Manhattan - Provincetown Playhouse

A Brief History: The Provincetown Playhouse is located at 133 MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village, New York City. The playhouse opened in 1918 after being converted from an industrial bottling plant. The playhouse put on a variety of stage plays and housed emerging playwrights and actors such as E.E. Cummings, Bette Davis, and Claudette Cobert. After failing to be recognized as a New York City landmark the building was incorporated into NYU’s school of law. NYU proceeded to demolish and renovate the majority of the structure but had promised to preserve the 6% of the building that contained the small theater. It was later revealed by the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation that NYU did not keep this promise and very little of the original theater was left intact.

Haunted History: Paranormal occurrences include sightings of an unidentified male spirit that according to faculty and students is linked to sudden drops in temperature. Sightings of this figure occur throughout the building but the man is usually seen walking down corridors or up and down staircases.