Winter Garden Theatre

Shubert has owned the Winter Garden Theatre longer than any of its other venues. The playhouse occupies the second American Horse Exchange, built by William K. Vanderbilt in 1896, when Longacre (now Times Square) was the center of the horse and carriage trade. By 1911, when the Shuberts leased the Exchange, horses had given way to the automobile and legitimate stage productions were making inroads north of 42nd Street. The Winter Garden was converted into a theatre in 1911, and had brief interludes as a movie house from 1928 to 1933 when Warner Brothers leased it, and again in 1945, when United Artists ran it. Back to the Future: The Musical is now playing at the Winter Garden Theatre. The Winter Garden Theatre has 1,600 seats and is one of the Shubert Organization‘s 17 Broadway theatres.