Encore Community Services Provides a Gathering Place for Seniors in the Theater District

In theory, New York City is an excellent place to retire: Older New Yorkers can access world-class restaurants, museums, and theaters without ever having to own an automobile. But in practice it can be a different story—living in a fifth-floor walk-up with creaky knees, navigating sidewalks full of distracted bicycle deliverymen, and surviving on a fixed income in one of the most expensive cities on earth, where the price of everything only ever goes up.

“The cost of meals, the cost of groceries, the cost of everything is skyrocketing,” said Jeremy Kaplan, CEO of Encore Community Services, a not-for-profit focused on the needs of senior citizens living in the theater district and Hell’s Kitchen. “We hear all the time about people struggling to either pay for food or rent.”

Food has long been at the center of Encore’s mission. Father George Moore founded the organization in 1977 in the basement of St. Malachy Roman Catholic Church (known colloquially as “the actors’ chapel”) on 49^th Street, partially as a solution to the growing homelessness crisis in the neighborhood.

“Father Moore, Gerald Schoenfeld [longtime chairman of the Shubert Organization], and a couple other neighborhood folks got together at Sardi’s and had a conversation about what to do,” said Kaplan. “They decided to convert the lower level of St. Malachy’s into a soup kitchen.”

Sisters Lillian McNamara and Elizabeth Hasselt, Dominican nuns from the Bronx, were brought in to lead the charge. “They pulled out the pews from the church and sold them for 40 bucks a pop. That became the organization’s first budget.”

Once the kitchen was open and serving the community they quickly noticed that the guests overwhelmingly skewed older—elders with few resources and dwindling social networks, who desperately needed somewhere to go for a reliable meal.

Encore has since expanded its services to include housing (200 residents live in two separate facilities), meal deliveries, and other at-home visits. “We actually have a lot of entertainment union folks who volunteer as friendly visitors,” said Kaplan. “They commit to six months of visiting an older adult who would otherwise be isolated, and these often become lifelong friendships.”

Bobby Score, a former stagehand at Lincoln Center who served for many years as Recording-Corresponding Secretary for IATSE Local One (the stagehand’s union), has volunteered as one of those visitors. “I was matched with this unbelievable person named Freida,” he recalled. “This was during the tail end of COVID and she was 100 years old, so it started as a weekly phone call. But I eventually got to visit her in person and we became very close.” Score has also served on Encore’s board of directors and still liaises with labor unions on behalf of the organization.

“I always knew that the mission had a lot to do with food insecurity,” Score said about his hands-on experience with Encore. “I didn’t realize how much arts programming that they do and how that enriches people’s lives.”

The original soup kitchen still serves 20,000 meals a week, according to Kaplan. But it has been rechristened the “Aging Through Arts Center,” offering writing workshops, drawing classes, and dance classes, in addition to other cultural activities. This isn’t just a place to get a hot meal. It’s also a place to connect and learn something new. Occasionally, it’s also a place to show off and be entertained.

I recently visited the 49^th Street home base for the organization’s “Talent is Timeless” event—a talent contest for community members with a grand prize of $600. This is the Theater District, and Kaplan estimates that around a third of the seniors Encore serves have been involved in the arts in some capacity.

The room was bustling with seniors and volunteers during the lunchtime rush just before showtime—Wednesday at 2pm, naturally. It’s the kind of well-loved community space that feels just a little too small for its needs, with donated supplies cordoned off in a corner and tables and chairs squeezed into every available space; but everyone was making it work and seemed happy to be there.

A panel of judges, including city council member Carl Wilson, sat in the front row of a makeshift theater Encore staff had created around an elevated platform acting as the stage. Volunteers queued up music as the contestants took the stage to sing, dance, and even perform magic tricks.

Marjorie Conn made an impression with an original song about her late greyhound dog Frosting, set to the tune of “Frosty the Snowman.” Rhonda Williams brought the wit with her clever “Songwriter’s Blues,” a number she composed in one of Encore’s songwriting classes. And decked out in glittering pinstripes, Jacqueline Pullen gave the audience a bit of Fosse with her one-woman rendition of “All That Jazz.”

But it was Nancy Simpson’s sweet song-and-dance routine to “On the Street Where You Live” from My Fair Lady that really won the judges over. I was impressed too. I approached her after the show to congratulate her on her victory and ask her if she had been a performer.

“I’m still a performer,” she gently corrected me, telling me about her time with the Chattanooga Opera Company, and how she currently sings with four different groups, including the St. Malachy’s choir upstairs. She also teaches ukulele lessons. “This place is just fabulous,” she beamed. “There are so many wonderful, nice people. And I’ve made it a priority to give back.” Nancy still has a lot to offer, as do so many seniors living in New York City—but that is not always obvious in a culture ruled by spreadsheets, marketing algorithms, and EBITDA calculations.

“The most important thing in life is social connections and how we take care of each other,” said Kaplan, reflecting on what leading Encore has taught him. “Just having a network, whether it’s biological family, chosen family, friends—that is the key to living a long, healthy life.”

Click here to learn how to volunteer at Encore Community Services.