Arthur Farrell photos on Flickr. Martin Beck Theater. Midtown Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States The Martin Beck Theater survives today as one of the historic theaters that symbolize American theater for both New York and the nation. It was built in 1. Martin Beck, a West Coast producer who had formerly been president of the Orpheum Circuit. After building the Palace, the legendary New York vaudeville showcase, and being forced out of its management, Beck determined to build another New York theater for himself, and spent the rest of his life running it. Wanting to build as extraordinary a theater as possible, Beck brought architect G. Park Police Drill Mount And Dismounting oyuncular Police made a few initial token arrests of. The drill was owned by the Louisiana Oil and Gas. VIDEOCLIPS Titles By Year Desde Villaluenga. Park Police Drill Mount and Dismounting (1896) The Pennsylvania Limited Express (1896) Pennsylvania R.R. Albert Lansburgh to New York from his native San Francisco, where Lansburgh had been the Orpheum Circuit's chief architect. A designer primarily of movie palaces, Lansburgh created for Beck a fantastic Moorish- inspired theater, among the most lavishly decorated in the Broadway area. The only Broadway theater built west of Eighth Avenue, the Beck inspired no other theaters to follow, but has survived its location in grand style. The Martin Beck represents a special and important aspect of the nation's theatrical history. Beyond its historical importance, its facade is an unusual Moorish design, unlike any other Broadway theater. It stands as a reminder of the career of the great producer Martin Beck, whose name it still bears, and as G. Albert Lansburgh's only major New York theater. For half a century the Martin Beck Theater has served as home to countless numbers of the plays through which the Broadway theater has come to personify American theater. As such, it continues to help define the Broadway theater district, the largest and most famous concentration of legitimate stage theaters in the world. The development of the Broadway Theater District The area of midtown Manhattan known today as the Broadway theater district encompasses the largest concentration of legitimate playhouses in the world. The theaters located there, some dating from the turn of the century, are significant for their contributions to the history of the New York stage, for their influence upon American theater as a whole, and in many cases for their architectural design. The development of the area around Times Square as New York's theater district at the end of the 1. Manhattan Island (abetted by the growth of several forms of mass transportation), and the expansion of New York's role in American theater. The northward movement of Manhattan's residential, commercial, and entertainment districts had been occurring at a steady rate throughout the 1. In the early 1. 80. Broadway, As New York's various businesses moved north, they began to isolate themselves in more or less separate areas: the financial institutions remained downtown; the major retail stores situated themselves on Broadway between 1. Streets, eventually moving to Herald Square and Fifth Avenue at the turn of the century; the hotels, originally located near the stores and theaters, began to congregate around major transportation centers such as Grand Central Terminal or on the newly fashionable Fifth Avenue; while the mansions of the wealthy spread farther north on Fifth Avenue, as did such objects of their beneficence as the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The theater district, which had existed in the midst of stores, hotels, and other businesses along lower Broadway for most of the 1. Union Square, then Madison Square, then Herald Square. By the last two decades of the 1. Broadway, until they had reached the area that was then known as Long Acre Square and is today called Times Square. A district of farmlands and rural summer homes in the early 1. Long Acre Square had by the turn of the century evolved into a hub of mass transportation. A horsecar line had run across 4. Street as early as the 1. Grand Central Depot and the completion of the Third and Sixth Avenue Elevated Railways, it was comparatively simple for both New Yorkers and out- of- towners to reach Long Acre Square. Transportation continued to play a large part in the development of the area; in 1. New York's subway system was inaugurated, with a major station located at 4. Street and Broadway. The area was then renamed Times Square in honor of the newly erected Times Building. The evolution of the Times Square area as a center of Manhattan's various mass transit systems made it a natural choice for the location of legitimate playhouses, which needed to be easily accessible to their audiences. The theater business that invaded Long Acre Square at the end of the 1. New York was the starting- point for a vast, nationwide entertainment network known as . In contrast to the stock system, In which a theater manager engaged a company of actors for a season and presented them in a variety of plays, the