Not the block or cubed kind but the bribing of Broadway shows for special access to tickets for resell on a secondary market. From a letter to the editor in the Oct. 26, 1906 NYT:

After visiting five prominent theatres to-day trying to obtain tickets for Saturday of next week, nearly two weeks ahead, nothing but the last two rows could be secured. I then went to the hotels. I could procure tickets for the best seats in the house by paying an advance of 50 cents on each ticket, and what is most remarkable, they are not even in possession of the tickets, claiming they do not receive them until the beginning of the week for which they are issued. Is this not an outrage on the theatre-going public?