A Brief History of Broadway in New York City

 

Procurement and contracting professional James Berlangero has worked within the supply chain industry since 1985 when he began as a senior buyer. Outside of his professional engagements, James Berlangero enjoys pursuing other interests, including participating in several sports and attending Broadway theater productions.

Commonly known as Broadway, this type of theater must take place within one of the 41 professional theaters containing 500 seats or more located in the theater district of Manhattan in New York City to be called a Broadway production. Broadway has a rather long history in the United States, beginning in the 1800s.

In 1750, Walter Murray and Thomas Keane opened a theater on Nassau Street, large enough to house around 280 theater patrons. It put on productions of Shakespearian plays and ballad operas, but theater in the city stopped with the advent of the Revolutionary War. In 1798, it resumed with the opening of The Park Theater, which seated nearly 2,000 people. More theaters soon followed, and Broadway began to develop in earnest. Broadway’s very first long-run musical was The Elves (1857), which ran for 50 performances, a very significant number for its time.

With changes to the city’s infrastructure and the development of rapid transit, more and more people were able to travel to the theater district in the early 1900s, stimulating its development. The 1900s also saw the addition of electric lights and displays outside the theaters, creating a great white display. This triggered the nickname ‘The Great White Way’ for the theater district. The oldest continually operating theater on Broadway today is the Lyceum Theater, built in 1903.