Theatre Row Building

The story

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis joined the board of the organization that built this place, elected in 1977 to help push pornographic businesses off 42nd Street. Fred Papert had founded the 42nd Street Development Corporation a year earlier with exactly that mission. Where signs once advertised "All Live Burlesk" at venues like the 42nd Street Playhouse and the Mermaid, five Off-Broadway theatres now occupy 410 West 42nd Street. The building remains the centerpiece of an ongoing effort to hold this stretch of Hell's Kitchen as a working theater district.