If you find yourself walking by the Thirteenth Street Repertory Theater and the door is open, take a step inside and have a chat with Edith O’Hara. She’ll greet you warmly, turn off the television, and sit you down on one of the worn-out couches to tell you all about the theater, which she established in 1972 and which is today under imminent threat of destruction.
She’ll show you the history she’s dug up on the the building, which was constructed in the late 1700s and became an Underground Railroad site. The carriage house (now the dressing room) has a trap door in the basement floor through which runaway slaves were hidden on their way to freedom. In the 1940s, it became a popular ceramics studio and Ms. O’Hara still has the kiln. Now the theater is her home, literally; she lives in the apartment upstairs.
If you ask, she’ll tell you about how she grew up in a logging camp in the wilds of Idaho, where she lived with nature, had no electricity, and never heard the word “theater” until her teacher gave her the role of George Washington in the school play “and it was just Heaven.” Little Edith was hooked. She later discovered that, more than acting, she loved “providing a space to bring people together,” and that’s exactly what she’s been doing for the past 35 years.
Many performers got their start on her stage, including Bette Midler and Chazz Palminteri, who wrote this about the theater’s demise, “It’s not just closing down the 13th Street Theater. It’s closing down a whole universe.”
Unfortunately, that universe is just one half block outside the Greenwich Village Historic Preservation District and that means it’s not protected — except, of course, by Ms. O’Hara. At 90 years old, she’s still a determined fighter. She’s had five eviction notices thrown out by judges and she continues to battle against the forces of development -- forces she has seen mounting over the past few years: "Right now is worse than ever before. History in New York City is being torn down and abandoned. NYU and the New School are absorbing everything in sight. Everyone is noting there's an ongoing lack of concern for anything but development."
“They want to do a high-rise on this site,” she told me, “maybe a hotel. The building next door is in the throes,” meaning it’s for sale, or has been sold, and is slated for the wrecking ball. But the developers need three more feet of width and Ms. O’Hara’s home is in their way.
Luckily, the fight won’t end with her. She has instilled her love of theater in her children. All of them are performers, including actor Jenny O’Hara. “When I go,” Edith assured me, “my daughters will do whatever I wish. They’ll keep on fighting.”
5 comments:
Thanks for the comment. I know you are more than gentfrication, you really get into the history of what's being gutted, which is great. I spent some of my childhood in D.C. and there are a lot of changes there but thank god at least for the tight zoning laws that forbid these hideous hi-rises. Head up to the upper west side, we're losing our bookstores and even laundrymats to redevelopment and chains. How many Duane Reeds do I need.
13th Street used to be one scary street. It's sad that yet another piece of it will be gone. I think the porn theatre at third and 13th was probably gone already when you moved to the city. That and the Dugout should've been landmarked.
keep posting, I'll keep reading.
look at that building..it looks like an eye sore...by reading this, you wished the whole city looked the same as it did in 1900....give me a break. Have you been to any other large city around the world...London or Shanghai....our new development is nothing compared to there.
We either keep up or Chicago or Atlanta or Dallas is the 'new' New York......
actually, it's the other way around, we're becoming those cities. All we need next are the strip malls. Buildings can be built without destroying the character of neighborhoods.
development by people who see the city as something more than an ATM machine. where do these developers live, connecticut? they throw up concrete and glass boxes because theyre cheap and quick (and not built to last). Doesnt sound very ny does it?
I can't believe she is still there--or here! She offered me a job when I was 16!
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