| Broadway is the street in New York that has | | | | the street blazed with electric signs as each |
| come to symbolize live theater entertainment and | | | | theater announced its shows and stars in white |
| musicals throughout the world. Today the area, | | | | lights. By the turn of the 20th Century the street |
| known to tourists and theater-goers, stretches | | | | had an entirely different look, with as many as |
| from W.41st Street, where the Netherlander | | | | sixteen theaters on Broadway itself and many |
| Theater is located, up to W. 53rd Street's | | | | others located on the side streets or other |
| Broadway Theater. Only four theaters are located | | | | avenues. Broadway was much more than a mere |
| physically on Broadway, the Marquis at 46th | | | | twelve blocks. It started at 13th Street and |
| Street, the Palace at 47th Street, the Winter | | | | wound its way a mile and a half up the Avenue |
| Garden at 50th Street and the Broadway at 53rd. | | | | to 45th Street, ending in the heart of Long acre |
| All the other legitimate houses are located east or | | | | Square. This first decade of the century also saw |
| west of this twelve block stretch. | | | | the construction of many theaters, most notably |
| Broadway Stars. | | | | the New Amsterdam on 42nd Street in 1903, |
| By the 1830's America was exporting stars to | | | | along with four others in that same year, that are |
| Europe. The first notable American actor to make | | | | still standing today. |
| a successful tour was Edwin Forrest, who at | | | | Our Broadway. |
| nineteen, had played Iago to Edmond Kean's | | | | The first decade of the 20th Century was both |
| Othello. Forrest's second tour of Great Britain, in | | | | boring and transformational in the history of our |
| the following decade didn't fare as well. He was | | | | Broadway Musicals. The seeds of that |
| hissed off stage. Though the disruption of his tour | | | | transformation go back to 1882, and the |
| was a personal feud with a British actor, its | | | | construction of The Madison Square Theater at |
| results were well publicized in the American Press | | | | 24th Street. The Mallory's, who had built the |
| and his return to the American stage was | | | | theater, had employed a young actor-manager |
| received with populist fervor. This "personal feud" | | | | from San Francisco along with two brothers from |
| became an international incident and | | | | the lower Eastside to help manage the theater. |
| demonstration of class struggle in 1849, when the | | | | David Belasco, who had the distinction of |
| British actor in question was scheduled to perform | | | | appearing on stage with another unknown child, |
| at the Astor Place Opera House in New York. A | | | | Maude Adams, in San Francisco in 1877, was soon |
| riot ensued on the night of May 10th which was | | | | to become a playwright, theater owner and |
| put down with troops and cannon. | | | | builder. The two brothers from the lower Eastside |
| Broadways first marquis. | | | | were, of course, Charles and Daniel Frohman. The |
| In 1891, the first electric marquis was lit on | | | | first sign of the transformation occurred when |
| Broadway. The theater was on Madison Square at | | | | producer Rudolf Aronson decided to build a |
| the intersection of Broadway and Fifth Avenue at | | | | theatre of his own. At the time, theatres were |
| W. 23rd Street. The Flatiron Building now occupies | | | | concentrated between Union Square and 24th |
| the site. By midway through the following decade, | | | | Street. |