# Niblo's Garden

40°43′29″N 73°59′49″W﻿ / ﻿40.724641°N 73.996936°W﻿ / 40.724641; -73.996936
Niblo's Garden was a theater on Broadway and Crosby Street, near Prince Street, in SoHo, Manhattan, New York City. It was established in 1823 as "Columbia Garden" which in 1828 gained the name of the Sans Souci and was later the property of the coffeehouse proprietor and caterer William Niblo. The large theater that evolved in several stages, occupying more and more of the pleasure ground, was twice burned and rebuilt. On September 12, 1866, Niblo's saw the premiere of The Black Crook, considered to be the first piece of musical theater that conforms to the modern notion of a "book musical".

## Evolution of the building site

William Niblo built Niblo's Theater in 1834 after having opened a "resort" which at first only served coffee, ice cream, lemonade and other refreshments. At the time New York was undergoing a construction boom that was extending clusters of buildings much past the locale of City Hall. The garden, surrounded by a plain board fence, covered the block bounded by Prince, Houston, Broadway and Crosby Streets; in the center was the open-air saloon, used also for musical entertainments. In the evenings, Niblo's Garden was illuminated with hundreds of colored-glass lanterns. A separate garden entrance was on Broadway. The refreshment hall was in a pair of rowhouses near the southeast corner of the gardens. The site was once a part of the Bayard farm. It was sold in lots and purchased by Jeremiah Van Rensselaer. Prior to Niblo's acquisition of the land, a circus called the Stadium occupied the ground. There was a high fence around it. New Yorkers considered it a beautiful drive up to Niblo's through neighboring suburban market gardens.
Niblo decided to supplement the refreshments with more extensive entertainment. He erected the Grand Saloon, a small theater or concert hall. The program consisted solely of musical selections until vaudeville was introduced some time later. The admission to the garden in August 1829 was fifty cents, sufficient to keep out the riff-raff. During the afternoon and evening stagecoaches ran there from the City Hotel, later the location of the Boreel Building at 115 Broadway.
In 1835, Niblo's Garden hosted P. T. Barnum's first ever exhibition, marking his entry into show business. In 1845, the Hutchinson Family Singers included in their sold-out performance here their abolitionist song "Get Off the Track".
During the summer of 1837, a vaudeville company was formed at Niblo's by Joseph Judson and Joseph Sefton. Farces like Promotion of the General's Hat and Meg Young Wife and Old Umbrella, played there. By the mid-19th century, the theatre was considered New York's most fashionable theatre.

## Second Niblo's Garden

The first theater at Niblo's Garden was destroyed by a fire on September 18, 1846. It was not reopened until the summer of 1849. The theatre seated approximately 3,200 people and had the best-equipped stage in the city. Italian opera began to be produced there around 1850. Seats were sold at $2 each. Niblo's began to draw the most popular actors and plays. Some of the many players who performed there were E. L. Davenport, William Wheatley, Bennett Barrow, and Maggie Mitchell. In 1855, Niblo convinced the tightrope walker Charles Blondin to come to America and appear at the Garden.
In the late 1860s, as post-Civil War business boomed, there was a sharp increase in the number of working and middle-class people in New York, and these more affluent people sought entertainment. Theaters became more popular, and Niblo's began to offer light comedy. It mounted The Black Crook (1866), considered by many scholars to be the first musical comedy. This was followed by The White Fawn (1868), Le Barbe Blue (1868) and Evangeline (1874). In April 1850 the theatre presented the United States premiere of Giuseppe Verdi's Macbeth with Angiolina Bosio as Lady Macbeth.

## Third Niblo's Garden and final days

The theater was again destroyed by fire in 1872. It was rebuilt by the department-store magnate A. T. Stewart.
The final performance at Niblo's Garden was given on March 23, 1895. A few weeks later the building was demolished to make way for a large office structure erected by sugar-refining titan Henry O. Havemeyer. Only a bit earlier he had purchased the Metropolitan Hotel and the theater.
Niblo's location later became occupied by early-20th century commercial buildings that span the block between Broadway and Crosby Street; one is the former site of the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art.

## Plays presented at Niblo's

| Year | Name | Writer |
| 1855 | Rip Van Winkle | Howard Wainwright |
| 1858 | The Phantom | Dion Boucicault |
| 1862 | The Duke's Motto | John Brougham |
| 1863 | Leah, the Forsaken | Agustin Daly |
| 1866 | The Black Crook | Charles M. Barras |
| 1868 | Le Barbe Bleue | Jacques Offenbach |
| 1868 | The White Fawn | James Mortimer |
| 1868 | Arrah-na-Pogue | T.H. Glenn |
| 1869 | The Forty Thieves | Henry Brougham Farnie |
| 1869 | The Firefly | Edmund Falconer |
| 1869 | Formosa: The Most Beautiful or the Railroad to Ruin | Dion Boucicault |
| 1869 | The Little Detective | Unknown |
| 1869 | Little Nell and the Marchioness | John Brougman |
| 1869 | The School for Scandal | Richard Brinsley Sheridan |
| 1870 | Heartsease | Edmund Falconer |
| 1870 | Innisfallen; or, The Men in the Gap | Edmund Falconer |
| 1870 | Not Guilty | Watts Phillips |
| 1870 | The Rapparee, or, The Treaty of Limerick | Dion Boucicault |
| 1870 | True as Steel | James Schonberg and Paul Meurice |
| 1870 | Under the Palm | Alfred Tennyson Tennyson |
| 1871 | Carl, the Fiddler | Charles Gayler |
| 1871 | Kit, the Arkansas Traveler | Thomas B. De Walden |
| 1871 | Richard III | William Shakespeare |
| 1872 | Black Friday | Unknown |
| 1873 | The Beasts of New York | J. J. Wallace |
| 1873 | Koomer | Unknown |
| 1873 | The Scouts of the Prairie | Edward Zane Carrol Judson |
| 1874 | The Cryptogram | James DeMille |
| 1874 | Evangeline | Edward Everett Rice |
| 1874 | Leatherstocking, or, The Last of the Mohicans | George Fawcett Rowe |
| 1874 | The Two Sisters, or, the Deformed | Unknown |
| 1874 | Wild Cat Ned | Barrett Sylvester |
| 1877 | Cross and Crescent | Unknown |
| 1877 | The Law of the Land | Unknown |
| 1878 | The Craiga Dhoul | N. Hart Jackson |
| 1878 | The Gascon | Théodore Barrière and Louis Davyl |
| 1878 | Love and Labor | Unknown |
| 1878 | M'liss | Clay Greene |
| 1878 | New York and London | George Fawcett Rowe |
| 1878 | The Serpent and the Dove | Unknown |
| 1878 | Hearts of Steel | Edmund Falconer |
| 1882 | Mardo, or, The Nihilists of St. Petersburg | Unknown |
| 1882 | Viva | Leonard Grover |
| 1883 | The Pavements of Paris | Adolphe Belot |
| 1884 | The Blue and the Gray | Elliot Barnes |
| 1885 | The Bandit King | Unknown |
| 1885 | Clio | Bartley Thomas Campbell |
| 1886 | Bound to Succeed | Henry Pettitt and George Conquest |
| 1886 | Enemies | Charles Coghlan |
| 1886 | The Ivy Leaf | Con Murphy |
| 1886 | Theodora | Victorien Sardou |
| 1887 | Rienzi | Mary Russel Mitford and Steele MacKaye |
| 1887 | A Run of Luck | Augustus Harris and Henry Pettitt |
| 1887 | She | Henry Rider Haggard |
| 1887 | Travers House | Unknown |
| 1888 | The Stowaway | Tom Craven |