STAGING A COMEBACK

Harlem's National Black Theatre has been a storied arts institution in need of support. A soaring new home is shaping its future.

- Marley Marius

At a glance, the west side of Fifth Avenue between 125th and 126th streets teems with information about what Harlem is, what it was, and what it ’s still becoming. There are the area’s mainstays—an African hair-braiding place, an all-important corner store—with a big Baptist church just north, between 126th and 127th. There’s a sense of history by proximity—the Apollo Theater is a few blocks west, Maya Angelou’s old town house sits a few blocks south— but the markers of “modern” Harlem are apparent too. On 125th and Fifth, what was once a large, rather dark Applebee’s is now a slightly hipper Shake Shack, and for years Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka lived with their twins in the late-19thcentury brownstone three doors up.

Towering over all of this to the east—and, in a way, helping to tie it all together—is Ray Harlem, opening this December. The 21-story pink brick building, designed by Frida Escobedo in partnership with Handel Architects, houses more than 200 apartments (ranging from studios to two-bedrooms), with all the modern amenities and conveniences you’d expect. It is also home to something quite singular: the National Black Theatre (NBT), an institution first established in Harlem in 1968. Due to stage its first performances in late 2027, the theater, designed by Marvel Architects, will command some 25,000 square feet of the complex and feature both a 250-seat flexible space—imagine the Park Avenue Armory’s Drill Hall in miniature—and a 99-seat studio theater. Studio & Projects, a firm run by Brooklyn-based designer Little Wing Lee, is overseeing the interiors throughout with Escobedo’s studio and Ray’s in-house team. The vision, Lee says, is “a lot of texture” and “a lot of really beautiful colors and materials,” including custom stained glass for the residents entrance.