12. Playhouse Theater
The first theater on Forty-eighth Street was the Playhouse Theatre built in 1911 for William A. Brady. In 1929, the theater performed Elmer Rice’s Street Scene, which went on to win a Pulitzer Prize. Upon Brady’s death in 1944, the theater was sold to the Shuberts. Surprisingly, the theater’s name remained the same and the Shuberts’ management made way for the theater’s most famous production, William Gibson’s The Miracle Worker, starring Patty Duke and Anne Bancroft. The theater eventually became an ABC radio station. Instead of turning into a movie theater, Playhouse Theatre made it onto the big screen as a set in 1968 with Mel Brooks’ The Producers. The theater was demolished the following year.