combination system consisted of a company of actors appearing in a single show which toured from city to city, providing its own scenery, costumes, and sometimes musical accompaniment. Helped by the expansion of the nation's railroads after the Civil War, the combination system soon killed off the majority of stock companies. Of crucial importance to the operation of the combination system was a single location where combination shows could be cast, rehearsed, tried out, and then booked for a cross- country tour. Since New York was already regarded as the most important theater city in America, it is not surprising that it became the headquarters for the combination system. In addition to the many theaters needed for an initial Broadway production for the combinations before they went on tour, New York's theater district encompassed rehearsal halls, the headquarters of scenery, costume, lighting, and makeup companies, offices of theatrical agents and producers, theatrical printers and newspapers, and other auxiliary enterprises. Close to the theater district were boarding houses catering to the hundreds of performers who came to New York in the hope of being hired for a touring show or a Broadway production. As theaters were built farther uptown, the auxiliary enterprises also began to move north. By the turn of the century, the section of Broadway between 3. Street and 4. 2nd Street was known as the Rialto. Theater people gathered or promenaded there. Producers could sometimes cast a play by looking over the actors loitering on the Rialto; and out- of- town managers, gazing out of office windows, could book tours by seeing who was available.^ The theater district that began to move north to Long Acre Square in the 1. The movement of the- theater district north along Broadway had proceeded at a steady pace during the latter part of the 1. The Casino Theater was opened on the southeast corner of Broadway and 3. Street in 1. 88. 2. A year later, it was joined by a most ambitious undertaking- -the construction of the Metropolitan Opera House on Broadway between 3. Streets. In 1. 88. Broadway Theater was erected on the southwest corner of Broadway and 4. Street. Five years later, the American Theater opened its doors at Eighth Avenue between 4. Streets, as did Abbey's Theater at Broadway and 3. Street and the Empire Theater at Broadway and Fortieth Street. It remained for Oscar Hammer stein I to maka tha nova into Long Asia Square itself. At the close of the 1. Long Acre Square housed Manhattan's harness and carriage businesses, but was little used at night, when it seems to have become a . The original plan for the Olympia called for a . On November 2. 5, 1. Hammerstein opened the Lyric Theater section of the building, and a little over three weeks later he inaugurated the Music Hall section. Never a financial success, the Olympia closed its doors two years after it opened. Neverthe less, it earned Hammerstein the title of . Much of this theater- building activity was inspired by the competition between two major forces in the industry, the Theatrical Syndicate and the Shubert Brothers, for control of the road. As each side in the rivalry drew its net more tightly around the playhouses it owned or controlled, the other side was forced to build new theaters to house its attractions. The result was a dramatic increase in the number of playhouses, both in New York and across the country. After World War I, as the road declined and New York's theatrical activity increased, the general economic prosperity made possible the construction of thirty additional playhouses in the Times Square area, expanding the boundaries of the theater district so that it stretched from west of Eighth Avenue to Sixth Avenue, and from 3. Street to Columbus Circle. The stockmarket crash of 1. Depression caused a shrinkage in theater activity. Some playhouses were torn down, many were converted to motion picture houses, and later to radio and television studios. From the time of the Depression until the 1. Broadway playhouses were constructed. Fortunately, the theaters that survive from the early part of the century represent a cross- section of types and styles, and share among them a good deal of New York's rich theatrical history. At the close of the 1. American theaters were still being built in the style of traditional European opera houses, with high proscenium arches, narrow auditoriums, two or three balconies built in a horseshoe configuration, and dozens of boxes, some set into the front of the first balcony. Although contemporary notices of the theaters attributed specific (though often vague) styles or periods to them, their interiors were more ofte* than not a melange of styles and colors. With the increase of theater construction after the turn of the century came a new attitude toward theater architecture and decoration as firms such as Herts and Tallant, Thomas W. Lamb, and others, began to plan the playhouse's exterior and interior as a single, integrated design. The Art Nouveau style New Amsterdam Theater, which opened in 1.
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