The Lincoln Theatre is a theater located on 135th Street near Lenox Avenue in
Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street (Manhattan), 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and 110th Street (Manhattan), ...
,
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
. It opened in 1915 and was the first theater in a then predominantly white neighborhood in Harlem to cater to black audiences. The theater reached its peak of fame in the 1920s, when entertainers such as
Bessie Smith
Bessie Smith (April 15, 1894 – September 26, 1937) was an American blues singer widely renowned during the Jazz Age. Nicknamed the " Empress of the Blues", she was the most popular female blues singer of the 1930s. Inducted into the Rock and ...
,
Florence Mills
Florence Mills (born Florence Winfrey; January 25, 1896 – November 1, 1927), billed as the "Queen of Happiness", was an American cabaret singer, dancer, and comedian.
Life and career
Florence Mills (Florence Winfrey) was born a daughter of for ...
, and
Fats Waller
Thomas Wright "Fats" Waller (May 21, 1904 – December 15, 1943) was an American jazz pianist, organist, composer, violinist, singer, and comedic entertainer. His innovations in the Harlem stride style laid much of the basis for modern jazz pi ...
headlined.
(Fats Waller had been hired as the organ player of the theater when he was fifteen years old.) The Lincoln Theatre was the only place in New York where
Ma Rainey
Gertrude "Ma" Rainey ( Pridgett; April 26, 1886 – December 22, 1939) was an American blues singer and influential early blues recording artist. Dubbed the "Mother of the Blues", she bridged earlier vaudeville and the authentic expression of s ...
performed.
Background
The theater was originally a
nickelodeon
Nickelodeon (often shortened to Nick) is an American pay television television channel, channel which launched on April 1, 1979, as the first cable channel for children. It is run by Paramount Global through its List of assets owned by Param ...
called the Nickelette. In 1909, the building was purchased by Maria C. Downs, who increased the seating and changed its name to the Lincoln Theatre. Due to the
Great Migration happening around this time, more African Americans were moving to Harlem; however, many of the theaters in Harlem were segregated or completely closed to black audiences. Downs made the Lincoln into a theater for black people, hosting black shows and black performers, then had the current Lincoln Theatre building constructed in 1915.
References
External links
Photograph of the theater in 1936
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Harlem
Theatres in New York City