[Harlem Opera House.]
The north side of West 125th Street between 7th and 8th Avenues shows a number of businesse devoted to recreational pursuits. Pedestrians are on the sidewalk and crossing 125th Street and a man is getting his shoes shined in front of the billiard parlor.
Museum of the City of New YorkHarlem Opera House ca. 1905
Impresario Oscar Hammerstein's 1,800-seat Harlem Opera House was designed by one of the city's most productive theater specialists, J. B. McElfatrick & Sons. The facade was ornately embellished with arabesque panels and a hierarchy of pilasters; allegorical statuary surmounted its crowning parapet. Its interpretation of European architecture was as free as that of any Disney castle.
Jules Hurtig and Harry Seamon took over the Harlem Opera House around 1903 and operated there until they leased a newly-built theater at 253 West 125th Street (corner of Lenox Avenue) in 1914. Hurtig & Seamon's (New) Burlesque Theatre played to an all-white clientele, but in 1928, that structure became the Apollo Theatre.
Museum of the City of New York