Since the year 1733, when New York's first playhouse existed somewhere down town, there have been built here no less than 100 first-class places of amusement that might properly be classified under the comprehensive name of theatre. Some of these were old places rebuilt, but at least no separate and distinct theatres have been constructed, without taking into account such old ones as were set up anew.

It is a debatable question where the very first theatre of the city was located. Historians have differed as to its site, its date and its general character, but the weight of authority gives 1733 as the year in which it thrived, if the life of an unsuccessful venture, such as it undoubtedly was, could be called thriving. Dunlap, the earliest historian of the American stage, has said that the drama was first introduced into this country by the Hallam company, which played in Virginia and then came to this city in 1753, but Joseph N. Ireland, another chronicler, whose researches were particularly confined to New York, denies this, and states positively that the playhouse mentioned above did exist. His opinion is the more widely accepted.

As proof of his theory, although he cannot tell where the theatre was, Ireland has cited an advertisement which appeared in 1733 in Bradford's Gazette, wherein George Talbot, merchant, called attention to his store "next door to the playhouse." In those days the city had a population of little over 7,000 people, so the accepted theory is that there was not sufficient support for a theatre, and that the initial playhouse therefore went to smash after a short career. The records next mention a theatrical company that came here from Philadelphia in 1750, giving their opening performance in the Kip Street Theater, which was in a building owned by Rip Van Dam, an old time Governor of the Province of New York.

Maybe there are not many folks nowadays who know that what is now Nassau was once Kip Street. The theatre on Gov.Van Dam's property was located between John Street and Maiden Lane. It was converted into a German Calvinist church in 1738, and remained standing until 1810. "Richard III" was the first piece produced in the place. It was advertised as "Wrote originally by Shakespeare and altered by Colley Cibber Esq.." On the primitive billboard that announced the production appeared the inscription, with old fashioned type and long Ss; "In this play is contained the Death of King Henry 6th;-the murder of the Princes in the Tower:-the landing of the Earl of Richmond, and the Battle of Bosworth Field-Pitt, 5 shillings; Gallery, 3 shillings." Not only were the prices low in those days, but the hour of beginning a performance was much earlier in the evening than it is today.; The announcement said: "To begin precisely at half an hour after six o'clock," to which was added: "and no person to be admitted behind the scenes."

City's Third Theatre

It was in the city's third theatre, opened in Kip Street in September, 1753, that Lewis Hallam, brother of the famous London manager, presented his company here. In his first advertisement, a lengthy document, he said: "They even told us that there was a very fine playhouse building." This statement is taken as proof of the existence of the other theatres, (named above) which are not taken into account at all by Dunlap. Mr. Halem's troupe, before coming here, had been playing in Williamsburg, then the capital of the Province of Virginia. Their appearance there is described as having been the first dramatic performance in America.

In New York they gave the comedies of Congreve and various Shakespearean pieces, and it was five years after their arrival that another theatre, the fourth to be put up here, made its appearance. It was the Cruger's Wharf Theatre, situated between Coenties and Old Slips, on the East River front, and in a line with what is now Front Street. Then, in 1761, came the Beekman, or Chappel Street Theatre, standing where Temple Court now is.

The theatre on the water front was referred to in contemporary writings as the one " on Mr. Cruger's wharf." "The Inconstant" was the first play, and for it the admission prices were 8s. for a box, 5s. for a seat in the pit, and 2s. for a place in the gallery. The first production of "Hamlet" was in the Chappel Street house, which had been established and managed by Mr. Douglas with much difficulty, as the City Fathers had declared that the founding of another theatre "would not benefit the morals of the town." The popular outcry against the place had lasted even after its owner was successful in overcoming the opposition of the governing body. The cost of the theatre, which was thought in those days to be about the finest thing of its kind ever put together, was $1,625. and it seated enough people to buy tickets worth $450. The scenery and aggregate wardrobes were valued at $1,000 altogether.

