The Transformed Manhattan Opera House (Manhattan Center) 311-321 West 34th Street

 

photo by Jim Henderson

Theater manager and impresario Oscar Hammerstein branched into grand opera when he erected his Manhattan Opera on Eighth Avenue near Broadway on November 14, 1892.  The critic of The New York Times was taken with its size.  "The new theatre is very large.  The stage was obviously designed for grand opera," he wrote.  But the cavernous auditorium had a drawback.  "The auditorium must be 100 feet deep...Last night, in the centre of the house, beyond the first four or five rows of seats, it was difficult to follow the speech on the stage," he wrote.

Eleven years later, Hammerstein sought to improve the situation.  In April 1901, his architect, William E. Mowbray, filed plans for a "five-story brick and stone theatre" three blocks away on West 34th Street, just west of Eighth Avenue.  Mowbray projected the construction cost at $300,00o--or about $10 million in 2022.

Oscar Hammerstein I, from Who's Who on the Stage, 1906 (copyright expired)

The new Manhattan Opera House would take five years to complete.  Hammerstein took advantage of the time to recruit the most talented and famous musicians and vocalists in the world.  Upon his return from Europe on April 29, 1906, he told reporters, "When I left New York eight weeks ago I concluded that if I could not create for my Manhattan Opera House an ensemble of such magnitude, artistically, as would eclipse every effort ever made in this direction since grand opera found a foothold in this country, I would abandon my project and give up the idea of giving grand opera for once and all."  The New York Times titled its article, "Hammerstein Declares War In Grand Opera."

Hammerstein had signed contracts with some of the most famous opera singers in the world for his opening season.  Among them were sopranos Nellie Melba and Gabrielle Lejeune-Gilibert, baritone Maurice Renaud, and tenors Alessandro Bonci and Amedeo Bassi.

The approaching opening of the Manhattan Opera House could not have come at a worse time for Hammerstein's rival, Heinrich Conreid of the Metropolitan Opera House.  The Metropolitan chorus singers had unionized, and on November 1, 1906, The Sun ran the headline "Conried Defies The Union."  It reported that he refused to sign an agreement.  The article ended saying, "Fifteen [singers] applied the other day to Oscar Hammerstein for engagements at the new Manhattan Opera House."

Construction was completed early in December 1906.  Mowbray's neo-Classical structure featured five double-doored entrances beneath a glass-and-iron marquee that stretched to the curb.  The seven mid-section bays were separated by Scamozzi pilasters, each window fronted by a stone balcony.  A classical pediment topped by a anthemion fronted the balustraded fifth floor.

from the collection of the Library of Congress

The Manhattan Opera House opened on December 3, 1906 with I, Puritani, although the finishing touches on the building were not yet complete.  The New York Times reported, "Yesterday afternoon, Bonci, the new tenor, and Mme. Pinkert, the soprano, rehearsed with chorus and orchestra while some shifters set scenery and carpenters pounded the last nails.  The din was terrifying."  When Hammerstein held up a finger to stop the work, the foreman told him "We can't get this theater done unless we have every minute, and if we don't get the theater done, you can't give the opera."  And so the workmen continued.  "Bonci sang the rest of his high notes to a hammer accompaniment."

Architects' and Builders' magazine, February 1907 (copyright expired)

The New-York Tribune noted, "To Mr. Hammerstein alone the public is indebted for this new addition to its places of amusement.  He has no board of directors nor opera company.  He is the board of directors, impresario, real estate company, manager, treasurer.  Under his famous hat the affairs of the house will be entirely decided."

At the end of December, The New York Times critic Richard Aldrich deemed the Manhattan Opera "worthy of support," praising the excellence of Hammerstein's productions.  The problems of the former house had been corrected.  Aldrich noted, "Its acoustics are remarkably good.  Notwithstanding its size, it is so built that the audience as a whole is brought nearer the stage and into more intimate relations with what goes on upon it than is the case in the older houses."  The "older houses," of course, included the Metropolitan Opera.

