 This culminated in the founding of the Theatre Syndicate in 1896.New York City's importance as a theatrical center grew in the 1870s around Union Square until it became the primary theatre center, and the Theater District slowly moved north from lower Manhattan until it finally arrived in midtown at the end of the century.On the musical stage, Harrigan and Hart innovated with comic musical plays from the 1870s, but London imports came to dominate, beginning with Victorian burlesque, then Gilbert and Sullivan from 1880, and finally (in competition with George M. Cohan and musicals by the Gershwins) Edwardian musical comedies at the turn of the century and into the 1920s.