The Lincoln Theatre is a theater located on 135th Street near Lenox Avenue in Harlem, New York City.
It opened in 1915 and was the first theater in a then predominantly white neighborhood in Harlem to cater to black audiences.
The theater reached its peak of fame in the 1920s, when entertainers such as Bessie Smith, Florence Mills, and Fats Waller headlined.
[1] (Fats Waller had been hired as the organ player of the theater when he was fifteen years old.)
In 1909, the building was purchased by Maria C. Downs, who increased the seating and changed its name to the Lincoln Theatre.