Talk:Fifth Avenue Theatre

Theatre names: Fifth Ave and variations, Madison Square

Proposing two changes in "History": First, after the Fifth Avenue Theatre that Daly managed on 24th St. burned down 1/1/1873, it was replaced by a building called the Madison Square Theatre. Second, Daly initially called the theatre in this article the New Fifth Avenue and then the Fifth Avenue, but it was also called Daly's Fifth Avenue (by him and others) and Daly's (by others). Clarifying the names is important for searching; not only were there two Fifth Avenue Theatres, but in 1879 Daly opened yet another "Daly's Theatre" and he also ran at least one "Broadway Theatre" around this time.

Sources:

• Madison Square Theatre was built on the site of Daly's Fifth Avenue Theatre on 24th St.
  • Bordman, Gerald and Thomas S. Hischak. "Fifth Avenue Theatre." The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. 2004. Retrieved March 19, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O149-FifthAvenueTheatre.html (Substantially the same text appears at http://www.answers.com/topic/fifth-avenue-theatre.)
  • Brown, Thomas Allston, A History of the New York Stage from the First Performance in 1732 to 1901, Volume 2, (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company), 1903, pp. 414-415.
  • IBDB appears to lay out the sequence of names for both theatres correctly. Fifth Ave: http://www.ibdb.com/venue.php?id=1453, Madison Square (aka Hoyt's): http://www.ibdb.com/venue.php?id=1248.
  • New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, Madison Square North Historic District Designation Report, June 26, 2001, p. 12. "Broadway, between 23rd and 34th Streets, also attracted a large concentration of legitimate theaters...the Fifth Avenue Theater (later the Madison Square Theatre, 1865-1908) located behind the Fifth Avenue Hotel on West 24th Street...Daly's Fifth-Avenue Theatre at the northwest corner of 28th Street (1877-1930)..."
  • "A Novel Theatre.: A Stage In Two Stories, To Be Raised And Lowered," New York Times, Dec. 25, 1879, p. 8. "Steele Mackaye, the manager, Wisedell and Kimball, the architects, have...taken the walls of what was at one time Daly’s Fifth-Avenue Theatre, and what has lately been known as the Madison-Square Theatre, in Twenty-fourth-street, and made such a transformation..." (This article also describes the primitive air-conditioning system as being new, so there may be another issue there.)

• Fifth Avenue Theatre on 28th called other names. To show the variation of practice throughout the period of Daly's management (1873-1877), here are examples, among many, of classified ads/play listings (or articles if so noted) and the dates they ran in the New York Times.
  • New Fifth-Avenue Theatre: 1873: 1/22 (article);
  • Daly's New Fifth-Avenue Theatre: 1873: 1/25, 12/4 (article);
  • Fifth-Avenue Theatre:
    • 1873: 2/27, 3/5, 4/7, 5/6, 5/16;
    • 1874: 2/22, 5/9;
    • 1875: 1/4, 3/28, 9/12, 12/18;
    • 1876: 1/16, 2/6 (article), 3/11, 10/30;
    • 1877: 9/16 (article-theatre had closed);
  • Daly's Fifth-Avenue Theatre:
    • 1873: 12/29;
    • 1874: 1/14, 1/25, 8/26, 10/4, 11/2, 12/16;
    • 1877: 2/8, 4/6, 8/22, 9/2;
  • Daly's Theatre:
    • 1874: 10/25 (article);
    • 1876: 4/14 (article).

Thanks. Ajaxon (talk) 04:24, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi. I agree that after the Fifth Avenue Theatre that Daly managed on 24th St. burned down 1/1/1873, Daly moved to this theatre, and the article already says so. Although it is relevant to the Madison Square Theatre article, it is not relevant to *this* article what the new name of the 24th Street theatre was, and that information, I believe, would add confusion here. I have added a link to the other article for the convenience of the reader. No one searching for Madison Square Theatre will come here, and that is correct. Anyone searching for Fifth Avenue Theatre will come here, and they will see that for theatres under that name for dates earlier than 1873, they need to go to the other article. However, if notwithstanding all that, you still feel that specifically mentioning the new name of the other theatre is necessary, we could add a footnote. Secondly, you cite the NYT articles: "Daly's New Fifth-Avenue Theatre: 1873: 1/25, 12/4 (article)". Daly's name was never part of the name of this theatre after 1873. It is a description that indicated that the theatre belonged to Daly, like saying Shubert's Broadhurst Theatre. The name was "New Fifth Avenue Theatre" until 1877, after which John Ford called it the "Fifth Avenue Theatre". I have now added a clarification about that in the text, which I think covers the situation in the clearest way possible. If you think some redirect pages would be helpful, let's talk about that, but I tend to think they would only add confusion for searchers. I do not agree that this article should say that this theatre was ever called "Daly's [anything]". To the extent that the NYT called it such on 10/27/74 or 4/14/76, it was an error. The IBDB is quite clear that productions ran under the names "New Fifth Avenue Theatre" and "Fifth Avenue Theatre". They mostly get their information from old theatre programs, so I doubt they could have made a mistake about that. I think that the changes I just made should cover the situation, but let me know if you still have objections. -- Ssilvers (talk) 05:30, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Note also that we seem to be entirely missing an article on the later Daly's Theatre described here. If you want to add clarity to the issue of Daly's theatres in NY, a great way would be to write a brief article about this theatre. Best regards! -- Ssilvers (talk) 00:25, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Good idea - I'll get going on the article. Thanks! Ajaxon (talk) 03:58, 22 March 2012 (UTC)