A postcard pictured the venue shortly after its opening.

The international fame of Nellie Melba was such that her debut here on January 11, 1907 caused a near riot.  That evening she appeared with Bonci in Rigoletto.  The New York Times reported, "The crowd was so large at the Manhattan Opera House last night...that it was necessary for Mr. Hammerstein to telephone to Police Headquarters at 7 o'clock for a squad to control the mob of people in the lobby."  The efforts were not enough.  The "crowd surged up the gallery stairs, breaking away the side railing.  At 7:15 the box office closed, and no more standing-room tickets were sold...In the course of the second act a woman fainted and was carried out."  The carriage man (the uniformed employee who met and opened the doors of arriving carriages) counted 510 vehicles that pulled up to the marquee that evening.

Nellie Melba in the role of Ophelia.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

In 1911 Hammerstein leased the venue to Metropolitan Opera House chairman Otto Kahn.  The contract came with a massive $1.2 million bribe that Hammerstein not be involved in opera in New York City for ten years.  He used the money to erect the London Opera House, in London.  By 1916, the Manhattan Opera House was being managed by the Managing & Producing Co., Inc., headed by Alexander Kahn.  That summer the venue was "lavishly renovated," and it may have been at this time that a sixth floor was added.

The upward enlargement created a bulky, disproportionate appearance.

Oscar Hammerstein died on August 1, 1919.  His wife Emma Swift Hammerstein inherited the Manhattan Opera House.  The venue continued to offer grand opera, opening with Aida that season, followed by La Boheme.  In 1921 Emma sold the building to her daughters, Stella H. Pope and Rose H. Tostevin.

Massive change came the following year.  On March 11, 1922, the Record & Guide reported that the sisters had sold the structure to the New York Consistory, Scottish Rite Masons, "who will use it as a temple after a few structural changes."  The New-York Tribune placed the price at $600,000--or about $9.7 million today.  The newspaper said, "It is the plan of the Scottish Rite Masons to leave the auditorium as it is and hold assemblies and ceremonies there.  Upstairs will be constructed rooms for a library, lounging quarters, banquet hall and kitchen."

If the organization's initial plans called for "a few structural changes," the board soon changed its mind.  On July 30, 1922 The New York Times reported that the Scottish Rite had hired architects Harrison G. Wiseman and Hugo Taussig to renovate the structure.  The "entire Thirty-fourth Street facade will be remodeled and stores added," said the article.  "A large assembly hall and banquet room will be constructed on the present roof."  The article said the assembly hall would be one of the largest in the city, capable of holding 1,200 diners.   The architects placed the cost of renovations at $250,000.

The architects' rendering showed a hipped roof.  The New York Times, July 30, 1922 (copyright expired)

The use of the renovated building as a Masonic temple was relatively short-lived.  In 1927 Warner Brothers leased the auditorium space as a sound stage, and in 1940 it was converted to a meeting hall and multi-purpose venue, called the Manhattan Center.

The meeting hall was a favorite venue for political meetings.  A two-day mass meeting was held here on in 1942 to pressure the Government to release Communist leader Earl Browder from an Atlanta prison.  An announcement in The New York Age on March 28 urged, "Trade unions, fraternal societies, religious and young peoples organizations, send delegates to the National Free Browder Congress at Manhattan Center, 311 West 34th street, Saturday and Sunday, March 28-29."

A banner at this National Communist Party meeting reads, "Communism is 20th Century Americanism."  original source unknown.

A somewhat surprising meeting was held here following the end of World War II.  On January 26, 1946, The New York Age reported on the "Rally for Democratic Japan" to be held on January 24, 1946.  It was sponsored by the Japanese American Committee for Democracy, which stressed, "Japanese who are sympathetic to American ideals must be used in reconstructing a democratic Japan."

