PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Michael Quinn, Former Resident of 50 West 13th Street
0:12:20
ยท
160 sec
Michael Quinn, a former resident of 50 West 13th Street, provides personal testimony in support of landmarking the building known as both the Jacob Day residence and the 13th Street Repertory Company. He shares his experiences living in the building and working with Edith O'Hara, the founder of the theater company.
- Quinn emphasizes the building's significance in nurturing diverse talent and providing opportunities for aspiring actors
- He highlights Edith O'Hara's role in supporting artists and maintaining an inclusive environment
- Quinn expresses a desire for the building to be preserved and potentially used as a cultural learning center for future generations
Michael Quinn
0:12:20
Can you hear me?
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Alright.
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Checking.
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Civilians.
0:12:23
Civilians.
0:12:23
Okay.
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I wanna start by just thanking my name is Michael Coiner.
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I'll start by thanking council member Carolina Rivera's office and her staff.
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I really busted their chops for a long time to get this done.
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And, also, of course, Andrew Berman of, Village Preservation, who just just tirelessly just fights to keep our cultural history and landmarks here intact.
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I have a very close relationship with this building.
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I actually lived in the building about 30 years ago for about 4 months.
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I like to talk a little about Edith O'Hara.
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Edith O'Hara, I had a very close relationship with.
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Edith was a type of person where someone who just arrived from Montana with manure on their boots would ring her doorbell and say, hey.
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I wanna be an actor.
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And Edith would take care of them and feed them and give them a place to stay and then cast them in in a play.
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The place just meant so much to her and so much to me.
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I think at the time, back in the nineties, between the two women that had a biggest influence on my life as far as an artist was my acting teacher, Uta Hagen and Edith O'Hara.
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She cast me in the lead role in Line.
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And the playwright, Israel Harvitz, many people know him as Ad Rockstead from the Beastie Boys, lived around the corner.
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And he shows up and he says, like, yeah.
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This is the new cast.
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And he goes, wait a second.
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This is a tall Irish Catholic man from Brooklyn.
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I wrote this play for a short Jewish man for Brooklyn.
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The first person he cast in that play was Richard Dreyfus, but it didn't matter to Edith.
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You know, she believed in diversity.
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She believed in having people from all backgrounds, and she really, really took care of us.
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And it really means a lot to me to preserve this structure because, I mean, you may know it as the Jacob Day residence.
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I've forever known it as the 13th Street Repertory Company.
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And that place, even on weekends, they had children's theater.
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At night, we had line.
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You know, and also at the same time, it was just a place that I learned.
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It's a place where I grew.
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And I wanted to continue to be a place where people from all around, from different backgrounds could could go and learn and grow.
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So I'm asking you to please consider landmarking the structure, but, also, I'd like to to eventually be a place, where people could go to learn about culture, where maybe children can continue to visit there as they did years ago to learn about the history of our city and what went on in that building.
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So thank you so much for your time and letting me share a little bit about myself and Edith O'Hara and and that the 50 West 13th Street building, which I hope you landmark.
0:14:59
Thank you so much.