Miner's Bowery Theatre

—165-7 Bowery —

Your standing at the former site of Miner's Bowery Theatre, a legendary vaudeville house that once saw appearances by Eddie Cantor, Al Jolson, Bert Williams, Pat Rooney, Weber and Fields, A.O. Duncan (vaudeville's first ventriloquist), singer Lottie Gilson, exotic dancer Saharet, W.C. Fields (then a juggler), and the Houdini Brothers.
Harry Clay Miner (1842-1900) was a former New York City policeman, U.S. Congressman, printer and founder of one of the world's first theatre chains. The most famous of his houses was Miner's Bowery Theatre (est. 1878). It was here that his son Tom instituted the famous amateur night and its famous innovation "the hook", a large shepherd's crook used for yanking unpopular acts off the stage—often at the audience's urging: "Get the hook!" The device was widely emulated throughout the country, and has even become an idiom in the English language. The innovation lives on in popular memory, even if Miner's Theatre does not.
-Trav S.D., No Applause, Just Throw Money - the Book that Made Vaudeville Famous

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