The Washington Theatre on Amsterdam Avenue and 149th Street.

This is the Washington Theater on Amsterdam Avenue between 149th and 150th streets. With a seating capacity of 1432, the Washington opened in August of 1910. It is considered to be the oldest surviving theater designed by, you guessed it, Thomas Lamb. The Washington still stands today as the New Covenant Temple and is, according to rumors, intact.

View from the stage.  Look at all those footlights.

View towards the stage, the house left boxes and the mural on the sound board above the proscenium. It appears that the fire curtain has been lowered.

This is looking at the house left boxes. Thomas Lamb was a genius and always used cantilevered balconies in his theaters. I do not recall one of his houses that had support columns under the balcony ruining the view. The boxes on orchestra level are separated from the orchestra section with a small partition. A real delineation between the box seats and the rest of the world. I know that Lamb's Capitol Theater (the largest theater in the world for a few years) and the Hamilton had boxes very similar to these. I know that I mentioned this before but Mr. lamb was never a licensed architect. Surprising for a guy who was a building inspector for the City of New York.

This is the theater now. In mid May of 2011 the church that owns the theater put it up for sale. There are no Landmark Restrictions and they are asking only 11.5 million dollars. If the rumors that it is intact are true, it should be saved.

More Harlem, more theaters.

This is 143rd Street and Lenox Avenue. The Douglas Theater had, depending on which of my sources is correct, either 600 or 2200 seats (which in 1935 expanded to 2300 which could indicate that an orchestra pit was covered over to add more seating but that is a great many seats to cover over an orchestra pit with). I am going with the source that lists the larger capacity because the smaller capacity source lists the theater as active only until 1922. The picture playing when this photo was taken is a Fox picture, directed by the great Raoul Walsh, from 1927. Around the corner, like the sign says, is the entrance to the Cotton Club.
In a space once used as a club by the legendary African American boxer Jack Johnson, The Cotton Club opened in 1923 after gangster bootlegger hoodlum Owney Madden muscled his way in and forced Johnson's Club DeLuxe out. Although the club launched the careers of too numerous to mention here African American entertainers, the Cotton Club originally had a "Whites Only" policy. Duke Ellington was the club's orchestra leader from 1927 to 1931, replacing the great Fletcher Henderson (if it weren't for him, Benny Goodman would never have become the "King of Swing"). During Ellington's tenure, the racist policy was relaxed. After Ellington left, Cab Calloway took over as the orchestra leader.
Eventually the club moved south, to 47th street in a building just north of Duffy Square (were the TKTS booth is located). The Cotton Club closed in 1940 and then Lou Walters Latin Quarter moved in. The building was torn down in 1989 for a hotel.

I know that this is a stretch and really this is Washington Heights but I am including it here because it is another theater lost and a loss to African American history. It was William Fox's Audubon Theatre of 1912. It was designed by the one and only Thomas Lamb. Named in honor of the naturalist James Audubon, this 2368 seat theater boasted a mural over the proscenium of George Washington leading the battle of Washington Heights. By the end of World War II the name of the theater and the language of the pictures changed. The San Juan had a Spanish Language film policy until it stopped showing movies some time in the late 1960's. It was ultimately torn down by Columbia University when they were expanding their medical facility. The facade was saved and restored and used in the new structure.

The Audubon Theatre had a ballroom in the building. The entrance was on the side. Even though the theater changed it's name, the ballroom remained the Audubon Ballroom and was forever etched in history in 1965 when Malcolm X was assassinated here while giving a speech.

Yet another lost theater on 125th Street

Harlem really starting developing in the late 19th century, as information about were the new subway was to be routed was leaked to those in the development arena. A great deal of Harlem, especially west of the New York Central tracks, was built nice. Like I have said the area close to 125th street, had a large number of theaters. There were theaters that are long gone in east Harlem, theaters that have survived as churches and theaters that are just sealed up. 125th Street was the magnet for all things entertainment. Oscar Hammerstein invested in this uptown theater district. His Harlem Opera House, discussed in earlier posts, opened in 1899 as a legit house, ultimately succumbing to vaudeville, movies and eventually the wrecking ball.
This is the Orient Theater. Located on 125th street just west of Lenox Avenue, it was in operation as early as 1915. It had a seating capacity of only 585. Usually, and I stress usually, a theater with a seating capacity of that size was not built with a stage. However, since my information on this theater is sketchy, it could have been built for legit then went over to motion picture exhibition. By the late 19th century and into the early 20th century you do not find many legit houses that size. There are exceptions and this not a hard and fast rule. There certainly were smaller legit and vaudeville houses and there were theaters with very large seating capacities that were built with out stages.
The picture playing at the Orient is Exclusive Story, starring The Group Theater's very own Franchot Tone. It is an MGM picture released in 1936. Loew's owned MGM but perhaps not this theater. It could have been a second run independent house.

