New Amsterdam Theatre, West 42nd Street, 1905

The New Amsterdam Theatre at 214 West 42nd Street, in New York City. Photograph dated 1905 by Detroit Publishing Company photograph collection, Library of Congress.

Photo shows buildings on the south side of 42nd Street, near Times Square. The Central Baptist Church at 220 W. 42nd Street is on the right. The temple was a former Presbyterian Church built in the 1840s.

The New Amsterdam Theatre is announcing a revival of the play Trilby, based on the 1895 novel by George du Maurier, with Wilton Lackaye and Virginia Harned, for two weeks only in May, 1905.

The New Amsterdam Theatre opened in 1903 and today it is operated by Disney Theatrical Productions. It has 1,702 seats across three levels. Both the Beaux-Arts front and the Art Nouveau interior of the building are New York City landmarks, and the building is on the National Register of Historic Places.

The theater was designed in Art Nouveau style by Henry Beaumont Herts and Hugh Tallant for theatrical producers Marc Klaw and Abraham L. Erlanger. The lobby of the New Amsterdam Theatre features marble wall sculptures depicting moments from great Shakespearean plays as well as scenes from Wagner’s Ring cycle operas.