Knickerbocker Theatre (Washington, D.C.)

The Knickerbocker Theatre
The Knickerbocker Theatre in October 1917
Location within Washington, D.C.
General information
Status	Destroyed
Type	Film theater
Location	18th Street and Columbia Road, Washington, D.C., U.S.
Coordinates	38°55′20″N 77°02′34″W / 38.92222°N 77.04278°W / 38.92222; -77.04278
Completed	1917
Destroyed	1922
Design and construction
Architect(s)	Reginald Geare

The Knickerbocker Theatre was a movie theater located at 18th Street and Columbia Road in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, D.C. in the United States. The theater's roof collapsed on January 28, 1922, under the weight of snow from a two-day blizzard that was later dubbed the Knickerbocker storm. The theater was showing Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford at the time of the collapse, which killed 98 patrons and injured 133.

The disaster was the worst in Washington, D.C., history. Former Congressman Andrew Jackson Barchfeld and several prominent political and business leaders were among those killed in the collapse. The theater's architect, Reginald Geare, and owner, Harry Crandall, later died by suicide in 1927 and 1937, respectively.

The Knickerbocker Theatre collapse is tied with the Surfside condominium collapse in 2021 as the third-deadliest structural engineering failure in United States history, behind the Hyatt Regency walkway collapse in 1981 and the collapse of the Pemberton Mill in 1860.