Had Ralph Nader been born in ancient Greece, the first car to be deemed unsafe at any speed would probably have been the chariot. While specifically designed to go as fast as possible, even at a slow trot, these antiquarian carriages, as light as modern tunafish cans and having the structural integrity of backyard go-carts held together with rubber bands and bobby pins, were confirmed death-traps. But it was precisely the possibility of a fatal crash that helped draw overflow crowds to cheer on chariot races at the Hippodrome, the open air arena in ancient Olympia, where these daredevil competitions were staged.

And it was just that sort of spectacle that Frederic Thompson and Elmer Dundy had in mind when they built their Hippodrome, a 5,200-seat theater on the east side of Sixth Avenue at 44th Street in New York City. But the crowds didn’t remain as steady in Gotham as they did in ancient Greece. And so, betting on an uptick in local land values in 1939, the Hippodrome was forever reduced to rubble. Real estate developers had speculated that the land upon which the theater stood would prove to be worth more than the ornate edifice itself. And so the Hippodrome, like countless other structures throughout New York City’s history, was summarily demolished in the hopes of cashing in on a real estate bonanza.