Going dark for good?
Historic East Village off -Broadway theater now at risk
BY DEAN MOSES
Theatre 80 has been an
East Village staple for
over fi ve decades and
has seen countless famous
faces pass through its doors,
but now it is at risk of shutting
down forever—ending a
historic monument to the arts
and off-Broadway.
When pushing through the
doors of Historic 80 Saint
Marks Place, visitors are transported
into a New York some
have long forgotten and others
were born too late to experience,
a New York that saw Bob
Dylan busking in dive bars and
Allen Ginsberg reading poetry
to throngs of listeners in Washington
Square Park. It does
this thanks to the architecture
and atmosphere that still feels
as intact as it did when it hosted
stage shows in the East Village
as Andy Warhol mingled
with Luo Reed elsewhere in
the same neighborhood.
The ghosts of the famous
and celebrated can be felt
reaching from the walls and
ceilings, begging to be remembered.
Yet this last bastion of
20th century East Village creativity
is holding on by a thread
thanks to a 21st century virus.
“There are people who come
to Manhattan from other countries,
for theaters like ours,
that then go and see the rest of
New York and the rest of the
country. So, the impact on losing
our theaters, and we’ve lost
so many during COVID, the
impact of losing our theaters
is felt throughout the country,”
Lorcan Otway told amNewYork
Metro as he sat beside his
wife, Eugenie Otway, with
tears welling in his eyes.
The Otways have literally
spent their lives running and
maintaining the off-Broadway
theatre, the neighboring William
Barnacle Tavern (a 1920s
speakeasy from the prohibition
era), and the overhead Museum
of the American Gangster,
especially Lorcan who says he
has fond memories of helping
his father renovate the building
in 1964 when he was nine
years old.
“I was nine. I would come
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
home after school and go to
work. I thought that students
that went home and did their
homework were unemployed,”
Otway joked.
Lorcan Otway tells wild,
sweeping stories of his father’s
dealings with gangsters who
allegedly wanted access to
valuables hidden within the
property and renowned Broadway
legends who stepped foot
on their stage, but more than
the glitz and glamor it is clear
to Otway the building is a
safe of memories, a symbol
of the arts, and, above all, a
family business.
“As my father was dying, he
and I planned to restore the
theater as a legit house and restore
the theatrical grid, which
we did,” Otway explained, “As
each family member dies, they
take a chunk with them.”
Eighty Saint Marks Place
boasts a Broadway size stage in
an intimate setting–with about
199 seats–that not only allows
the audience to feel connected
to the show but also lets plays
fl ourish in ways they couldn’t
PHOTOS BY DEAN MOSES
(Above) Lorcan Otway and
wife Eugenie Otway on stage
at 80 Saint Marks Place.
(Left) Seats have been removed
in an attempt to
maintain social distancing.
hope to in larger arenas. But
what was once the location’s
greatest strength, became its
greatest weakness during 2020
when the COVID-19 pandemic
reached New York City. The
deadly virus forced a complete
change to the venue, which saw
many of the seats removed.
Small family-owned businesses
have suffered immensely
during the pandemic
with about 3,000 forced to
close, and with debts piling
many of these locations
may never open, according to
the mayor’s offi ce in a recent
press conference.
Otway states that Broadway
in itself is a small business that
is in danger of forever closing
its doors when they were
forced to shutter during New
York City’s shutdown. For
months he was unable to open
due to state mandates, causing
him to rack up debt and default
on his loan. He spent hundreds
of thousands renovating the
theater to meet COVID-19
safety protocols, removing six
rows of seats and inserting
wide platforms for social distancing,
as well as increasing
the amount of air purifi cation
and airfl ow from an archaic
1950s system to a modernized
fi ltration.
“We upgraded the whole
project to get it ready to reopen
for hundreds of thousands of
dollars. And what we had not
expected was that the initial
shutdown would last so long.
So, we had a one-year bridge
loan and when that became
due in December there still
had not yet been a vaccine introduced
and it was impossible
to refi nance. And so, we defaulted
by not being able to pay
the loan after a year, but that
default happened completely
because of the state action that
had we not been shut down,”
Otway said.
Unable to catch up to almost
two years of debt, Otway
fears without a small business
loan from the state, he will be
forced to shutter 80 St. Marks
Place, forever. He shared that
he has been in contact with
Congresswoman Carolyn
Maloney, Senator Brad Holyman,
and Assembly member
Harvey Epstein not to ask for
a handout or a grant, but a
long-term loan.
“We are asking the state
through the governor’s offi ce
to give us a low interest longterm
loan because in that way,
we’ll be able to both pay the
state back and it returns us to
the position we were before the
state shutdown. The legal argument
behind it is that when the
state shuts down a business,
it’s a taking and it’s justifi able
taking it was without a doubt
for the public good. In fact, we
closed several days before we
were told to out of concern for
our staff and our audiences,”
Otway stressed.
“But when the state takes
your property, for example, in
eminent domain, after they reimburse
you and we’re not asking
to be reimbursed, but being
given a loan so that we could
continue to serve as we’ve
done for the past 57 years, the
cultural needs of the city, the
community, and the state,”
he added.
Otway also shared that the
public can do their part by
writing to their local elected
leaders and urging them to advocate
for the loan and for the
business that has accepted generations
of patrons.
Schneps Media January 13, 2022 15