Although Belasco held the Belasco Theatre under a lease with an option of renewal, he was at all times during the early years of his theatre management conscious of a certain weakness in his position: an unforeseen disaster--a fire, for instance,--might leave him with many theatrical enterprises and no metropolitan theatre to present them in. “Besides,” he writes to me: “not only was I always confronted by the fact that the lease of my Forty-second Street house might not be renewed, but also it was natural that I should desire to have a theatre _all my own_, in the making of which I could carry out, fully, my ideas of stage construction, lighting, and seating.” The result of this desire and of his wary vigilance to maintain managerial freedom is the second Belasco Theatre (which originally was named David Belasco’s Stuyvesant Theatre), which was built by Meyer R. Bimberg (18--- 1908), on designs made by Belasco and under his personal superintendence. The cornerstone of that theatre was laid on December 5, 1906. David Warfield came from Philadelphia, where he was acting, to participate; Miss Bates came from Boston; Miss Starr was at the time filling her first engagement in New York in “The Rose of the Rancho.” Belasco, those players, his business associates, and a numerous company of friends gathered round the site of the new theatre. Miss Starr deposited in a niche beneath the bed of the cornerstone a copper casket containing various records and programmes of Belasco’s productions, photographs of himself and of the chief players then appearing under his direction, and a miscellaneous assortment of souvenirs, cards, and “good luck pieces” contributed by various friends. Miss Bates then spread the mortar upon which the stone was to be laid and uttered this touching sentiment as she did so: “Here’s hoping that Mr. Belasco will stick to all of us, and we and all his friends will stick to Mr. Belasco, as this mortar will eternally stick to this stone.” The cornerstone was then swung into place, settled, and declared to be “well and truly laid,” whereupon Belasco’s daughters, Reina and Augusta, each broke a bottle of champagne against it, saying, in unison, “David Belasco’s Stuyvesant Theatre.” The dramatist Bronson Howard (who had risen from a sick-bed to attend this ceremony) then spoke, saying: