RKO Jefferson Theatre
214 E. 14th Street,
New York,
NY
10003
214 E. 14th Street,
New York,
NY
10003
3 people
favorited this theater
The Jefferson Theatre opened in 1913 as a B.F. Keith’s vaudeville theater in what is now known as the edge of the East Village. Later the RKO Jefferson Theatre, this theater was located at 214 E. 14th Street near Third Avenue. The entrance was a narrow space between two tenement houses with the bulk of the theatre (auditorium) located in 13th Street.
The RKO Jefferson Theatre operated until at least 1977. It lay empty for over two decades and was demolished in 2000. Today, the site is filled with bricks and debris from the demolition and the old Jefferson Theatre has passed on.
Contributed by
John Chappell
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Recent comments (view all 90 comments)
Joe, I found some more. The last mention is Sunday, February 25, 1951. The show included the features “The Glass Menagerie” and “Grounds for Marriage” plus ‘Vaudeville All Day’.
Wow! I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if I was there. How do you get this information and is there anyway you could send me a digital photo these ads?
It’s a significant part of my early life and it’s leading me to try and produce some vaudeville shows as I remember them.
Thanks for any help you can offer in this.
Joe, the ads are New York Times RKO directories and do not include any details about the Vaudeville acts themselves. I am not sure this will help you much.
But the ads mention that the they had vaudeville acts at a certain time and date, don’t they? This would just confirm how old I must have been when seeing them. The details would be helpful but I have the general vaudeville productions in my memory. I can see in my mind the pianist who served as the band director conducting the performers on stage and the musicians in the pit. It was a small band of some five to six pieces but they were excellent, enormously dynamic.
The NYT ad would be only an inspiring memento as I work on possible vaudeville productions on the Oregon Coast. I could make a poster collage of varied vaudeville ads.
Anyway, that’s kind of my imaginative game that I would really enjoy. I do produce many shows out here but vaudeville has been in the back of my mind for decades, all because of the wonderful experiences I had at the Jefferson Theater and occasionally at the Academy of Music a block further west on 14th St.
Thanks for any mementos I might receive. Thanks to anyone who can provide newspaper clippings or posters of Jefferson Theater vaudeville.
On this night only in 1948, the RKO Jefferson presented five acts of vaudeville (no specific names listed) in addition to MGM’s B&W epic “Green Dolphin Street” and UA’s “Fabulous Joe” (a Hal Roach “streamliner” in Cinecolor). The films were second-run for the area, having played two weeks earlier at Loew’s Commodore.
This was still showing movies in 1977.
George Burns mentions this theater many times — on his TV show, in his books, in his act. Apparently there was a real tough crowd in this house.
The vacant lot will soon be apartments.
http://thejefferson.com/site/home.php
I love how the apartments are in “North West East Village.” And that would be in the southern half of Manhattan…
There was a brief mention of the theater in this week’s East Villager. Apartments are going up in its place and it said it was demolished 15 years ago.