Sun Sing Theater

The Sun Sing Theatre was a movie theater located at 75-85 East Broadway directly under the Manhattan Bridge in Manhattan’s Chinatown. Along with a select few Chinese language theaters, the Sun Sing Theatre offered the rare opportunity for Chinese immigrants to safely socialize, connect back to home, learn about the previous generation’s culture, or participate in the movie-going craze in their native language. The theater first opened in 1911 as the Florence Theater, which was home to Yiddish vaudeville and motion pictures. As the neighborhood demographic changed, the theater’s content evolved. In 1942, it was renamed the New Canton and began featuring Chinese opera performance. A professional Hong Kong opera troupe that was stranded in New York during World War II helped keep the theater alive for over 10 years with nightly performances. In 1950, it transitioned into showing motion pictures exclusively and was renamed for the last time to Sun Sing Theater. In 1960, the city planned to add an upper deck to the Manhattan Bridge and scheduled the theater for demolition. But engineers were able to save the historic theater, reducing the seating from about 900 down to less than 700 to make space for bridge supports. The theater brought back stage performances in 1972 in an attempt to compete with other entertainment such as karaoke, gambling, Chinese-language programs on cable television, and video rentals., Sun Sing Theatre closed in 1993, shuttering its doors forever like many other theaters of its kind. MOCA salvaged several artifacts from the theater, including tickets, signage, stamps, uniforms, and a board of handwritten title cards used to track film shipments to various theaters.