The use of the Manhattan Center continued to morph over the decades.  The Manhattan Center Studios was organized in 1986 for multimedia events.  The group opened Studio 4 in 1993, with a cutting edge control room for recordings and live ballroom events.  Other studios followed, all connected to the Ballrooms and capable of recording the events there.

The Hammerstein Ballroom, photo by aconson

The Hammerstein Ballroom was the venue of "WWF Monday Night Raw" airings beginning in January 1993.  Episodes of the "Impact Wrestling" television program were taped here in 2014, and several seasons of "America's Got Talent" took place here.

photo by Tdorante10

The Manhattan Center continues to be house event, production and performance spaces.  And those passing by or even entering the building, can hardly imagine that it was once one of New York City's premier opera houses.

Many thanks to reader Rich Conrad for requesting this post

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Remarkable History in an Unremarkable Building -- No. 105 2nd Avenue

photo by Alice Lum

At the turn of the last century police were carefully watching the five-story building at No. 105 Second Avenue.  John Mikolaus had operated his restaurant, The Crystal Palace Café, from the ground floor since around 1895, renting the modest apartments upstairs.  But rumors of an illegal “gambling house” in the building keep detectives on alert. 

Traveling salesman Abraham Ginsberg gave credence to the allegations when he lodged a complaint in April 1903.  “He said he had made an engagement to meet a man in the café Thursay, and that while there he was induced to play stuss, a German card game.  His money, he said, was soon gone, and then he discovered that the cards had been marked.”

Despite the questionable goings-on, Mikolaus was a fair employer and when waiters across the city went on strike in 1915, his staff stood by him.  On December 14 a mob of several hundred strikers gathered outside the restaurant.  They pushed their way into the establishment, telling diners not to eat there and intimidating the waiters to join them.  Neither happened.

Angry, the rabble broke mirrors, overturned tables and hurled bricks through the windows.  The New York Times reported “Mikolaus was dragged onto the sidewalk, where the crowd fell upon and beat him.  In the scuffle his diamond pin worth $275 was removed from his tie and $40 was taken from a pocket.  In another pocket $900 escaped unnoticed.”

Apparently convinced that the best way to achieve fair working conditions was through violence and theft, the mob turned on John Mikolaus, Jr., a muscular, athletic young man whom The Times called “more than a match for all who could reach him.”

The younger Mikolaus “knocked down man after man until someone struck him on the head with a blackjack.  Although the wound required five stitches later to sew it up, it did not stop Mikolaus and he was still fighting when Policeman Doyle of the Fifth Street Station ran up, saw the mob now numbering nearly 1,000, and sent in a call for the reserves.”

The mob “slunk away” with the arrival of police back-up; but eight were arrested on charges of grand larceny.  There were, strangely enough, no arrests for assault or destruction of property.

The restaurant sat squarely in what was by now the epicenter of Jewish life.  New York City had the largest Jewish population of any city in the world.  Second Avenue around Mikolaus’ building became known as The Jewish Rialto--named for the string of Yiddish-language theaters that opened between Houston Street and 14^th Streets.  By the early 1920s an entire star system had developed among the Yiddish actors.

After three decades of doing business here, John Mikolaus sold his building in October 1924.  The New York Times reported that the buyer would “improve the property.”   “Improving property” in the early decades of the last century translated into demolishing and replacing whatever stood on the site.  And, indeed, the M. & S. Circuit Company did just that.

The new owners commissioned architect Harrison G. Wiseman to design a five-story vaudeville theater-and-office building.  Completed within the year, it was a rather bland red brick structure trimmed in stone with tepid Moorish influence.  Any focus to ornamentation was reserved for the interiors.  Here Art Deco joined with classic, dramatic theater architecture—vaulted arches, gilded and polychrome pilasters and medallions, and chandeliers.