In all these old theatres there were box office customs at which our modern managers would throw up their hands in horror. If, for instance, a citizen wanted to buy tickets, he left word at the theatre, and they were sent around to his house by a servant attached to the playhouse-unless he sent his own domestic after them. Announcements said that no cash would be taken at the door on "play nights." Possibly the producing of the play was deemed ample responsibility for one evening without the added cares that have since devolved upon the manager, treasurer, sub-manager, and every other official that exists about a theatre today and were unheard of in those times. The notice "No one allowed behind the scenes" was never omitted from the public theatrical advertisements of the day.

The John Street Theatre

The first really famous playhouse of the city was the John Street Theatre, which stood just east of Broadway, and was opened on December 7, 1767. Officers of the British Army, among them Major Andre, used to give amateur performances in it. Subsequent to the days of British occupation a play called "The Countess of Salisbury" was brought out. It was the first dramatic production in which the flag of the United States played a conspicuous figure.

" Hail Columbia" was played in the house for the first time on the occasion of a visit by George Washington. The theatre was closed permanently in January, 1798, but before that a playhouse had run for a while in William Street, and another, called the Greenwich Street, had developed into a popular resort, having begun as Rockett's Circus. Corne's State Street Garden, too, had been built, and in the same year that the John Street house disappeared," on the site now occupied by the tallest skyscraper of the city, 21 Park Row, was built the original Park Theatre. It extended back to Theatre Alley. After having been burned down and rebuilt in 1820-21, it was burned again in 1848. Its history for many years had been the dramatic history of New York, for all the famous actors and actresses of the time had appeared there, and no other theatre could rival it for successful productions.

Early Vaudevilles

Water Street had its amusement hall in 1799. The attractions were medleys=ancestors. It has been said, of the vaudeville of today. A year after they began to be produced the Mount Vernon Gardens sprang into existence at Leonard Street and Broadway, in a neighborhood then considered to be far out in the country. Four years afterward the Grove Street Theatre, in what is now Madison Street, was opened just east of Catharine Street, and at about the same time the Vauxhall Gardens were established in the vicinity of the present site of Cooper Union.

It would be an almost endless task to catalogue each of the new names and changed names of theatres in those days or, for that matter, in recent years. It has often been remarked that it is a great pity for the names to be changed so frequently. There have been three Park Theatres, five Olympics, and five Broadways. Hardly any one playhouse has kept its original name until its career was ended. At the present time the Union Square Theatre has been so called for more than thirty years, ever since it was built, but there is not another house in the city with a name of such long standing.

New York's third famous playhouse, the one that folks nowadays look back upon as the most celebrated of all the old-time theatres, was opened on October 23, 1826. It was called the Bowery. In it nearly every famous actor of the next fifty years was seen, and the building that bore the well-known name for so long is now the oldest theatrical structure standing in the city. Its name today is the Thalia, and in front of its time-worn columns strange-looking billboards printed in the Yiddish language, are read daily by the play-going people of New York's ghetto.

At the Bowery Theatre's opening performance there was a brilliant experiment in lighting a stage by gas. Before that night the footlights in New York theatres had been dingy lamps. In other ways, too, the opening was a remarkable one when viewed back from the modern first-nighter's point of view. First, before the curtain rose, there was recited a verbose poem, written after the fashion of Homer or some other classical versifier. The leading actor, George Barrett, was the reciter. When he had finished, the play was presented. It was called "The Road to Ruin." After the last fall of the curtain came an address. "written by Dr. Farmer and delivered by Mrs. Young of the company." This was followed by a farce, entitled "Raising the Wind," which ended the evening's entertainment.

Niblo's Garden

During the season of 1827-8 the Sans-Souci Gardens were opened at Broadway and Prince Street. Later they were known as Niblo's Garden, and then, in 1894, as Niblo's Theatre. It was there that "The Black Crook" was first seen. Up to 1850 the money to be made in theatrical enterprises was not nearly so much as nowadays, nor were the expenses even comparative. Before the Park Theatre was burned in 1848 a periodical published a list of nightly door receipts taken in at that house, and from this it can be seen that $300 or $400 made up what was thought a "good house." Mr. Forrest's benefit, an enormous venture for that time, netted but $1,338.

