Theatre was opened in 1869 at the intersection with Sixth Avenue. It was sold in 1881 for half the cost of its construction, becoming a dry-goods store. In 1888, the entrepreneur Frederick Freeman Proctor opened a theater between Sixth and Seventh Avenues. Proctor used innovations such as electric lighting and phonographs in his "continuous daily vaudeville" theater. In 1907, the theater was converted to an RKO cinema, and 30 years later, it was destroyed in a fire. During the late 19th century, Bryant's Minstrels also performed a minstrel show in Proctor's Theatre. Modern theaters include the Chelsea Bow Tie Cinemas, on the south side of West 23rd between Seventh and Eighth Avenues; the SVA Theatre, operated by the School of Visual Arts on the north side of West 23rd one block west; and the Cell Theatre, across the street from the SVA Theatre. Educational institutions In 1849, James Renwick Jr. constructed the Free Academy Building for the City College of New York, following a statewide referendum two years prior that had allowed the construction of the school. The Gothic Revival building was located at the intersection of Lexington Avenue and 23rd Street. The building was demolished in 1928. Baruch College, an institution within the City University of New York system, was a successor to the Free Academy. Founded by businessman and City College alumnus Bernard Baruch, the campus includes the Lawrence and Eris Field Building at the southeast corner of Lexington Avenue and 23rd Street in Gramercy. The 16-story building, opened in 1929, is the oldest structure that is part of Baruch College. The New York Public Library contains two branches on the different portions of 23rd Street: the Muhlenberg branch on West 23rd Street and Seventh Avenue, and the Epiphany branch on East 23rd Street west of Second Avenue. The Epiphany branch, which is located in Gramercy/Kips Bay, opened in 1887 and moved to its current location, a Carnegie library on 23rd Street, in 1907. It was renovated from 1982 to 1984. The Muhlenberg branch, also a Carnegie library, opened in Chelsea in 1906 and was renovated in 2000. Incidents On October 17, 1966, the street was the location of New York's deadliest fire until the September 11 attacks, in terms of firefighters killed. The "23rd Street Fire", as it came to be called, began in a cellar at 7 East 22nd Street and soon spread to the basement