BYGONE BROADWAY - Installment Two 'This New Thing Called Theatre'

At the start of the nineteenth century, there was but one small playhouse to meet the needs of New York's rapidly exploding population. Built on Park Row in 1798, New Theatre boasted an eclectic mix of neighbors featuring the poorhouse on the right, Bridewell Prison on the left, and a smattering of squatters in canvas tents spread across the backyard. The overall din of the rowdy audience very often drowned out the action while showers of fruits, nuts, and other foods from the balconies were common occurrences. Despite the fact there was no competition, New Theatre failed to turn a profit until control passed to Stephen Price and Edmund Simpson. Price, a lawyer from a well-known local family, developed the idea of importing named talent from Europe – a move which bolstered tickets sales considerably – and in doing so established the "big star system" for the American theatre that was destined to so dramatically alter the thought patterns of future casting directors.

For the next thirty years, a succession of owners and managers tried – often unsuccessfully – to get the fledgling show business industry off the ground. By 1835, New York had reached, and then promptly exceeded, a quarter of a million residents. Business was booming not only in real estate, but in shipping and the infant railway industry a s well. The current theatre total now stood at an impressive five…..prompting a local non-believer at the New York Mirror to write, "Five theatres are too many for this metropolis. The population would not more than adequately support one, and the floating and transient supplies might possibly eke out a respectable audience for two ----- But for five!? That's too great a supply for the demand." Luckily, no one seemed to be listening. As New York's amusement-seeking population grew, theatrical entrepreneurs were spurred to find new enterprises at an ever-increasing rate. One such person was William Niblo who took out a long-term lease on the Colombian Gardens, a resort located on the northeast corner of Broadway and Prince Street. The Garden had previously been a horse ranch, a circus ground called The Stadium, and a military training field during the War of 1812. Niblo subsequently converted the existing building into a concert saloon and erected a huge theatre on the grounds, placing the entrance through the garden on Broadway. The entire thing became known as Niblos's Garden and prospered for many years until it was destroyed by fire in 1846. The Van Rensselar family re-opened the site in 1852 and, at Niblo's suggestion, built the Metropolitan Hotel along with a theatre that patrons entered via the lobby. On its stage was presented every kind of entertainment – from dramas, to minstrels, to singers, to the famous Ravel acrobats – with whose name the Metropolitan eventually became synonymous

Another theatrical offspring of the early thirties was the Italian Opera House built in 1833 on the northwest corner of Leonard and Church Streets. Constructed with the $175,000 it took in from advance ticket sales and box rentals, the house managed to survive for only three seasons before being given up as a lost cause and sold at auction. T. Allston Brown, an early amusement historian, was quoted at the time as saying "the theatre failed because of its location and as a direct result of being located in this "off-Broadway" neighborhood. Nothing away from that area can survive."

In 1837, a small theatre known as the Olympic, patterned after the London Olympic operated by Madame Vestris, opened in the building known as the City Assembly Rooms at 444 Broadway between Howard and Grand Streets. Despite its extravagance as a playhouse and the excellence of its dramatic company, the original founders lost control of the theatre and it languished under a succession of managers until finally being passed into the hands of actor/manager, William Mitchell. Newly christened "Mitchell's Olympic Theatre," it quickly became the most popular attraction in New York. The poor could afford to attend under the newly reduced ticket prices and all classes fell in love with the light comic entertainment and burlesques – comic paradies of plays and novels – which Mitchell produced with great showmanship. When he finally retired in 1850, the business continued on for a few more years as a minstrel hall and a German-language theatre, until it was destroyed by fire in 1852. The passing of the great Olympic was met by a series of dejected sighs from its adoring public yet prompted one reporter to write, "The theatre does not seem to be exactly the right thing. When it revives a little and raises its head, the legitimate drama, good honest tragedy, comedy, and opera, has to encounter a host of competitors ready to administer to a vitiated public taste. The good is mixed with the bad, Shakespeare and Jim Crow come in equally for their share of condemnation, and the stage is indiscriminately voted immoral, irreligious, and what is much worse, completely unfashionable."

Again, no one in the business seemed to be listening as the gloom and doom predictions of the press soon gave way to a native theatrical profession that was becoming increasingly self-supportive. Soon a superabundance of competition would place theatrical managers in mortal combat with each other and location would mean everything. Broadway was fast evolving by mid-century as the most attractive site for the location of theatres. This prime thoroughfare, now completely paved and lighted, had already been drawing the principal shops from their old city locations for a number of years. And, after 1850, it was on the brink to become New York's base of principal theatrical activity.