Remembering Second Avenue

An old timer remembers a center of Yiddish theater in New York from the late 1800s to early 1900s.

1 minute read

February 1, 2006, 10:00 AM PST

"Second Ave. had a short but dazzling life, one that mirrored the growth and demise of America's Yiddish theater as a whole. Getting their start in the 1870s in the bohemian town of Yassi, Romania, Yiddish theatrical troupes were driven from Eastern Europe by anti-Semitic laws imposed after the assassination of Tsar Alexander II, for which Jews had been wrongly blamed. By the mid-1880s, Yiddish playhouses like the Thalia and the Windsor had started dotting New York's Bowery, and with them came the first generation of Yiddish stage starsâ€"matinee idols like David Kessler, Jacob Adler (father of Stella), and, perhaps most famously, Boris Thomashevsky, whose on- and off-stage exploits became legendary."

FULL STORY: THE JEWS OF SECOND AVE.

Wednesday, January 25, 2006 in New York Press

History / Preservation New York

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