Text size:

Harlem fights for Victoria Theater

By David Freedlander, amNewYork Staff Writer
More stories | dfreedlander@am-ny.com

April 16, 2008

Original detailing behind a false wall in the Victoria Theater on W. 125th St. in Harlem. (Jefferson Siegel / April 15, 2008)

Today, the Victoria Theater is the hulking ghost of Harlem.

Dwarfed by its more famous neighbor, the Apollo, audiences haven't seen a show at the Victoria in 10 years and today it is like a movie theater kept in distressed amber.

Piles of junk are stacked in the once ornate lobby. The concession offers $1.25 Pepsis and Slice, 5th Avenue candy bars and Butterfingers to absent customers. A lone cat slinks around the premise.

But a $130 million plan to transform the space and re-open it to local community arts groups is facing opposition from neighborhood activists who want to see it returned to its original grandeur.

"They don't want the theater to be there because they want to use that section for a lobby for the condos and the hotels," said Ethel Bates, 73, who is heading the Harlem Victoria Restoration Group. "They want to make X number of dollars and so they choose to cut everything up. This is the kind of cutthroat thing that only happens in New York. Other cities don't have it as bad but in New York they have it down to a science."

Local developer Steve Williams of Danforth Development Partners, LLC, wants to transform the 1917 burlesque theater into a 30-story condo/hotel, cutting up the ornate 2, 400-seat theater into two mini-theaters while preserving the facade and parts of the lobby.

The developers and city officials, however, say that union regulations make a large theater unsustainable. What the neighborhood really needs, they say, are smaller venues for local arts groups.

The Harlem Arts Alliance, the Classical Theater of Harlem, and the National Jazz Museum are all slated to operate out of space.

"The indigenous cultural groups that established themselves in Harlem deserve to benefit from their advocacy and commitment to the community," Williams said. "It's going to be a destination building that is going to act as a catalyst for the community at large."

Backers of the plan also argue that the project's neighbor, The Apollo, has difficulties operating at capacity most nights, and adding an even larger venue would be foolish.

"It's the white elephant that no one can afford to rent, because it's too damn big," said Curtis Archer, president of the Harlem Community Development Corp., a state agency charged with community revitalization. "To build another theater of the same size doesn't make sense."

The Victoria Theater was designed by Thomas Lamb, who created dozens of ornate movie palaces in the 1920s and ''30s. The theater was host to some of the early fights of a young Cassius Clay as well as the last New York City performance of Josephine Baker. It has also been determined eligible for listing on the state's Register of Historic Places. A spokeswoman for the Landmarks Preservation Commission said that it was currently under review, but a hearing on the site had not yet been scheduled.

Over the years, the theater fell into disrepair. In 1985 it was converted to a multiplex, its upstairs fireplace bricked over, holes punched into the black iron ceiling, and the murals which once adorned the walls were covered over.

After it shuttered, a pipe burst, damaging the interiors further.

The developers say they are committed to preserving whatever architectural details are salvageable, and have brought in historic preservationists to assist Perkins Eastman architects, who are designing the 30-story tower that will rise above the old theater.

But some are skeptical.

"If they are going to create this huge tower, then the least they can do is restore the historical theater," said Michael Henry Adams, author of "Harlem Lost and Found."

"If that's not economically possible then they shouldn't do the development. They just don't care about the heritage of Harlem. They are capitalizing off of that heritage and destroying it at the same time."

Danforth is aiming to reopen the Victoria by 2011, but opponents have vowed to fight on.

"I am not going to let this thing go down," said Bates. "We have enough ammunition and too many people on our side."