Former names | Louis N. Jaffe Theater, Yiddish Art Theatre, Yiddish Folks Theatre, Century Theatre, Phoenix Theatre, Gayety Theatre, Eden Theatre, Entermedia Theater |
---|---|
Address | 181-189 2nd Ave. |
Location | New York City |
Coordinates | 40°43′51″N73°59′11″W / 40.73083°N 73.98639°W |
Public transit | New York City Subway: Third Avenue, First Avenue at Astor Place |
Owner | City Cinemas (Reading International) |
Type | Yiddish theatre |
Screens | 7 |
Current use | Movie theater |
Construction | |
Architect | Harrison Wiseman |
Website | |
www | |
Yiddish Art Theatre | |
Location | 189 Second Avenue, New York, New York |
Coordinates | 40°43′51″N73°59′11″W / 40.73083°N 73.98639°W |
Area | less than one acre |
Built | 1926 |
Architect | Harrison G. Wiseman |
Architectural style | Moorish |
NRHP reference No. | 85002427 [1] |
NYCL No. | 1764, 1765 |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | September 19, 1985 |
Designated NYCL | February 9, 1993 |
The Village East Cinema is a movie theater in the East Village of Manhattan, New York City. One of New York's last remaining Yiddish theatre buildings, it is a New York City designated landmark [2] and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Originally named the Louis N. Jaffe Theater (also called the Yiddish Art Theatre (after its first tenant) and later the Yiddish Folks Theatre), the structure was built in 1925-26 by Louis Jaffe, a developer and prominent Jewish community leader, at 12th Street and Second Avenue in the Yiddish Theatre District. Jaffe built the theater to house Maurice Schwartz's Yiddish Art Theatre, which Schwartz had founded 1918 to present serious Yiddish drama and works from world literature in Yiddish. [2] [3] [4]
The theater was designed in the Moorish Revival style by Harrison Wiseman; William Pogany consulted on the interior design. The design incorporated Moorish motifs with Judaic references (Yiddish writing outside the lobby and a large Star of David in the ornate dome remain to attest to the building's origins). [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]
In his new theater, Schwartz continued to produce shows, including a production of "Yoshe Kalb" which ran for 300 performances. According to legend, Walter Matthau briefly worked at the theater's concession stand as a youth. [3] [5] [6]
The Yiddish Arts Theatre continued at least into 1936, but by the late 1930s the building was a movie theater, the Century Theatre. It closed for a while in the 1940s, reopening as a 1,082-seat movie theater, the Stuyvesant Theatre. [6]
Around 1953 Norris Houghton and Edward Hambleton bought the theatre (which was then closed) and renamed it the Phoenix Theatre . The Phoenix Theatre was a pioneering project in the development of off-Broadway, with a different approach to legitimate theatre than found on Broadway. The first production was Sidney Howard's play "Madam, Will You Walk?", which opened on December 1, 1953, starring Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy; later that season Montgomery Clift starred in The Seagull .[ citation needed ] In the following years, the Phoenix Theatre mounted more productions featuring notable figures of the theatre both on stage and behind it. The Phoenix Theatre moved to a new location in 1961.[ citation needed ]
Ann Corio then mounted her successful nostalgic review This Was Burlesque at the theater, beginning in 1962. Corio later took her show on the road. From 1965 to 1969, the building was the Gayety Theatre, a more raunchy burlesque house, and the only one in Manhattan at that time. The Gayety Theatre was used for the interior theater shots in the film The Night They Raided Minsky's . After this, the theater operated as the Eden Theatre and hosted off-Broadway shows, including Grease and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat before those musicals went on to Broadway, and the controversial Oh! Calcutta! . From 1978 to 1984 the theater operated as the Entermedia Theater. [2] [7]
In 1991 the theatre (which was no longer in use) was converted back to a movie theater, the Village East Cinema (owned by City Cinemas, a branch of Reading International), which shows a mixture of Hollywood productions and indie films. The main auditorium seats 1,200, and there are four small screening rooms in the basement, each seating under 200 people, and two other screens in the former backstage area. The Village East Cinema also shows films which originally opened at the Angelika Film Center, an arthouse chain which is also an arm of Reading International. The theater was extensively renovated and restored in 2015. [2] [6] [8] [9]
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