Booth's Theatre
Overview
 
Booth's Theatre was a theatre in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...

 built by actor Edwin Booth
Edwin Booth
Edwin Thomas Booth was a famous 19th century American actor who toured throughout America and the major capitals of Europe, performing Shakespearean plays. In 1869 he founded Booth's Theatre in New York, a spectacular theatre that was quite modern for its time...

. Located on the southeast corner of 23rd Street
23rd Street (Manhattan)
23rd Street is a broad thoroughfare in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is one of few two-way streets in the gridiron of the borough. As with Manhattan's other "crosstown" streets, it is divided at Fifth Avenue, in this case at Madison Square Park, into its east and west sections. Since...

 and Sixth Avenue
Sixth Avenue (Manhattan)
Sixth Avenue – officially Avenue of the Americas, although this name is seldom used by New Yorkers – is a major thoroughfare in New York City's borough of Manhattan, on which traffic runs northbound, or "uptown"...

, Booth's Theatre opened on February 3, 1869.

The Theatre featured a grand vestibule with Italian marble floors and a large statue of Edwin Booth's father, the Shakespearean actor, Junius Brutus Booth
Junius Brutus Booth
Junius Brutus Booth was an English actor. He was the father of John Wilkes Booth , Edwin Booth , and Junius Brutus Booth, Jr., an actor and theatre manager...

 by the sculptor Thomas Ridgeway Gould. The auditorium was similarly elaborate in its decor, and featured a large chandelier, as well as a stage that incorporated the most modern machinery in use at the time, such hydraulic rams to raise and lower scenery, and stage lights that could be completely extinguished during the performance, a first in the United States.

Despite the appearances by important talent of the times, Booth could not make the Theatre a financially viable enterprise.
 
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