The fairly small theatre located on 24th Street near Broadway in New York was built in 1862 and operated under various managements as the Fifth Avenue Opera House, Brougham's Theatre, and from 1869 until it burned in 1873, Daly's Fifth Avenue. Rebuilt, redesigned by Steele MacKaye, renamed Madison Square Theatre, it opened in 1879 and earned renown for its air conditioning (air circulated over tons of ice and blown into the auditorium) and for its unique elevator stage (two stages, one above the other, so that one was in view of the audience, while the other, above or below, could be undergoing a change of scenery, thus reducing the time between acts to less than a minute). Renamed Hoyt's Theatre in 1891, it continued in use until it was razed in 1908.
The Historical Dictionary of the American Theater. James Fisher.