Provincetown Playhouse

The story

A former stable and wine-bottling plant became the room where American theater changed. The Provincetown Players converted the 19th-century building at 133 MacDougal Street in 1918, gathering Eugene O'Neill, Susan Glaspell, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Djuna Barnes under one roof. Paul Robeson performed here. Bette Davis, Claudette Colbert, and Ann Harding made their New York stage debuts on this floor. E. E. Cummings staged "Him" within these walls. The Landmarks Preservation Commission denied it protected status in 2008, leaving one of Greenwich Village's most storied rooms without the protection its history might seem to demand.