Re: Posting the Atlas as a theater on CT… Seems to me that with over 14,000 theaters listed, CT has become a repository for just about any movie theater a member cares to post. There are quite a number of squalid on-the-cheap white-box multiplexes already listed on the site (Cinema City 5 in Fresh Meadows, Queens is a prime example). There are also any number of recently built first-class multiplex cinemas listed here that rise above the budget-discount variety that Cinema City exemplified. I assume that Atlas will get its due here on CT sooner or later. But it sure won’t be my doing.
Wally… I’ll email you. You might have posted into your own account, I don’t see any new photos on mine. You shouldn’t be able to post directly to photobucket without a password.
RobertR… Thanks for those ads! That “Monster in the Closet” ad shows that the film was booked at the two absolute worst theaters in all of Queens! Compare either of them to the Rivoli – even in its UA Twin configuration!
Wally… I didn’t get an email. It’s possible I didn’t recognize the name and deleted it with the tons of junk I get, but I usually check the subject line for items of interest. Anyway… send it again and I’ll look out for it.
Bway… LuisV is correct. After most of those theaters closed and sat vacant for a few years, the city allowed some artists to display these short phrases on the marquees of all the Duece grind houses. Only the Harris was spared, as it was still in full operation during the project. I can’t recall if the Harem was still in operation at the time. The Roxy Twin adjacent to the New Amsterdam was still advertising porn, while the other Roxy Twin by the Empire was in mid conversion to the shortlived Movieplex 42. The Anco had been converted to retail for a number of years by this time. All the others, however, had these sayings on the marquees. A different saying on each face of each marquee to boot. Check out the other CT pages for the Victory, New Amsterdam, Selwyn, Lyric, Liberty, Harris and Times Square theaters for other shots I took at the same time.
Davebazooka… We never said it was an actual “treasure”! It was a pretty abysmal theater, aside from the excellent programming. Two rectangular boxes with a single center aisle, low ceilings and small screens. You could hear the projector clacking away from even the first few rows of the auditorium!
RobertR… Many of the theaters in that ad were already showing porn or about to, but it’s interesting that the film was booked into the Carnegie Hall Cinemas! I suppose many “straight” theaters dabbled here and there in during the porn chic era.
On a small side note… at the lower part of that page below the RKO block, a small ad shows the St. Marks Cinema playing Ken Russell’s “The Devils” along with Peter Brooks' fascinating adaptation of the play “Marat/Sade”. I caught these two films on a double bill some 10 or 12 years later when the Hollywood Twin on 8th Ave was showing revival. I find it interesting to learn that they had been previously paired at the St. Marks.
RobertR… Many of the theaters in that ad were already showing porn or about to, but it’s interesting that the film was booked into the Carnegie Hall Cinemas! I suppose many “straight” theaters dabbled here and there in during the porn chic era.
On a small side note… at the lower part of that page below the RKO block, a small ad shows the St. Marks Cinema playing Ken Russell’s “The Devils” along with Peter Brooks' fascinating adaptation of the play “Marat/Sade”. I caught these two films on a double bill some 10 or 12 years later when the Hollywood Twin on 8th Ave was showing revival. I find it interesting to learn that they had been previously paired at the St. Marks.
Warren… I assume you were being facetious in your last post, otherwise I’d love to know who said that the grand lobby of this dump was modelled after the forecourt of Grauman’s Chinese Theater! For starters, that person would never be allowed to use the word “grand” again! Believe me when I tell you that there is nothing in the least bit grand about this place. But, I suspect you are well aware of that fact.
I actually drove over to the theater that very afternoon that I read your post to see if maybe I had been too harsh on the place. I had my digital camera with me and was able to snap a few photos of the exterior plus a few of the lobby through the glass entrance doors. Not the greatest images, but I didn’t feel like asking for permission (nor do I think it would have been granted) to walk past the ticket taker to get some better shots.
