Nobody is taking a shot at this party.
Members of The Players, a storied Gramercy Park social club catering to members of the arts, gathered Saturday in the park to celebrate the 190th birthday of their founder Edwin Booth.
The celebrated 19th-century Shakespearean actor — whose imposing bronze statue is the park’s centerpiece — is mostly remembered today as the older brother of John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theater April 15, 1865.
John Wilkes Booth (left) poses with brothers Edwin Booth (center) and Junius Brutus Booth.
A bronze statue of Edwin Booth stands in Gramercy Park. Helayne Seidman“Since 1918 when the club gave a statue of Booth as Hamlet to Gramercy Park we have always gone into the park and hung a laurel wreath on the statute to celebrate his birthday,” said Elizabeth Jackson, a retired digital artist and club member who has overseen the birthday for the last two decades.
Edwin Booth founded the club in 1889 and today it remains decked out in memorabilia and paintings dedicated to him and other actors of the 19th and 20th century.
Broadway’s Booth Theater is named in his honor.
Jackson oversaw a short program, which included readings of his letters and discussions about the actor’s life.
Edwin Booth was a 19th-century Shakespearean actor.
Edwin Booth founded The Players in 1889. Helayne SeidmanAfter the assassination, Edwin Booth, a die-hard supporter of Abraham Lincoln and the northern cause “canceled himself,” Jackson said — but was more or less welcomed back into the theater community by the end of 1865, though the stain was always there.
“It never really went away,” Jackson said. “People just didn’t mention John. It was just a very painful subject. And after the assassination, he never played in Washington ever again.”
