Niblo's Garden

Niblo's Garden, New York, on the north-east corner of Broadway and Prince Street, summer resort opened by William Niblo on the site of the Columbia Garden. Here, in 1827, he opened the small Sans Souci Theatre used, in the summer only, for concerts and also for plays, particularly after the destruction by fire in 1828 of the Bowery (to whose displaced company the theatre was leased). Rebuilt in 1829 and renamed Niblo's Garden, the theatre prospered until it was burnt down in 1846. In 1849 a new theatre was built as part of (and entered through) the Metropolitan Hotel. It was improved and enlarged in 1853, and two years later saw the last appearance in New York of Rachel. In 1866 came the first performance of The Black Crook, a fantastic mixture of drama and spectacle, which ran for 475 performances and was followed by a similar spectacle, The White Fawn, which was less successful. Later productions included Boucicault's melodrama After Dark; or, London by Night (1868) and a version of the younger Dumas's La Dame aux camélias entitled Heartsease with Charlotte Crabtree. In 1872 it was again burnt down. Rebuilt, it opened on 30 Nov., but its great days were over, and it was too far downtown for a front-rank theatre. It served for some time as a home for visiting companies but was finally demolished in 1895.