RKO Proctor's Twenty-Third Street Theatre
139 W. 23rd Street,
New York,
NY
10011
139 W. 23rd Street,
New York,
NY
10011
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Hdtv267: I do know that Proctor’s 23rd Street was not the same theater as Proctor’s Pleasure Palace/58th Street Theatre. I was just adding a gloss to Warren’s comment of May 22, 2008, noting that this was not the only Proctor house that was called the Bijou Dream for a while. Proctor’s 58th Street was still operating as the Bijou Dream as late as 1913.
Proctor’s 58th Street Theatre, opened in 1895 as Proctor’s Pleasure Palace, was also called the Bijou Dream, according to Our Theatres To-day and Yesterday, by Ruth Crosby Dimmick, published in 1913.
An old picture of the theater as Proctor’s Twenty-third Street:
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The address for this theatre covered from 139 to 145 so Bijou Dream should be added as an aka name.
The Bijou Dream theatre mentioned in comments above, was located at 145 W. 23rd Street in in American Motion Picture Directory 1914-1915.
Listed in the 1941 Film daily Yearbook as the BARCLAY.
For many years into the seventies and eighties, the brass letter “Proctors” remainded imbedded in the sidewalk delineating the width of the original entrance.
Here’s an interesting souvenir from this theater from 1891:
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According to the NYT it did just that while the 14th Street location still ran Vaudeville. The article specific states “Keith & Proctors Twenty Third Street”.
This theatre is listed under New York City in the 1897-98 edition of the Julius Cahn Official Theatrical Guide. It’s listed as “Proctor’s Twenty-Third Street Theatre” with F.F. Proctor as Manager.
The seating capacity was 1,551; The proscenium opening was 32 feet wide X 42 feet high and the stage was 39 feet deep.
The theatre is listed as “Keith & Proctor’s 23rd Street Theatre” in a roster (Nov. 1909) of theatres affiliated with “B.F. Keith International Circuit Theatrical Enterprises”. There is a reproduction of a program for the week of Oct. 30, 1905 in the book “Lillian Russell” by Armond Fields (McFarland 1999). The famed musical comedy and operetta queen Lillian Russell had a vaude act at the time in which she sang some of her “greatest hits” with a piano accompaniest. There were 10 vaude acts and she was the headliner with her name in large type. At the end of the program, which played twice a day, was a movie “The Boarding School Girls at Coney Island”. The program is headed “Proctor’s 23rd Street – All-Star Vaudeville”.
Proctor’s 23rd Street theater is mentioned in the Clifford Odets play “Awake and Sing!” Grandpa wistfully recalls seeing Nora Bayes perform there. (Nora Bayes is the vaudeville performer later portrayed by Ann Sheridan in WB’s musical “Shine On Harvest Moon.”)