Own a piece of Broadway history -- a part of the facade of the iconic lime-green doors from RENT - the 7th Longest Running Broadway show of all time. A MUST HAVE for collectors of Broadway memorabilia, RENTHEADS, and and other lovers of all things RENT.

RENT, written by Janathan Larsen and directed by Michael Greif, won every major Best Musical award, including the Tony Award, as well as the Pulitzer Prize for drama.

Rent opened on Broadway on April 29, 1996 and closed September 7, 008 after 12 years and 5,124 performances.

This is the approximately 6-feet tall piece of the lime-green door facade that is being offered.

Evidentally someone named Katie wrote her own farewell to the show on the piece on October, 10th, 2008, about a month after the last performance on September 7, 2008.

The graffiti reads "Viva la Vie Boheme" roughly means "Long live the bohemian life." The musical was based on the opera by Giacomo Puccini called "La boheme, based on a book of loosely related stories called Scenes de la vie de Boheme by Henry Murger. (Wikipedia)

The piece of the door facade comes from the side loading dock door of the Nederlander Theater on 41st Street, just west of Broadway. Here is the piece where I found it leaning against the refuse bin outside the theater on my way to work near Times Square and also two photos of the rest of the door, which I photographed on my way back from work that night before it was carted off.

...Here is a picture of the front of the theater after RENT closed and the crew was taking apart the building facade to make room for the next show: GUYS AND DOLLS...

...Here's what the theater looks like now. I've circled the doors that had been given the green facade during the RENT run. The piece being offered comes from the facade of one of these double-doors. It is likely that it had been up there for the entire 12 year run of 5,124 performances, and thus is filled with with a million memories...

To the left of this door were two other doors filled with grafitti from RENT lovers, wanting to leave their wishes to the cast and crew and each other.

The show's die-hard fans often wrote on the walls after coming early to get special discount tickets or while staying late, hoping to see the cast on the way out.

Here is what these doors looked like before these facades were also removed. I don't what was done with these door facades or the column facades next to the theater doors which were also full of graffiti. They were most likely "stripped out" (thrown away), as this article, entitled "Curtain Call" from NJ.com suggests, as the theater was about to undergo a $9 million restoration.

According to this article, the only graffiti that remains from the time of the musical is on a ten foot section of an alley wall backstage, signed by celebrities like Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Billy Joel, James Earl Jones, Kevin Spacey, and other during the break between acts.

For more on the final days of RENT, check out these websites....

1) Photo Coverage: Final "RENT" performance Arrivals (BroadwayWorld.com)

2) As a Musical Winds Down, the Writing's on the Wall (The New York Times)

3) The Nederlander Theater by KatieHeartsthearts.tumblr.