New York Tours By Gary: Loew's Victoria on West 125th Street. A treasure w...

New York Tours By Gary: Loew's Victoria on West 125th Street. A treasure w...: 125th street was lined with theaters. Most of these houses where built for live entertainment. This is the Loews Victoria, built for va...

Loew's Victoria on West 125th Street. A treasure waiting for renewal.

125th street was lined with theaters. Most of these houses where built for live entertainment. This is the Loews Victoria, built for vaudeville and moving pictures. This theater opened in 1917 and it was designed by Thomas Lamb.
West 125th was not only the major commercial strip of the area it was also the border between white and black Harlem. The theaters along 125th catered to a white audience. In the early 20th century one never saw a person of color going into the Alhambra or the Harlem Opera House. 125th street was euphemistically referred to as "The Great White Way", "white" being the operative word. After some time, African Americans were admitted to the balconies. Very Jim Crow southern (not to mention reprehensible and out of step with the very nature of New York) in practice.
Eventually the neighborhood changed. The early 20th century saw some massive construction projects. The original 1904 subway line was being built and that sparked development were there had been not much before.  A large number of speculatively built brownstones and apartment buildings went up all over the Upper West Side and Harlem. In addition to the subway, the late great Pennsylvania Station was under way. The loss of a middle class African American neighborhood that had been displaced by the construction of the old Pennsylvania Station and the blocks close to the subway lines that would open along Lenox Avenue being extensively developed helped turn the tides and shifted the population. Landlords could not fill the apartments or sell off the brownstones.  A forward thinking African American real estate broker convinced the landlords of these big beautiful buildings, buildings that they could not fill as Harlem became over-built to a degree, to rent to African Americans. The landlords needed tenants, the displaced and newly arrived African Americans needed to be tenants.

This is the house left wall. These images were probably taken in the early 1990's. The theater was a single screen for most of it's life. In 1972 the house underwent a renovation and began to show first run films. In December of 1972 "Across 110th Street' starring Anthony Quinn and Yaphet Kotto opened at the Victoria. Other similar pictures followed. In 1977 the Death of Loews Victoria was reported in The Amsterdam News. Loews could no longer operate the Victoria profitably and put it up for sale. After a multi-million dollar plan to restore the Victoria fell apart in 1988, it was not until 1992 that the Victoria was used again.
Retired New York City police detective, and owner of the landmarked James Bailey house on Saint Nicholas Place, Warren Blake took over and after another "face lift" reopened the Victoria as The Harlem 5. Mr. Blake, sensitive to the historical and irreplaceable aspects of this theater, had partitions put in to create 5 auditoriums that would leave no scars and could be easily removed.

Detail of the house right mural. The white sections are areas where there is water damage.

The house right boxes. The Victoria was built with, in addition to vaudeville, motion pictures in mind so the boxes were designed to not interfere with the image on the screen. When wide screen pictures became the norm, the stage was wide enough to accommodate a wider screen. The situation was the same at Loew's 83rd, the boxes remained until the theater was turned into a "quad" ; then they were in the way and had to go.

The projection booth. Unlike the Hamilton, the booth in the Victoria was part of the original plan and does not stick out like sore thumb/projection booth. The Victoria was built 4 years later and during that time, people accepted motion pictures as an inevitability.

This is the dome over the auditorium of the Loew's Victoria. It is missing it's chandelier but it could have been removed much before this picture was taken. In 1972, a benefit performance was held at he newly refurbished Victoria for the Dance Theater of Harlem. In a New York Times article about this star studded celeb-filled, sold out event called "They Came To Harlem in Ermine And Pearls And Jeans" there is a reference to the chandelier lowered slightly to give the theater a more intimate feeling. The Victoria remained in the hands of Loew's until 1977.

This is a very recent photo of the inner lobby (the same space as the picture below. The marble floor is being preserved with a covering of carpet. Warren Blake was the man who did the last renovation on this space and he was sensitive to historic preservation. In the ceiling, on the left and right sides of the center dome, there are decorative panels, probably stain glass panels covering the recessed lighting fixtures that appear ever so faintly in the previous picture but are missing here. I am hoping that Mr. Blake removed them, along with the auditorium chandelier and put them somewhere safe. I vividly remember round stain glass panels used extensively in Thomas Lamb's Loew's 83rd, particularly under the balcony overhang in the orchestra section, casting a subtle amber glow during the Movie.
In the picture is New York State Assembly Member Keith Wright. There has been much talk over the past few years about what to do with the Victoria. There was an attempt to include the Victoria in the renovation of the Apollo. There have been rumblings of a high rise hotel going up on the site that would include, depending on which version one hears and believes, different things. In one scheme, the entire auditorium would be saved and the space turned over to one of a cornucopia of non-profit arts group in return for tax breaks and zoning rules waved. In another plan, part of the theater would be saved and used as part of the lobby of the new hotel (this would also include saving the facade). The last and worst idea is just to save the facade and incorporate it into the new structure.

