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Clark Center for the Performing Arts NYC In 1959 the Clark Center was founded when Alvin Ailey applied to the Y.W.C.A branch in the former Capital Hotel at 8th Avenue and 50th Street for rehearsal and performing space for his fledging company. Conceived as a multi-arts center, the Clark Center originally offered classes in ballet, modern, ethnic and jazz dancing, acting and opera, as well as providing a home for the Ailey company for the next 10 years. Ailey always called Clark Center his “ritual home” and in 1974 said, ”Dance grew like Topsy there. Clark Center was the only reason we were able to continue.” While at the Y, Clark Center was given a free artistic hand, administrative salaries and services, and rent-free space.

In 1962 the first of an ongoing series of New Choreographers concerts, devoted to locating and nurturing new talent was presented. Another series, Dance Horizons provided professional support services and a showcase for small and emerging dance companies. The success of this artistic course is abundantly attested by the number of distinguished careers – dancers, choreographers, teachers, and directors of dance companies – that trace their beginning to a New Choreographers Concert. “I was in a CC’s New Choreographer’s Concert in 1971 and there was no place else for such a showcase,” said “Dream Girls “ co-choreographer Michael Peters in 1982. Tony award winners Hinton Battle and George Faison, Meredith Monk, Margaret Beals, Laura Dean, Rachel Harms, Kei Takei and Bill T. Jones are a few of the others whose work was first shown there.

In 1974 all these activities were threatened when the Y decided to close its Westside Branch and sell. A temporary space was found, at 939 Eighth Avenue, with two studios, (then a third, with need for a fourth) but no performing space. So, In July 1975, Clark Center presented the first of a series of summer dance festivals in the Mall of the Graduate Center of City University of New York on 42nd Street between Firth and Sixth Avenues. The conversion of the covered Mall to a theater was daring and imaginative, production activity was restored, and the Clark Center was cited by the Mayor twice for making a cultural contribution to a partially blighted neighborhood. Wonderful as it was, however, use of the Mall was limited to summer. So, in 1979, production activities were temporarily suspended in order to devote all energies to finding a suitable year-round facility that could house the entire teaching and producing program. For between 1975 and 1979, registrations had quadrupled and class attendance had gone from 17,800 to 52,441. A major element of Clark Center’s commitment to dance was its ongoing scholarship program, and in those years, significantly, scholarship class attendance went from 295 to 6, 204.

Finally, in 1979, it was thought that a permanent home had been found. On May 22 of that year a press conference was held at the offices of the 42nd Street Redevelopment Corporation, and Louise Roberts announced that Clark Center would move to Theatre Row. The building at 444-448 W. 42nd St., between 9th and 10th Avenues, when renovated, would include a 250 seat theater and four large studios, and would cost about $500,000 to renovate, the opening scheduled for June, 1980. It would accommodate a 60,00 class attendance, rehearsals, and eight weeks of performances the first year, sixteen weeks of performances in following years.

In 1980, renovation had begun, and 30 companies had applied for use of the theater. Grants of $30,000 from International Paper Company foundation, and $50,000 from the Mobil Foundation were received. Although in a year costs had risen to a projected $1 million.

On December 16, 1982, the Board of Estimate signed an agreement drawn up by the city’s Parks and Recreation Commissioner, Gordon J. Davis, by which the City agreed to give $650,000 toward renovation of the Theater Row building in return for scholarships, dance classes and performances for city youngsters for the next 15 years. On the strength of the signed agreement, Clark Center went ahead and signed a 25-year lease, brought in an architect and began preliminary work on the building. $250,000 had been spent on the project when, on April 1, 1983, Henry J. Stern became the new Parks and Recreation commissioner. He expressed doubts about the legality of the contract which had already been approved by the Corporation Counsel before being signed. The City subsequently leased the land to the 42nd Street Development Corporation, which is non-profit and that body had in turn sublet it to theater Row Phase II Associated, a limited partnership which in profit. Clark Center’s dream of creating a thriving dance community came to an abrupt end. Though it continued to offer classes, it never again was able to present emerging choreographers. In 1985, Louise Roberts, totally discouraged by the loss of her dream, resigned. Classes continued to be offered for a few years at the New Dance Group. In 1989, Clark Center closed its door forever.