Good morning on this pleasant Thursday.

“Beware the ides of March.”

That Shakespearean warning, which foreshadowed the assassination of Julius Caesar, sounds less ominous centuries later on a sunny day in New York.

In fact, these days it seems downright positive, as it gives us a reason to remember the playwright’s legacy in our city.

“It’s really important to underscore that not only America’s Shakespeare — but New York’s Shakespeare — is different than the Shakespeare you get in England,” said James Shapiro, a professor of English at Columbia University who compiled the anthology “Shakespeare in America.” “And its history here, over the last 200 years, has been extraordinary.”

Among the first people to bring Shakespeare to New York, in the 18th century, were touring companies from London. During the Revolutionary War — even while British forces occupied our city, Professor Shapiro told us — there was Shakespeare being performed here.