Why go
Theater is part of New York's streetscape as well as its evening calendar. Broadway's concentration around Times Square makes it easy to combine a performance with Midtown, while smaller stages offer another scale of work. Lincoln Center adds opera, ballet, orchestral music, and theater near Central Park, giving visitors a clear choice of district and form.
The full story
Broadway's theater district lies around Times Square, roughly between 41st and 53rd Streets and Sixth and Ninth Avenues. Its rise followed a shift from an earlier theater area near Herald Square. The Empire Theatre was among the early venues to move toward Times Square, and the district saw a major wave of theater openings between 1910 and 1930. The Lyceum, opened in 1903, is the oldest continuously operating Broadway theater from that period. Broadway is only one part of the city's theatrical map. Smaller Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway productions provide a different scale of venue and audience. Near Central Park, Lincoln Center brings the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Ballet, the New York Philharmonic, and Juilliard into one performing-arts district. Carnegie Hall and Radio City Music Hall are separate landmark venues elsewhere in Manhattan. Choose a performance by neighborhood and form, then confirm the current program directly with the venue.