The layout is pretty common, with the candy counter being the focal point of the large lobby. As you walk in the entrance, the box office is immediately to your left (you can make out some customers purchasing tickets in the 4th photo down). Once you get your tickets, you turn to the right and immediately have your stub ripped before entering the lobby (you can see the ticket takers station in the 5th photo down). I spoke briefly with the ticket taker who informed me that the place was completely refurbished within the last 2 years and it does look like the lobby floor is new and the appointments spiffed up a bit. If there were any replicas of the hand and foot prints of the stars ala Grauman’s (which I don’t recall at all, honestly), they seem to have been removed as part of the overhaul. At the far left end of the lobby (I couldnt' get a shot of this) there is also a chain pizza cafe outlet as an adjunct to the candy counter. And they serve Starbuck’s coffee.
No amount of renovations, however, could have imbued any sort of charm in the screening rooms. I don’t think I’ll ever revisit this particular theater as a paying customer.
It’s surprising – or then again, maybe not – that theatrical spaces do not have a codicil in their interior landmark designations that would allow for the accepted practice of having temporary alterations made to accommodate visiting productions. I would imagine that the costs to effect these alterations, as well as the cost to restore the facilities to their proper configuration once the production vacates, would be covered by that show’s producers. At the very least, a quick and easy process should be established for theater owners to obtain some sort of temporary variance to allow the necessary work to be performed. I know nothing is quick and easy with the LPC but it seems rather obvious that in the absence of such a process, the LPC is hindering the economic viability of any theater whose auditorium it designates a landmark. What a great service… preserve, protect and render obsolete!
Wally… If you have a scanner, you can scan the photos into your computer hard drive and then host them on a website (such as flickr.com, photobucket.com or webshots.com). You can then link those photos in a comment as many of us who contribute regularly do. You can get a free account relatively easy at most of those websites. If you don’t have a scanner, you should be able to go down to your local CVS (or other chain store with a photo development center) and they should be able to have your photos digitized and placed on a CD ROM for you. If you have the negatives, I think it’s cheapest.
I have many theater photos that I’ve personally shot and many that I’ve snagged online (more than a few thanks to CT contributors like Warren, RobertR, Jerry Kovar and others) located in my photobucket album. If you already have the photos scanned into your computer (or once you do so) I’d be more than happy to throw them up on my account and post a link to them for you. You can click the following link to peruse the photos I have already placed on my account: View link
Anyway… no matter how you manage to share them, I’d sure love to see your photos. Good luck. If you click on my name below, you will find my email address located in my profile. Feel free to contact me.
This film had played here for an amazing 82 weeks by the time this ad was published in the Daily News on 12/12/80, and it continued on at the theater even while it expanded to a select few other theaters in Manhattan, Queens and Nassauc County:
Forgot to add that the newspaper movie clock in that 12/12/80 edition of the News has the Continental as a single theater. I have some newspapers from March of 1982 that indicate the theater as a twin. That pretty much nails down the twinning as occuring sometime in 1981. Perhaps the theater’s description above can be amended to include some of the information provided on this page including the theater’s single screen origins and AKA as well as correcting the photo caption as RobertR suggested in July of 2005, to remove the erroneous reference to the name “Austin”.
According to the following ad, the film played some 82 weeks at Manhattan’s 68th Street Playhouse before finally broadening its release to Times Square and these select nabes:
Dave-bronx… not to be argumentative – because I certainly see your point – but the United Church is not a functioning theater but a church. The point I was making is that it seems CT has a policy of using the current working name for any theater listed here that is still in theatrical operation. Hence, the Selwyn is now the American Airlines Theater, the Victory now the New Victory, the Winter Garden now the Cadillac Winter Garden, the Oriental in Chicago now the Ford Center for Performing Arts and the Metropolitan in Boston now the Wang Center. While those theaters may not have quite the magnificent opulence of the Loew’s Paradise, neither are they just some ordinary theaters in Kansas.
Perhaps CT should just follow the convention used in most books on the subject of theatrical architecture and use the original name under which the theater first opened. Whatever the choice, it should be consistent. The AKA search works quite well and folks looking for a specific theater (provided they have the right spelling) should have little trouble tracking it down.
According to the asterisk in the following ad, only the bottom half of this double bill was playing one of the Alden’s four auditoriums in December of 1980:
No Manhattan theaters are listed in the ad, but don’t tell me this pairing didn’t wind up in one of the 42nd Street grind houses! Sorry for the blurry image.
