Great White Way is another name for the most famous part of Broadway. You probably know it as Time Square with its always bright lights. 

Do you have a favorite Broadway show? Last year, 14 million people saw a musical in one of Broadway’s 40 theaters. Hamilton, the story about the founding fathers of the United States of America, was the most successful show of all time. 

Musicals, or musical theaters, are a combination of singing, dancing, spoken word, and acting. First performed about 150 years ago, musicals were made to entertain and distract. However, some also drew attention to issues like tolerance, inequality, and political injustice.  

Being selected for the cast of a Broadway show requires a lot of work and many years of hard training. The performers are skilled at dancing, singing, and acting and often have other skills like acrobatics or playing an instrument. The competition for roles is fierce. 

Long before Broadway was the glittering theater world it is today, New York’s native people, the Lenape, used the Wickquasgeck Trail to travel between Upstate NY and the southern tip of Manhattan. When Dutch settlers came to New York, the trail was used to transport furs and shells that the Lenape traded with the Dutch. The Dutch called the trail Breede Weg, which means “broad way” in English. 

In 1625, the Dutch made a deal to buy the island of Manhattan from the Lenape, but the Lenape understood the deal differently. In Native American culture, people can’t own land just as they can’t own sunlight or wind. People can only borrow the land from the next generation to live off of it. Hence, land cannot be sold. What the Dutch thought was the price they paid (as little as it was) for the island, the Lenape thought was a friendship gift for allowing the Dutch to live on the island with them. 

How do you think Manhattan would be different had the Lenape not “sold” their land?