Theater group owes MTA show-stopping $306K in back rent

One of the city’s best-known experimental-theater companies is facing eviction by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority over $306,000 in unpaid rent bills, the Wall Street Journal reported. The group, 3-Legged Dog, is currently housed at 80 Greenwich Street, where it signed a 20-year lease in 2002 after its 30 West Broadway headquarters were destroyed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Eviction proceedings are slated to begin today. The group has argued that it was unable to pay its $21,667-a-month rent after spending money on asbestos abatement and a sprinkler system for the building — work that the MTA failed to do itself. The MTA says that’s an exaggeration. “I don’t know how anyone can justify letting this tenant rack up hundreds of thousands of dollars in back rent at a time when state cuts and deteriorating tax revenues have forced the MTA to lay off station agents and cut service,” said Jeremy Soffin, a spokesperson for the agency. [WSJ]