Here’s an ad for Guccione’s “Caligula” from December 1980 boasting of the film’s “11th record-shattering month in NY!” Huh? Didn’t roadshow films in the late ‘50’s and early '60’s run well over a year in a few instances?
The film was still being four-walled at the temporarily re-christened “Penthouse East”, but the movie clock from that day’s paper (check out the “Movie Directory” at the bottom center of the image below) clearly shows that it had already widened its distribution to a number of nabe houses like the Center in Sunnyside and the Walker and Kent in Brooklyn:
Interesting how the Penthouse East listing says “Exclusive Engagment” even though the movie was in several other NYC theaters. Perhaps exclusive to Manhattan?
Is there an actual CT policy? I agree with Warren that CT always seems to display the current working theater’s name on its listings (so the Loew’s Astor Plaza is listed as the Nokia Theater), but there is some inconsistency as to which name a theater goes by if it is no longer in theatrical operations or has been demolished. It seems that the best known name prevails, but that can be a pretty subjective call and I’m not sure if that is official policy. I certainly wouldn’t want to see the Strand listed as “Warner Twin” just as surely as I wouldn’t want the Rivoli listed as “UA Twin”, but a consistent naming convention should be established. And it does make sense to use the current operating name for those theaters still in operation.
Ha! Very funny Al! I have a number of those little XXX ads that the Post and Daily News would run in their movie section. Newsday and the Times always avoided them, as best I can remember. Anyway… I saved a number of papers from the time of John Lennon’s murder in December of ‘80 and John Belushi’s death in March '82 and will continue to post those ads wherever I can determine the proper CT page to do so. I don’t think all of those theaters (carved as they were from previous commercial usage) are listed here, however. Visit my photobucket album if you care to peruse the clippings I made (it’s not all porn, by the way).
It’s a little blurry, but the ads do indicate the location of the theater as Broadway at 48th Street. That plus the connection with the Lido East in both 1980 and 1982… I guess I assumed this was the same theater as the Cine Lido. It also appears that the “Pussycat”, as it was called in 1980, and “The Grand Pussycat”, as it is referred to in the 1982 ad, are one and the same since both are dubbed “The ‘Couples’ Theater”. I have an ad from the same 1980 Daily News as the first ad I posted on May 30th for Marilyn Chambers' “Insatiable” which was playing at the Pussycat 2 – also located at Broadway at 48th but with a completely different phone number than the Pussycat.
I remember laughing my tail off when I first saw “Porky’s” – probably at the Sunrise Multiplex in Valley Stream. Of course, it is unabashedly crude and lewd, taking its lead (as did all of the sex-filled gross-out comedies of the period) from “Animal House” and pushing the envelope farther than Harold Ramis and the folks at National Lampoon ever imagined. In any event, I haven’t watched the movie in many years, but I will always be thankful to “Porky’s” for introducing the word “tallywhacker” into my vocabulary.
This page of movie ads from the 12/14/80 edition of the NY Daily News shows that a pair of grind house worthy double features occupied half of theater’s screens while Jane, Lily and Dolly would be added to the mix the following Friday:
The movie clock in that same paper indicates that THREE of the four auditoriums were featuring double bills that week! In addition to the two shown in the above image, one of the auditoriums featured a double bill of “The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood” along with the original “The Happy Hooker”! Meanwhile, fourth theater seemed to have been offering the single feature and comparitively upscale “Flash Gordon” even though the ad for the film in the same paper doesn’t list the Quartet at all!
The infamous “Porky’s” had a sneak preview at one of the three Prospect auditoriums (as well as a select number of other theaters around the Metro area) in March of 1982:
According to the movie clock in that same edition, the regular film playing with the preview (back in the days when you actually got to see both movies on the same ticket) was Charles Bronson’s “Death Wish II”.
Re: Posting the Atlas as a theater on CT… Seems to me that with over 14,000 theaters listed, CT has become a repository for just about any movie theater a member cares to post. There are quite a number of squalid on-the-cheap white-box multiplexes already listed on the site (Cinema City 5 in Fresh Meadows, Queens is a prime example). There are also any number of recently built first-class multiplex cinemas listed here that rise above the budget-discount variety that Cinema City exemplified. I assume that Atlas will get its due here on CT sooner or later. But it sure won’t be my doing.
