The operators always struggled to make money, however,[3] and after twelve years the Broadway Theatre was replaced by a more profitable building, for the textile trade.

Then he was publicly opposed by David Hale, editor of The Journal of Commerce and prominent member of the Broadway Tabernacle, across Anthony Street, which was used as a venue for concerts and other events.

The partnership was dissolved on October 25, 1848, Mann relinquished the building to Raymond, who held a mortgage on it, and Marshall became sole lessee and manager.

The orchestra pit, surrounded by an open balustrade, was twelve feet by twenty-seven, with a double floor and a sounding chamber to increase the body of tone, especially of the cellos and basses.

"[30] One writer contrasted the "personal comfort and luxury" with the Park Theatre's "system of torture applied to legs and arms" and "old fashioned filth, darkness and discomfort", adding, "all that is over".

A bill opened with an overture by the house orchestra and comprised a full-length play plus a curtain-raiser or afterpiece, and perhaps another musical, dance, or specialty act, as well.

Short pieces included Ladies, Beware;[42] The Jacobite; Thomas Haynes Bayly's Ladder of Love; Captain of the Watch; Box and Cox; and a new farce, Young America.

Ellen and Kate Bateman, four and six years of age, respectively, made their first appearance in New York;[58] they played a week, as did each of Murdoch, Hackett, and McKean Buchanan.

May 13 Jean Margaret Davenport appeared as Evadne, sharing a bill with dancers Giovanna Ciocca and Gaetano Neri in a new ballet, The Magic Flute.

[66] July 4–6, 1850, Madame Augusta's[67] production of the ballet Nathalie,[68][69] and Felix Carlo and family, pantomimists and gymnasts, formed a bill, closing the season.

[70][71][72] The fourth season[73][74] opened August 19, 1850, with Barrett as stage manager, and the American debuts of William Davidge,[75] Frederick B. Conway,[76] and Henry Scharf, and Sarah Anderton.

Playing opposite Conway in the last four was Madame Ponisi (Mrs. Elizabeth Wallis), who made her New York debut November 11, as Lady Teazle in The School for Scandal, and was so successful that she was at once given "leading business".

[78] Its interior entirely remodeled and renovated—the parquet enlarged to more than double its original size, the lower tier of boxes rebuilt, new gas fixtures introduced throughout the building, and a new stage laid, among other alterations before and behind the curtain[79]—the Broadway Theatre opened for its fifth season[80][81] on August 27, 1851, with Thomas Barry,[82] formerly of the Park Theatre, as stage manager.

The company played a week and a half of mixed bills including ballet by the Rousset Family, who danced Les Fees, Catarina, and the first act of Giselle.

Forrest appeared fifteen weeks over three engagements this season, performing King Lear, Jack Cade, and Metamora, in addition to his other roles.

Collins appeared five weeks over two engagements, in Edward Fitzball's version of Paul Clifford; in a new play by C. P. T. Ware, The Irish Genius; and as Sir Patrick O'Plenipo.

The sixth season[83][84] opened August 30, 1852 with The Hunchback by James Sheridan Knowles, in which Julia Dean made her first appearance at this theater.

December 27, La Cenerentola with Marietta Alboni performing for the first time in New York City, supported by Signors Sangiovanni, Rovere, and Barili.

Julia Dean played six weeks over three engagements, including Isabel and Boker's drama Leonora di Guzman, both with Ponisi and Conway.

J. R. Anderson played six weeks over two engagements, in Hamlet, The Lady of Lyons, Ingomar, Othello, Richard III, John H. Wilkins' Civilization, King Lear, Rev.

E. L. Davenport played five weeks, two of them with his wife, Fanny Vining, who made her American debut (opposite her husband) March 2 in Love's Sacrifice.

He performed as Richard III, Brutus, Rolla in Pizarro, Hercule in Civilization, St. Pierre in James Sheridan Knowles' The Wife, and William in Black-Eyed Susan, and in two plays by J. H. Wilkins, The Egyptian, and St. Marc, the latter with Ponisi and Conway.

On February 18, the equestrian dramatic spectacle Herne, the Hunter, adapted by Mr. N. B. Clarke[94] from an historical romance by William Harrison Ainsworth, began a three-week run, with a stud of horses from Nixon & Myers.

[97] Owing to excavation for a new dry goods warehouse adjoining the Broadway Theatre on the south, its walls were dangerously undermined and new foundations were needed beneath them.

[100] The opening performance was The Lady of Lyons with Claude Melnotte played by Henry Loraine,[101] an English provincial actor making his American debut, as a guest.

December 29 – January 22, a German opera troupe, starring soprano Bertha Johannsen and conducted by Carl Bergman, with Theodore Thomas as concertmaster,[102] gave twelve performances, including Fidelio, Der Freischütz, Martha, The Child of the Regiment, Czar and Carpenter, and Daniel Auber's The Mason and Locksmith.

Monday, March 16, saw the premiere of the "grand dramatic Eastern spectacular drama" The Usurper of Siam, with Sands, Nathans & Co.'s[104] trained elephants, Victoria and Albert.

The week of Monday March 30 – April 4, the elephants appeared in a "Grand Divertisement" on a bill with a drama and a farce by the stock company.

[128][129] On November 29, Eddy presented the circus of Sands, Nathans & Co., which gave six weeks of ring performances, after which the company furnished the horses for a series of hippodramas: Putnam, the Iron Son of '76; Rookwood; Mazeppa; The Cataract of the Ganges; and Ivanhoe.

[135][136][137][138] In 1867 one writer summarized the theater's history this way: By many it was anticipated that it would take the place of the old Park Theatre in public esteem, and that within its walls, as in times gone by, the wealthy, the fashionable, the intellectual, and the refined would seek their amusement and relaxation from the cares and fatigues of the day.