Adelphi Theatre (New York City)

The Adelphi Theatre (1934–1940 and 1944–1958), originally named the Craig Theatre, opened on December 24, 1928. The Adelphi was located at 152 West 54th Street in Manhattan, with 1,434 seats.[1] The theater was taken over by the Federal Theater Project in 1934 and renamed the Adelphi. The theater was renamed the Radiant Center by The Royal Fraternity of Master Metaphysicians in 1940. It was then the Yiddish Arts Theater (1943), and renamed the Adelphi Theater on April 20, 1944, when it was acquired by The Shubert Organization.

General information
LocationManhattan, New York
Opened1928
Closed1970
Demolished1970

It became a DuMont Television Network studio, known as the Adelphi Tele-Theatre in the 1950s. The "Classic 39" episodes of The Honeymooners were filmed in this facility by DuMont using their Electronicam system for broadcast on CBS later during the 1955–56 television season. The theater returned to legitimate use in 1957, was renamed the 54th Street Theater in 1958, and finally the George Abbott Theater in 1965. The building was demolished in 1970 for the New York Hilton Midtown hotel after hosting several expensive flops.

Some interiors were decorated with murals painted by Joseph Mortimer Lichtenauer. The artistic cycle was dismembered after its demolition.

Notable productions
Poster by Aida McKenzie for Federal Theatre Project presentation of Sing for Your Supper at the Adelphi Theatre. (between 1936 and 1939)

Musical theater star William Gaxton referred to it as "the dump of dumps".[3]

References
  1. Internet Broadway Database: Adelphi Theatre (Retrieved on November 30, 2007)
  2. "George Abbott Theatre". IBDB.
  3. Dietz, Dan. "1945-1946 Season," The Complete Book of 1940s Broadway Musicals, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, p. 319.

40°45′45″N 73°58′46″W

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