A building on West 57th Street that has been a house of worship, a legendary recording studio and one of New York's most notorious nightclubs is now heading into its next act: a 250-seat theater. The space at 311 West 57th Street, located between 8th and 9th Avenues, is being converted by Arts 57 NYC into a mid-sized performance venue aimed primarily at Off-Broadway productions.
The transformation was reported by W42ST, the hyperlocal media brand founded by Phil O'Brien in 2014 that covers Hell's Kitchen. According to the outlet, the venue will host not just theater but also comedy, jazz and other live performances, adding another layer to a building whose uses have shifted dramatically over roughly a century.
A Church Turned Recording Powerhouse
The building's story starts as a house of worship. The space started as a church before it later became a recording studio, per the same account from W42ST. That recording chapter was Mediasound Studios, a 24-track facility that opened in June 1969 when audio engineers Harry Hirsch and Bob Walters, backed financially by Woodstock co-founders Joel Rosenman and John P. Roberts, converted the former church building into a state-of-the-art studio, according to Wikipedia.
Originally constructed as the Manhattan Baptist Church, the building featured 40-foot cathedral ceilings, stained-glass windows and massive wooden doors that were retained during its 1960s acoustic conversion, Wikipedia notes. Those cavernous dimensions gave Mediasound its acoustic depth, and artists including Stevie Wonder, Frank Sinatra, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix and the Ramones worked there, according to Times Square Chronicles.
From Bat-Themed Nightclub to Immersive Spectacle
In the 1990s, architect David Rockwell redesigned the space into Le Bar Bat, a bat-themed multi-level nightclub and live music venue that became a landmark fixture of New York City's club scene, according to Grokipedia. Later nightlife operators followed at the site as the building took on new uses.
Following Le Bar Bat, the space operated as Providence. Mediasound gold records were displayed at the site, as documented by Mixonline. In 2016, actor Neil Patrick Harris partnered with theatrical producer Randy Weiner and the creators of Sleep No More, Queen of the Night and The Box on a 20-year lease at the address to launch a multi-level immersive theater, food and variety performance space, per Times Square Chronicles. That 2016 push wasn't without friction: Hell's Kitchen residents and Manhattan Community Board 4 members raised noise and crowd management concerns over the proposed late-night entertainment operations, which had capacities up to 750 people, according to DNAinfo.
Most recently, the building operated as The Stranger, a multi-level immersive nightlife and performance venue occupying a 10,000-square-foot site. W42ST describes that chapter as the building's turn as an immersive nightlife experience and, at various points, a notorious nightclub.
The Building's Bones Suit a Stage
Commercial listings describe the address, spanning 305–311 West 57th Street, as offering 17,000 square feet of multi-level entertainment space with a mezzanine and a kitchen, according to CommercialSearch. The space has been repeatedly reimagined — first as a recording studio, later as nightlife venues, and now as a theater.
Arts 57 NYC's plan calls for turning 311 West 57th Street into a mid-sized venue geared mainly toward Off-Broadway productions, though the programming will stretch beyond straight theater. Per the reporting, the venue will include musical theater, comedy, jazz and other live performances once it opens as a 250-seat theater.
Part of a Bigger Theater District Push
The Arts 57 conversion arrives amid a broader wave of demand for performance space in Midtown West. Landlord GFP Real Estate secured more than 24,000 square feet of theater and media leases at 630 Ninth Avenue in May, anchored by a 19,380-square-foot expansion from Ambassador Theatre Group, as Hoodline reported. The deal adds theater activity near the Theater District, while Arts 57's arrival at a building with nearly a century of entertainment history continues the site's entertainment legacy. The article also points to a separate Midtown precedent involving a theater facility on West 53rd Street in Manhattan. The broader adaptive-reuse idea also appears in the article's discussion of city cultural policy.
