“UCB is not leaving New York City. The school and the theater will continue on in a pared-down form, which will be very similar to how we operated when we first started in NYC over 20 years ago,” the founders said, referencing UCB’s beginnings in the ’90s when many of its famous alumni first performed there.

UCB moved into the Hell’s Kitchen location in 2017 after leaving its original spot in Chelsea but has continued to struggle financially since laying off staff members in 2018 and closing its East Village outpost a year later, The New York Times reported.

On Twitter, UCB alumni mourned the iconic club, often touted as New York’s equivalent to Chicago’s Second City theater, where Poehler performed with Tina Fey and Rachel Dratch before founding UCB.

“I first moved to New York in 1996 to work for the Dana Carvey show and was, in short order, unemployed. But Matt and Matt and Ian and Amy would invite anxious me to do ASSSCAT in the back of some bar (the name of which escapes me),” Stephen Colbert wrote on Twitter, referencing UCB’s improv shows. “Thanks guys. I’ll always be grateful. #UCB”

Julie Klausner, who wrote and starred in Hulu’s Difficult People, similarly gave thanks to the theater, writing, “I love and have always loved and will continue to love UCB and I believe it will endure somehow. I owe my career to its community.”

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