HB Studio Plans to Sell Its Three Bank Street Buildings

By Elena Vasquez

HB Studio plans to sell its three buildings at 120-124 Bank Street in the West Village. The sale includes the one-story theater on the site. Uta Hagen and Herbert Berghof played that stage. Now the curtain may come down.

The plan puts a documented piece of American acting history on the market. The address is 120-124 Bank Street. The portfolio counts three buildings. One of them is a one-story theater.

For readers unfamiliar with the institution: HB Studio is the acting school long associated with Uta Hagen and Herbert Berghof, two of the most influential acting teachers of the American twentieth century, and the buildings at 120-124 Bank Street have served as its Greenwich Village home. The studio confirmed it plans to sell all three structures.

What does the sale include?

• Three buildings, numbered 120, 122 and 124 Bank Street.
• The one-story theater that sits within the group.
• The physical plant of a school whose founders shaped generations of American actors.

The studio has stated its intention plainly: it plans to sell. The source material does not record a listing price, a broker, or a closing date, so none is reported here.

Why does this matter beyond Greenwich Village?

The buildings carry the names of Uta Hagen and Herbert Berghof. Hagen's acting texts remain standard reading in training programs. Berghof founded the studio that bears their initials. The stage now slated for sale is the room where that work happened.

Three buildings in one transaction is a full-campus disposition, not a partial consolidation. That distinction matters. A single-building sale could suggest relocation; a three-building sale, including the theater, suggests the institution is rethinking its entire physical footprint on Bank Street. The studio has not, in the material available, specified what follows the sale — whether a move, a merger, a rebuild or a wind-down.

The takeaway: the school that taught America how to act is selling the rooms where it did the teaching.

What happens next?

The sale process will determine the fate of the one-story theater. Greenwich Village real estate moves quickly, and development pressure on Bank Street is longstanding. Until a buyer and a plan emerge, the future of the stage where Hagen and Berghof worked remains an open question — and the answer will say something about how the city treats the physical remains of its theatrical training traditions.