New Victory Theatre

The story

Oscar Hammerstein I built this West 42nd Street theater in 1900, and within a century it had cycled through Broadway ambitions, David Belasco's ornate interior touches, burlesque under the Minsky name, and decades of decline. The 1995 renovation kept the original facade while honoring Belasco's 1902 details inside. Since then, nonprofit New 42 has run it as a children's theater — the only one of its kind in New York — bringing puppet shows, dance, and international performance art to audiences who are encountering live theater for the first time.