Willie Hammerstein big draw. Oscar Hammerstein went bankrupt in 1898. The Olympia theater was sold in an auction. Hammerstein managed to raise enough money to build the Victoria Theatre, which opened as a legitimate theater on 3 March 1899. On 26 June 1899 he opened a partially enclosed roof garden theater, the Venetian Terrace Garden, with an outdoor promenade that was attached to the roof garden of Hammerstein's Theatre Republic in 1900. Hammerstein enlarged the roof garden theater and reopened it in May 1901 as the Paradise Roof Garden. In February 1904 Willie Hammerstein took over management of his father's Victoria Theatre.
Oscar Hammerstein I (1896). While it was positively received by "The New York Times", Hammerstein's personal experience was less than peaceful, with the production being plagued by monetary issues with the cast and stage set. In the end, Hammerstein had profited only one-tenth of the costs that were put into the "Santa Maria" production. Nine years later, Longacre Square was renamed Times Square, and the area had become, through his efforts, a thriving theater district. Hammerstein built three more theaters there, the Victoria Theatre (1899), which turned to vaudeville presentation in 1904 and was managed by his son, Willie Hammerstein before closing in