Beyond My Ken via Wikimedia Commons
A landmark building previously home to the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) has sold for $32 million. The building, which according to reports will be extensively renovated, first hit the market in 2023.
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“The new building is roughly 60% of the size of our current building,” said Andrew Rehfeld, president of HUC, in a statement provided to NY Jewish Week. “It allows us to operate a smaller facility that’s more appropriate to our needs and really serve our students, faculty, and staff much better with a state-of-the-art facility that is in an exciting location.”
Built between 1901 and 1903, the structure was “the seventh of ten armories built by the Armory Board, as part of a larger campaign to control rioting workers in industrial cities,” according to its landmarks filing. The location also served as home to the New York State National Guard until 1913 and originally housed stalls for 76 horses, a 50-foot rifle range, a 25-yard pistol range, and a central tower “for signaling purposes.”
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The building had multiple uses throughout its existence. By the 1970s, the 102nd Medical Battalion moved out, and the state transferred the property to the city, where locals played tennis on the ground floor at the Lincoln Plaza Racquet Club. In June 1976, ABC acquired the castle for $800,000, adding it to its portfolio of properties on 66th and 67th Streets between Central Park West and Columbus, The New York Times reported at the time.
Rehfeld called the move to the Upper West Side “a homecoming of sorts,” as it sits just two blocks from where the Jewish Institute of Religion (JIR) originally stood on West 68th Street. HUC and JIR merged in 1950 and have occupied the West 4th Street location since 1979.
Renovations to the building, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, are in the works. The space “will be reconfigured to include state-of-the-art technology and infrastructure for in-person and hybrid learning, as well as a library, beit midrash [house of study], and areas for prayer, community events, and exhibitions,” HUC-JIR said in a statement.
Hebrew Union College will remain at its Greenwich Village location until 2027, when renovations are expected to be complete.
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I have very fond memories of working in that building on West 66 back in the 1980s, when it was home to the soap opera “One Life to Live.” If I’m not mistaken, it previously was the broadcast home to ABC’s “Dark Shadows.” If those walls could talk! I made many dear friends there during my time at OLTL….many of whom, fortunately, are still around even if all the fun restaurants like Columbus, Al Buon Gusto, Ernie’s and Nic & Tony’s are long gone!
Thanks so much for remembering Al Buon Gusto. Years later and I still miss that wonderful place.
Dark Shadows was done at TV2, and TV16, OLTL was the only soap taped there.
Good thing the building is landmarked or we would see yet another ugly, non-contextual condo or co-op building built on the site.
That’s that positive, uplifting spirit I love about the UWS!
Haven’t heard that name in years
Good thing I visited the site today or I might have missed out on my dose of UWS residents whining about the standard nonsense!
Sorry to see it go. I worked there for about 30 years. It was built for OLTL, and we did so much there- had a lot of fun there, met some great people. Disney killed off almost everything done in N.Y., at one time ABC owned so much land on the west side, now nothing