After his father's death in 1852, Booth toured internationally, visiting Australia and Hawaii and briefly settling in California before returning to the East Coast.

On April 8, 1868, after the removal of several old structures and blasting out an unexpected "stone ledge" at the corner of Twenty Third and Sixth Avenue, Edwin Booth, after "Masonic observances", laid the cornerstone for his new theatre.

[3] Designed by the architectural firm of Renwick and Sands[4] the theatre was made of granite in the Second Empire style, with an impressive front, iron-trimmed facing north on Twenty Third Street of one hundred and fifty feet in length.

Under the side walk along Twenty Third Street was the carpenter's shop, as well as a boiler-room with a steam engine used to heat the theatre through extensive hot-air pipes.

Others included one of New York's first sprinkler systems for fire prevention,[citation needed] and, backstage, sets of hydraulic rams were used to raise moving bridges and platforms to change scenery.

The popular run of Romeo and Juliet lasted ten weeks, earning nearly sixty thousand dollars, then considered an exceptional triumph.

Once again he turned to touring with his successful productions of Hamlet, Othello, and Richelieu, to raise funds he sent back to New York, but nothing could produce enough money to keep the doors of Booth's Theatre open.

[14] Even when shows were financial successes, such as the revival of the popular The Little Detective and the hit drama Little Nell and the Marchioness both starring the renowned Charlotte Crabtree in 1871, the theatre was still in debt.

Finally, in 1874, only five years after the triumphant opening Romeo and Juliet, Booth lost the theatre to bankruptcy, and "never again participated in theatrical management".

[15] After being sold by Booth, the theatre was owned by several different managers, including the theatrical impresarios Augustin Daly, Dion Boucicault and Henry E. Abbey.

Despite the appearances by important talent of the times, such as Dion Boucicault Jr., who made his stage début in his father's play, Louis XI, Joseph Jefferson as Rip Van Winkle, Polish born actress Helena Modjeska as Juliet, and the French-born "devine Sarah" – Sarah Bernhardt – who appeared in her acclaimed production of Adrienne Lecouveur in 1881, and despite successful runs of comedies, such as Bronson Howard's smash hit Love in the Green Room, and spectacular productions featuring lavish historical recreations such as Shakespeare's Henry V (see photo, left), the theatre could not sustain itself.

The production was given as a benefit performance (as was common in the era), for Andrew Boyd, beloved janitor of the building – a fitting farewell, perhaps, to one of New York's great theatres.

[17] On December 31, 1881, a headline in the New York Times read: The building lived on as the McCreery & Co. department store, and was finally demolished in 1965 to make room for a parking lot.