The Eden Musée was an amusement center in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

that featured a large waxworks collection, musical concerts and a changing selection of specialty entertainment, such as

magic lantern The magic lantern, also known by its Latin name , is an early type of image projector that uses pictures—paintings, prints, or photographs—on transparent plates (usually made of glass), one or more lens (optics), lenses, and a light source. ...

shows and

marionettes A marionette ( ; ) is a puppet controlled from above using wires or strings depending on regional variations. A marionette's puppeteer is called a marionettist. Marionettes are operated with the puppeteer hidden or revealed to an audience by ...

. It was opened on March 28, 1884. It featured a collection of paintings and became an early exhibitor of

motion pictures A film, also known as a movie or motion picture, is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally, sinc ...

. Located on 55 West 23rd Street in

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

in an imposing stone building. The building featured several halls with different themes. It was particularly known for its Chamber of Horrors, which was kept in the museum basement

Film Exhibition

On December 18, 1896, the Lumiere cinematographe films were presented for two months in the Winter Garden, which had a 2000-seat capacity. It became the first venue in the United States to make motion pictures a standard part of programming until it closed. In the summer of 1897, film pioneer Edwin S. Porter, an electrician by training, assisted in the building of a custom film projector, to replace one destroyed by fire. In 1887 he returned with a job programming short films for exhibition, after the Eden Musee became

Thomas Edison Thomas Alva Edison (February11, 1847October18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventions, ...

's first motion picture licensee. On February 1, 1898 the Eden Musee released its first self-produced film, ''The Passion Play of Oberammergau''. This was billed as film actually shot in Oberammergau, Germany, when it was actually shot on the roof of the original Grand Central Palace in New York City, a fact that was quickly uncovered by the press. The presentation included 19 minutes of film interspersed with lantern slides. After the Eden Musee went bankrupt and closed in 1915, the name and select wax figure groupings, including those from the Chamber of Horrors, were purchased at auction and exhibited in

Coney Island Coney Island is a neighborhood and entertainment area in the southwestern section of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is bounded by Brighton Beach to its east, Lower New York Bay to the south and west, and Gravesend to ...

. The Coney Island Eden Musee was destroyed by fire in 1928.

In popular culture

The opening of Act 1 of the Broadway musical '' Broadway to Tokio'' (1900) is set inside the Eden Musée.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Eden Musee 1884 establishments in New York (state) 1915 disestablishments in New York City Theatres completed in 1884 Theatres in Manhattan History of film