Dinner and a Movie, for Over 100 Years, at 143 and 137 East Houston Street

You probably already know that New York City is a haven for movie fans. There are dozens to choose from in Manhattan alone, from the multiplexes at 42nd Street and Union Square to the basement art theaters on 12th and 13th Streets. The Lincoln Center-66th Street stop alone has at least four movie theaters within a three block radius.

My three favorite movie theaters in New York City can all be found on Houston Street. The Film Forum at 209 West Houston has been screening movies since 1970 when it was just a single projector and a few rows of folding chairs. It’s still fairly small, but it probably has the best repertory film program in New York City. For modern films, the Angelika at Houston and Mercer has a terrific selection, and I’ve always been charmed by the occasional rumble of the 6 train rolling by. But if you’re looking for a great space, it’s hard to do better than the Landmark Sunshine at 143 East Houston.* With five screens stretched across three floors, the Sunshine is a great place to catch first-run indie films and cult classics during their Sunshine at Midnight series. And if you’re feeling hungry, you can always stop by Yonah Schimmel’s Knish Bakery next door for a knish and a yogurt. You’ll have the same night out as Lower East Siders did over 100 years ago.

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At the beginning of the 20th century, the center of Yiddish theater was 2nd Avenue between 14th Street and East Houston. Between 1890 and 1940, there were over 200 Yiddish theater troupes in America, nearly all of them originating in New York City. One of the biggest theaters was the Houston Hippodrome. 143 East Houston began its life as a Dutch church in the early 1800s. Houston was called North Street then, marking the upper limits of Manhattan. The building transitioned into a German church and meeting hall in 1844. By 1908, it was purchased by gangster Jack Rose who turned into a boxing venue called the Houston Athletic Club. Then in 1909, entrepreneurs Charlie Steiner and Abraham Minsky purchased the building and turned it into a theater and motion picture house called the Houston Hippodrome, a reference to the 3,000 seat venue uptown at 6th and 43rd.

Admission was ten cents with a half-price matinee. Throughout its life, the Hippodrome had never lost its church pews, and customers used, “the racks that once held hymnals [for] bagels, salamis, and other eatables they brought with them for nourishment during the long program." And it didn’t just offer movies, of course. Audiences would be treated to comedians, singers, magicians, and novelty acts like Hilda, the Swedish Handcuff Queen. 

A few years later, the theater would be purchased by lawyer Max D. Steuer, who had recently defended the owners of the Triangle Shirtwaist factory and found them not guilty of manslaughter. In an ironic turn of events, Steuer would have a fire of his own in 1913, a small, harmless flame in the projectionist booth that nonetheless prompted panic in the audience and caused two deaths by trampling. (This anecdote would later be referenced in the Supreme court case Schenk v. United States of America about the dangers of free speech.)

This event returned control of the theater back to Charlie Steiner in 1917. He expanded the theater to 600 seats, stripped the interior, and renamed it the Sunshine. It had a long, successful run, but by 1945 it had been sold to the Goldman hardware store to be used for inventory. Fortunately, Landmark Theatres purchased the building and renovated it to its former glory in 2001.

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At the height of the Yiddish theater boom, the streets and markets were swarming with pushcart vendors, offering a variety of meats, vegetables, prepared foods, and dry goods. A 1905 survey estimates there were over 2,500 pushcarts on the Lower East Side, more than every other neighborhood in New York put together. Among the most popular were the knish vendors, selling their potato-and-onion-filled pastries at three cents a knish. They were a perfect Lower East Side food, portable and filling enough for a workingman’s lunch yet fast enough for a theater-goer’s intermission snack. They became so popular that 2nd Avenue was nicknamed “Knish Alley." Rival knisheries would engage in “knish wars,” underbidding each others’ prices and enticing hungry Lower East Siders with showgirls and brass bands.

Yonah Schimmel was a Romanian immigrant who began peddling knishes in Coney Island in 1890. He opened the knishery at 137 East Houston in 1910 after a few years operating across the street. His cousin Joseph Berger took over management a few years later, at which point Yonah Schimmel’s had become a neighborhood fixture. It was once said that “[n]o New York politician in the last 50 years has been elected to office without having at least one photograph showing him on the Lower East Side with a knish in his face.” While knishes are the main draw, they aren’t the only foods here. Perhaps my favorite sign in New York is the award hanging in the window: “New York’s Best 100-Year-Old Microorganism.” This refers to the yogurt drink made from the same strain of culture used at the restaurant’s beginning, Lactobacillus delbrueckii, subsp. Bulgaricus. (The yogurt was rumored to be a favorite of Trotsky’s during his exile in the mid-1910s.) The building hasn’t changed much, either, down to the original dumbwaiter and tin ceilings. And while you can get sweet knishes like blueberry cheese or savory knishes like spinach or red cabbage, Schimmel’s still makes the traditional potato and onion knish, baking (never frying) it in their basement ovens.
 
So if you’re ever running out of date ideas, remember you can always do dinner-and-a-movie on Houston and 2nd. Hey, it worked 100 years ago.

* Okay, okay, the Sunshine is probably the most beautiful multiscreen theater. If you're looking for a gorgeous single-screen theater, check out the Ziegfeld Theater on 54th or trek out to Jersey City to the Loews Jersey. As a former Jersey City-an, I can't say enough great things about the Loews.