Grand ole days on B’way

In 1626 Peter Minuit, a Westphalian and this colony’s first governor, bought New York for 60 guilders. About $24. Nearly what a B’way show’s intermission drink costs today. Canal Street was then a tangled mass. Still now. New 1600 arrivals could not buy land. They were tenants. Powerless. Still now. All belonged to the haughty land-owning patroons. New settlers argued with powerful Minuit who favored the patroons. Still now. Think Albany, Washington. Think — or try to — of your landlord.

So today — just a lousy few hundred years later — it’s Tony time . And who really knows every nominee? Talented, able, but our massive public knows a Sarah Snook? Sadie Sink? James Monroe Iglehart ? And why so expensive when these leads aren’t commanding A-Number-One movies?

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