Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Happy Birthday: The Lincoln Turns 90
As reported on NYPress.com, Harlem's first black theater is turning the ripe old age of ninety.
The designation of "oldest" black theater apparently does not belong to the hallowed Apollo. First named the Hurtig & Seamon's Music Hall in 1913 according to NYPress.com, the H & S Music hall "... (did not allow) ... African Americans to cross its door ..."
Of all Harlem's big theaters, only one was desegregated from the day it opened: New York's New Lincoln Theatere. The website found this quote about the Lincoln, "... unique among the playhouses of America is New York's New Lincoln Theatre, located on 135th Street… catering exclusively to a colored clientele..."
The article, from the June 1916 issue of Theatre magazine, praises the Lincoln Theater (which had opened the previous year) for housing what is probably the first African-American stock company in Harlem: "a building and an entertainment in which [patrons] might take pride."
American Theatre of Harlem, we know from whence we came.
The designation of "oldest" black theater apparently does not belong to the hallowed Apollo. First named the Hurtig & Seamon's Music Hall in 1913 according to NYPress.com, the H & S Music hall "... (did not allow) ... African Americans to cross its door ..."
Of all Harlem's big theaters, only one was desegregated from the day it opened: New York's New Lincoln Theatere. The website found this quote about the Lincoln, "... unique among the playhouses of America is New York's New Lincoln Theatre, located on 135th Street… catering exclusively to a colored clientele..."
The article, from the June 1916 issue of Theatre magazine, praises the Lincoln Theater (which had opened the previous year) for housing what is probably the first African-American stock company in Harlem: "a building and an entertainment in which [patrons] might take pride."
American Theatre of Harlem, we know from whence we came.
