804; 1st U.S. Secretary of the Treasury: 1789-95) and Robert Fulton (engineer and inventor, credited with developing the world’s first commercially successful steamboat; 1765-1815).

All the way downtown is Battery Park, on the southern tip of Manhattan—the site of the original colony of New Amsterdam—and South Ferry, whence depart the Liberty Island and Staten Island Ferries.  The ferry to Ellis Island, which has been restored for tourism, departs from Battery Park.

The South Street Seaport, a wonderful place to wander and browse on a warm day, is the old harbor of New York at the southern tip of the island at the mouth of the East River along Fulton Street between Water and South Streets.  It has shops, restaurants, and restored old ships.  The main tourist site is the South Street Seaport Museum, which also provided access to some of the restored ships.  (Until 2005, when it relocated to the Bronx, it was also the home of the Fulton Fish Market, for 183 years, the most important wholesale fish market on the East Coast of the United States.)

Guide to Cross Streets

Addresses on Cross-Town Streets

West Side                                            East Side

                     # 1 is at:  5th Avenue............................... 5th Avenue

                # 100 is at:  6th Avenue............................... 4th or Park Avenue 

                # 200 is at:  7th Avenue............................... 3rd Avenue

                # 300 is at:  8th Avenue............................... 2nd Avenue

                # 400 is at:  9th Avenue............................... 1st Avenue

                # 500 is at: 10th Avenue............................... York or Avenue 

               # 600 is at: 11th Avenue............................... Avenue B

               # 700 is at: 12th Avenue............................... Avenue C

 Addresses on Avenues

To find nearest cross street, drop last digit of house number, divide by 2, and make correction shown below.  Example:  1000 3rd Avenue: Cancel last figure (0), divide remainder (100) by 2 (50), and add key number for 3rd Avenue (10).  Nearest cross street is 60th Street

         Avenues A, B, C, D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . add 3        
         1st and 2nd Avenues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .add 3                            
         3rd Avenue. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .add 10                              
         4th Avenue (Park Avenue S.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. .add 8                               
         5th Avenue up to 200 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . add 13            
                      201-400 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . add 16                                                    

                      401-600 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . add 18                   
                      601-775 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . add 20            
                      775-1286 (do not divide by 2) . . . . . . . . . . . . subt. 18        
                      1287-1500 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . add 45                        
                      above 2000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . add 24        
         6th Avenue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . subt. 12          
         7th Avenue up to 1800 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . add 12            
                      above 1800 . . . . . . . . . , . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . add 20            
         8th Avenue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  . . .  add 9              
         9th Avenue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . add 13            
         10th Avenue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . add 14                                                

         11th Avenue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .add 15                                                   

         Amsterdam Avenue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .add 59           
         Audubon Avenue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .add 165           
         Broadway up to 754 . . . . . . . . . . . . below 8th Street                       
                     755-858 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . subt. 29
                     859-958 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . subt. 25
                     above 958 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .subt. 31
         Central Park West (do not divide by 2) . . . . . . . . . . . add 60
         Columbus Avenue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . add 59
         Convent Avenue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .add 127
         Edgecombe Avenie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .add 34
         Fort Washington Avenue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .add 158
         Lenox Avenue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .add 110
         Lexington Avenue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .add 22
         Madison Avenue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .add 26
         Manhattan Avenue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . add 100
         Park Avene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .add 34
         Pleasant Avenue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . add 101
         Riverside Drive (do not divide by 2)   
                      up to 567. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . add 73        
                      above 567 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .add 78             
         St. Nicholas Avenue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .add 110
         Wadsworth Avenue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . add 173
         West End Avenue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . add 159 

[“New York, New York! / It's a helluva town!”  It’s the opening line of the song so nice, Bernstein, Comden, and Green named it twice.  It’s also the source of the title or subtitle of my ad hoc series for Rick On Theater.  As of this date, not including the present three-part post, “Rick’s Guide to New York,” there are seven posts in the “A Helluva Town” series.  They are: “A Helluva Town,” 15 August 2011; 18 August 2011; 9 January 2012; “High Line Park,” 10 October 2012; “Governors Island,” 19 November 2012; “Lower East Side Tenement Museum,” 19 December 2012; “Manhattanhenge,” 30 June 2023.]