Chopin Theatre

Though many beautiful movie palaces and have disappeared over time, not all of the places of public amusement that once provided the social glue to this polyglot neighborhood were lost to the ravages of time.  

Located across from the “triangle” of Division Street and Ashland and Milwaukee Avenues, the Chopin Theatre is an attractive, ornate building whose glossy white tile looks much as it must have decades ago.  

Built in 1918, it was a cinema through the 1950s and then briefly a bank and a disco, but became home to an independent theater company in 1990, just as the neighborhood’s revitalization was beginning.  The theater has presented over 100 of its own productions and many other cultural events, including a series of interviews with Polish and Polish-American figures in the arts.