April 23: The First Movies

The first movies shown in the U.S. to a paying audience were presented on this date in 1896 at Koster and Bial’s Music Hall on 34th Street in New York City (the current site of Macy’s). Shown on Thomas Edison’s new Vitascope, the shorts were described in the New York Times as showing “two precious blonde young persons of the variety stage in pink and blue dresses, doing the umbrella dance with commendable celerity,” followed by “a view of an angry surf breaking on a sandy beach near a stone pier,” followed by “a burlesque boxing match between a tall, thin comedian and a short, fat one . . . a comic allegory called ‘The Monroe Doctrine’ . . . and a skirt dance by a tall blonde . . . which were all wonderfully real and singularly exhilarating.” Koster and Bial’s was a major vaudeville theater owned by two German Jews that was demolished in 1901.

“God wants a man who will cheer the hearts of men and remove sorrow from them.” —Rabbi Kaufmann Kohler quoting Talmud at the funeral of Albert Bial, New York Times