Village East by Angelika

The Village East by Angelika stands at the corner of Second Avenue and East Twelfth Street as a rare survivor of the Yiddish Rialto. This stretch of the city was once the cultural center for millions of Eastern European immigrants, and this building is the last remaining theater on the avenue built specifically for a Yiddish-speaking troupe. Commissioned in nineteen twenty-five by civic leader Louis Jaffe, it served as a permanent home for the renowned Yiddish Art Theatre. The architecture reflects its heritage through an elaborate Moorish Revival design. You can see pointed arches, intricate floral patterns, and mashrabiya-style grilles decorating the exterior, which architect Harrison Wiseman blended with specific Judaic motifs. Even today, if you look closely at the building's facade, you can find a cusped arch supported by large stone half-menorahs. Inside, the grandest space is the Jaffe Art Theater, which is actually a preserved balcony section of the original, much larger auditorium. The ceiling of this room features a massive, gold-encrusted chandelier at the center of a domed, polychromatic plaster design. Surrounding the base of this light fixture, you will find a prominent, gilded Star of David. Before the building became a movie house in the nineties, it hosted a wide variety of performances that defined New York culture. It served as a stage for burlesque, concerts, and off-Broadway productions. Notably, the theater hosted the original off-Broadway runs of iconic shows like Grease and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat before they moved to larger stages on Broadway. Legend suggests that a young Walter Matthau began his career working at this theater’s concession stand. The building has undergone many transformations, including stints as the Stuyvesant Theater and the Phoenix Theater, but it remains a protected landmark. Its preservation allows visitors to see one of the most remarkable examples of nineteen-twenties plaster craftsmanship in the entire city.