Denishawn House in Van Cortlandt Village set for demolition despite landmark push

The Denishawn House, a former dance school in Van Cortlandt Village, is set to be demolished despite community efforts to save the site by designating it a city landmark.

Construction workers were seen on the roof of the 67 Stevenson Place building when The Press visited July 30. One worker said they were doing blacktop removal. Before this, Bronx Community Board 8 received a notice from a consulting company that full demolition would start sometime after July 27.

It remains unclear what the site will house in the future. No plans had been submitted to the city as of Aug. 4, aside from an application for a construction fence filed in early July. According to the city’s department of buildings, an additional permit still needs to be filed as the final step before the demolition.

The move to alert the community board was not a complete surprise, as the city’s department of buildings approved demolition in late June. But it is a disappointment to those who pushed for the Denishawn House to be recognized as a landmark, including the community board, New York City-based nonprofit Historic Districts Council and Columbia University Professor of Historic Preservation Andrew Dolkart.

“We couldn’t save it,” Dolkart, a historian with a passion for dance, said. “It’s just very upsetting.”

Last July, the city’s landmarks preservation commission reviewed the site after the Historic Districts Council submitted a request for evaluation. The commission rejected it, citing substantial alterations to parts of the building connected to its time as a school.

Alterations included changes to the windows and the demolition of the double-height rehearsal and performance space, a spokesperson for the commission told The Press. Seven years of operation as a dance school was also considered a relatively short period, the spokesperson added. Ultimately, Denishawn House didn’t have the level of architectural quality and historic significance to be considered.

After the first rejection, Dolkart compiled more than a dozen letters of support from nonprofits, professors and executives at major dance institutions — Martha Graham Dance Company, New York City Ballet, Paul Taylor Dance Company, Harkness Foundation for Dance and School of American Ballet.

But, to no avail, as the commission turned down the site again this past May for the same reasons.

Ted Shawn, one of the founders of modern dance in America, and his wife, Ruth St. Denis, established the Denishawn School of Dancing and Related Arts at 67 Stevenson Place in 1927. Here, the couple trained dance  pioneers like Charles Weidman, Jack Cole and Martha Graham, according to the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project. The company behind the studio, called Denishawn, was created in 1915 as America’s first professional dance company, the organization said.

Shawn realized he was gay and left the Denishawn school in 1931, while St. Denis continued to teach there for three years after. Shawn went on to buy a farm in Massachusetts and founded his own company, Ted Shawn and His Men Dancers. Still, he hid his homosexuality for much of his life in an effort to prove that dance was appropriate for American men, according to the organization.

Frampton Tolbert, executive director of the Historic Districts Council, said Denishawn House was a part of the council’s efforts to highlight sites with cultural merit, as opposed to just architectural merit. The Bronx is also underrepresented when it comes to historical landmarks, Tolbert said.

According to the city’s landmark preservation commission, there are more than 38,000 landmark properties across the five boroughs. The Bronx has 1,151 of these, according to the commission — within 13 historic districts, 101 individual landmarks, 8 interior landmarks and one scenic landmark. Districts and scenic landmarks can include multiple designated sites, the commission said.

In June, the community board’s Van Cortlandt Village working group, which is a part of the land use committee, unanimously passed a resolution recommending the Denishawn House as a city landmark. It noted the borough’s pride as a creative cradle for the arts — from modern dance to hip hop — and said Denishawn House reflects that legacy.

Denishawn House is now owned by the Van Cortlandt Jewish Center, and is part of a lot that is under contract as of June 2025 to be sold to Barone Management, a real estate development and construction firm based in Roslyn, New York, according to city property records.

The center’s vice president, Jack Spiegel, told The Press he still does not know what Barone will do with the property. Spiegel added he saw no reason for the site to be landmarked, as the studio portion of Denishawn House has long been torn down.

Barone did not respond to requests for comment by press time.