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