Last month I watched a family of four get stopped at the door of the Richard Rodgers with three roller bags and a look of total disbelief. They’d flown in that morning, checked out of a hotel at eleven, and figured the theater would hold their stuff the way a restaurant holds a coat.
It won’t. Nobody on Broadway will. And the twenty minutes they spent arguing about it in the lobby is twenty minutes they’ll never get back.
This is the companion to my subway and timing guide, where I mentioned in passing that you need a place to stash your bags. Here’s the long version: where to actually put them, what it costs, and the one billing quirk that saves matinee-goers real money.
First, the rule you’re working around
Most Broadway houses have no coat check. These are hundred-year-old buildings that were designed before anyone traveled with wheels. What that means at the door:
- A backpack or a tote — fine. Security opens it, waves you through.
- A carry-on or anything with a handle and wheels — no. Not “we’ll make an exception,” not “just this once.” They will turn you away, and the curtain will not wait for you to solve it.
- A winter coat — your lap. Everyone’s lap. That’s January in New York.
So the bag problem has to be solved before you get to the block. There are two ways to do it: a staffed desk, or an app.
Where to actually put them
Two shapes of answer: one genuine old-school desk, and a spread of staffed shop counters closer to the theaters.
Schwartz Travel & Storage — 357 W 37th St
Between Eighth and Ninth, ground floor, no stairs or elevator to negotiate with a suitcase. It’s a seven-minute walk from Port Authority and about the same from Penn, which makes it the obvious choice if you’re coming off a bus or a train.
Google lists them as open 24 hours; some directory listings say 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. Call 212-290-2626 before you plan a midnight pickup around it.
On price, read this part twice. Their posted rate has long been $2.50 per hour per bag with a daily cap around $10 — but a steady thread of reviews says the desk quotes a flat $10 per bag per day regardless of how long you’re leaving it. Ask what you’re being charged before you hand anything over. If you’re storing all day it’s the same money either way; if you’re storing three hours, the difference is worth a sentence of conversation.
One more thing: Schwartz used to run a second counter on West 46th. That one is closed, and half the luggage guides online haven’t noticed. Don’t let an old blog post send you to the wrong block.
Closer to the theaters: the shop counters on Seventh
West 46th used to have a second old-school desk, CBH, and you’ll still find it in most luggage guides online. Don’t bother. We called the listed number in July 2026 and got a recording saying it’s out of service. Its own website and its Yelp page never agreed on the street number either. Consider it gone.
What replaced that whole category is the shop counter — a real person behind a real counter inside a bodega, souvenir shop, or restaurant, booked through one of the apps below. Radical Storage runs four of them within a four-minute walk of the Broadway houses at $4.90 a bag per day, half what the old desks charged:
- 7th Ave / Midtown — a shop, 9 a.m.–10 p.m., 4.8 stars
- 7th Avenue Station — inside a restaurant, 11 a.m.–11 p.m., 4.9 stars
- 50th Street — a shop, 8:30 a.m. to midnight
- 7th Ave / Radio City — a shop, effectively round the clock
That midnight closing on the 50th Street spot is the one to remember. An evening show lets out around 9:45, and most storage counters have shut by 10. Two and a half hours of slack means you can get a drink after the curtain instead of speed-walking to collect a suitcase.
The honest caveat: you’re leaving your bag in the back of a shop, not a purpose-built storage room. Recent reviewers describe drop-off “in the back of the Mega Mart store” and behind the counter at a gift shop. Staff are consistently described as friendly and the insurance is real, but if a windowless locked room is what you pictured, go to Schwartz instead.
The five app networks
These work differently: the company doesn’t own a storage room, it partners with shops, hotels, and delis all over Midtown. You book on your phone, walk in, they seal or tag your bag, you scan a code on the way out. Coverage around Times Square, Penn, and Grand Central is dense enough that you’ll almost always find something within a few blocks of your theater.
| Service | Rate | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| LuggageHero | From $1.99/hour in Manhattan, plus a one-time $1.99 service fee per bag; roughly $8/day cap | The only one that bills by the hour |
| Bounce | $5.90 per bag/day | Flat daily rate, insurance up to $3,000 |
| Vertoe | $5.95 per bag/day | Tamper-proof seal, insurance up to $5,000 |
| Radical Storage | $4.90 per bag/day near the theaters | Densest Theater District coverage; no size limits |
| Stasher | About $6.90 per bag/day | Largest partner network |
Two practical notes. Book before you walk over — the good locations near Times Square fill up on matinee days and holiday weekends. And pay through the app, not in cash at the counter, because cash payments void the insurance on every one of these platforms.
The matinee trick
Here’s the part nobody tells you.
A Broadway matinee runs about two and a half to three hours. Add travel on either end and you’re looking at four hours of storage, tops. Every service on that list except LuggageHero charges you a full day for those four hours — five or six dollars, which is not exactly a crisis, but it’s also not what you used.
LuggageHero is the only network that bills by the hour. At $1.99 an hour plus the $1.99 service fee, a four-hour matinee stash runs under ten dollars for one bag and stops charging when you pick up. For a single bag on a short window, it’s a wash against the flat-rate apps. For a couple with two bags and a 2 p.m. curtain, hourly billing is the cheaper answer — and it’s the reason to have that one app on your phone even if you normally use Bounce.
The flip side: if you’re storing bags from a 10 a.m. hotel checkout until an 11 p.m. flight, hourly billing works against you. Thirteen hours at $1.99 blows past every flat daily rate in the table. Long day, book flat. Short window, book hourly. That’s the whole rule.
Pick your scenario
- Evening show, checked out that morning — flat daily rate. Radical at one of the Seventh Avenue counters, done for five bucks, and pick up as late as midnight.
- Wednesday or weekend matinee, nothing else planned — LuggageHero, hourly, and don’t overthink it.
- Coming off a bus or a train with real luggage — Schwartz on 37th. It’s ground floor, it’s staffed, and you don’t need a working phone or a data plan to use it.
- Show, then a late flight out of JFK or Newark — flat daily rate, and pick a location on the side of Midtown you’ll be leaving from. Walking eleven blocks the wrong way at 10:45 p.m. for a bag is a bad end to a good night.
- Just a backpack — nothing. Carry it in. Security will glance inside and wave you through.
What not to leave in a stored bag
Every one of these services is legitimate and insured, and none of that helps you at 10 p.m. when a shop has closed early. Take your passport, your medication, your laptop, and anything valuable with you into the theater. A backpack is allowed. That’s what it’s for.
Get the bags handled and the rest of the night takes care of itself: right train for your theater, doors thirty minutes before curtain, and somewhere decent to eat when you come out — we mapped the after-show spots still cooking past 10 p.m.
And if you’re still working on the ticket, start at the Broadway lottery hub. Cheapest seats in the city are won, not bought.
