Colors

The Great White Way

"The Great White Way" is a nickname for the Broadway theater district and the theater industry in general in New York City, much the same way that "West End" is a nickname for theater in London.  The nickname's origins are not entirely clear with some sources pointing to the bright artificial lights that illuminate the area at night.  While Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable, following Barry Popik's research, states that the nickname was given to the area "...following a heavy snowstorm, as an adoption of the title of Albert Bigelow Paine's novel The Great White Way (1901), a tale of adventure at the South Pole" p. 612.

How It's Used

“Las Vegas has had encounters with the Great White Way before, but this one is the most extensive.  The city’s hoteliers are hoping to capitalize on a recent Broadway boom in New York.”

"Jazz Age Wodehouse, as caught by McCrum, is out on Long Island with the Scott Fitzgeralds, staying at the Algonquin, sweeping up Broadway in triumph with Jerome Kern and Cole Porter, writing musical parts for William Randolph Hearst's future sweetie Marion Davies, hobnobbing with Flo Ziegfeld, and getting hot reviews from George S. Kaufman and Dorothy Parker. Frank Crowninshield, of Vanity Fair, paid him top dollar. But all the time, in this world saturated with money and glamour and sex, he remained, in McCrum's phrase, "the laureate of repression." And he was, when he got home to his desk, slowly evolving the primal innocence of Lord Emsworth and Bertie Wooster—an attainment that would bring him fame far beyond the Great White Way."

“Cheers greeted Maria Eberline's soulful rendering of the power ballad 'When I Stand Behind the Chair' from the new musical 'Beyond Your Expectations.’ But so what if the house was packed and sighs of pleasure greeted every plot twist and production number. This baby was never going to light up the Great White Way.”

"The billboard — traditionally called a 'spectacular' on the Great White Way — weighs in at 35,000 pounds. It will be 55 feet off the ground at 3 Times Square, wrapping around the northwest corner of Seventh Avenue and 42nd Street."

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