“Keep Broadway Alive!’ the sign in the first photograph says. It’s a picket sign during the demolition of the Morosco Theater in 1982, which, along with the first Helen Hayes, the Bijou, and remnants of the Astor and the Gaiety theaters, were razed to make room for the Marriot Marquis Hotel.
But of course the sign takes on new meaning when all 41 current Broadway theaters have been closed to the public for many months because of the pandemic, and are likely to remain closed for many months more.
Maybe these photographs of Broadway’s past, from various archives, take on a new meaning too.

According to “Lost Broadway Theatres: Updated and Expanded 1997 Edition” by Nicholas van Hoogstraten, some 90 theaters were built in Times Square from 1888 on, but “over half have been lost through demolition or conversion to other uses.”  Although no “new” Broadway theaters have been built in the 23 years since that book was published, there have been several renovations and rebirths. In 1998 a “new” theater, now called the Lyric, was restored and reworked from two old theaters on 42nd Street; in 2011, the Stephen Sondheim, built as Henry Miller’s Theater in 1918, was renovated and renamed;  in 2017, the Hudson Theater, built in 1903 but in use for decades as a nightclub then a conference center, reopened as a Broadway theater.

To hunt down old buildings in general, check out this Street View of 1940s New York, a map with dots that show you the photographs of every building in the five boroughs of New York City in 1939-1940. These were collected by the federal Works Progress Administration in collaboration with the New York City Tax Department and put online by the New York City Municipal Archives in 2018.

A picket sign protesting the demolition of the Morocco Theater

The interior of the Astor Theater, built in 1906 as part of the Astor Hotel. It was the house that presented the play “Why Mary?,” which won the first Pulitzer Prize for drama,

By 1925, the Astor Theater has been turned into a movie theater, the site of such grand film premieres as Grand Hotel, in 1938

Built in 1911 as the Folies-Bergere, Intended to be a dinner theatre, complete with tables in the orchestra and boxes, but six months after it opened, the tables were removed and it was renamed the Fulton. In 1955, it was renamed for the First Lady of the Theatre, Helen Hayes. In 1982, it was torn down.

The Bijour Theater on 45th Street was built in 1917. It was one of the theaters torn down in 1982

Empire Theater, built 1893 on Broadway between 40th and 41st Street, demolished 1953

Casino Theater on 39th Street was built in 1882, and torn down in 1930.

Candler Theater, built inside the Candler Building on 42nd Street by Coca-Cola magnate Asa Candler in 1914 and leased to George M. Cohan and Sam H. Harris until 1920. It became a movie house in 1933, stood empty after 1978,was demolished in 1996. It was replaced by Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum.

Built in 1908 on 46th Street, and proclaimed a house of hits, it struggled after 1926 — turned first into a movie theater, then return legit for a couple of years but couldn’t make it work, then Burlesque, then vaudeville, then a movie theater again. It was one of the theaters torn down in 1982 to make room for the Marriott.

Times Square 1938