Lin-Manuel Miranda-backed Drama Book Shop has an opening date

Lin-Manuel Miranda-backed Drama Book Shop has an opening date

Rendering of the new Drama Book Shop interiors. | Courtesy of David Korins

Plus, a 220 Central Park South apartment sells for $64 million—and more intel in today’s New York Minute news roundup

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The new Drama Book Shop has an opening date

Back in late 2018, the owners of Midtown’s Drama Book Shop announced that they would close the doors of the century-old store due to a rent hike. But in January, Hamilton writer/composer Lin-Manuel Miranda and a group of his collaborators acquired the beloved institution with plans to reopen it at a different location. This week, the opening date and the new location have been announced: It will reopen in March 2020 at 266 West 39th Street—a block from its previous location—between Seventh and Eighth avenues.

The century-old shop, previously owned by Rozanne Seelen, specializes in theater printed works: Plays, screenplays, and works on theater craft. Miranda says he wrote drafts of In the Heights there and held his first Hamilton: The Revolution book signing there as well.

“The Drama Book Shop is the heart and soul of the New York theater community,” Miranda said in a statement. “It’s been an oasis in midtown for a century of storytellers and theater fans alike—a safe space to gather, to learn, and to find great books and music.”

The new shop’s design was spearheaded by creative director David Korins—who created Hamilton’s set—and inspired by European cafés. Korins told the New York Times that the store’s centerpiece will be a “worm-shaped sculpture of dramatic literature.”

And in other news…

• Park bathrooms in New York City may get smaller, portable, and—crucially—cheaper.
• Here, the headline says it all: “MTA doesn’t know why subways cost so much more to build in NYC.”
• Another day, another absurd closed sale at 220 Central Park South; this particular five-bedroom apartment sold for $64 million.
• The MTA plans to change a component of Access-a-Ride that subsidizes taxi trips for disabled passengers—and users of the program are pissed.
• Remnants of old Penn Station are (possibly) being uncovered during construction for the train depot’s major revamp.
• Developer fight!
• Some MTA board members are questioning the logic of adding 500 police officers to subway stations. (Crime in the subway system is down this year, according to the NYPD.)

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