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Lecture Tour of America 1882

Writing and Research on Oscar Wilde

Newark

New Jersey

Park Theatre

Tuesday, May 9, 1882

The Decorative Arts

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Verification

Newspaper report (below)

Newark Morning Record, May 10, 1882, 1

Newspaper Advertisement Opposite)

Newark Morning Record, May 9, 1882

Note in the advertisement that at the same theatre on the day after Wilde's lecture, there is a performance of the comic opera Patience which Wilde was being used to promote.

Venue

Park Theatre

14-16 West Park Street*, Newark, NJ

As the Park Presbyterian Church

Dedicated: 1850

Occupied: 1851

Abandoned and sold: 1872

As the Park Theatre

Remodeled: c. 1872

Closed as a theatre: c. 1887

As a library

Reconstructed: c. 1887 by the Newark Library Association

Occupied: 1889-1901 (by the Free Public Library)

Occupied: 1901 (by the New Jersey Historical Society)

Now demolished.

West Park Street is now more commercially renamed Prudential Dr. for the 20-story annex to the Prudential HQ that now stands there. As a reminder of its former west-side counterpart, East Park Street still exists across Broad Street beyond Military Park.

John Cooper on Oscar Wilde © 2026