By the 1980s, most of the drama that took place on West 42nd Street was the kind that theater-loving New Yorkers would never applaud. Drug deals, prostitution and pornographic movies dominated the block between Seventh and Eighth Avenues, which had deteriorated steadily since the Depression. It took the founding of a creative nonprofit organization — the New 42nd Street, now called New 42 — in 1990 to kick off the transformation of Times Square.
Today, that formerly seedy stretch features historic buildings restored to their original glory, as well as more recent additions, like New 42 Studios, a glass-fronted, 10-story tower of high-tech rehearsal spaces for actors preparing for Broadway and Off Broadway shows. What was once the Selwyn Theater is now the Todd Haimes, home to the Roundabout Theater Company. The Lyric Theater welcomes Hogwarts fans to “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” and the Victory Theater, which once advertised “the Best Porn in Town,” has been reborn as the New Victory, catering to a surprising new audience: young people.
The New Victory “is the little engine that could, and has,” Cora Cahan, the founding president and chief executive of the New 42nd Street, said in a recent interview. “And it drove, believe it or not, the development of the street.”
When the city and state established the nonprofit 35 years ago, they granted it a 99-year lease of seven historic theaters for $10 annually. Forming partnerships with real estate developers, which were granted tax breaks for renovating the theaters at the same time that they erected office towers, the organization spearheaded the block’s revitalization. The New Victory opened in 1995, and New 42 Studios in 2000.
This year, the organization is celebrating these anniversaries, along with its receipt of a 2025 Tony Honor for Excellence in the Theater. It is about to lead a project that will beautify the street, and it is planning to take innovative theater for young people into the rest of the city. Here is a look at what New 42 and its most significant projects have achieved.
A Work in Progress, Forever
“I think 42nd Street will be a work in progress for our entire lives, in a really good way,” said Russell Granet, who took over as New 42’s president and chief executive in 2019, after Cahan left. (She is now an arts consultant.)
Since the organization’s founding, almost all of the original theaters under its mandate have gained new identities. The Apollo and Lyric Theaters were combined to form the Lyric. The Empire Theater became part of the AMC Empire 25 cineplex. The Liberty Theater is being converted into an immersive film experience by the company Broadway 4D.
Only the Times Square Theater has remained vacant throughout New 42’s existence. It is now under contract to Stillman Development International, which is re-evaluating the space. (The Walt Disney Company independently leases the New Amsterdam Theater, home to “Aladdin”; it is not part of New 42.)
The next major renovation, already underway, is turning the Candler Building and 5 Times Square, formerly office towers, into apartments. “It’ll be really interesting to see how that changes the dynamic of 42nd Street,” Granet said in an interview in his office.
New 42, which has an annual budget of about $23 million, continues to be the landlord for the real estate covered in its lease, assuring that new initiatives comport with preservation guidelines, he added. (It derives more than half its income from those leases and its property rentals; the rest comes from fund-raising, ticket sales and investments.)
Next year, the organization is also bringing West 42nd Street its first flowers. As part of a $57 million project, the city is widening the sidewalks, and New 42 will plant greenery. Granet said he hoped to put up plaques noting the colorful pasts of the historic theaters, which date to the early 1900s.
“Gypsy Rose Lee made her debut down a catwalk in the middle of the Victory,” he said. “I just want people to know that.”
‘A Chorus Line on the 10th Floor’
Visitors to 229 West 42nd Street may sometimes feel the building shake. Granet reassures them that they’re not experiencing an earthquake, but “a chorus line on the 10th floor.”
Over the years, pounding footfalls have come from rehearsals of more than 800 Broadway shows, starting with “The Producers” and continuing with more recent hits like “Hamilton” and “Hadestown.” Productions rent the studios from New 42, which had the building designed to provide not only 14 high-ceiling rehearsal spaces — many with the full footprint of a Broadway stage — but also sound and lighting equipment, offices, kitchen facilities, a family room.
“And it has sunlight,” said the Broadway director Alex Timbers, who most recently rehearsed the new show “All Out: Comedy About Ambition,” at the studios. “You know, there’s not a lot of rehearsal spaces in New York, let alone Manhattan, that are just filled with light.”
New 42 Studios includes the Duke on 42nd Street, a 199-seat black box theater that companies rent for rehearsals or performances. The current tenant, “Messy White Gays,” mixes comedy with a murder plot.
The building has also become a networking hub. The Broadway veteran André De Shields, who in the spring will star in “Cats: The Jellicle Ball,” recalled continually meeting other performers in the lobby or elevator.
“You would make a private note to yourself, ‘Oh, I’d like to work with so-and-so,’” he said, “and lo and behold, in a few months, maybe a few years, you would.”
The Circus Comes to Broadway
“‘Who would bring their children to 42nd Street?’” said Cahan, remembering the words of two horrified board members when she presented the proposal for “a theater for kids.”
But, she added, other members responded, “‘I would, if there was something good to see.’”
Discovering that fare around the world is the mission of Mary Rose Lloyd, New 42’s artistic director.
“We are not just doing theater,” Lloyd said in a video interview. “We’re bringing circus arts and theater arts and puppetry and music.”
The New Victory is presenting “Merry Mayhem” by Circus Oz, an Australian band of wild and wiry acrobats, through Sunday. Later shows will include “Yoah,” a circus event from Japan, and “New Owner,” an Australian play using puppetry and animation to conjure a dog’s perspective. And in May the theater will offer “Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock Live,” a musical from the Jim Henson Company.
Aside from the New Victory, “no one else is bringing in any international puppet companies for families,” Cheryl Henson, a daughter of Jim Henson and president of the Jim Henson Foundation, said at a New Victory 30th-birthday celebration on Dec. 11. She added that the 499-seat theater enabled large-scale productions not feasible at other sites.
Lloyd also makes sure that each season features contemporary dance.
“She’s one of the few presenters across the country who took a chance on street dance,” said Rennie Harris, a hip-hop choreographer whose companies have performed repeatedly at the New Victory. He recalled one occasion when a cypher, a dance circle in which participants take turns, “broke out in the lobby.”
The New Victory emphasizes accessibility, both physically (even the toilets are at child level) and financially. Performances for school audiences have never cost more than $2 a ticket, and seats for public shows often start as low as $25. Granet said he also hoped to expand a program that provides 1,000 free tickets each season to low-income families in New York City Housing Authority buildings.
The New 42 Youth Corps offers a different kind of assistance: High school juniors can apply for a three-year arts employment and mentorship program in which they begin as paid New Victory ushers. New Victory LabWorks, founded in 2012, gives financial support and rehearsal space to artists and companies developing new work for the young.
Next year, Lloyd’s latest initiative, LabWorks Launch, will take one of those nurtured projects beyond the studio walls. “The Garden,” from Flying Leap Productions, aims to introduce children ages 5 and under to the cycles of nature in local parks and green spaces.
Her goal always, Lloyd said, is to enable young audiences to “see something remarkable that just takes their breath away.”
“That, to me,” she continued, “is what it’s all about.”
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