A Brief History of Theater in NYC and Manhattan’s Theater District

By John Lupiano

Introduction

Midtown, Manhattan-based primary care/family medicine practitioner Dr. John Lupiano has a long history of living and working in his native New York City. The recipient of an MD from the University of Buffalo, School of Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, Dr. John Lupiano operated a practice on West 49th Street in the heart of Midtown and in Manhattan’s Theater District (located between 41st and 53rd Street and Sixth and Ninth Avenues).

New York City

New York City can trace its history of musicals and plays back to the pre-Revolutionary War Era. In the 1750s, actor-managers Thomas Kean and Walter Murray founded a theater company in the city’s modern-day financial district. The Revolutionary War, however, halted all theater productions and the Kean-Murray company did not open again until the 1790s. Up until the Civil War, theaters became increasingly popular in New York City. At the time, however, New York City’s more popular entertainment venues, like the Bowery Theater (founded 1826) and Niblo’s Garden (founded 1829), operated in Lower Manhattan.

Conclusion

Midtown Manhattan did not become the home to New York City’s world-renowned Theater District until the early 20th century. The relocation of The New York Times headquarters from Lower Manhattan to Midtown in the early 1910s helped spur residential migration to the area; cultural attractions began appearing around the same time. Broadway’s oldest continually operating theater, the Lyceum, was founded in Midtown in 1903. In the 1920s, Midtown’s Broadway area became the booming theater district we know today. Around the same time, Times Square was transformed from a quiet city center to today’s vibrant tourist attraction.