The 2,830-seat Commodore Theatre did not last long as a Yiddish playhouse, though.  Quickly it was taken over by the Loews motion picture chain.  Loews gently moved from live acts to movies, offering both during the first years of operation.  In a brilliant marketing move, the chain hired professional baseball players on the off-season of 1928 to lure customers.  The Times reported on October 5 “Andrew (Andy) Cohen and J. Francis (Shanty) Hogan, who during the baseball season are members of the New York Giants, have been engaged by the Loew Circuit, it is announced.  They will make their first appearances on Oct. 15 at Loew’s Commodore Theatre, Second Avenue and Sixth Street.”

Wiseman used Flemish-bond brick with charred ends and limited white limestone trim to distinguish the facade -- photo by Alice Lum

One year later the Great Depression hit and began a dismal period of unemployment.  Among the hardest hit were the already impoverished residents of the Lower East Side.  On November 26, 1931 the Commodore was the scene of a moving rally.

“More than 4,000 east side children attended a meeting and movie show at the Commodore Theatre,” said The Times.  The event signaled the end of a children-run campaign for unemployment relief.  “The pennies of all these children and many thousands more, pupils of Jewish schools and Jewish parochial schools, have gone to swell the unemployment relief fund, it was reported at the meeting.  In addition, the children visited 12,000 stores and 6,000 homes for contributions, as part of the block-to-block canvass being conducted by the Emergency Unemployment Relief Committee.”

In 1936 the double-feature included Mae Clarke in "Hearts in Bondage" and Robert Young in "The Longest Night." photo NYPL Collection

In 1956 New York City police were confounded by a “Mad Bomber,” who kept the bomb squad rushing from one crowded building to another.  The bomber called in the locations of his devices—most just harmless facsimiles; others far too real.  A live pipe bomb was found in a telephone booth in the main New York Public Library and another in the Paramount Theatre on Broadway and 43^rd Street.  They were detonated by the squad.

As reports were published in newspapers, hoaxers got in to the act.  The number of calls became so great that, in frustration, Chief of Detectives James B. Leggett ordered the bomb squad to cease responding to alarms unless a device was actually discovered.  It was, as described by The Times, “a field day for cranks, holiday-season pranksters, lunatic fringers and youths with a perverted sense of humor.”

On December 18, 1956 alone, telephoned threats were directed at “a church, a hospital, the new Coliseum, the new forty-five story Socony-Mobil Building, Grand Central Terminal, the Port Authority Bus Terminal, Carnegie Hall Studios, a department store in Brooklyn, hotels, subway stations, and trains, bank buildings, newspaper offices, neighborhood movie theatres, and just plain buildings.”  The Commodore was not immune.  “Another dud that sent the police racing to the scene was found at the Commodore Theatre on Second Avenue near Sixth Street,” said The Times.

In October 1963 the Commodore became the Village Theatre when a syndicate run by Joseph R. Burstin, Milt Warner and Bernard Waltzer purchased the building.  The new owners told reporters it would be renovated into an off-Broadway live theater, stressing it “would not be burlesque,” according to The Times.  The renovated space opened in November 1964 and, despite the promise, offered burlesque. 

The venture failed.  On December 24 the following year The Times noted that the theater was “recently the scene of two ill-fated attempts to revive burlesque.”  Roger Euster purchased the Village Theater, hoping to develop it into “a prime showcase for Broadway productions.”

Theater would give way to concerts when in 1967 WOR-FM radio station staged a live music event here to celebrate its first anniversary.   The audience heard performances by Janis Ian, The Doors, Richie Havens, The Blue Project and other popular groups.  It was the beginning of a new period for the venue and musical history in America.

Bill Graham Presents purchased the building shortly afterwards.  On March 8, 1968 it reopened as the Fillmore East, the New York bookend to Graham’s San Francisco Fillmore West.  It quickly became the mecca of East Coast popular music lovers, staging several concerts a week.  The first year alone Big Brother & the Holding Company, The Doors; Richie Havens, The Who, Mothers of Invention, the James Cotton Band, Iron Butterfly, Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, Sly and the Family Stone, the Byrds, Ravi Shankar, Moby Grape. The Grateful Dead, Steppenwolf, Joan Baez, Blood Sweat and Tears, the Beach Boys, Creedence Clearwater Revival, the Moody Blues, and Fleetwood Mac played here.

