Bouwerie Lane Theater

History and architecture

The Bouwerie Lane Theatre is an especially interesting cast-iron building because Henry Engelbert, the architect, designed it in the elaborate styli of the .French Second Empire. The wealth of ornamental detail, with its plastic, almost sculptured effect, makes this building an unusually fine example of this important type of construction.

The building occupies a conspicuous corner site. It has a long frontage on Bond Street but its end facing the Bowery is comparatively narrow. To solve the problem of making these two different elevations pleasing and harmonious, the architect succeeded in unifying both elevations by using the same design.elements in each while making the extent of their use equal to the width of the elevation. Thus corner quoins frame the Bowery facade and columns flank the central one of its three windows.

On the Bond Street facade quoins appear not only at the corners but they also frame the windows at either end. Handsome columns frame the windows of the five center bays as they did the Bowery windows - but here they are coupled. To unify both fronts horizontally, the architect ran band courses at the top of each story around both elevations. To give to the building a sense of emphatic culmination at the top, the main cornice is handsomely detailed and imposing in scale.

Again, in recognition of the disparate dimensions of the elevations, the architect placed a pediment across the head of the second floor center window of each facade, but on Bond Street he set a low-pitched pediment on the cornice of the central section to give it emphasis.

Upon completion in 1874, it was known as the Bond Street Bank and later became the German Exchange Bank. At a much later date, it was put to general commercial use as a loft building. In 1963 it became the Bouwerie Lane Theatre after being converted to its present use. This history of change demonstrates how successfully an old building can serve new needs without destruction or loss of its architectural characteristics or its integrity.