About The Lyric, 255 West 94th Street
The Lyric is a large, red-brick, rental apartment building at 255 West 94th Street that houses the excellent Symphony Space, cultural center that includes the Peter Norton Symphony Space, the Leonard Nimoy Theater and the Peter Jay Sharp Theater.
The 23-story building that occupies the west blockfront on Broadway between 94th and 95th Streets has 285 apartments.
It was developed by The Related Companies and designed by Costas Kondylis.
The building, which is also known as 2521 Broadway, has a sundeck, a children's playroom, a fitness center, a business center, many corner windows, revolving front door, and a doorman.
The lobby was designed by David Rockwell.
The building was able to increase its size by about 40,000 square feet, or about 40 apartments, by erecting a building with 11 low-income apartments on West 105th Street.
The Polshek Partnership designed the building's cultural spaces that are at the 95th Street corner.
By selling its air rights above its 1915 two-story building, Symphony Space was able to renovate its building and integrate the 200-seat Thalia movie theater into its complex.
In a November 29, 1998 article in The New York Times by Corey Kilgannon, Isaiah Sheffer, co-founder and artistic director of Symphony space said that it could have redeveloped its site sooner but wanted to make sure that it would include affordable units. "It means a lot to us that there isn't some completely elite building over us. It was important to us as preserving the theater," he told the reporter.
In addition to its own calendar of performances, Symphony Space hosts about 40 not-for-profit organizations presenting about 125 performances in its space each year. It was founded in 1978. From 1979 to 2001, it hosted all of the New York productions of the New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players.
There is excellent public transportation.
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