Theater District | |
|---|---|
 TheJohn Golden Theatre,Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre,Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre andBooth Theatre on West 45th Street in Manhattan's Theater District | |
 Location in New York City | |
| Coordinates:40°45′32″N73°59′06″W / 40.759°N 73.985°W /40.759; -73.985 | |
| Country | United States |
| State | New York |
| City | New York City |
| Borough | Manhattan |
| ZIP Codes | 10018, 10019, 10036[1] |
| Area codes | 212, 332, 646, and917 |
New York City'sTheater District, sometimes spelledTheatre District and officiallyzoned as the "Theater Subdistrict",[2] is an area andneighbourhood inMidtown Manhattan where mostBroadway theatres are located, in addition to other theaters, movie theaters, restaurants, hotels, and other places of entertainment. It is bounded by West40th Street on the south, West54th Street on the north,Sixth Avenue on the east andEighth Avenue on the west, and includesTimes Square.The Great White Way is the name given to the section ofBroadway which runs through the Theater District.
It also contains recording studios, record label offices, theatrical agencies, television studios, restaurants, movie theaters,Duffy Square,Shubert Alley, theBrill Building, andMadame Tussauds New York.[3][4][5]
The City of New York defines the subdistrict for zoning purposes to extend from 40th Street to 57th Street and from Sixth Avenue to Eighth Avenue, with an additional area west of Eighth Avenue from42nd Street to 45th Street.[6] The Times Square Alliance, abusiness improvement district organization dedicated to improving the Theater District, defines the district as an irregularly shaped area within thebounding box of 40th Street, 6th Avenue, 53rd Street, and 9th Avenue.[7] As of 2024, theVivian Beaumont Theater (part ofLincoln Center) is the only Broadway-class theater not located in the Theater District.
The area known asTheatre Row is an area on 42nd Street fromNinth Avenue toEleventh Avenue, which includes manyoff-Broadway andoff-off-Broadway theaters.
In 1836, mayorCornelius Lawrence opened 42nd Street to encourage the city's northern expansion, saying "move up town and enjoy the pure, clean air".[8] The Theater District began attracting theaters and restaurants after theMetropolitan Opera House moved to West 39th Street andBroadway in 1883.[9]Oscar Hammerstein I opened hisVictoria Theatre on 42nd Street in 1899.[8] Accessibility to the Theater District improved as electrified trolley lines started in 1899, followed by the opening of theNew York City Subway'sfirst line in 1904.[8]
"The Great White Way" is a nickname for a section of Broadway inMidtown Manhattan that encompasses the Theater District. In 1880, Broadway betweenUnion Square andMadison Square was illuminated byBrusharc lamps, making it among the first electrically lighted streets in the United States.[10] By the 1890s,23rd Street to34th Street was so brightly illuminated by electrical advertising signs people began calling it "The Great White Way".[11] As the theater district shifted uptown just before the turn of the century, the nickname stuck and became synonymous.[12]
Over the years, the district has been referred to by New Yorkers as "the Rialto", "The Main Stem", and "Broadway". Around the turn of the 20th century, it was simply called "The Street".[13][14]
By the 1970s, 42nd Street was seedy and run-down;X-rated movie houses,peep shows, and so-calledgrindhouses began to locate there. It was considered by some New Yorkers as a somewhat dangerous place to venture. However, in the 1990s the entire area was significantly revitalized by the city. Most of the adult theater businesses closed and an array of new theaters, multiplex movie houses, restaurants, and tourist attractions opened.[4]
In 1974, the exterior of theLyceum Theatre became the first Broadway theatre to receive the landmark status designation from theNew York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC).[12][15] This was followed in 1979 by the exterior and interior of theNew Amsterdam Theatre.[16]
In early 1982,Joseph Papp, the Broadway theatrical producer, and director who had establishedThe Public Theater, led a campaign called "Save the Theatres" in Manhattan.[17] The primary initial goal of the "Save the Theatres" effort, which was sponsored by Papp's not-for-profit group and supported by theActors' Equity Association union, was to save several theater buildings in the Theatre District neighborhood from their impending demolition by monied Manhattan development interests.[18][19][20][21] Papp provided financial resources, campaign buttons, posters, and newspaper ads for the effort; recruited a publicist and actors to promote the cause; and provided a various stage and street venues for public events in support of the campaign for saving the historic theatres.[19]
At Papp's behest, in July 1982, U.S. RepresentativeDonald J. Mitchell of New York and 13 co-sponsors[a] introduced a bill titled "A bill to designate the Broadway/Times Square Theatre District in the City of New York as a national historic site" (H.R. 6885).[23] The proposed legislation, which was not enacted, would have required theFederal Government to aid financially and otherwise in preserving the district and its historic theatre houses as an officialNational Historic Site.[23]
