Teck Theatre
766 Main Street,
Buffalo,
NY
14203
766 Main Street,
Buffalo,
NY
14203
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Showing 1 - 25 of 36 comments
Just added articles, ads, and pictures of the Teck theatre from 1955 to 1982 to https://incinerama.com/ctbuffalo.htm. Please don’t copy them to this site.
A chronology of Buffalo’s 70mm presentation history has recently been published. The Teck is mentioned numerous times.
Newspaper listings for the Teck ended in 1982.
Demolished in December 1982 per:
Hi rivest266, I will be adding ads, articles and pictures of the Teck theatre from 1955 to 1983 or whenever it was actually demolished to https://incinerama.com/ctbuffalo.htm in about a month. The theatre was closed 9/28/79 for roof repairs and reopened 12/21/79. It was not closed in 1977 or 1978.
Loews shut down the Teck in 1977 and is reopened by new management on December 21st, 1979. Grand opening ad posted.
I will be adding ads, pictures and articles of movies that played at the Teck theatre from 1955 to 1963 in about a month to https://incinerama.com/ctbuffalo.htm. Hey Kinospoter, you don’t have to copy my work to this web site. You can just post a link.
Cinerama arrives on March 16th, 1955.
Cinerama arrives in Buffalo 16 Mar 1955, Wed Buffalo Evening News (Buffalo, New York) Newspapers.com
Reopened as Shea’s Teck as a movie theatre on February 7th, 1946.
New Music Hall to be built on th site of the old Shea’s Music Hall.
Boxoffice, May 12, 1958: “Flying the Shea banner once again, the Teck Theatre reopened Thursday (1) with a new stage, a new 30x40-foot screen, a new lighting arrangement, a new Altec sound system, a battery of new projectors and a new manager, Charles A. McLeary … (who said) "The Cinerama people subtracted 100 seats or so. We are leaving them out for the sake of roominess and perfect sight lines.” "
Just added a 1968 picture in the photo section.
I have lived in buffalo all my life and I do remember this great b film showplace it did turn into a grindhouse cinema where you could smoke downstairs in the lounge beautiful accent mirrors on the walls. snack stand in the middle upstairs sold real beef franks ice cold drinks real butter popcorn and you could stay all day until they closed for the day and only 2dollar admission. great times someone please post photos of inside. thank you
Scroll down to the second illustration on this web page to see the original appearance of the Music Hall, as it was called from its opening in 1887 until 1900. The massive Romanesque Revival pile was designed by Richard Alfred Waite.
This page has a photo of the auditorium as originally designed, strikingly different from the Streamline Modern interior created in its 1946 rebuilding as Shea’s Teck Theatre (which, according to this earlier comment by roberttoplin, was designed by architect B. Frank Kelly with interiors by Theodore P. Vandercoy.) The building fronting the auditorium was apparently also replaced at that time.
For a while when “Cinerama” was single projector 70mm (think ‘It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World’) they also ran standard 35mm scope on the curved screen. Saw Elvis in ‘Viva Las Vegas’ like that and it actually looked pretty good!
When Cinerama departed the Teck theatre standard 35mm and 70mm movies such as West Side Story and Ben-Hur were definitely shown on a flat screen. I was also fortunate enough to get to see genuine Cinerama films before the equipment was removed from the theatre.
Known as Leow’s tech, in the 70s it showed all the 2nd- run movies. It also regularly had all the martial arts films of the day, including Bruce Lee and Sonny Chiba (Street Fighter). It was $2 admission and the movies would play back to back all day. Spent a lot of hours there.
I have a promotional postcard of the Cinerama film “Search For Paradise”. The back of the postcard states: TECK THEATRE 760 Main Street Buffalo 2, N.Y. MOhawk 4628 Exclusive Buffalo Home of CINERAMA I remember when the Main Street businesses were expropriated and torn down. I took pictures of the theatres (Century, Cinema) including one of the Teck marquee and entrance (similar to the Josker photo).
Would you still have those photos and be willing to share? I would love to see those? Thanks!
I got to explore and photograph the Teck in the late 1970’s. There was a huge attic space above the ceiling with ghost outlines on the walls where the balcony had been and bits of surviving decorative plaster that escaped the 1945 gutting of the building. The Cenarama booths on the sides of the theatre were quite far down the auditorium to get the throw correctly to the sides of the screen with flat windows at an angle to the sidewalls. As a Cinerama theatre it must have had a very tunnel like effect for the rear of the auditorium. The place was pretty dirty as well with a lot of air handling dust on the walls and ceiling.
If my memory serves me,during the 70’s the Teck was having trouble getting first run films because the distributors were playing them in the suburban plexes.
The Teck began showing B movies, R rated adult films, and martial arts films.
I am looking for information on what was shown or played at the Teck Theatre in Buffalo, NY. I found tickets in a wall when I was remodling for a production called ‘Her Game’. Does anyone have information on what was shown or played there or about this particular production? I would like to find out the year.
AKA LOEWS TECK Interesting.
I was in several projection rooms of large cinemas in Toronto
and they usually go enough of the width of the hall that two additional projectors could be added for the two side screens.
The problem is geometric distortion which is overcome by
specially created lenses for those projectors which are sending
their picture partly obliquely to the target screen.
As I recall, this theater was converted to 3 strip by actually adding the left & right projection booths outside the physical theater building and knocking port windows through the walls! To gain entry to these booth from the center projection room, open air catwalks were hung on the sides of the building from this room – which must have been an absolute joy to the poor projectionists during the Buffalo winters.
Can anyone else add to this?
View link
There is a picture of the Teck at the above website taken in 1981.