Then, citing “changes in music” and saying “this is an industry we can no longer work in with integrity,” Graham closed down the Fillmore East on June 27, 1971.  The iconic venue which George Gent of The New York Times called “the best showplace for rock music in New York” sat dark for over three years; until Barry Stuart reopened it as the NFE Theatre with a concert by Bachman-Turner Overdrive.  The acronym stood for New Fillmore East and, reportedly, Bill Graham objected to the name, resulting in its being changed to Village East.

Stuart’s concert venue would survive for only four years.  After its 1975 closing, the building again sat dark until 1980 when entrepreneur Bruce Mailman and his partner, architectural designer Charles Terrell converted it to the country’s ultimate gay club—The Saint.  The $4.5 million renovation set the standard for disco-period nightclubs nationwide.  Thousands crowded onto a 5,000 square-foot circular dance floor below a domed planetarium ceiling.  The rotating, dual Spitz Space System hemisphere star projector was ten times more powerful than those used in planetariums.  Celebrity performers like Helen Reddy, Chita Rivera, the Weather Girls, Maureen McGovern and Melba Moore entertained the audiences.

But the lavish club that kept ahead of competition by annually remodeling itself had opened at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic.  By the end of its second year, New York’s gay population was being decimated.  In 1987 the Saint, as iconic in its own sense as the Fillmore East, closed its doors for good.  A former patron said “The Saint was killed by AIDS.  Its clients were literally dying.”

photo by Alice Lum

Today the ground floor space is a disappointing denouement to a remarkable story.  Where Yiddish theater was followed by motion pictures, where burlesque was followed by Off-Broadway plays, where Janis Joplin entertained thousands before gay men danced below a gigantic planetarium is now a bland bank office.  The generations who remember No. 105 Second Avenue as the Village Theatre, the Fillmore East, or the Saint are fading and the history that played out inside the unremarkable building is mostly forgotten.

The 1926 Yiddish Art Theatre -- 181 2nd Avenue

photo by Alice Lum

A visitor to Second Avenue in the Lower East Side today sees little trace of the vibrant Jewish culture that thrived along the avenue in the 1910s and ‘20s.  One remnant stands out among the gourmet coffee houses, ethnic restaurants and trendy bars—the old Yiddish Art Theatre at the southwest corner of East 12^th Street.

By the turn of the last century, the Lower East Side was crowded with Jewish immigrants.  New York City had the largest Jewish population of any city in the world and by 1920 nearly a third of the city’s citizens were Jewish.  Although some, like many of the German-born Jews, attempted to assimilate into their new environment; most of the Eastern Europeans held fast to their old customs and depended on Yiddish to communicate among the several Jewish regional groups.

Most of New York’s various ethnic communities developed their own means of entertainments.  The Germans built music halls and beer gardens, the Hungarians had expansive social halls.   The Eastern European Jews, among their other social venues, developed the Yiddish theater.  Here in the 1880s and 1890s Victorian melodramas, vaudeville revues, operettas and comedies were staged for the entertainment of mostly poor audiences.

By the 1920s, however, an entire star system had appeared in the Yiddish theater and Second Avenue, between Houston and 14^th Streets was known as the Jewish Rialto, with nearly two dozen such theaters.  Among the celebrities in the circuit was actor Maurice Schwartz, familiarly known as “Mr. Second Avenue.”  Schwartz had pulled together his own company, the Yiddish Art Theater.

Maurice Schwartz is seen, in 1933, in and out of character -- photographs from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

On January 29, 1922 The New York Times said of him, “Schwartz is a man of extraordinary and varied talent—a bold director, a strong and resourceful stage designer, and a manager astute enough to keep the finances of the Art theatre on an even keel.  He is an actor of great, though uneven, gifts—a superb character actor and, when the humor of the part takes him, an unctuous comedian.”

