Fifth Avenue

Fifth Avenue famous north-south street of the borough of Manhattan, New York City. It begins at Washington Square and ends at the Harlem River. Between 34th and 59th streets, Fifth Ave. is lined with fashionable department stores and specialty shops. Fronting the avenue are the Empire State Building, the New York Public Library, Rockefeller Center, St. Patrick's Cathedral, and the Guggenheim Museum. From 59th to 110th streets it borders Central Park; on its east side are tall apartment houses (interspersed with formerly private homes), built on the site of the elegant mansions of 50 years ago. On the west side of the avenue between 80th and 84th streets is the Metropolitan Museum of Art. North of the park Fifth Ave. runs through Marcus Garvey Park and Harlem.

Fifth Avenue Theatre, New York. 1. On 24th Street near Broadway. Originally the Fifth Avenue Opera House, specializing in Negro minstrel shows, it opened as a theatre in 1867, but closed abruptly after a fight in the auditorium in which a man was killed. It reopened in 1869 with John Brougham in one of his own plays, and on 16 Apr. became Daly's Fifth Avenue Theatre, with a good company that included Mrs Gilbert and Fanny Davenport. Its first outstanding success was Daly's own version of Frou-Frou by Meilhac and Halévy. Being anxious to encourage American dramatists Daly staged Bronson Howard's Saratoga (1870), which had a long run. In 1873 the theatre was burnt down and not rebuilt. The site was later used for the Fifth Avenue Hall which became the Madison Square Theatre. 2. Daly opened his second Fifth Avenue Theatre, at Broadway and 28th Street, in 1874 with an elaborate and costly production of Love's Labour's Lost, not previously seen in New York, which failed. Success came with the production in 1875 of Daly's own play The Big Bonanza, in which John Drew made his New York début. The following season saw the New York production of the popular London success Our Boys by H. J. Byron, in which Georgiana Drew made her first appearance in New York. The first night of Sheridan's The School for Scandal on 5 Dec., with Charles Coghlan, was marred by the disastrous Brooklyn Theatre fire (see FIRES IN THEATRES). By 1878 Daly was finding the financial loss on the theatre too great and left to take over Banvard's Museum, which he opened as Daly's Theatre. The Fifth Avenue came under new management and was ultimately leased to various travelling companies; after many changes of name it was pulled down in 1908.

Fifth Avenue Theatre (New York). The name was given to two different playhouses, neither of which was on Fifth Avenue and both of which were for a time connected with Augustin Daly. The first was built on 24th Street in 1862 as an adjunct to the once‐famous Fifth Avenue Hotel and stood at the rear of the hostelry. Conceived as a stock exchange, it was not turned to theatrical uses until 1865, when it was occupied by George Christy's Minstrels. In 1867 it began booking other sorts of light entertainment but closed soon after when a playgoer was murdered in a brawl. James Fisk then bought the house, redecorated it, and leased it to John Brougham, who failed miserably, so Daly took it over later in 1869 and housed his first great company there until the building was destroyed by fire in 1873. Frou‐Frou, Saratoga, Horizon, and Divorce were among Daly's notable hits at the theatre. It lay in ruins for several years until shortly before Steele MacKaye obtained control. Since by that time Daly had opened his new Fifth Avenue Theatre, MacKaye called his auditorium the Madison Square Theatre. Meanwhile, Daly had immediately set about remodeling Gilsey's Apollo Hall on 28th Street, just west of Broadway. The New Fifth Avenue Theatre's beginnings were inauspicious, for while Daly had retained most of his ensemble intact, he could not at first find plays to please critics and playgoers. Moreover, the 1873 financial panic was hurting all theatrical trade. Daly was close to bankruptcy when his 1875 production of The Big Bonanza saved the day. After Daly went into temporary retirement in 1878 the theatre came under the management of others. The world premiere of The Pirates of Penzance was offered there in 1879 and Mary Anderson and Helena Modjeska both made their New York debuts on its stage. The house underwent several name changes, burned in 1891, was rebuilt and served as a vaudeville, film, and cheap burlesque theatre before being torn down in 1938.