 This is the lobby earlier than the above picture.

The outer lobby with it's chandelier still there but not working. Harlem has seen a great deal of redevelopment over the past few years. However nice it is to have a Marshall's, Staples, an H & M and an Old Navy very close by, one must evaluate the cost. The price Harlem has paid is the loss of some historically important buildings, a loss to not only theater history but African American history as well. Always remember that "we will not be judged by what we have built, but by what we have destroyed".

 I found this picture while looking for more interior photos of the Victoria. The caption of this undated photo stated that this was at the Victoria, a Jitterbug performance. Given the eagle and flags in the background I would guess World War Two era.

More 125th Street and Weber & Fields West End Theater

Weber & Fields were very much part of the vaudeville and variety show world for decades. Both men were born in New York in 1867, both men were Jewish performers who removed (or tried to anyway) any trace of ethnicity from their names (Moses Schoenfeld became Lew Fields and Joseph Morris Weber dropped the Morris), teamed up and became one of the most successful acts of the 19th century. After many years of touring in circuses, variety shows and vaudeville, the duo the duo settled back in New York. Lew Fields had a theater named for him by Oscar Hammerstein (it was to be his final Times Square project) in 1904. Fields did open the theater with a successful production of Victor Herbert's It Happened In Nordland but the theater was a flop. Badly designed, cramped and full of building code violations, the theater changed hands too many times to mention. It was here, however, when the theater was owned by Harry Frazee, that Lynn Fontanne played her first starring role in 1921. Harry Frazee was not only a producer and theatrical agent but he owned the Boston Red Sox and traded Babe Ruth to the Yankees in 1920. He claimed, then later denied, he did this to finance the Broadway production My Lady Friends which was the play upon which No No Nanette was based.  The trade by Frazee of Babe Ruth to the Yankees gave birth to The Curse of the Bambino which prevented a World Series win by the Red Sox for 86 years.

This is the West End Theatre. It was at the western end of the Harlem's Broadway, 125th street. It was built by a man named Meyer R. Bimberg, who was known popularly as “Bim the Button Man” for supplying customized buttons and banners to political candidates. The West End opened on November 3, 1902, in what was then a largely German Jewish and Irish Neighborhood. It was the built on the northern border of "white Harlem" and along the principle commercial street in the area and one of the world's most important entertainment meccas ever created. Within months of opening, Bimberg was been arrested for embezzlement and the theater was sold to the vaudeville team of Weber and Fields.
Never a hugely profitable venue, the West End was a high end vaudeville and subway circuit house. A large number of theaters in Harlem were on the subway circuit. In the early 20th century, before sound movies, way before TV, live theatrical presentations were the thing. To satisfy an ever increasing demand for new shows and to further and to satisfy the entertainment needs of the rest of the country, a Broadway show would play it's 300 performances then would move out to a neighborhood house (the previously mentioned Riviera on 97th street and Broadway for example) then would go out on the road. The Shuberts were among the big time Broadway producers who had lease deals with various theaters around New York City. According to the Shubert Archives, the West End was leased by United States Amusement Company, a Shubert-Erlanger vaudeville venture in 1907-08. From 1908 to 1912 it was booked as a part of the Shubert's "subway circuit" by the Sam S. Shubert Booking Agency.
Early headliners at the West End included the Four Cohans (which included George M.), the great African-American vaudeville team of Bert Williams (who W.C. Fields called "the funniest man I ever saw and the saddest man I ever knew") and George Walker and, in her final New York appearance in November of 1903, Adelina Patti, the Italian soprano.

This the West End Theatre today, however it is now known as the LaGree Baptist Church. I have peeked in through the doors on several occasions and the interior seems to be in good shape. As with too much of Harlem, a building such as this is not landmarked.
The West End stopped showing pictures in 1975. In the years prior to that, it was home to an African American repertory company (in the 1920's), in 1937 underwent a renovation and reopened with vaudeville and movies.
There was a Weber & Fields Theater in Times Square. It stood on 44th street between Broadway and 8th Avenue.  It did not last long as Weber & Fields. The Shuberts bought it and renamed the 44th Street Theater in 1913. The Marx Brothers performed Animal Crackers here in 1928 while shooting their first picture Coconuts during the day out at what is now Kaufman Astoria.

