American Opera House

Chatham Garden Theatre

The only known image of the Chatham Garden Theatre's exterior
Address	New York City United States
Construction
Opened	May 17, 1824
Years active	1824-1832
Architect	George Conklin

The Chatham Garden Theatre or Chatham Theatre was a playhouse in the Chatham Gardens of New York City. It was located on the north side of Chatham Street on Park Row between Pearl and Duane streets in lower Manhattan. The grounds ran through to Augustus Street. The Chatham Garden Theatre was the first major competition to the high-class Park Theatre, though in its later years it sank to the bottom of New York's stratified theatrical order, below even the Bowery Theatre.

The Chatham Garden was converted to the Free Presbyterian Chatham Street Chapel in 1832.

The theatre began quite humbly. In 1823 Hippolite Barrière, the manager of the Chatham Gardens in New York City, erected a white, canvas tent in his public pleasure grounds. He dubbed it the Pavilion Theatre and began staging drama there with a ticket price of 25¢. The tent, which was used for other concerts and plays, also housed a saloon. The makeshift playhouse operated through the summer, perhaps the first such summer theatre in the United States.

Stephen Price, manager of New York's Park Theatre, tried to put a stop to Barrière's enterprise by reporting the tent to the authorities as a fire hazard. Barrière responded by erecting a brick-and-mortar structure on the site. The new building, named the Chatham Garden Theatre, opened on 17 May 1824 and played through the normal season.

The theater was an ornate structure designed by architect George Conklin. It had no gallery, and it did not admit African Americans. The balcony was on the same level as the lobby and fronted the garden. The walls had slits and the doorways only blinds to facilitate airflow. Karl Bernhard, a visitor to New York in 1825-26, left this description:

However, the theatre's location was difficult to find. It was only accessible by passing through private buildings on the west side of Chatham Street. The New-York Mirror resorted to printing a map to show how to reach the place and offered these instructions: