The Wrecking Ball Swings Again

They're dropping like flies.

From today's Times:

The owners of the Lamb's building at 130 West 44th Street, home of the Off Broadway Lamb's Theater Company, delivered notices to all of the building's tenants on Wednesday, asking that they vacate the building by Sept. 30.

The eviction notice is no surprise. The Manhattan Initiative, the building's management corporation, which works on behalf of the Church of the Nazarene, reached an agreement seven years ago with the Hampshire Hotels Group, giving the group an option to develop the building into a hotel. Hampshire recently decided to exercise the option; hence the notices.

Thankfully, at least the Stanford White facade of the Lambs is protected by landmark status. So it will now serve as the front of no doubt another overpriced Times Square hotel. (I guess Hampshire was waiting to see how this Times Square gentrification would work out?)

The Lamb's, of course, was not only a theatre, but once a prominent actors' social club. So not a little history is being vanquished here.

The theatre owners, though, are optimistic they can take their act elsewhere, even if it requires great architectural feats:

The company is looking for a new space... The plan is to remove the interior of the larger theater and set it up somewhere else in Manhattan.

Uh, given the curse of the small theatre lately, they may want to look off the island...