New York City's Fourth Dimension

In the preceeding post, with considerable help from a 1948 essay by E.B. White, I wrote about three types of New Yorkers: long-time residents, commuters and goal seekers who come from elsewhere, the third category being the most important.  But the city, and especially Manhattan, has an increasingly important fourth dimension: tourists, or very short-term visitors.

Defined as anyone who stays overnight or comes from at least 50 miles away, New York is expecting a record 67 million visitors in 2019, up from about 65 million in 2018 and only about 44 million in 2007 when former mayor Michael Bloomberg launched an effort to promote the city's attractions.

Most of these people will visit, or stay in Manhattan, which has a population of only 1.6 million people.  The population of all five of New York City's boroughs -- Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx and Staten Island -- totals about 8.7 million.

I mention this because, as the New York Times noted, Broadway theaters have just had another record fiscal year (it ends in May, and then come the annual Tony awards) with 14.8 million people, spending about $1.8 billion on musicals and plays that qualify as "Broadway."  There are currently 41 Broadway Theaters, located near Times Square or at Lincoln Center, all of which have 500 seats or more.

Then, beyond that, and not counted in the attendance and spending statistics mentioned above, there are "Off-Broadway" theaters (at least 99, but less than 500 seats) and "Off-Off-Broadway" venues, which have less than 99 seats.

While most tourists probably attend long-running musicals for the most part, their spending has definitely helped promote a very encouraging revival in straight plays, both new works and first-class revivals of great plays from the past.

Broadway is alive and well if increasingly expensive when it comes to ticket prices (they have in recent years soared relative to the rate of inflation). But the industry's policy is to fill up every theater every night and as such, same-day discount tickets (half off in many cases) go on sale at three locations in Manhattan every day. Thousands of people take advantage of them.