Lafayette Theater

According to James Trager’s book “The New York Chronology” the Lafayette Theater opened in November, 1912. It was designed by architect Victor Hugo Koehler. Only white patrons were admitted to the orchestra floor until August of 1913, when the Lafayette became the first New York City theater to integrate.

Incidentally, the Office for Metropolitan History’s Manhattan Database lists three theaters designed by Koehler that I’ve been unable to track down. They are: a 1902 project for a four story theater and loft building, 100x100, at the southeast corner of Grand and Chrystie; a 1913 two story movie theater, 41x90, at 11-13 W. 116th Street; and a one story movie theater, also 41x90, at 385-387 Third Avenue. Maybe somebody familiar with Manhattan will be able to identify these theaters.

http://www.bigapplejazz.com/tree_of_hope.htm

You should try the NYPL’s Schomburg Center in Harlem and the Billy Rose Theatre Collection at Lincoln Center. If neither have it, you might be out of luck. Happy hunting!

Here’s a 1930 ad when the Lafayette called itself “America’s Leading Colored Theatre.” Programs changed weekly, and consisted of a stage revue and movie. The next screen attraction would feature Stepin Fetchit, “Greatest Colored Star”:
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The Lafayette is significant as the home of the Lafayette Players, the first black professional theater troupe in the country. Organized by Anita Bush, the troupe first performed at the Lafayette on Dec. 27, 1915 in a play titled “Across the Footlights.” The troupe had begun life a month earlier as the Anita Bush Players, performing at the Lincoln Theater, but soon moved to the Lafayette.

The five original members: Bush, Charles Gilpin, Carlotta Freeman, Andrew Bishop and Dooley Wilson (of ‘Casablanca’ fame). All of them went on to long careers in show business.

A favorite note about the players: In January 1916, they performed ‘The Octoroon" in which most of them performed in white face! It must have been an exciting experience for black audiences accustomed to seeing white minstrel performers in black face.

Here is a 1927 exterior view of the Lafayette. The marquee reads, in part, “Colored Musical Revues”.

The Lafayette Theater is listed in the American Motion Picture Directory 1914-1915. In its early years it was a segregated house that had a seperate seating area for blacks. Listed in Film Daily Yearbook’s 1930-1933 and 1940-1949 as a Negro theatre catering for African American audiences, the seating capacity given varies from 1,245 (presumably for motion pictures, minus the black seating area?) to 2,000 seats as a stage theatre with all seats counted when it was de-segregated.

Bill “Bojangles” Robinson played here in 1915. Fats Waller was a regular player on the organ. Other artists who appeared on stage here include Duke Ellington band in 1922, Bessie Smith and Cab Calloway.

The production of “Macbeth” was a black version, directed by Orson Welles for the Federal Theater Program of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), as was a black production of “The Hot Mikado”.