The Save the Theatres campaign then turned their efforts toward supporting the establishment of the Theater District as a New York Cityhistoric district under the purview of the LPC.[24][25] In December 1983, Save the Theatres prepared "The Broadway Theater District, a Preservation Development and Management Plan," and demanded that each theater in the district receive landmark designation.[25] MayorEd Koch ultimately responded by creating a Theater Advisory Council, that included Papp as a member,[19] and which eventually led to the area being officiallyzoned as the "Theater Subdistrict".[2] Each theater'sland lot could be developed with a certain maximum floor area, but many theaters used far less floor area than the maximum. The zoning plan allowed the unuseddevelopment rights on the theaters' site to be sold to developers of nearby buildings that needed more than the maximum floor area.[26]
The LPC considered protecting close to 50 "legitimate theaters" as individual city landmarks in 1982, following the destruction of theHelen Hayes andMorosco theatres. A city-landmark status would prevent the theaters from being modified without the LPC's permission, thereby protecting them from development. The landmarks under consideration included both facades and interiors, which were designated separately.[27]Manhattan Community Board 5, under whose jurisdiction the vast majority of the theaters fell, supported many of the proposed landmark protections.[28] An advisory panel under mayor Koch voted to allow the LPC consider theaters not only on their historical significance but also on their architectural merits.[29] In response to objections from some of the major theatrical operators, several dozen scenic and lighting designers offered to work on the LPC for creating guidelines for potential landmarks.[30]
The first theaters to be landmarked under the 1982 plan were theNeil Simon,Ambassador, andVirginia (August Wilson) in August 1985.[31][32] The landmark plan was then deferred temporarily until some landmark guidelines were enacted;[33] the guidelines, implemented in December 1985, allowed operators to modify theaters for productions without having to consult the LPC.[34][35] The three theaters' operators objected to the landmark statuses.[35][36]
Landmark designations of theaters increased significantly in 1987,[37] starting with thePalace in mid-1987.[38] The LPC designated theAl Hirschfeld,Belasco,Booth, andBrooks Atkinson (Lena Horne),[39][40] as well as theBroadhurst,Ethel Barrymore, andBiltmore (Samuel J. Friedman) in early November 1987.[41][39] This was followed by theCort (James Earl Jones),46th Street (Richard Rodgers),John Golden,Hayes,Hudson,Imperial, andMark Hellinger later the same month, as well as the Embassy, which was never a Broadway venue.[42] In December 1987, the LPC designated theEugene O'Neill,Henry Miller's (Stephen Sondheim),Longacre,Lunt-Fontanne,Majestic,Music Box, andPlymouth (Gerald Schoenfeld) as landmarks, as well as the Lyceum's interior.[43] These actions brought the number of current or former Broadway theaters with landmark status to 26.[44] Five more landmarks were designated by early 1988: theEd Sullivan,Royale (Bernard B. Jacobs),Shubert,St. James, andWinter Garden.[45]
In March 1988, theNew York City Board of Estimate approved the 28 landmark designations that had been approved in 1987 and 1988.[46][47] Of these, both the interior and exterior of 19 theaters were protected, while only the interiors of seven theaters (including the Lyceum, whose exterior was already protected) and the exteriors of two theaters were approved.[47] Several theater owners argued that the landmark designations impacted them negatively, despite Koch's outreach to theater owners.[48] TheShuberts, theNederlanders, andJujamcyn collectively sued the LPC in June 1988 to overturn the landmark designations of 22 theaters on the merit that the designations severely limited the extent to which the theaters could be modified.[49] TheNew York Supreme Court upheld the LPC's designations of these theaters the next year.[50][51] The dispute went all the way to theSupreme Court of the United States, which upheld the designations in 1992.[52]
In January 2001, theNew York Appellate Division, First Department inFisher v. Giuliani, partially upheld the 1998 expansion of the Theater Subdistrict zoning regulations, which added receiving sites along Eighth Avenue where development rights from the landmarked Broadway theaters could be sold. Community and civil society organizations opposed the expansion of the district as it would impinge the nearby residential neighborhood of Hell's Kitchen/Clinton. The court objection, filed in 1999, did not challenge the pre-existing Theater Subdistrict itself or the original development rights zoning legislation.[53]
Under the 1998 zoning regulation, New York City also created the Theater Subdistrict Council (TSC), a not-for-profit corporation.[54] The TSC administers the Theater Subdistrict Fund and allocates grants.[54]
The New York City Zoning Resolution for special purpose districts, as amended on April 30, 2012, contains special regulations for the Theater Subdistrict, including the transfer of development rights, incentives for the rehabilitation of existing theaters, the creation of a theater council to promote theaters, and zoning and signage for theaters, and contains a list of theaters that qualify for special provisions in the regulations.[55]
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