Lubin Theatre
Broad Street
Richmond Virginia.

The Broadway,
East Main Street, Waterbury, Connecticut

Click photos to enlarge.

Within the last five years their glaring signs, strident music, and brightly lit portals have been multiplied by thousands with a rapidity almost magical.

In the larger cities they are numbered by hundreds. Few towns of any size or county fairs lack one or more of them.

Flourishing on the thin family purses which go with financial depression, they have affected the theatrical business so seriously that some types of sensational melodramas have been almost driven from the field."



The New York Times
January 3rd, 1909