Wednesday, February 9, 2022 – BEFORE MACYS EVERYONE GAVE “THEIR REGARDS TO HERALD SQUARE”
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2022
593rd Issue
Koster and Bial’s Music Hall
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
&
Daytonian in Manhattan
In the last half of the 19th Century 23rd Street was the theatre district of Manhattan – opera houses, music halls, theatres and vaudeville houses lined the street from 5th to 8th Avenue. At the northwest corner of 23rd Street and 6th Avenue was Bryant’s Opera House – the home of the highly elaborate and popular minstrel troupe, Bryant’s Minstrels, perhaps most remembered for premiering the song “Dixie” and other Stephen Foster songs. When it was put up for sale in 1878, German-born Albert Bial and John Koster, who ran German-style concert hall and beer garden next door, took it over.
The newly-named “Koster and Bial’s Music Hall” included a closed 1200-seat vaudeville theatre and open-air beer garden. Because there was a law against selling alcohol in a theatre, the stage curtain was removed and a folding screen put in its place. And with that the music hall became a restaurant offering entertainment rather than a theatre offering food and drink.
Moses King, in his 1892 Handbook of New York City referred to Koster and Bial’s as “high-class” and said that the “entertainments are of the vaudeville or variety order, like those given at the Alhambra in London and the Eldorado in Paris, with a burlesque to lead the programme…”
In 1886 Koster and Bial commissioned German architects Herman J. Schwarzmann and Albert Buchman to build a saloon and retail outlet for their beer bottling business a block north at the corner of 24th Street and 6th Avenue. Construction of the 4-story brick building with brownstone and terra cotta trim was completed on January 25, 1887.
The saloon was dubbed “The Corner” and an exuberant metal cornice proclaimed the name as well as KOSTER & BIAL. On the 2nd floor corner of the building brownstone plaques carved with whimsical late Victorian lettering reading “The Corner,” doubled as street signs. Patrons entered through an ornate entrance of cast iron, stained glass and polished wood. The music hall and the saloon were joined so theatre-goers could enter either through the main entrance at 23rd Street or through The Corner building.
Koster and Bial’s Music Hall
Koster and Bial’s Music Hall was an important vaudeville theatre in New York City, located at Broadway and Thirty-Fourth Street, where Macy’s flagship store now stands. It had a seating capacity of 3,748, twice the size of many theaters. Ticket prices ranged from 25¢ for a seat in the gallery to $1.50 for one in the orchestra.[1] The venue was founded by John Koster (1844-1895) and Albert Bial (1842-1897) in the late 19th century and closed in 1901.
Trouble started when Koster and Bial offered more than food, drink and vaudeville. They also offered gentlemen patrons the paid favors of women. The New York Times, in a 1902 article reminiscing about former theatres, remarked “While Koster & Bial were in Twenty-third Street the notorious ‘cork room’ existed in their theatre. The walls of this room were covered with stoppers from champagne bottles, and the affairs that took place in the room in the late hours after show time would have astonished the churchgoers. In fact, what happened in the ‘cork room’ did finally become so well known that the affairs had to be stopped.”
The scandal of police raids forced John Koster to close the music hall on 23rd Street in 1893. Koster and Bial moved to 34th Street, partnering with Oscar Hammerstein I in the opening of a new Koster and Bial’s Music Hall.
The last Koster and Bial’s Music Hall originated when they moved uptown into the former Manhattan Opera House, a huge theatre built in Herald Square in 1892 by Oscar Hammerstein I in pursuit of his passion for grand opera.[citation needed] Quickly running into financial problems, Hammerstein decided to convert his theatre to a vaudeville format. He offered Koster and Bial a partnership under which he would manage the entertainment and they would manage the food. The new Koster and Bial’s Music Hall opened on August 28, 1893 and proved to be very successful. Hammerstein however quarreled with his partners and lawsuits ensued. Ultimately Koster and Bial bought out Hammerstein and operated the theater solely on their own.[4] The theatre finally closed in 1901 and was demolished to make way for Macy’s Department Store.[5]
The pictures were projected on a twenty-foot screen in an ornate gilded frame.
On April 24, the Times reported: Koster and Bial’s Music Hall.jpg EDISON’S VITASCOPE CHEERED. “Projecting Kinetoscope” Exhibited for First Time at Koster and Bial’s. …
The ingenious inventor’s latest toy is a projection of his kinetoscope figures in stereopticon fashion on a white screen in a darkened hall. In the center of the balcony of the big music hall is a curious object, which looks from below like the double turret of a big monitor. In the front of each half of it are two oblong holes.
The turret is neatly covered with … blue velvet brocade… The moving figures are about half life size. …a buzzing and roaring were heard in the turret, and an unusually bright light fell upon the screen. Then came into view two precious blonde young persons of the variety stage in pink and blue dresses, doing the umbrella dance with commendable celerity.
Their motions were clearly defined. When they vanished, a view of an angry surf breaking on a sandy beach near a stone pier amazed the spectators.
A burlesque boxing match between a tall, thin comedian and a short, fat one, a comic allegory called “The Monroe Doctrine”; an instant of motion in Hoyt’s farce, “A Milk White Flag,” repeated over and over again, and a skirt dance by a tall blonde completed the views, which were all wonderfully real and singularly exhilarating.
Walking past Macy’s between 6th and 7th Avenues, I passed this plaque commemorating Edison’s Vitascope first presenation on this site.
Placed on the wall with millions passing by daily. And, I stopped to read it!
https://www.nypl.org/events/programs/2022/02/15/clone-rihs-lecture-footsteps-nellie-bly
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Tuesday Photo of the Day
Shakespeare’s Globe theatre opened in 1997 is a replica of the original Globe theatre in Bankside, England near the site of the original Globe Theatre. from Laura Hussey.
Ed Litcher also got it right!
Text by Judith Berdy
Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS
Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website
Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
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Wikipedia
Daytonian in Manhattan
BROOKLYN MUSEUM
New York City collection by Dior.Photo courtesy Brooklyn Museum.
There are never-before-seen sections from Dior dedicated only to the Brooklyn Museum. Photo courtesy Brooklyn Museum.
Marilyn Monroe’s The Last Sitting byBert Stern
Y line dress worn by Dovima.Photo courtesy Brooklyn Museum.
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