Lincoln Theatre
- Architect
- Reginald Wycliffe Geare
- Year
- 1922
- Style
- Neoclassical
- City
- Washington, DC
- Collection
- the city beautiful
The Lincoln Theatre opened in 1922 on U Street, then the heart of Washington's Black Broadway, giving the city's African American community a movie house, vaudeville stage, and ballroom at a time when segregation barred them from other venues. Designed by Reginald Wycliffe Geare with local theater operator Harry Crandall, it hosted jazz and big band performers including Duke Ellington before closing after the 1968 riots and reopening, restored, in 1994.
the building
Silent film to sound. Construction began in summer 1921 and the theater opened the following year showing silent film and vaudeville. In 1927 new owner A.E. Lichtman turned it into a luxurious movie house and added the Lincoln Colonnade ballroom; the theater was wired for sound in 1928.
The Lincoln Colonnade. The Colonnade ballroom, added during Lichtman's 1927 renovation, became a center of Washington's jazz-era nightlife alongside the main theater.
the style
The Lincoln Theatre was built in the Neoclassical style typical of grand movie palaces of its era.
More on Neoclassicalthe architect
Reginald Wycliffe Geare designed the Lincoln Theatre in collaboration with Harry Crandall, a local theater operator who helped shape its original program of film and vaudeville.
significance
The Lincoln Theatre is a DC Historic Landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. After closing in the wake of the 1968 riots, it was restored and reopened in 1994, and the U Street Metro station opened across the street in 1991.
nearby
- Whitelaw Hotel
- First African New Church (Church of the New Jerusalem)
- Frelinghuysen University (Edward Goodwin House)
- Clifton Terrace
- Lincoln Congregational Temple United Church of Christ
- Congressional Club