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The Building of the Lafayette Theatre
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 July 2009
Extract
The Lafayette Theatre of New York was built and owned by Charles W. Sandford (1796–1878), a colorful and sometimes eccentric personality, whose careers in law, business, and the military, combined with a personal predilection for pomp and display, made him a prominent member of New York's society. As a businessman, Sandford made and lost “several fortunes” in the course of his eventful life in a variety of financial speculations that included investments in real estate, hardware, and theatres. Most of these ended disastrously for him, but his ventures accrued enough profit to allow him to live stylishly all his life, entertain every prominent guest of the city and, on his death in 1878, leave his family a “comfortable competency.” As a lawyer, Sandford handled several celebrated cases and, being generally considered “among the finest” members of his profession, was eventually named vice-president of the New York Bar Association. But it was in his career as a soldier that his love for horses, parades, and gilded uniforms was most manifest and which led Sandford to erect the first full-scale equestrian theatre in America.
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- Copyright © American Society for Theatre Research 1974
References
1 New York World, 26 July 1878.
2 New York Times, 26 July 1878.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
6 World, 26 July 1878.
7 Times, 26 July 1878.
8 Ibid.
9 Clerk of the County of New York, Deeds, libre 162:97.
10 Deeds, 172:184.
11 Deeds, 181:389.
12 Deeds, 192:40. The complete list of Sandford's transactions in Canal St. are: 162:97, 172:184, 172:414, 175:38, 180:260, 181:389, 182:333, 186:459, 193:40, 194:342, 197:459.
13 It is impossible to determine exactly when construction of the theatre began. It was probably early in 1825 after the necessary lots had been acquired by Sandford. I can find no evidence to support Thorpe's, T. B. statement in “The Old Theatres of New York, 1750–1827,” Appleton's Journal, VIII (23 11 1872), 580, that “the foundations were laid early in the year 1824.”Google Scholar
14 Saxon, A. H., Enter Foot and Horse; A History of Hippodrama in England and France (New Haven and London, 1968), pp. 12–14Google Scholar.
15 In American usage the words circus and amphitheatre lacked the implications of the French cirque and amphithèâtre, which imply a distinct kind of seating arrangement. “Sur des gradins s'elevant de bas en haut du cirque sans interruption, tout le public communie dans le spectacle et la communication entre les assistants est permanente et d'une spontanéité quasiment électrique. Les acteurs de théâtre savent bien qu'on enregistre des appréciations diverses à chaque étage d'une salle faite de galeries superposées. Dans un amphithéâtre tout le public vibre a l'unisson.”—Henry Thetard, Le Merveilleuse Histoire du Cirque (Paris, 1947), I, 233Google Scholar.
16 New York Post, 7 November 1825.
17 New York Mirror and Ladies' Literary Gazette, 29 October 1825.
18 Post, 12 November 1825.
19 Mirror, 6 October 1827.
20 See especially Brown, T. Allston, A History of the New York Stage; From the First Performance in 1732 to 1901 (New York, 1964), I, 100Google Scholar.
21 Shank, Theodore Jr., The Bowery Theatre, 1826–1836, unpubl. diss. (Stanford, 1956), p. 31Google Scholar.
22 Post, 26 December 1825.
23 Mirror, 6 October 1827.
24 Gascoigne, Bamber, World Theatre. An Illustrated History (Boston and Toronto, 1968), fig. 251Google Scholar.
25 McNamara, Brooks, The American Playhouse in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge, Mass., 1969), p. 113CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
26 Ibid., p. 120.
27 Saxon, figs. 1 and 2.
28 Roux, Hugues Le and Garnier, Jules, Acrobats and Mountebanks, trans. Martin, A. P. (London, 1891), pp. 185–186Google Scholar.
29 Ibid., p. 186.
30 See, for example, Saxon, figs. 2, 3 and 6.
31 Post, 7 November 1825.
32 Post, 8 November 1825.
33 Mirror, 26 July 1826.
34 Post, 8 November 1825.
35 There is a remote possibility that the arena was floored over completely, although that would have been unnecessary in view of the ready availability of the stage as a suitable dance floor.
36 Gascoigne, figs. 249, 250.
37 If the latter is the case a second flight of steps, hidden in the diagram, is necessary.
38 Saxon, p. 15 and fig. 4.
39 Saxon, pp. 15, 23, and fig. 4.
40 McNamara, p. 120.
41 Post, 10 November 1825.
42 Oil lamps were the most common source of stage lighting at that time.
43 Post, 21 March 1825.
44 New York American, 8 February 1826.
45 Mirror, 6 October 1827.
46 Mirror, 22 July 1826.
47 New York Enquirer, 10 July 1826.
48 Post, 27 June 1826.
49 Mirror, 22 July 1826.
50 Mirror, 1 April 1826.
51 Enquirer, 10 July 1826.
52 The Park and Bowery each had four; the Chestnut St. had three.
53 Enquirer, 29 July 1826.
54 See, for example, Odell, George C. D., Annals of the New York Stage (New York, 1927–1929), III, 161, and Shank, p. 22Google Scholar.
55 Mirror, 14 May 1825.
56 Ibid.
57 The new Bowery Theatre opened with gas lighting on 23 October 1826. The Park Theatre, always the last to improve itself, didn't install gas until November 1827. Castle Garden, however, may actually have been the second theatre in New York with gas lighting. A notice in the New York Post, 13 May 1825, stated that “this evening the Garden will be brilliantly lighted up with oil, the extensive preparations for gas are not entirely completed.”
58 Shank, p. 23.
59 Post, 27 June 1826.
60 Post, 8 August 1826.
61 Enquirer; 26 July 1826.
62 The grand opening was on 4 July, but the installation of the gas lights was not completed until 21 July.
63 Thorpe, “Old Theatres,” 579.
64 Ibid., 580.
65 According to Shank, p. 31, the stage of the Bowery was less than 75 feet wide, the width of the building. Its depth is unknown, but since the whole building was 40 feet shorter than the Lafayette Theatre, the stage was probably shorter also. Brown's remark in History, I, 100, that the stage of the Bowery was “greater” than any other is merely a repetition, almost word-for-word, of an erroneous statement by Thorpe, “Old Theatres,” 580.
66 Shank, p. 31.
67 Shank, p. 22.
68 Mirror, 6 October 1827.
69 American, 29 September 1927.
70 Parthenon and Literary Museum (3 October 1827), p. 110.
71 Mirror, 6 October 1827.
72 American, 29 September 1827.
73 Parthenon (3 October 1827), p. 110. But the Mirror, 1 December 1827, gives the capacity as only 2,600.
74 Post, 26 September 1827.
75 Mirror, 6 October 1827.
76 Ibid.
77 American, 29 September 1827.
78 Wemyss, Francis Courtney, Twenty-Six Years of the Life of an Actor and Manager (New York, 1847), p. 322Google Scholar, was obviously mistaken in claiming to have been the first to use gas lights from the borders in 1840.
79 Post, 7 April 1828.
80 Enquirer, 22 April 1828.
81 New York Courier, 11 April 1829.
82 Thorpe, “Old Theatres,” 579–80.
83 Mirror, 13 January 1827.
84 Mirror, 6 October 1827.