Adieu Bijou

Cinema and underground cruising spot has closed.

Bijou, 82 East 4th Street, New York

"Shows old movies to gay patrons who aren't watching them"

--New York Songlines

From the very beginning this subterranean space has served as an entertainment venue.

Certificate of Occupancy, October 22, 1927:

Cellar-- Persons Accommodated 150-- Restaurant, cabaret, and storage    

Originally the Rainbow Inn, it became Club 82 in 1954 (some accounts list 1958), famous for spectacular drag reviews.

Business partner Vito Genovese. like many mobsters, "financed Village gay bars, which were prevented from obtaining legitimate funding due to homophobic laws and social stigmas."

Photo: Queer Music Heritage

Various sources credit the New York Dolls, in 1973 or 74,  as the first rock group to play there.

Marty Thau:

"I was manager of the Dolls and I was approached by the club because they were switching over to glam rock bands. The drag crowd had moved on and the Club 82 never returned to the original format." 

A comment on the blog "It's All Streets You Crossed" differs:
"So many [sic] of the information regarding Club 82, in the glam period, are [sic] incorrect. Club 82 started having bands in '72, not '74. The Dolls were not the first band to play there. Another Pretty Face was the already house band there in '73." 

 An indie-film theatre took over the space in 1978, followed by an all-male strip club. Ron Wood opened the music venue Woody's in 1990, a dismal failure closing after only a few months.

Since  about 1992, the basement has been an on-again-off-again unmarked gay porn theater called the Bijou, featuring second-run Hollywood films in the main theatre with a separate row of private booths.

The Bijou closed for the final time in April 2019, the space has been gutted. According to the New York City Department of Buildings a "stop work order exists on this building."

Since 1997 theatre historian,  Cezar Del Valle, has conducted a popular series of  theatre talks and walks, available for  historical societies, libraries, senior centers, etc.

Del Valle is the author of the Brooklyn Theatre Index, a three-volume history of borough theatres.

The first two chosen 2010 OUTSTANDING BOOK OF THE YEAR by the Theatre Historical Society. Final volume published in September 2014.

Currently seeking funding for “Editing & Formatting” the first three volumes of the Brooklyn Theatre Index, 3rd Edition

AboutMe

Goodreads

Theatre Walks 2014-2015

Award winning author, Cezar Del Valle has had many years of experience developing and leading walking tours of New York’s theatrical and cultural districts.

Mindful of the budgetary constraints facing most non-profits, Del Valle is willing to discuss fees.

January 8, 2012 walking tour for the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP)
“Your amount of historic knowledge was nothing short of incredible”
-Dana Schulz, Program and Administrative Associate, GVSHP

Times Square:
Explore the “Crossroads of the World” to discover some of the lesser known sites along the “Great White Way.”

Lower East Side:
Five walks are available of New York City’s former melting pot of the immigrant working class.

Introductory Walk(s)
Three tours offer a basic introduction to the neighborhood’s showbiz past from immigrant theatre to off-off-Broadway and early television.

Yiddish Rialto
Stroll Second Avenue as Del Valle relates tales of Adler, Picon, Thomashefsky and other greats of the Yiddish stage.

Bowery
The colorful, salty history of the Bowery, once alive with Yiddish, Italian and Chinese theatres, vaudeville houses, dime museums, concert saloons and early film venues.

Downtown Brooklyn:
A former hub of theatrical activity, downtown Brooklyn is currently enjoying a rebirth with the development of the new BAM Cultural District.

Coney Island:
Del Valle invites you to Brooklyn’s “Sodom by the Sea” where Gary Grant walked on stilts, Harpo Marx made his stage début and where the music halls ran early & late.

Visit our Theatre Talks website for information and reviews.

Above photo copyright Betty Sword, all rights reserved.

Cezar Del Valle is the author of the Brooklyn Theatre Index, chosen 2010 Book of the year by the Theatre Historical Society. 

Changes

January 8, 2012 walking tour for the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP)

“Your amount of historic knowledge was nothing short of incredible”

 -Dana Schulz, Program and Administrative Associate, GVSHP

Since 1995, I have presented theatre talks and walks. It has been a long and often enjoyable run. However it has also interfered (time-wise) with my creative work as an artist.

This year I decided to focus my attention on the art, pushing the theatres into background. Don’t know yet what this means to the walks, talks, blogs and websites operated under the Theatre Talks banner.

June 3, 2012 walk of the Jewish Rialto for the Lower East Side Preservation Initiative (L.E.S.P.I.)

“The tour, led by theater historian Cezar Del Valle, was phenomenal!
  Cezar shared his encyclopedic knowledge of theater lore, history, and gossip.”–L.E.S.P.I.

Photographs by Betty Sword, All rights reserved

Cezar Del Valle is the author of the Brooklyn Theatre Index, chosen 2010 Best Book of the Year by the Theatre Historical Society.

Second Avenue Theatre, 35- 37 Second Avenue, New York, NY

The Second Avenue Theatre  will be one of the sites featured on my Footsteps of Yiddish Theatre walking tour for the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation on Sunday, June 8, 2012, 11 a.m. to      1 p.m.

It is free but reservations required: RSVP to rsvp@gvshp.org or call (212) 475-9585 ext. 35
Meeting location available upon registration.

The Second Avenue Theatre opened on September 14, 1911 with God, Man and Devil by Jacob Gordin.

Excerpts from the New York Clipper, September 23, 1911:
"David Kessler's Second Avenue Theatre, New York City, the new theatre of the Ghetto, at Second Street and Second Avenue, opened Thursday night, Sept. 14, and Mayor [William Jay] Gaynor was present to help.
"The theatre cost $800,000, and is to represent everything that is artistic in the Yiddish drama."

"On opening night thousands were turned away, and the project looks like a huge success."

"David Kessler's Second Avenue Theatre seats 2,000 people without crowding. Besides the large orchestra floor there is a balcony, a gallery and twelve boxes arranged in tiers. The building extends from First Street to Second Street, and from Second Avenue half way to Third Street.
"In the interior the decorations are unique and costly. The draperies and upholsterings are in olive green, in contrast with the deep bronze walls and ceilings. The drop curtain, of the same shade of green as the draperies, is painted in covent[?] design, encircling the letters D. K. for David Kessler. The building is thoroughly fireproof, even the floors being of cement. There are twenty-one exits and the fire preventative conditions are said to be superior to anything in the city."

The theatre was demolished in 1959.       

Postcard part of the collection of Theatre Talks LLC

Cezar Del Valle is the author of the Brooklyn Theatre Index, chosen 2010 Best Book of the Year by the Theatre Historical Society.

 

Lost Stages of the Lower East Side

 Lost Stages of the Lower East Side

Saturday, August 13, 2011

12:00pm-2:00pm

Cezar Del Valle will be conducting a walking tour for the

Lower East Side History Project

$20 per person, RSVP not required

Meet Outside of the Bowery Poetry Club, 308 Bowery

Subway: F train to 2nd Avenue

More Information: 347-465-7767

"Critics Pick"-- Time Out New York