Broadway is the popular name for the Theater District in New York City, the center of professional theater in the United States. Broadway theater is one of New York City’s biggest tourist attractions and a major contributor to the city’s economy.
The Theater District gets its name from Broadway, a major north-south street in New York City. The street runs the length of the borough (district) of Manhattan and into the borough of the Bronx. The first theaters opened in New York City near Broadway by the mid-1700’s. In the following decades, a number of additional theaters opened along the street, especially at its southern end. The name Broadway became associated with the Theater District by the late 1800’s. During the early 1900’s, the area also became known as The Great White Way. A theater columnist applied the term to Broadway about the same time a snowstorm in 1901 turned the street into a “white way.” Later, Great White Way referred to the lights of Broadway. At that time, electric signs began illuminating theaters and billboards there.
Today, the Broadway Theater District runs roughly from 42nd Street and Times Square north to 53rd Street. It extends from 6th Avenue on the east to 8th Avenue on the west. There are about 40 theaters in the district with 500 or more seats. Most of them stand on side streets off Broadway itself.
A movement known as off-Broadway arose in New York City during the early 1950’s. Off-Broadway shows tried to present an alternative, more experimental theater of greater artistic quality than the mainstream theater on Broadway. Off-Broadway shows also charged lower ticket prices. Off-Broadway theater originally flourished in small theaters in lower Manhattan, especially in Greenwich Village. Today, several off-Broadway theaters are actually in the Broadway Theater District.
During the early 1960’s, an even more experimental theater movement emerged, called off-off-Broadway. This movement presented productions in coffee houses, churches, lofts, and other nontraditional performance spaces in Manhattan, including the Lower East Side, and Greenwich Village.
