1.20 - Small Vaudeville Theater Bookings
Astaires Closed 1905 with Appearances in New Jersey and Upstate New York
According to the vaudeville routes listed in the New York Clipper in November and December 1905, the Astaires had two more brief bookings in out-of-town theaters. The first was a week-long engagement in the Family Theatre in Paterson, NJ (Vaudeville Route List 11 November 1905). This was likely their first taste of the lengthy routes they would be running for the next 10 years. Advertised in the Paterson Evening News ('Family Theatre' advertisement) as “A Convention of Vaudeville Stars,” the bill included comic sketches by Grace Huntington, dancing by the Walton Sisters, acrobatics by the Two Hurleys, Irish songs by Mike Scott, “illustrated songs” by Al Price, Edison moving pictures and “Electrical Novelty Dancers” Adele and Fred Astaire. They performed three shows daily at 2 p.m., 7:45 p.m. and 9:15 p.m. during the week of November 6-11, with seat prices ranging from 10¢ for matinees and 15¢ for evenings on the lower floor and 10¢ for the gallery. A short publicity item described the Astaires as “two wonderful children and have already danced their way into the hearts of the good people of Paterson” (Family Theatre). They would have likely taken a local train of the New York, Susquehanna & Western Railroad (part of the Erie line) from the 23rd Street ferry station across the Hudson River to the Pennsylvania Railroad Station in Jersey City and then a ride of less than an hour to Paterson (Official Guide of the Railways, The 175).
The Astaires also had another week-long booking for the first week of December in Gloversville, a small town west of Saratoga Springs in upstate New York (Vaudeville Route List 9 December 1905); (Routes Ahead). In the early 1900s, Gloversville was a thriving center of glove manufacturers (hence the name of the town) (Trebay). The Astaires would have performed in the Family Theatre, which had been built in 1881 at 28-38 N. Main St. and was originally dubbed Memorial Hall by entrepreneur Alexander J. Kasson. Known in the 1890s as the Kasson Opera House, it seated 2,000 people and eventually began to host vaudeville bills (When the Kasson Opera House Brought Culture to Gloversville).
Both the Paterson and Gloversville theaters were advertised by agent J.B. Morris (36 W. 28th St. in the heart of Manhattan’s Tin Pan Alley) as stages where vaudeville artists could “break their jump” as they traveled east or west on their routes ('Vaudeville Artists' J.B. Morris advertisement). To travel to Gloversville, the Astaires would have taken the New York Central & Harlem Railroad line from Grand Central Station to Schenectady and then transferred to a recently opened interurban electric line of the Fonda, Johnstown & Gloversville Railroad (Official Guide of the Railways, The 310).
SOURCES
"Family Theatre." Paterson Evening News 7 November 1905: 11.
"'Family Theatre' advertisement." Paterson Evening News 11 November 1905: 6.
Official Guide of the Railways, The. New York: National Railway Publications Co., 1905.
"Routes Ahead." Billboard 9 December 1905: 11.
Trebay, Guy. "Heir to a Glove Town's Legacy." New York Times 21 October 2009. <https://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/22/fashion/22GLOVERSVILLE.html>.
'Vaudeville Artists' J.B. Morris advertisement." New York Clipper 9 December 1905: 1076.
"Vaudeville Route List." New York Clipper 11 November 1905: 969.
"Vaudeville Route List." New York Clipper 9 December 1905: 1073.
"When the Kasson Opera House Brought Culture to Gloversville." n.d. Schine Memorial Hall LLC. 28 February 2019. <https://schineongloversville.com/documents/WHEN%20THE%20KASSON%20OPERA%20HOUSE%20BROUGHT%20CULTURE%20TO%20GLOVERSVILLE.pdf>.