1765, and the Vauxhall Gardens, opened by Mr. Samuel Francis, in
June, 1769, were planned more or less after their English prototypes.
Out-of-doors concerts were their chief musical features, fireworks their
spectacular, while the serving of refreshments was relied on as the
principal source of profit. Richmond Hill had in its palmy days been the
villa home of Aaron Burr, and its fortunes followed the descending scale
like those of its once illustrious master. Its site was the neighborhood
of what is now the intersection of Varick and Charlton streets. After
passing out of Burr's hands, but before his death, the park had become
Richmond Hill Gardens, and the mansion the Richmond Hill Theater, both
of somewhat shady reputation, which was temporarily rehabilitated by the
response which the fashionable elements of the city's population made to
an appeal made by a season of Italian opera, given in 1832. The relics
of Niblo's Garden have disappeared as completely as those of Richmond
Hill, but its site is still fresh in the memory of those whose
theatrical experiences go back a quarter of a century. They must be old,
however, who can recall enough verdure in the vicinity of Broadway and
Prince Street to justify the name maintained by the theater to which for
many years entrance was gained through a corridor of the Metropolitan
Hotel. Three-quarters of a century ago Niblo's Garden was a reality.
William Niblo, who built it and managed it with consummate cleverness,
had been a successful coffee-house keeper downtown. Its theater opened
refreshingly on one side into the garden (as the Terrace Garden Theater,
at Third Avenue and Fifty-eighth Street does to-day), where one could
eat a dish of ice cream or sip a sherry cobbler in luxurious shade, if
such were his prompting, while play or pantomime went merrily on within.
Writing of it in 1855 Max Maretzek, who, as manager of the Astor Place
Opera House, had suffered from the rivalry of Niblo and his theater,
said: