Chatham Theatre

The Chatham Theatre stood on Chatham Street, which is known today as Park Row. It opened in eighteen thirty-nine as a neighborhood playhouse that featured popular dramas and big-name actors. By the middle of the eighteen forties, the venue shifted its focus to become a primary site for blackface minstrel shows. A significant turning point for the theatre arrived in eighteen fifty-two when the manager, A. H. Purdy, began staging productions of Uncle Tom's Cabin. The production proved so successful that Purdy created a segregated section of the theatre specifically for African American patrons. This section had its own separate entrance, and it prohibited unaccompanied women from entering. Following these years of high popularity, the theatre entered a period of decline, flip-flopping between staging standard melodramas and serving as a concert saloon, until it was eventually demolished in eighteen sixty-two.