Broadway History
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![<span>1868</span> Hopper family farm, Broadway & 50th Street Picture Collection, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations](https://sob_dev.s3.amazonaws.com/history/images/ratio_16_9_large/805392u.jpg?itok=NvMxd9ki)
So central is the Theater District to New York’s cultural landscape that it is easy to forget that the area was undeveloped countryside until relatively recently. At the time this image was created, six horse-car lines connected the area to the heart of the city to the south. The area that would become the Theater District could also be reached by the Weehawken Ferry, which docked in the Hudson River at 42nd Street. The Winter Garden Theater now occupies the site of the Hopper family farm.
![<span>1899</span> Victoria Theater, 42nd Street & Seventh Avenue The Museum of The City of New York](https://sob_dev.s3.amazonaws.com/history/images/ratio_16_9_large/mny204466.jpg?itok=m4nsZpjD)
Electrified trolleys made it easy to get to Oscar Hammerstein’s 1,000-seat Victoria Theater. The facility was built for legitimate theater but soon became a venue for vaudeville shows. The glamorous Paradise Roof Garden on top of the theater was another big draw. At the time of the theater’s opening, a reporter for the New York American wrote: "The Victoria, at a bird’s eye view, looks like a big twinkling pearl, all white and gold with the opals of electricity studding it in profusion . . . Gorgeous carpets, splendid lounges and all the ultra-elegance the metropolis loves were to be seen everywhere."
![<span>1900</span> Longacre Square The Museum of The City of New York](https://sob_dev.s3.amazonaws.com/history/images/ratio_16_9_large/93.1.1.18241.jpg?itok=QHpHq_Gv)
Unlike many of the capital cities of Europe, New York is not defined by great public squares. But Longacre Square, really just the intersection of two busy avenues, was an exception. The area was used—and celebrated—as “the crossroads of the world.” Reflecting the location’s earthy dimension, the New York Burlesque Ballet and the Varieties Theater can be seen on the left. The Hotel Cadillac and the Pabst Hotel, owned by the Milwaukee-based brewery, can be seen in the distance.
![<span>1910</span> Subway construction The Shubert Archive](https://sob_dev.s3.amazonaws.com/history/images/ratio_16_9_large/wintergardensubwayconstruction1901.jpg?itok=1FRyeeyj)
The Interborough Rapid Transit (IRT) Company was a private business responsible for building and operating New York’s first subway line. Opened in 1904, the IRT serviced the emerging Theater District and was pivotal to the area’s growth and success.
![<span>Ca. 1904</span> Times Square The Museum of The City of New York](https://sob_dev.s3.amazonaws.com/history/images/ratio_16_9_large/93.1.1.14499.jpg?itok=JDbc8ilQ)
Aerial view of Times Square, looking north, showing the Astor Hotel and its popular rooftop garden, at left.
![<span>ca. 1903</span> The Times Tower under construction The Museum of The City of New York](https://sob_dev.s3.amazonaws.com/history/images/ratio_16_9_large/93.1.1.17128.jpg?itok=VPIw-Rz8)
In 1904, with the completion of Cyrus L. W. Eidlitz’s Italian Renaissance–inspired tower for the New York Times, which had moved north from its previous headquarters opposite City Hall, Longacre Square received an immediately identifiable architectural landmark, and a new name: Times Square.
![<span>1905</span> Postcard of Times Square Picture Collection, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox & Tilden Foundations](https://sob_dev.s3.amazonaws.com/history/images/ratio_16_9_large/836169u.jpg?itok=C445HVod)
Given its unique location, the New York Times’s trapezoidal building would be forever surrounded by light and air, despite the construction of many tall buildings nearby. At the time of the twenty-four-story building’s completion, observers noted that it “scraped higher clouds” than other tall New York City buildings because it occupied higher ground. The imposing Astor Hotel (Clinton & Russell, 1904) can be seen on the right.