John Brougham opened late in 1850 his Lyceum, at Broadway and Broome Street. Later this was to be known as Wallack's, and as such it was the most celebrated playhouse in America from 1`852 to 1861, when it became the Broadway, the third of that name in the city. In 1869 it was demolished. Just south of where the Broadway Central Hotel now stands, in Broadway, opposite Bond Street, the Metropolitan Theatre was opened in 1854. A year later it became the first of Laura Keene's houses, and afterward, passing through two more changes of name, it was finally famous as the Winter Garden, where was given the historic performance in which Junious Brutus, Edwin, and John Wilkes Booth played Cassius, Brutus, and Marc Anthony. In this theatre Booth's "Hamlet" had its famous 100-night run in 1864-5. The Garden was burned down on March 23, 1867.

The Elder Sothern

Laura Keene's second theatre was at 622-624 Broadway, near Bleecker Street, and was opened in 1856, becoming the Olympic seven years afterward. Here Sothern made his hit as Lord Dundreary, and Miss Keene played in "Sea of Ice" and "Seven Sisters." As the Olympic the theatre is remembered as the home of the original "Humpty-Dumpty," with George Fox, one of the best of them, playing the leading role. In 1859 the New Bowery Theatre was opened, boldly pilfering the name of the old house which had made such a reputation for itself, and in 1861 Wallack had his second house ready at Broadway and Thirteenth Street. The New Bowery, which stood between Canal and Hester Streets, was burned in 1866.

The second Wallack's was the most famous of any of the three theatres that have borne the name. There the elder Wallack made his last appearance. Dion Boucicault, Charles Matthews, Henry Montague, and other well-known players were in the company. Later the theatre became the Star, after Wallack's had taken another move up town. Irving first appeared there in an American tour, and William H. Crane was a yearly attraction for a time. A large commercial building now stands on the site.

The Theatre now known as the Madison Square, and but recently called Hoyt's, was opened in West Twenty-fourth Street, west of Broadway, on Nov. 30, 1865, and since then it has had many different names. First it was the Fifth Avenue Opera House, then the Fifth Avenue Theatre, later Brougham's, and then once more the Fifth Avenue Theatre, this last time under Mr. Daly's management. The house was burned in January, 1873, but was rebuilt in the same year and became known as Minnie Cumming's Drawing Room Theatre. It was Heller's in 1877, and then Hoyt's.

In old times it was distinguished for its double stage that worked up and down like an elevator. This was designed by Steele Mackaye, who thought it would be well not to have waits between acts. Time showed, however, that these waits were desired by the patrons, and nowadays the double stage is not used for that purpose. Only two years ago, though, there was produced in the theatre "Coralie and Co.," wherein the moving floor was used to advantage, causing sets of characters to vanish in an instant and then to reappear again when the proper time came.

Daly's Theatre

Probably few people of the younger generation know that Daly's Theatre, the famous Daly's was once a museum in which giants and winged fish and such things were exhibited. George Banyard built the place in 1868. He failed, and then it became Wood's Museum. George Edgar took it after Wood's career was ended, calling it the Broadway. The museum was by this time a relic, and there were regular plays, "King Lear" being among the first of them. Mr. Daly took possession in 1879, renovated the house, and managed it until his death. Now Daniel Frohman has charge of it, but the old name is retained.

"Tony" Pastor's present theatre, in East Fourteenth Street, under Tammany Hall, was opened by Dan Bryant in 1868. Before Mr. Pastor took it, it was called by various names.

