Program

NYS Historic

Subject

Arts & Culture

Location

2953-2957 Church St, Pine Plains, NY 12567, USA

Lat/Long

41.98013, -73.65655

Grant Recipient

Little Nine Partners Historical Society

Jacob S. Bowman had an opera house constructed on the second floor of this building. Completed in July of 1895, it seated nearly 500 people and showed comedy, drama, and music performances. The Pine Plains Register details the much anticipated opening in a July 3, 1895 article:

The event of the season was the opening of the Bowman Opera House Wednesday evening. The house was filled to its entire capacity, with an intelligent, appreciative audience. For a time before the curtain was raised the assembled people commented on the handsome interior, the excellent light, and the easy seats, while all admired the drop curtain….the stairs leading to the upper floor are covered with corrugated rubber, making a secure foothold, preventing slipping, and also obviating all noise by contact of the feet with a wooden step. Mr. J. S. Bowman, whose enterprise and liberality has provided so fine a place for entertainments, has been most warmly congratulated.

In 1905 the opera house was sold to Sampson O. Haley and, in 1908, sold again to Wilber E. Wolven. It was still operating in March 1916 when it was showing silent films, but was sold in Nov. 1916 to Charles Kupperman, who subsequently converted the opera house floor into two apartments.