![<span>1913</span> Palace Theater, Broadway at 47th Street Museum of The City of New York](https://sob_dev.s3.amazonaws.com/history/images/ratio_16_9_large/mny235143.jpg?itok=2XvLFCFF)
Some theater historians have suggested that the word “vaudeville” comes from the French voix de ville or “voice of the city.” In any case, the Palace Theater became the undisputed center of this popular form of variety show. As the entertainer Jack Haley recalled, “A feeling of ecstasy came with the knowledge that this was the Palace, the epitome of the more than 15,000 vaudeville theaters in America, and the realization that you have been selected to play it. Of all the thousands upon thousands of vaudeville performers in the business, you are there. This was a dream fulfilled; this was the pinnacle of Variety success.” Haley would go on to fame as the Tin Man in the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz, but ironically, it was the Palace Theater’s transformation into a movie palace several years earlier that seemed to mark the beginning of the end of vaudeville nationwide.
![<span>1947</span> Duffy Square, monument to Father Duffy Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images](https://sob_dev.s3.amazonaws.com/history/images/ratio_16_9_large/gettyimages_107419411_0.jpg?itok=HYuk8cX9)
With monument to Father Duffy. In 1937, Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia renamed a portion of Times Square—from West 45th to West 47th Street—Duffy Square in honor of Father Francis Patrick Duffy, a chaplain in a New York infantry regiment known as the Fighting 69th. Georg John Lober sculpted the likeness of Duffy seen here; Lober also created the sculpture of composer, actor, playwright, and producer George M. Cohan located two blocks to the south.
![<span>2009</span> George M. Cohan Memorial Amanda Hall](https://sob_dev.s3.amazonaws.com/history/images/ratio_16_9_large/gettyimages_95773845.jpg?itok=bgM9wEHk)
The memorial in Duffy Square at night.
![<span>ca. 1905</span> Postcard of Broadway Museum of The City of New York](https://sob_dev.s3.amazonaws.com/history/images/ratio_16_9_large/x2011_34_1073.jpg?itok=LuAFApPG)
Whether drawn by the area’s theaters, restaurants, hotels, or merely by a sense of excitement, the Theater District’s crowds have always been a part of the show, and constitute a feature that distinguishes the New York theater-going experience from that of other cities.
![<span>ca. 1905</span> Theatergoers along 42nd Street Museum of The City of New York](https://sob_dev.s3.amazonaws.com/history/images/ratio_16_9_large/93_1_1_15252.jpg?itok=_ZIXKwL8)
Painting by Bert Levy of theatergoers along 42nd Street, ca. 1905
![<span>ca. 1910</span> Early automobile traffic along Broadway Museum of The City of New York](https://sob_dev.s3.amazonaws.com/history/images/ratio_16_9_large/x2010.11.3993.jpg?itok=FIEnqP_Y)
Easy access to the Theater District was a critical component of creating a thriving business environment. With the growing popularity of cars in the early years of the twentieth century, the rules of the road took some time to establish, as can be seen in this photograph.
![<span>ca. 1910</span> Oscar Hammerstein’s Victoria Theater Museum of The City of New York](https://sob_dev.s3.amazonaws.com/history/images/ratio_16_9_large/mny3814.jpg?itok=yp4Oz5fT)
Cars parked in front of Oscar Hammerstein’s Victoria Theater.
![<span>Oct 1, 1928</span> Mae West’s The Pleasure Man at the Biltmore Theater NY Daily News via Getty Images](https://sob_dev.s3.amazonaws.com/history/images/ratio_16_9_large/gettyimages_97324911.jpg?itok=EFTVnS36)
Managing the scene—whether the audience or the performers—has always been part of the act in the Theater District. On opening night, between the second and third acts of The Pleasure Man, one of three plays written by and starring sex symbol Mae West, policemen from the precinct located around the corner from the Biltmore on 47th Street entered the theater. All fifty-seven members of the cast, including West, were arrested on charges of indecency. The theater critic for the New York Daily News reported, “The police raid was even more sensational than the last act.” The play ran for a total of one-and-a-half performances.
