Here is a card from my collection for the 7th Ed. (light) Postcard Festival on A Canadian Family at http://wp.me/pp92w-850 . It shows New York's Theater district during the late 1920's. This was the time and the place where the entertainment world all came together. Theater, Vaudeville and Movies all shared this midtown neighborhood. The stretch of Broadway from 42nd street up to around 53rd street became known as "The Great White Way." On a site called Big Apple Corner I discovered how this phrase came into being and changed over time to become the defining title for the area.
"The Great White Way" was originally the title of a 1901 book about the South Pole. The term was applied to Broadway by Shep Friedman of the New York Morning Telegraph, after a snowstorm on Broadway in 1902 had turned the street into a "white way." Later, "white way" referred to the lights of Broadway. The term was used to describe the multitude of lights that were used to illuminate the NYC Theater district every evening during these formative years for entertainment.
