The eldest brother, Abe, launched the business in 1908 with a Lower East Side nickelodeon showing racy films.
His own father shut him down and bought the National Winter Garden on Houston Street, which had a theater inconveniently located on the sixth floor.
Burlesque acts were cheaper, and circuits (called "wheels") supplied a new show every week, complete with cast, costumes, and scenery.
The Minskys briefly considered signing with a wheel but decided to stage their own shows because it was cheaper and Billy longed to be the next Florenz Ziegfeld.
Abe, who had been to Paris and the Folies Bergère and Moulin Rouge, suggested importing one of their trademarks: a runway to bring the women out into the audience.
The Minskys were raided for the first time in 1917 when Mae Dix absentmindedly began removing her costume before she reached the wings.
[3] Billy's attempt, however, to present classy burlesque at the Park Theater on Columbus Circle failed miserably.
By this time it was permissible for women in shows staged by Ziegfeld, George White, and Earl Carroll – as well as burlesque – to appear topless in a static "tableaux".
But in a show at the National Winter Garden, Mademoiselle Fifi (née Mary Dawson from Pennsylvania), stripped to the waist, moved.
By the time they finished expanding, the various Minskys controlled over a dozen theaters – six in New York and others in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Albany, and Pittsburgh.
Minsky's featured comics Phil Silvers, Joey Faye,[4] Rags Ragland, Zero Mostel, Jules Munshin, B.S.
[5] Others included Danny Kaye, Jack Albertson and Robert Alda, as well as strippers Georgia Sothern, Ann Corio, Margie Hart, Mara Gaye and Sherry Britton.
But convictions were rare, so theater managers saw no need to tone down their shows.The Minskys emphasized that a good strip-tease dance must know exactly the right psychological moment to remove each garment.
Finally, in April, 1937, a stripper at Abe Minsky's New Gotham Theater in Harlem was spotted working without a G-string.
The owners went along, hoping to stay in business until the November election when reformist mayor Fiorello La Guardia might be voted out.
At the height of the Great Depression, Harold began learning all facets of the business operating the Gaiety Theater in Times Square.