Pre-Fillmore East
The theatre at 105 Second Avenue that became the Fillmore East was originally built as a Yiddish theater in 1925-26 – designed by Harrison Wiseman in the Medieval Revival style – at a time when the section of Second Avenue was known as the "Jewish Rialto" because of the numerous theatres that catered to a Yiddish-speaking audience. Called the Commodore Theater, and independently operated, it eventually was taken over by Loews Inc. and became a movie theatre, the Loews Commodore. It later became the Village Theatre. When Graham took over the theatre in 1967, it had fallen into disrepair. Despite the deceptively small marquee and façade, the theater had a capacity of almost 2,700.
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“The East knew and to the present day knows only that One is Free; the Greek and the Roman world, that some are free; the German World knows that All are free. The first political form therefore which we observe in History, is Despotism, the second Democracy and Aristocracy, the third, Monarchy.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)