Book Description

Excerpt from Our Theatres to-Day and Yesterday New York is to-day, in the year nineteen hundred and eleven, the recognized centre of theatrical activities in America and has been for something over one hundred years. Although the first theatre to be erected in the city appeared in 1750 and performances were given here as early as 1732, it was not until the latter part of the eighteenth century that New York took its place at the head of the theatre in this country. Perhaps no other field of enterprise, standing for social good, has made such rapid progress in local history as has the theatrical business, and only a mental gymnast can appreciatingly comprehend in detail the marvelous growth that has taken place in the city's amusement sphere since the days when the only abode of entertainment was at best a mean wooden structure, and actors were frequently compelled to give performances in the upper story of a building, often as not, the home of a cheese or molasses store. To-day Manhattan Island boasts over forty legitimate theatres, a full half dozen first-class vaudeville houses, several burlesque and variety houses and more than four hundred moving picture theatres, many of the last named offering also a fair class of vaudeville. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.