Editing Nickelodeon (movie theater) (section)

==Audience==
Early writers on American cinema history assumed that audiences at nickelodeons were primarily [[working-class]] people who could not afford a higher ticket price.{{sfn|Grieveson|2004|p=82}} 

At the heart of the image of nickelodeons in traditional histories is the belief that movies were a simple amusement for the working class, and that the middle-class stayed away until after World War I.{{sfn|Singer|2004|page=120}} This idea was reflected in [[Lewis Jacobs]]' 1939 survey, where he wrote:  "concentrated largely in poorer shopping districts and slum neighborhoods, nickelodeons were disdained by the well-to-do. But, the workmen and their families who patronized the movies did not mind the crowded, unsanitary, and hazardous accommodations most of the nickelodeons offered."{{sfn|Jacobs|1939|page=56}} 

More recent historians argue the rise of the [[middle class]] audiences throughout the nickelodeon era and into the later 1910s belief to expand the business. In 1985, Robert C. Allen debated whether movies attracted a middle-class audience as illustrated by the location of earlier movie theaters in traditional entertainment districts, where more nickelodeons were located in or near middle-class neighborhoods than in the [[Lower East Side]] ghetto.{{sfn|Allen|1985}}

The nickelodeon boom in Manhattan between 1905 and 1907 often functioned as historical shorthand for the rise of the movies in general.{{sfn|Singer|2004|page=119}} In 2004, Ben Singer wrote in his analysis of Manhattan nickelodeons; "for most people ... the image of cramped, dingy nickelodeons in Manhattan's Lower East Side ghetto stands as a symbol for the cinema's emergence in America."{{sfn|Singer|2004|page=119}} Nickelodeons consistently appeared in the densest areas of the city in terms of residential concentration and the amount of pedestrian traffic. Areas such as [[Union Square (New York City)|Union Square]], [[Herald Square]], 23rd Street, and 125th Street were typical locations and the larger movie theaters were set up there.  Neighborhood nickelodeons, which were the majority of movie theaters in Manhattan, were almost always located in neighborhoods with high residential densities and spread over a substantial number of blocks.{{sfn|Singer|2004|page=126}}