![<span>ca. 1928</span> Loew’s State Theater at Broadway & 45th Street © Bettmann/Corbis](https://sob_dev.s3.amazonaws.com/history/images/ratio_16_9_large/42-20913151.jpg?itok=zM4xkm42)
Loew’s State Theater, designed by Thomas Lamb and completed in 1920, was one of many theaters in the area built to show silent movies.
![<span>1934</span> Palace Theater © Bettmann/Corbis](https://sob_dev.s3.amazonaws.com/history/images/ratio_16_9_large/be036129.jpg?itok=aBhmdLgr)
Sidewalk scene in front of the Palace Theater
![<span>1895</span> Olympia Theater, Broadway between 44th & 45th Streets Museum of The City of New York](https://sob_dev.s3.amazonaws.com/history/images/ratio_16_9_large/29.100.1190.jpg?itok=SzaRD3b2)
In 1895, when Oscar B. Hammerstein’s Olympia became the first theater to move to what was then known as Longacre Square and widely referred to as Thieves’ Lair, the city had yet to install electric street lamps in the area. Hammerstein bathed his theater in electric light, initiating a trend that would transform the emerging Theater District into the Great White Way. Interestingly the illuminated marquee emphasized Hammerstein’s name more than the name of the theater itself, suggesting the important role that the theatrical entrepreneur played on Broadway.
![<span>ca. 1904</span> Times Square at Night Milstein Division of United States History, Local History & Genealogy, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations](https://sob_dev.s3.amazonaws.com/history/images/ratio_16_9_large/723552fu.jpg?itok=1I9XxWkt)
The Times Tower, completed in 1904, provided a beacon for the area but it was not until several years later that the Theater District began to fully realize the potential of nighttime illumination.
![<span>1919</span> Broadway at night, looking north Museum of The City of New York](https://sob_dev.s3.amazonaws.com/history/images/ratio_16_9_large/x2010.11.941.jpg?itok=0EAMAcra)
So iconic did the lights of Broadway become that when they were dimmed during World War I, public demand forced the federal government to increase the city’s coal ration so that the lights could be restored.
![<span>1920</span> Postcard of Times Square Museum of The City of New York](https://sob_dev.s3.amazonaws.com/history/images/ratio_16_9_large/mny286750.jpg?itok=b5GjuoaI)
By the 1920s, Times Square had become one of the world’s most widely recognized locales and tourists were eager to send word of their adventures back to the folks at home.
![<span>1920</span> Times Square at Night Getty Images](https://sob_dev.s3.amazonaws.com/history/images/ratio_16_9_large/3224961_10.jpg?itok=d9fdS0Ny)
This dramatic night view, looking north from Times Square, shows the collective impact of the theaters’ illuminated marquees. Though each sign was intended to sell its theater’s offerings, as a group there was no greater advertisement for the city.
![<span>ca. 1920</span> Broadway looking north Popperfoto/Getty Images](https://sob_dev.s3.amazonaws.com/history/images/ratio_16_9_large/gettyimages_79657891.jpg?itok=NVwbj-R5)
Whether any given show was a hit or a flop, the Theater District’s car-choked streets and pedestrian-packed sidewalks were sure to provide a real-life spectacle like no other. From the beginning, developers and theater owners recognized that part of the area’s appeal was the vibrancy of its street life.
![<span>1932</span> Times Square Museum of The City of New York](https://sob_dev.s3.amazonaws.com/history/images/ratio_16_9_large/88.1.1.2206.jpg?itok=NVB1hixV)
This nocturnal view shows Broadway, including the twenty-three-story Times Tower at lower left, from near the top of the forty-one-story Continental Building (Ely Jacques Kahn, 1931), a massive loft building in the adjacent Garment District.
