Baryshnikov Arts Center: A Hell’s Kitchen Home for Cross-Disciplinary Work

On West 37th Street, between Ninth and Tenth Avenues, the Baryshnikov Arts Center occupies the top three floors of a 50,000-square-foot arts complex in Hell’s Kitchen. The center was opened by Mikhail Baryshnikov in 2005 and provides working space and production facilities across several artistic disciplines, including dance, music, theater, film and visual art.

The building is also home to the Orchestra of St. Luke’s DiMenna Center for Classical Music. Together, the organizations make the site a multiuse arts destination, with the Baryshnikov Arts Center focused on supporting artists and the building providing a larger performance and production setting.

The project began as a commercial development called 37 Arts Theatre. Groundbreaking took place in July 2001. The finished complex includes three theater spaces. Its early programming connected the venue with productions that later moved to Broadway: the 2005 Off-Broadway revival of “Hurlyburly,” followed by “In the Heights” and “Fela!” The source material identifies Ethan Hawke and Parker Posey as performers in the “Hurlyburly” revival.

The center’s development also included an artist-residency program. Aszure Barton was identified as its first artist in residence in May 2005. Administrative offices opened later that year, in November, marking the establishment of the center’s operational base within the building.

Over time, the center’s presenting and residency history has included artists working in different forms and traditions. The listed artists include Laurie Anderson, Tere O’Connor, Molly Davies, William Forsythe, Lucy Guerin, Foofwa d’Imobilité and Toni Morrison. Their inclusion reflects the center’s broad scope rather than a single-discipline identity: the venue has been associated with movement, theater, music and other forms of creative practice.

For New York audiences, the Baryshnikov Arts Center is therefore notable as both a neighborhood arts complex and a production resource. Its location places it in Hell’s Kitchen, while its facilities serve work that crosses theater, dance, music, film and visual art. Its history begins with a commercial theater project and expands into an arts center shaped around residencies, presentation and production support. The supplied information does not describe a specifically LGBTQ program or institutional mission, but the center’s documented role in New York’s broader cultural landscape makes it a relevant local arts institution to know.

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Further links listed by the Wikipedia page (not independently checked): - https://web.archive.org/web/20120113023336/http://www.oslmusic.org/ - https://web.archive.org/web/20111115151131/http://www.oslmusic.org/about-us/contact-us - https://archive.org/details/rengen00mart_0 - https://archive.org/details/rengen00mart_0/page/159 - https://musicbrainz.org/place/0947e471-65b8-4929-a6a1-31a8c39cbedd - https://geohack.toolforge.org/geohack.php?pagename=Baryshnikov_Arts_Center&params=40.756044_N_73.997363_W_ Image rights Photograph description: Scene from ILLUSIONS at the Baryshnikov Arts Center Directed by Cazimir-Liske Starring Anthony Gaskins, Stephanie Hayes, Annie Purcell and Mickey Solis Video director Vladimir Gusev Photo by Anna Lee Campbell Creator: eight_io. License: CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0). Original image page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AScene_from_ILLUSIONS_at_the_Baryshnikov_Arts_Center.jpg. The image was resized for display; no other changes were made.