I am really not sure what you are talking about. There are well more than several dozen off Broadway stages in this city.
But now it sounds like you are actually talking about off-off Broadway, not off-Broadway. If there were off-B places that were empty and couldn't be given away, then that would certainly explain why they no longer exist. Yes there is gentrification, and yes there are spaces that become other things, but there are also many new places folks are putting up shows throughout the city. That is the essence of New York, now and always. The point is, there are many incubators of challenging theatre out there now-I feel confident as many or more than there were in the 50s 60s 70s. Are they the same spaces that existed then? No. Why should they be? Things change, but to say that there are no places to make theatre is frankly kinda silly. Is everything too expensive? Sure. But it always was, and just as there were companies that found niches in crappy spaces where they could make theatre, there are now. They've moved. Look around. Read the listings. You can find plenty to keep you occupied, challenged, entertained or whatever you want. And guess what? Some of those folks work their way up in the theatre world, just as they did 30-50 years ago, and lots of them fall apart.
It's easy to wax nostalgic about the way things were, but it's not reality. I know lots of young makers of theatre busting their collective asses just like those you seem to remember. But you are confounding Broadway, off-Broadway and off-off Broadway, mixing the confusion with faulty information and coming to erroneous conclusion.
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