Location: West 135th Street and Convent Avenue

Date: 2004-2005

Developer: Aaron Davis Hall Inc. (ADH)

Architect: Rolfe Olhausen Dubois Architects

Cost: $13 million

Credits: Courtesy of City College Architectural Center (top left, taken early 2002); Judy Connorton (bottom left); Olhausen Dubois Architects, PLLC (bottom right)

Aaron Davis Hall, known as Harlem’s Center for the Performing Arts, is responsible for converting the Croton Aqueduct Gatehouse at West 135th Street and Convent Avenue into a 200-seat experimental theater. A national landmark, the Gatehouse began life in the 1880s, marking the end of the aqueduct system and regulating the supply of water to a growing city.

Aaron Davis Hall, Inc. (ADH), an independent nonprofit organization that manages the original 25 year-old theater complex with the cooperation of The City College of New York, will oversee the Gatehouse’s program of performance, rehearsal and support space. The group has raised private funds for the project, in addition to securing financial assistance from the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone (UMEZ) and city funds through the Bloomberg Administration, Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields and the City Council. Construction on this creative, adaptive reuse of a historic structure is currently underway.