Friday, June 24, 2011

☞ REMEMBER: Before Hotel Theresa circa 1900

An old image taken of 125th Street looking west from today's Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard has one notable building missing at the left side of the street. The Hotel Theresa was finished around 1913, so the above photo of the 125th Street intersection of 7th Avenue must have been taken at the turn of the century.  Other landmarks that are gone include the 8th Avenue elevated train in the distance and the Harlem Opera House which can be seen to the right (with statues on top). Photo via The Library of Congress

2 comments:

  1. When did the Harlem Opera House go? Even from the acute angle it looks like a magnificent building.

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  2. The building that occupied what would become the Theresa was the old Winthrop Hotel, built in 1888. Here's a 1911 article from the Times about the corner:

    http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F10716F93F5517738DDDA00894DE405B818DF1D3

    Then again, the article lists the Winthrop as a five-story building, which the building in the picture is not...

    The Harlem Opera House seems to have been demolished sometime in the 1960s. By the way, the Internet Broadway Database mistakenly lists the opening date of the Harlem Opera House as 1875--the right date is 1889.

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