Yiddish theater poster for "Saints and Sinners" at Jennie Goldstein's National Theatre (1935)
Yiddish theater poster for "Saints and Sinners" at Jennie Goldstein's National Theatre (1935)

The National Theater was a Yiddish theater at the southwest corner of Chrystie Street and Houston Street in the Yiddish Theater District in Manhattan, New York City, United States.[1] When first built it was leased to Boris Thomashefsky and Julius Adler.[2] Its grand opening as the Adler-Thomashefsky National Theatre was on September 24, 1912.[3][4]

The theater was one of the many designed by architect Thomas W. Lamb, and seated 1,900 when it opened. It was built as one of a pair of theaters, with the Crown Theater, seating 963, in the rooftop theater.[5] Both theaters closed in 1941, re-opened in 1951 as a pair of cinemas (the National Theater and the Roosevelt Theater), and were demolished in 1959.[2]

References

  1. ^ Stein, Joshua David (26 January 2007). "See the Lower East Side: If Not Now, When?". Gridskipper. Archived from the original on 25 January 2013. Retrieved 27 March 2011.
  2. ^ a b "National Theatre & Roosevelt Theatre". Cinema Treasures. Retrieved March 27, 2011.
  3. ^ Zylbercweig, Zalmen (1934). "Tomashefsky, Boris" (in Yiddish). Leksikon fun yidishn teater [Lexicon of the Yiddish theatre]. Vol. 2. Warsaw: Farlag Elisheva. Columns 804-840; here: col. 822.
  4. ^ "Grand Opening of the Adler-Thomashefsky National Theatre, Houston St. and Second Avenue" [program] (1912). New York: Lipshitz Press. For performance on September 24, 1912. Digitized version retrieved via the New York Public Library, 2016-12-26.
  5. ^ Thissen, Judith (April 16, 2023). "Curtain Falls on the Sunshine…". Digital Yiddish Theatre Project. March 12, 2018. Retrieved April 18, 2023.

40°43′24.42″N 73°59′29.1″W / 40.7234500°N 73.991417°W / 40.7234500; -73.991417


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