By 1922 he was trending away from “art theater” and towards Jewish “folk theater.”  The Times described one of his plays that year.  “For it is a folk theatre, rather than an art theatre in any sophisticated sense.  It has reopened a whole tradition of culture that was in danger of being forgotten.  And the most interesting and logical outcome has been the extension of this perception into a play of American life.”

But Schwartz faced problems.  His artistic productions were daring and innovative; but theater managers were not always eager to stage his financially-risky plays. 

Russian-born lawyer Louis Nathaniel Jaffe admired Schwartz (apparently quite a lot) and offered to build a permanent home for Schwartz’s company.  In May 1925 he announced plans for a 1,252-seat theater that would also incorporate revenue-producing stores and office space.

Jaffe chose for his architect Ohio-born Harrison G. Wiseman.  Wiseman was best known for his theater designs, many of them movie theaters.  The architect drew on Moorish traditions for the theater, recalling many of the synagogues built in the new world throughout the past half century.  Moorish Revival harkened back to the pre-Inquisition days when Jews enjoyed relative freedom in Spain.

The cornerstone of what would be called the Louis N. Jaffe Art Theatre Building was laid on May 23, 1926.   Playwright Herman Bernstein called the cornerstone laying “an event of magnitude for Jews of America.”  He mentioned the difficulties Schwartz’s company had undergone.

photo by Alice Lum

“Maurice Schwartz has dared to produce plays that commercial managers would turn down with a sneer and that even ambitious producers on the American stage, with leanings for art, lacked the courage to present.”

Completed that year, the theater building was faced in cast stone.  The three-story structure pretended to be only two by the use of a double-height arcade.  Above the theater entrance a dramatic Moorish arch dominated the façade.  Within it, two half-columns sported oversized capitals that suspiciously resembled partial menorahs.

photo by Alice Lum

The relatively reserved exterior belied the sumptuous polychrome interior.  Wiseman collaborated with Willy Pogany on the interior decoration and the result was remarkable.   The New York Sun remarked that the pair had “worked a colorful fantasy of silver, blue, rose, gold and cream into the massive lines of the auditorium.”  The newspaper said that the “Oriental beauty of the interior” was well worth a trip to view.

The Moorish motif was continued, to a subdued degree, on the brick-faced auditorium portion to the rear -- photo by Alice Lum

Moorish and Jewish motifs interplayed to create a colorful arabesque in plaster, wrought iron and stone.   The Yiddish Art Theatre was on par with any of the grand Broadway legitimate theaters or the increasingly lavish motion pictures theaters being built across the city.

The doors opened on November 18, 1926 with Schwartz’s adaptation of The Tenth Commandment by Abraham Goldfaden (credited as founder of the Yiddish theater).  Jaffe housed his own Jaffe Art Film Corporation in the building; however that enterprise quickly ended.  The company produced one Yiddish film, entitled "Broken Hearts," which was released in March 1926 before construction on the building was even started.  It was directed by and featured Maurice Schwartz.

photo by Alice Lum

Conflicts between Jaffe and the actor-director would soon cause problems.  The Yiddish Art Theatre stayed on in the house built specifically for it only two seasons.   Then the building sat empty for a year; although Maurice Schwartz still held the lease.

On March 12, 1927 The Times noted that a $375,000 loan was placed on the building by the New York Title and Loan Company.  Jaffe apparently decided to wash his hands of the project, for on May 3, 1928 the newspaper reported that the building had been sold.  “The new owner will operate the playhouse,” it said.  It would be the first of a long string of name changes for the theater.

It became the Yiddish Folks Theater and in the 1929-1930 seasons Ludwig Satz starred in and directed several plays.  Then in June 1930 one of the brightest lights of the Yiddish stage, Molly Picon, leased the theater and renamed it Molly Picon’s Folks Theater.  Using it as her own vehicle, she appeared for one season; during which the building was sold at foreclosure to Isaac Lipshitz for a bid of $433,375.

