Victoria Theater

233 West 125th Street | also 235 West 125th Street, 230A West 126th Street, 228B West 126th Street | Harlem | built 1917

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

  1. 1917

    October 3

    Loew's opens the Victoria Theater on West 125th Street

    Architect Thomas W. Lamb designs a 2,394-seat vaudeville and movie palace for Loew's, blending an Italian Renaissance facade with British Adam-style interiors. The Victoria Theater opens at a cost of $250,000, with silent films, vaudeville acts, and composer Irving Berlin among the opening-night audience.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1927

    Garvin Bushnell stages a sit-in against segregated seating

    Musician Garvin Bushnell sits in a section of the Victoria Theater reserved for white patrons, protesting the venue's segregated seating policy in the heart of Harlem. The demonstration is one of several challenges to discriminatory practices at Harlem theaters in the years before they began booking Black performers and audiences on equal terms.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1977

    Loew's closes the Victoria after six decades

    Declining attendance from decades of television competition forces Loew's to close the Victoria Theater in 1977, after sixty years of vaudeville and film. The Harlem Community Development Corporation acquires the building the same year, later carving it into a five-screen cinema in 1987 that itself closes just two years later.

    Source: Wikipedia

  4. 2022

    A 27-story tower rises behind the Victoria's preserved facade

    Redevelopment beginning in 2017 preserves the Victoria Theater's historic facade, marquee, lobby, and grand staircase while building a 27-story, 400,000-square-foot tower behind them, making it Manhattan's tallest building above Central Park. The Victoria Tower Residences open in 2022, followed by the Renaissance New York Harlem Hotel in October 2023.

    Source: Wikipedia

Further reading

Nearby

All 46 buildings with stories in Harlem