Broadway
2 of the 7 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Broadway. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
the great business street of New York. Starting from Bowling Green, at the lower ext extremity of the island, it runs northward in a somewhat diagonal direction, separating the city into substantially equal eastern and western parts. Its continuous course is interrupted by two public squares, Union Square, at 14th street, and Madison Below Union Square, at 23d street. Square it is devoted mainly to office buildings and wholesale establishments. Above Madison Square (where ce it intersects Fifth avenue and 23d street) are chiefly retail establishments and office buildings. The section from 42d to 59th street forms the chief hotel and theater section of the extends to city. The same thoroughfare Albany, N. Y., following the course of the old post-road. Its length below 59th street is about 5 miles, es, and it is traversed throughout by an electric railway. Two subway systems run underneath Broadway for a considerable portion of its length.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
the most notable street in the New World. It is a broad, busy thoroughfare, and is indeed the principal business street of New York City. Starting at Bowling Green, the southern tip of the island, it runs northerly and due north in a broken, straight line. It connects with an old post road up the Hudson. The name has been extended to this road as far as Albany. See Road 2026 Editor's Note: The name became a metonym for an entire art form: " Broadway " now means the commercial American theater itself, its forty-odd houses clustered around Times Square, and the standard against which stage musicals worldwide are measured. The stretch of electric signs that dazzled the entry's contemporaries gave it the nickname the Great White Way. (Ed: BR 2026-06-16)