Civic Repertory Theater, July 2, 1936.

From the 1860s to the turn of the century, New York’s theater district centered on 14th Street. Abbott photographed four 19th-century theaters in the old district, anticipating their imminent destruction. The Civic Repertory opened in 1866 as the Theatre Francaise and acquired its modern name in 1926, when Eva Le Gallienne reopened it to produce classic revivals and new plays at low prices. Between 1932 and 1935, it housed the Labor Theatre, which performed plays with social themes. When Abbott photographed the Civic Repertory in 1936, it was closed, and two years later, a motion picture chain tore it down with plans for a new movie house, which was never built. In 1974, a six-story apartment house went up on the site.