Over and over the theater would be released and renamed.  It became the Germans’ Folks Theater in 1931 and the Yiddish Art Theatre (again) in 1932 when Maurice Schwartz returned home.  But Schwartz would stay only until 1934, leaving in the middle of the season.  He took the name with him and the building returned to being called The Yiddish Folks Theater.  The Depression era WPA Theatre Project took over the venue in March 1936.  The New York Times announced that it would “house productions prepared by the Municipal Theatre.”  The Federal Theatre was the first step away from Yiddish productions in the building’s history.

The real estate game of hot potato with the theater building continued.  In September 1944, now called The Century Theatre Building,” it was sold to the Raynes Realty Company.   By now there was a night club in the basement; one which a few years later would raise eyebrows and make New York social history.  The 1944-45 season for the New Jewish Folk Theater would be the last of the Yiddish productions here for three decades.

photo by Alice Lum

Below ground Stephen Franse opened Club 181.  Franse was connected with the Genovese crime family and operated the gay supper club as a front for the mob.  A former waiter described the club as it was in 1948 to Alison Owings in her book “Hey, Waitress!” 

“It was like the homosexual Copacabana.  It was a lovely club. Wedgewood walls, white and blue.  It had a nice stage.  They had the cream of the crop, as far as female impersonators.  These weren’t just drag queens.  They were guys that had talent behind their costumes.  The costumes were lavish and wonderful.”

Club 181 was not exclusively for gay patrons.   Heterosexual couples or groups came to the supper club for the experience.  “It was like a slumming place to go to.  Anybody could come in there.  Anybody would come in there,” said the former waiter.

The gay nightspot closed in 1953 when it moved to 82 East 4^th Street, renamed Club 82.  That same year the theater became The Phoenix Theater, an off-Broadway venue intended “to release actors, directors, playwrights, and designers from the pressures forced on them by the hit-or-flop patterns of Broadway.”

The company offered high-end products at affordable ticket prices.  It opened in December of that year with Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn playing in Madam, Will You Walk.  Throughout its near decade of productions here, audiences saw the best of the New York stage, including Geraldine Fitzgerald, Maureen Stapleton, Kaye Ballard, Montgomery Clift, Uta Hagen, Eli Wallach, Lillian Gish, Robert Ryan, Geraldine Fitzgerald and a host of others.

It was here that Carol Burnett’s career was launched with the highly successful musical comedy Once Upon a Mattress.

In 1961 The New York Times reported that “The Phoenix Theatre, which is in need of funds, will switch its activities from its 1200-seat home” to a more economical venue.  With the departure of the Phoenix the name, once again, rapidly changed. 

Now the Casino East Theater, it hosted Ann Corio’s This Was Burlesque for three full years between March 1962 and March 1965, with over 1,500 performances.  The production set a trend that would last for several years as the house was renamed the Gayety Theater in 1965, Manhattan’s only burlesque house of the period.

The Gayety lasted until 1969 when, once again, the theater was renamed.  Now the Eden Theater it presented the then-controversial Oh! Calcutta! which shocked some theater-goers with its full nudity.  The successful production ran a year and a half before moving on to Broadway.  It was followed by the musical Grease in 1972, which too went to Broadway and theatrical fame.

Rather unexpectedly, the Eden staged several Yiddish productions for a few years.   The theater was, for a short time, the 12^th Street Cinema, then in 1977 became the Entermedia Theater.  The hope was to stage experimental theater, films and dance.  Finally, after several more name changes, it was converted to a motion picture complex.  Architectural firm John Averitt Associates sympathetically renovated it as the Village East City Cinemas, opened in 1991.

Ornate plaster ceilings that had suffered substantial damage were restored.  Both the exterior and interior of the former Yiddish Art Theatre have been designed New York City landmarks.  The theater survives today as one of the few remaining reminders of the time when Second Avenue, the Jewish Rialto, was the epicenter of the Jewish entertainment district.