From the very beginning of the improv theater Second City, its name made clear that it wasn’t a New York institution and didn’t aspire to be. But after 65 years, the Chicago-based institution that has strongly influenced modern comedy is opening an outpost on Monday in Brooklyn, in what is the First City. Two weeks before the lights were set to officially go up, Ed Wells, Second City’s chief executive, showed off its new 12,000-square-foot home on North Ninth Street in Williamsburg even as he acknowledged the headwinds facing the expansion. There is a 190-seat main stage theater with a wraparound mezzanine and a 50-seat black box theater for student shows. The Bentwood restaurant, named after the chair that Second City actors use onstage, sometimes as a prop.

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Persons: Ed Wells Organizations: Improv, North Ninth Locations: City, New York, Chicago, Brooklyn, It’s, Williamsburg