![<span>1932</span> Times Square at Night Museum of The City of New York](https://sob_dev.s3.amazonaws.com/history/images/ratio_16_9_large/34.102.10.jpg?itok=cwpXkKBg)
![<span>1954</span> Movie theater marquees along 42nd Street between Seventh & Eighth Avenues at Night Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images](https://sob_dev.s3.amazonaws.com/history/images/ratio_16_9_large/50696019_10.jpg?itok=aeRBjLId)
![<span>1969</span> 42nd Street, looking west toward Times Square Getty Images](https://sob_dev.s3.amazonaws.com/history/images/ratio_16_9_large/gettyimages_2695977.jpg?itok=hKulIU-b)
![Eddie Cantor Music Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations](https://sob_dev.s3.amazonaws.com/history/images/ratio_16_9_large/g98c120_001ulandscapecrop.jpg?itok=RnoGpP7v)
Eddie Cantor (1892–1964) made his Broadway debut in 1917, appearing in producer Flo Ziegfeld’s Follies at the New Amsterdam Theatre. Cantor went on to star on Broadway, as well as in film, radio, and television. This sheet music is for a song Cantor sang in the 1917 revue.
![Marilyn Miller Music Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations](https://sob_dev.s3.amazonaws.com/history/images/ratio_16_9_large/g98c101_001ulandscapecrop.jpg?itok=2-qkGtHm)
The great Broadway impresario Flo Ziegfeld made Marilyn Miller (1898–1936) a star, featuring her in his Follies of 1918. Appearing with Eddie Cantor, W. C. Fields, and Will Rogers, Miller went on to become one of the biggest Broadway stars of the 1920s and 30s. This is the sheet music for one of her most popular numbers: Jerome Kern’s “Look for the Silver Lining” from the musical Sally of 1920.
![George M. Cohan Museum of The City of New York](https://sob_dev.s3.amazonaws.com/history/images/ratio_16_9_large/74_22_506landscapecrop.jpg?itok=Onfhgq7T)
Though George M. Cohan (1878–1942) self-deprecatingly dismissed himself as “just a song and dance man,” he was Broadway’s first superstar and arguably the greatest song and dance man in American history. He appeared in more than thirty Broadway musicals. As an actor, playwright, composer, and producer—widely known as “the man who owned Broadway”—he helped shape the nature and style of Broadway fare. In 1904, Cohan co-starred with his wife Ethel Levey in Little Johnny Jones, which featured two of Cohan’s most memorable songs, “Yankee Doodle Boy” and “Give My Regards to Broadway.” Cohan’s composition “Over There” captured the nation’s feelings during World War I. Cohan is seen here in The Merry Malones of 1927.
![Helen Hayes Photofest](https://sob_dev.s3.amazonaws.com/history/images/ratio_16_9_large/vincent_regina_price_hayes_2landscapecrop.jpg?itok=TDeCIdwo)
Helen Hayes (1900–1993), often referred to as “the First Lady of American Theater,” starred in the title role of Laurence Housman’s Victoria Regina at the Broadhurst Theater in 1936. The play required Hayes to portray the queen over the course of her sixty-four-year-long reign. Hayes is seen here with Vincent Price in the role of Prince Albert. In 1988 President Ronald Reagan presented Hayes with the National Medal of Arts.
![Ethel Merman Vandamm Studio © Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library for the Performin Arts](https://sob_dev.s3.amazonaws.com/history/images/ratio_16_9_large/1607272ulandscapecrop.jpg?itok=2y5yuMM1)
The staggering list of Broadway standards introduced by Ethel Merman (1908–1984) includes “I Got Rhythm,” “It’s De-Lovely,” “You’re the Top,” and “Everything’s Coming Up Roses.” In 1946, Merman starred as the sharpshooter Annie Oakley in Annie Get Your Gun, seen here, and sang the song that would become her musical signature, “There’s No Business Like Show Business.”
![Julie Andrews Friedman-Abeles © The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts](https://sob_dev.s3.amazonaws.com/history/images/ratio_16_9_large/ps_the_2148ulandscapecrop.jpg?itok=VoZErYEC)
In 1960, just four years after starring in Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s Broadway hit My Fair Lady, Julie Andrews (b. 1935) returned in the musical duo’s Camelot at the Majestic Theatre. The show’s stellar cast included Richard Burton, Roddy McDowall, Robert Goulet, and John Cullum. President John F. Kennedy and the First Lady had often listened to a recording of the show’s music; Kennedy’s favorite lyrics were reputed to be: ”Don't let it be forgot / That once there was a spot / For one brief, shining moment / That was known as Camelot.”
![Mary Martin Photofest](https://sob_dev.s3.amazonaws.com/history/images/ratio_16_9_large/peter_pan_stage_136landscapecrop.jpg?itok=aRZFKo4g)
Portraying Peter Pan, a boy with magical powers, including the ability to take flight, Mary Martin (1913–1990) set new standards of theatrical stagecraft in the eponymous musical that opened in the Winter Garden Theater in 1954.
![Chita Rivera, Larry Kert, and Carol Lawrence Friedman-Abeles © The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts](https://sob_dev.s3.amazonaws.com/history/images/ratio_16_9_large/ps_the_cd67_1040ulandscapecrop_rev_0.jpg?itok=Vrl3pvJe)
In 1949 Jerome Robbins, Arthur Laurents, and Leonard Bernstein began collaborating on a modern-day version of Shakespeare’s <em>Romeo and Juliet</em>. The musical tale, set on the Lower East Side’s Delancey Street, focused on an Italian boy and a Jewish girl, and was to be called East Side Story. As the project moved forward, it was recast as the tale of a Polish-American boy and a Puerto Rican girl in the West 50s and 60s and re-titled <em>West Side Story</em>. The original production, which was immediately praised as an American classic upon its Broadway opening at the Winter Garden Theater in 1957, starred Chita, Rivera (b. 1933), Larry Kert (1930–1991), and Carol Lawrence (b. 1932). This photograph, taken during a rehearsal, shows, left to right: Rivera, Robbins, Kert, and Lawrence.
![Robert Preston © The Al Hirschfeld Foundation. Al Hirschfeld is represented by the Margo Feiden Galleries Ltd., New York.](https://sob_dev.s3.amazonaws.com/history/images/ratio_16_9_large/12-15-57landscapecrop.jpg?itok=ez6L2gGV)
Broadway musicals have entered mainstream American culture not only by way of popular songs and leading stars but also through Al Hirschfeld’s instantly recognizable caricatures, which ran in the Sunday New York Times for decades. Here, Hirschfeld portrayed Robert Preston (1918–1987) as Harold HIll in The Music Man. The show, which opened at the Majestic Theater in 1957, featured such songs as “Seventy-six Trombones” and “Till There Was You.”
![Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne Vandamm Studio © Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts](https://sob_dev.s3.amazonaws.com/history/images/ratio_16_9_large/ps_the_cd66_1023ulandscapecrop.jpg?itok=4w-vGVhF)
Certainly among the most acclaimed actors in the history of the American theater, Alfred Lunt (1892–1977) and Lynn Fontanne (1887–1983) starred together in dozens of Broadway productions. Noel Coward wrote Design for Living specifically for Lunt and Fontanne; they starred in the production at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in 1937. The husband and wife team were also featured in Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull at the Shubert Theatre the following year. The couple’s last Broadway appearance was in 1958 in Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s The Visit. Just prior to the production, the Globe Theater, where the play was staged, was renamed the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre.
![Zero Mostel Photofest](https://sob_dev.s3.amazonaws.com/history/images/ratio_16_9_large/rhinoceros_stage_0landscapecrop.jpg?itok=tCSpBAcx)
Zero Mostel (1915–1977) starred in the original American production of Eugene Ionesco’s absurdist play Rhinoceros at the Longacre Theatre in 1961.
![Hello, Dolly! Friedman-Abeles © The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts](https://sob_dev.s3.amazonaws.com/history/images/ratio_16_9_large/ps_the_2069ulandscapecrop.jpg?itok=J7fkj9C5)
Based on Thornton Wilder’s 1955 farcical play The Matchmaker, the 1964 musical Hello, Dolly!, directed by Gower Champion, with music and lyrics by Jerry Herman, told the story of matchmaker Dolly Gallagher Levi. Written for Ethel Merman, who turned down the lead, as did Mary Martin, Dolly became the signature role of Carol Channing (b. 1921). When the original production, presented at the St. James Theatre, closed after 2,844 performances, it was Broadway’s longest-running musical to date.
![James Earl Jones & Jane Alexander Friedman-Abeles/Photofest](https://sob_dev.s3.amazonaws.com/history/images/ratio_16_9_large/gwh_alexander_joneslandscapecrop.jpg?itok=NyTmXCK1)
In 1968, James Earl Jones (b. 1931) and Jane Alexander (b. 1939) starred as husband and wife in Howard Sackler’s searing drama The Great White Hope, a fictionalized account of the life of boxing legend Jack Johnson that ran at the Alvin Theatre. Jones (seen at right) and Alexander were awarded Tony Awards for Best Actor and Best Featured Actress in a Play.
![Jessica Tandy & Hume Cronyn Photofest](https://sob_dev.s3.amazonaws.com/history/images/ratio_16_9_large/gin_game_tandy_001landscapecrop.jpg?itok=GK3dx27t)
In 1977, Broadway veterans and real-life husband and wife Jessica Tandy (1909–1994) and Hume Cronyn (1911–2003) starred in D. L. Coburn’s play The Gin Game at the John Golden Theatre. Among the Broadway productions in which the couple appeared together between 1951 and 1986 were William Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters.
![Patti LuPone & Mandy Patinkin Martha Swope © Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts](https://sob_dev.s3.amazonaws.com/history/images/ratio_16_9_large/swope_263991ulandscapecrop.jpg?itok=5DJamW-k)
In 1979, Andrew Lloyd Weber and Tim Rice’s musical Evita, based on the life of Eva Perón opened at the Broadway Theatre. Patti LuPone (b. 1949) played the title role and Mandy Patinkin (b. 1952) played the part of Ché Guevara. Thirty-two years later, in 2011, the two stars reunited for a two-person musical revue at the Ethel Barrymore Theater.
![Cherry Jones Joan Marcus/Photofest](https://sob_dev.s3.amazonaws.com/history/images/ratio_16_9_large/doubt_7landscapecrop.jpg?itok=s3f_bDG3)
In 2005, Cherry Jones (b. 1956) starred as Sister Aloysius in Doubt, John Patrick Shanley’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play about a nun who accuses a priest of committing child molestation.
![<span>ca. 2000</span> Theater District, looking south Courtesy of The New York Marriott Marquis](https://sob_dev.s3.amazonaws.com/history/images/ratio_16_9_large/nymm_marriott_exterior1.jpg?itok=5focIBMm)
Though the completion of the New York Marriott Marquis Hotel (John Portman, 1985) predated the Theater District’s full recovery, today, the building, wrapped in state-of-the-art illuminated signage, is part of the spectacle of light and movement that is nightly available to all, free of charge.
![<span>ca. 2000</span> 42nd Street between Seventh & Eighth Avenues Andy Caulfield](https://sob_dev.s3.amazonaws.com/history/images/ratio_16_9_large/gettyimages_10149394.jpg?itok=QyWEUZXZ)
By the dawn of the new millennium, after decades of decline and neglect, the area was thriving once again. In many ways—principally the proliferation of illuminated signs and the presence of a vast array of amusements, from “high” to “low”—today’s Theater District is a return to the spirit of Broadway that emerged in the first three decades of the last century.
![<span>2009</span> Times Square, looking north from Seventh Avenue & 47th Street Matt H. Wade at Wikipedia](https://sob_dev.s3.amazonaws.com/history/images/ratio_16_9_large/times_square_1-2.jpg?itok=KQjTuG76)