Booth's Theatre, the most famous one ever built in America, despite its comparatively short life, was opened in February, 1869, the first play therein being "Romeo and Juliet." In the cast was the owner of the theatre and the greatest American player, Edwin Booth. The theatre stood at the southeast corner of Sixth Avenue and Twenty-third Street, and was the most perfectly constructed playhouse of the city. It closed in April, 1883, with the same play that had been seen there on the opening night a little more than fourteen years previously. Besides Booth and Barrett, many other famous actors and actresses appeared in the theatre, among them being Mme. Modjeska, Edwin Adams, Adelaide Neilson, and John McCullough.

Koster & Bial's

Dan Bryant opened his second opera house in 1870, in Twenty-third Street, just west of Sixth Avenue. The place became Koster & Bial's in 1878, and was the first regular music hall bearing that well-known name, although the two partners had conducted combination drinking places and concert halls down town for a long time. In the Twenty-third Street house, which is called the Bon-Ton these days, there was some high-class music, among the celebrities who were first heard there being Remedy.

While Koster & Bial were in Twenty-third Street the notorious "cork room" existed in their theatre. The walls of this room were covered with stoppers from champagne bottles, and the affairs that took place in the room in the late hours after show time would have astonished the churchgoers. In fact, what happened in the "cork room" did finally become so well known that the affairs had to be stopped.

Not long after that Koster & Bial moved up to Thirty-fourth Street, taking hold of the Manhattan Theatre, built as a home fro opera by Oscar Hammerstein in 1892. The latter had failed. Only a few months ago this last Koster & Bial's was closed for all time, having within the few years of its existence passed through the hands of many managers, all of whom found, after sad experiences, that the place was too far from Broadway to be a paying proposition. The building has been torn down to make room for a big department store.

The theatre now called Proctor's Fifth Avenue was opened in 1872 as the St. James, and Mr. Daly changed the name to the Fifth Avenue a year later. In 1873 the Eagle Theatre, later the Standard, and now the Manhattan, was opened. Here "Pinafore" and other well-known operas were first sung. A year after the rise of the Eagle another theatre was opened in Broadway. It has had many names since then, Haverly's, the Comedy, the New Comedy, Dockstader's, the Gaiety, Herrmann's, Keller's, the St. James's, the Savoy. Jack's, and the Theatre Comique. The Third Avenue Theatre came a year after this last, and in it electricity was first used for stage purposes in New York. The Bijou was opened in 1878, being first called the Brighton, and then Wood's Broadway. Dixey played "Adonis" there for nearly two years.

The first Hammerstein venture, the Harlem Opera House, was started in 1889, the Lyceum and Irving Place Theatres having been opened in 1885 and 1888 respectively. The Garden was added to the list in 1890, and in the next year the first Italian theatre to be built in this city was running in First Avenue.

Three theatres were added in 1893, the Empire, the American, and Abbey's, now the Knickerbocker. Since then there have been many new ones, the Imperial Music Hall, now Weber and Field's, in 1894: Proctor's Pleasure Palace and Hammerstein's Olympia, in 1895: the Murray Hill, in 1896: the Lyric, now the Criterion, in 1897; the Dewey, "Tim" Sullivan's venture, in 1898, and the Victoria, another of Hammerstein's in 1899.

The latest additions to the list are Hammerstein's Republic, in West Forty-second Street, which David Belasco now leases, and the Star, at One hundred and Seventh Street and Lexington Avenue. The Olympia is now the New York and Hammerstein owns it no longer. His friends say, however, that it is the ambition of the manager's life to get back again the theatre that he built to be one of the finest structures of its kind in the country.

Several theatres are now either in process of construction or planned for the near future. The new Lyceum, to take the place of Dan Frohman's popular old place, which was recently torn down, in Fourth Avenue, will soon go up in Forty-fifth Street, east of Broadway. Klaw & Erlanger of the Dramatic Trust are to build two places in West Forty-second Street. Oscar Hammerstein has already bought a plot at Seventh Avenue and Thirty-fourth Street, and it will not be long before he has another house finished there. He intends to model it after the Drury Lane in London, and he may name it the Drury Lane.