New York is the type of city that just walking down a new block for the first time is a wonderful adventure, and presents the traveler a whole new vista of excitement. A homeless man was sprawled across the entrance, his prone body and belongings strewn where countless thousands of theatre patrons had once passed into an evening of drama, comedy or music. Built in 1925, when the Round Table was at it's peak, the 948-seat Biltmore has housed such celebrated productions as Hair and Barefoot in the Park . It fell out of use in the 1980s due to rising production costs that made it impossible for shows to make money in such a small space. It's been closed since 1987.
Nothing is gloomier than a boarded-up old theater.
Dorothy Parker, one of the greatest drama critics New York has ever known, surely spent some time here. So Dot City will visit more of Mrs. Parker's former haunts, the theaters of the Great White Way. Today it is dark. When she was penning her theater reviews for Vanity Fair and the New Yorker long ago, Broadway was a much different experience. Those were the days of new Henrik Ibsen and Oscar Wilde plays.