Garden Theatre
| Gilmore's Garden (~1870) Madison Square Garden (1880) Garden Theatre (1890) |
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| Address | 55-61 Madison Avenue. and 22-32 E. 27th Street New York City, New York United States |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 40°44′35″N 73°59′10″W / 40.743°N 73.986°W |
| Owner | Madison Square Garden Company |
| Operator | T. Henry French, A.M. Palmer Charles Frohman, Gustav Amberg, William R. Coleman, Emanuel Reicher, Maurice Schwartz, others |
| Type | Broadway (until ~1910) |
| Capacity | 1,200, +400 standees |
| Construction | |
| Opened | 27 September 1890 |
| Closed | 1925 |
| Demolished | 1925 |
| Years active | 1890-1925 |
| Architect | McKim, Mead & White |
The Garden Theatre was a major theatre on Madison Avenue and 27th Street in New York City, New York. The theatre opened on September 27, 1890, and closed in 1925. Part of the second Madison Square Garden complex, the theatre presented Broadway plays for two decades and then, as high-end theatres moved uptown to the Times Square area, became a facility for German and Yiddish theatre, motion pictures, lectures, and meetings of trade and political groups.
The Garden Theatre has been erroneously referred to as the Madison Square Garden Theatre. It was not related to a theatre on New York's Madison Ave. and 24th St. that was called the Madison Square Theatre from 1879 to 1891 and later called Hoyt's Theatre.
The Garden Theatre was architecturally and structurally part of, but managed separately from, the Madison Square Garden (1890) complex designed by Stanford White of McKim, Mead & White, that replaced the original Madison Square Garden (1879) at the same site. Unlike most theatres of the day, patrons entered from street level and it was described as "fireproof", in an era when theatre fires were not uncommon. The auditorium had eight boxes, a gallery and a balcony, with 1,200 seats plus room for 400 standees. The building was 117 feet long and 70 feet wide, and the stage was 39 feet deep and 70 feet wide.
The Garden was the only New York theatre McKim, Mead & White designed, but they "provided an elegant interior...They introduced Beaux Arts classicism to playhouse design, inaugurating a new formalism and standard of decor that would influence theatre architecture for the next four decades. The coffered sounding board, the swag and lattice box fronts and proscenium are especially noteworthy." The interior was decorated "in the style of Louis XVI", with views of Versailles on the main curtain.
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