125th Street PART 3: The Harlem Opera House and The R.K.O. Alhambra

This is an early 20th century picture of the facade of the Harlem Opera House. Up until 1934, the house offered stage shows. Despite winning the Amatuer Night at The Apollo, Ella Fitzgerald was among the luminaries who graced the boards at the Harlem Opera House. As did the godfather of swing, local resident bandleader and arranger  Fletcher Henderson.  Henderson is credited with giving birth to Benny Goodman's style and making him "The King of Swing"
The marquee displays the names "Hurtig & Seamon". They are names more often associated with the theater down the block that became the Apollo, as they were the original owners. At some point after the 1889 opening, Oscar Hammerstein lost this theater (he had a bad habit of losing theaters) and Hurtig & Seamon took over. In the the late teens, the uber-powerful Keith - Albee took over.  By the mid 1920's Frank Schiffman took over the Harlem Opera House.  Schiffman was already a presence in Harlem,  having operated the Lafayette and in 1935 taking over the Apollo with Leo Brecher.
The facade shows two entrances. The main theater, in the center and then the upstairs (and smaller) theater for the "finest in moving pictures".

This is a program from March 16th 1904. The 16th is written in as the date March 14th is crossed out. The directors listed are Klaw & Erlanger, big time Broadway producers of the early 20th century (Broadway's very own Saint James Theatre was originally named the Erlanger). The owner appears to be someone named Lichtenstein. The name Hammerstein is not listed on this program. With the Apollo still 10 years away and the Victoria 13 years away, this was the second of the big important houses that made 125th street the entertainment center of Harlem. James Weldon Johnson in his book Black Manhattan referred to this theater district as the place where the African American actor was able to "finally make for himself a definite place on the legitimate stage of New York".  However, the change that was to come is still a few years away as this is an all white cast.

This is looking south on 7th Avenue from 126th street. On the right is The Alhambra Theater. It was designed by the architect who I have referred to as the Thomas Lamb of the late 19th - early 20th centuries, John B. McElfatrick. The original owner sold the theater soon after it's August 1905 opening to the almighty B.F. Keith circuit. It was vaudeville only until 1913 when movies were added to the program. Eventually this 1500 seat house became known as the RKO Alhambra. It now houses the D.M.V., a bowling alley and the Alhambra Ballroom.

According to his incredibly detailed records, Will Rogers performed here the week of January 25 1914 at the rate of only $350.00.  The Alhambra Theatre began as a vaudeville house called the Harlem Auditorium. The original builders ran into financial trouble and was purchased, finished and renamed Alhambra Theatre by Percy G. Williams, a vaudeville impressario of the late 19th - early 20th centuries.  In 1905, the variety house was sold to the Keith Vaudeville Circuit and named Keith's Alhambra Theatre.  As indicated by the ad above the audience that this theater catered to was white, 125th street was still the dividing line between "White Harlem" and "Black Harlem.  Two months earlier, in late August of 1913, Billy B. Van and the Beaumont Sisters the headliners at the Alhambra for a week.

This is the Alhambra today.  It was the premier of Lew Leslie's Blackbirds of 1926, starring Florence Mills and Bill Robinson, that transformed the house into one of the major African American venues of the 1920s. Performers such as Bessie Smith, Jelly Roll Morton, and eventually Billie Holiday, graced the stage and made the Alhambra a success. The premier of the musical Hot Chocolates in 1929, before going to Broadway, really pushed the Alhambra Theatre into the spot light of the Harlem Renaissance.  As what always happens, the depression comes along and these theaters start to slide. The Alhambra switched over from being a live theater venue to a vaudeville / movie house then to just a movie house.  The stage was used sporadically after World War II.  In January of 1950 the New York Times announced a return of vaudeville to the stage of the Alhambra.  The policy did not last.  To promote his new film “The Ladies Man,” Jerry Lewis appeared on stage at 27 R.K.O. theaters in the New York City area over a two day period.  The wonder and genius that is Jerry Lewis appeared at this theater on July 13, 1961 for some incredibly lucky people. On Friday January 26, 1962, the Three Stooges (the 1962 Stooges anyway) began a three day promotional tour for their latest picture, "The Three Stooges Meet Hercules".  It was while shooting this picture that Larry discovered he had diabetes; after an accident on set Larry was rushed to the hospital as a result of falling off a chariot and 250 pound Curly Joe DeRita falling on him and knocking him out.  The doctors said he was ok but found out he had diabetes.  The Stooges were accompanied by popular DJ Clay Cole, who was one of the stars of the double feature with the Stooge picture, " Twist Around the Clock".  The R.K.O. Alhambra no longer appeared in movie listings after a November run of the Taylor - Burton "Cleopatra".  It just sort of disappeared and faded away.

The Harlem Opera House lost it's stage shows by the mid 1930's. Even though big band shows were a feature at the Harlem Opera House, it was, for the most part, a movie house up until it was converted into a bowling alley as this photo from the early 1960's attests. It was called "Harlem Lanes", ironically the name of the bowling alley now located in what was the Alhambra. The structure that was the Harlem Opera House was torn down in 1969.