Original Olympic Theatre
Next door to Tattersall's, at No. 444 Broadway, the original Olympic Theatre was built in 1837. W. R. Blake and Henry E. Willard built and managed the house. It was quite small and their aim had been to present plays of a high order of merit by an exceptionally good company. The latter included besides Blake, Mrs. Maeder and George Barrett. After a few months of struggle against unprofitable business, prices were lowered. Little success was met with, the performances being of too artistic a nature to be popular, and Blake gave up the effort and the house. In December, 1839, Wm. Mitchell leased the house and gave performances at low prices.
At No. 453 Broadway, between Grand and Howard Streets, in 1844 John Littlefield, a corn doctor, set up a place, designating himself as a chiropodist—an occupation before unknown under that title.
At No. 485 Broadway, near Broome Street, Brougham's Lyceum was built in 1850, and opened in December with an "occasional rigmarole" and a farce. In 1852 the house was opened, September 8, as Wallack's Lyceum, having been acquired by James W. Wallack. Wallack ended his career as an actor in this house. In 1861 he removed to his new theatre, corner Thirteenth Street and Broadway. Still later the Lyceum was called the Broadway Theatre.
"Murderers' Row" has its start where Watts Street ends at Sullivan, midway of the block between Grand and Broome Streets. It could not be identified by its name, for it is not a "row" at all, merely an ill-smelling alley, an arcade extending through a block of battered tenements. After running half its course through the block, the alley is broken by an intersecting space between houses—a space that is taken up by push carts, barrels, tumbledown wooden balconies and lines of drying clothes. "Murderers' Row" is celebrated in police annals as a crime centre. But the evil doers were driven out long years ago and the houses given over to Italians. These people are excessively poor, and have such a hard struggle for life as to have no desire to regard the laws of the Health Board. Constant complaints are made that the houses are hovels and the alley a breeding-place for disease.
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village sprang from the oldest known settlement on the Island of Manhattan. It was an Indian village, clustering about the site of the present West Washington Market, at the foot of Gansevoort Street, when Hendrick Hudson reached the island, in 1609.