Miner's Bowery Theatre site

169 Bowery | Lower East Side | built 1920

Open on the map4 entries

The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

  1. 1878

    Former policeman and congressman Henry Clay Miner opens Miner's Bowery Theatre for variety shows

    In 1878 Henry Clay Miner, a former city policeman who went on to serve in Congress, opened a small theater on this stretch of the Bowery between Broome and Delancey Streets. This was an earlier building on the site. It staged variety bills of singing, dancing and acrobatics, and boys lined up with ten cents in hand to cheer, jeer and stomp, sometimes annoying the pricier seats below.

    Source: Ephemeral New York

  2. 1890

    Miner's invents "the hook" to yank failing amateurs off its Friday night stage

    In the 1890s, as variety gave way to vaudeville, Miner's made its Friday amateur nights rowdier by giving acts "the hook." A 1997 New York Times piece, cited by Ephemeral New York, says a stage manager tied a prop shepherd's crook to a pole to drag the most scorned performers offstage mid-act, while those who won the crowd took home five dollars. The taunt of giving someone the hook is traced to this theater, an earlier building on the site.

    Source: Ephemeral New York

  3. 1908

    Sixteen-year-old Eddie Cantor survives the hook and wins amateur night at Miner's

    In 1908 a 16-year-old from the Lower East Side named Eddie Cantor performed at Miner's Bowery Theatre on an amateur night and was not jeered off. David Weinstein's 2018 Cantor biography has him lining up with the other acts that outlasted the hook while the crowd voted by noise and applause. Cantor took the five-dollar nightly prize, at an earlier building on this site.

    Source: Ephemeral New York

  4. 1929

    August 8

    Fire destroys Miner's Bowery Theatre after 51 years

    Miner's Bowery Theatre was destroyed by fire on August 8, 1929, ending a run that began in 1878. Its stage had hosted comedian Sam Bernard, Eddie Cantor, and the parents of George M. Cohan, Jeremiah and Helen. The New York Times ran a retrospective titled "Miner's Bowery was a landmark" three days later; this was an earlier building on the site.

    “The theater was destroyed by a fire August 8, 1929.”

    Source: Wikipedia

Further reading

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