125 E 11th St (1887), New York, NY - a photo on Flickriver

Manhattan, NY (settled 1624, pop. 1.6MM)

• Webster Hall (1887) decorated for Halloween • large (max. capacity 2,500) nightclub & concert venue • among NYC’s most historically & culturally significant 19thC assembly halls [c. 1900 illustration.]

• Queen Anne style bldg. [photo],located between NoHo and the East Village • ornamented with unglazed red terra cotta, designed by prolific New York-born tenement architect & beer vendor, Charles Rentz, Jr. (1855-1906) • built on land leased from socialite & land developer Rutherfurd Stuyvesant (1843-1809) for $2K/yr. • built for $75,000 by owner Charles Goldstein (1856-1898), a Polish-born cigar maker who entered the meeting & dance hall business as proprietor of Clinton Garden, aka Apollo Hall [photo], home of the “Saturday Night Society* Hop, “Ladies respectfully invited” (*“society” meaning “social" in this context)

• Webster Hall has hosted balls, dances, receptions, lectures, meetings, conventions, political & union rallies, military functions, concerts, performances, festivities, sporting & fundraising events, particularly for the working-class and immigrant populations of the Lower East Side [photo]

• construction of the 3-story, Renaissance Revival style eastern annex, with it’s large arched windows, began 1 May, 1892, completed in November absent evidence of any attempt to match the design of the original structure • annex housed a restaurant, saloon, ballroom & an apartment, where the Goldstein family — Charles, Annie & their 3 children — lived until Charles's death, 26 Nov, 1898, age 42 —Daytonian in Manhattan

• in the 1910s and 20s, Webster Hall was known for it's masquerade balls [illustration], following the success of a 1913 fund- raiser for the socialist magazine The Masses • attracted the Village’s bohemian population, which nicknamed the venue “Devil’s Playhouse” • became a speakeasy during prohibition

• gathering place for early 20thC lesbian & gay community, attending balls in drag [photo] & by the 1920s, sponsoring their own events • among notables attending events were artists Charles Demuth, Marcel Duchamp, & Man Ray, & writers Djuna Barnes & Scott Fitzgerald

• popular venue for progressive, leftist, & union political organizations, attended by Samuel Gompers, Margaret Sanger, Emma Goldman, and Dorothy Day • site of the formation of the Progressive Labor Party, 1887, and the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, 1914 • International Ladies' Garment Workers Union used the hall as its strike headquarters [photo]

• in 1953 RCA Records purchased & renovated the bldg. with a state-of-the-art acoustically treated ballroom • until 1968, operated Webster Hall as an East Coast recording venue, Webster Hall Studios [photo], where Carol Channing recorded "Hello, Dolly!” & Harold Prince, Fiddler on the Roof

• among others who recorded here: Julie Andrews, Harry Belafonte, Tony Bennett, the Guarneri Quartet, Liza Minnelli, Ray Charles, Perry Como, Sergio Franchi, Peter Nero, Elvis Presley, Arthur Rubinstein, Frank Sinatra, & Hugo Winterhalter and on February 2, 1962, Bob Dylan, playing harmonica on the title track of Harry Belafonte's Midnight Special album, Dylan's recording debut

• after the studio period, the venue’s name changed to Casa Galicia, then O Noso Lar & in 1980 it became The Ritz, which presented rock concerts until 1988 • in 1990 building underwent renovations by the Ballinger Family of Toronto, Canada, who re-opened it as Webster Hall in 1992 [photo] —https://rateyourmusic.com/venue/webster_hall

• $3MM renovation completed 2019 [photos]

• New York City Landmark, 2008

Taken on: October 27, 2010

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Sets appears in: • Manhattan

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