SIGN 'O THE TIMES The lights have dimmed for the once-great Biltmore Theatre, which opened in 1925. A new plan may see the building open in 2002.

New York is the type of city that just walking down a new block for the first time is a wonderful adventure, and presents the traveler a whole new vista of excitement. While heading cross-town on West Forty-Seventh Street to visit Harold Ross' old house, I came upon the dilapidated Biltmore Theatre. A homeless man was sprawled across the entrance, his prone body and belongings strewn where countless thousands of theatre patrons had once passed into an evening of drama, comedy or music.

Built in 1925, when the Round Table was at it's peak, the 948-seat Biltmore has housed such celebrated productions as Hair and Barefoot in the Park. It fell out of use in the 1980s due to rising production costs that made it impossible for shows to make money in such a small space. It's been closed since 1987.

Nothing is gloomier than a boarded-up old theater. Dorothy Parker, one of the greatest drama critics New York has ever known, surely spent some time here. In doing research, I came across several play reviews she wrote that were productions in current Broadway theaters. One, John Drinkwater's Abraham Lincoln, was at The Cort Theatre in February 1920 — exactly 79 years later, Nicole Kidman was treading the boards there (and baring her bottom) in The Blue Room. So Dot City will visit more of Mrs. Parker's former haunts, the theaters of the Great White Way.

TICKET TO NOWHERE Dorothy Parker and Robert Benchley were often at the theater together, if they crossed paths at the Biltmore, only history knows. Today it is dark.

When she was penning her theater reviews for Vanity Fair and the New Yorker long ago, Broadway was a much different experience. Those were the days of new Henrik Ibsen and Oscar Wilde plays. John and Lionel Barrymore were stars; Helen Hayes was a celebrity. There wasn't junk like The Lion King or Cats cashing in on gullible tourists. Parker's caustic wit and glib jibes at the good and bad of Broadway served her well, made her a celebrity (and also cost her the drama desk job at Vanity Fair).

Today, the Biltmore, near the corner of W. 47th Street and Eighth Avenue, is a ghost of Manhattan's past. It is across the street from the Brooks Atkinson Theater, where in 1999 The Iceman Cometh played with Kevin Spacey as star. A Parker connection: Eugene O'Neill, the greatest American dramatist and author of Iceman, was a visitor to the Algonquin Round Table (but not a member). Nearby the Biltmore is the Supper Club, 100 yards to the east, and that is a great place for Swing dancing. On the southeast corner is China Club, one of the trendiest dance clubs in town. You are also one block away from Restaurant Row (Forty-Sixth Street, begin at Eighth Avenue); the friendly McHale's bar is a block away.

Update December 2000: The Biltmore will undergo a multimillion dollar restoration and become the Broadway home of the Manhattan Theatre Club (MTC). The restoration, which will cost a minimum of $10 million, will take 12 to 18 months to complete. The MTC is a non-profit group, who put on Proof in 2000.

The theater life was vital to Dorothy Parker. She wrote in a 1931 New Yorker review of Rite of Happiness, "And with that play, ladies and gentlemen, my labors end. Good-byes are best said briefest. So I thank you all so very much, and, though I certainly had a rotten time, I hate to leave you."