Wally… I’ll email you. You might have posted into your own account, I don’t see any new photos on mine. You shouldn’t be able to post directly to photobucket without a password.
RobertR… Thanks for those ads! That “Monster in the Closet” ad shows that the film was booked at the two absolute worst theaters in all of Queens! Compare either of them to the Rivoli – even in its UA Twin configuration!
Wally… I didn’t get an email. It’s possible I didn’t recognize the name and deleted it with the tons of junk I get, but I usually check the subject line for items of interest. Anyway… send it again and I’ll look out for it.
Bway… LuisV is correct. After most of those theaters closed and sat vacant for a few years, the city allowed some artists to display these short phrases on the marquees of all the Duece grind houses. Only the Harris was spared, as it was still in full operation during the project. I can’t recall if the Harem was still in operation at the time. The Roxy Twin adjacent to the New Amsterdam was still advertising porn, while the other Roxy Twin by the Empire was in mid conversion to the shortlived Movieplex 42. The Anco had been converted to retail for a number of years by this time. All the others, however, had these sayings on the marquees. A different saying on each face of each marquee to boot. Check out the other CT pages for the Victory, New Amsterdam, Selwyn, Lyric, Liberty, Harris and Times Square theaters for other shots I took at the same time.
I pass the theater with some frequency… As of yesterday, the theater is still standing.
Davebazooka… We never said it was an actual “treasure”! It was a pretty abysmal theater, aside from the excellent programming. Two rectangular boxes with a single center aisle, low ceilings and small screens. You could hear the projector clacking away from even the first few rows of the auditorium!
RobertR… Many of the theaters in that ad were already showing porn or about to, but it’s interesting that the film was booked into the Carnegie Hall Cinemas! I suppose many “straight” theaters dabbled here and there in during the porn chic era.
On a small side note… at the lower part of that page below the RKO block, a small ad shows the St. Marks Cinema playing Ken Russell’s “The Devils” along with Peter Brooks' fascinating adaptation of the play “Marat/Sade”. I caught these two films on a double bill some 10 or 12 years later when the Hollywood Twin on 8th Ave was showing revival. I find it interesting to learn that they had been previously paired at the St. Marks.
RobertR… Many of the theaters in that ad were already showing porn or about to, but it’s interesting that the film was booked into the Carnegie Hall Cinemas! I suppose many “straight” theaters dabbled here and there in during the porn chic era.
On a small side note… at the lower part of that page below the RKO block, a small ad shows the St. Marks Cinema playing Ken Russell’s “The Devils” along with Peter Brooks' fascinating adaptation of the play “Marat/Sade”. I caught these two films on a double bill some 10 or 12 years later when the Hollywood Twin on 8th Ave was showing revival. I find it interesting to learn that they had been previously paired at the St. Marks.
Warren… I assume you were being facetious in your last post, otherwise I’d love to know who said that the grand lobby of this dump was modelled after the forecourt of Grauman’s Chinese Theater! For starters, that person would never be allowed to use the word “grand” again! Believe me when I tell you that there is nothing in the least bit grand about this place. But, I suspect you are well aware of that fact.
I actually drove over to the theater that very afternoon that I read your post to see if maybe I had been too harsh on the place. I had my digital camera with me and was able to snap a few photos of the exterior plus a few of the lobby through the glass entrance doors. Not the greatest images, but I didn’t feel like asking for permission (nor do I think it would have been granted) to walk past the ticket taker to get some better shots.
Anyway, here we go:
Flamboyant parking lot signage
Way back under the parking deck
The charming facade
Entrance doors
Left side of lobby
Candy counter through exit doors
Right side of lobby through exit doors
The layout is pretty common, with the candy counter being the focal point of the large lobby. As you walk in the entrance, the box office is immediately to your left (you can make out some customers purchasing tickets in the 4th photo down). Once you get your tickets, you turn to the right and immediately have your stub ripped before entering the lobby (you can see the ticket takers station in the 5th photo down). I spoke briefly with the ticket taker who informed me that the place was completely refurbished within the last 2 years and it does look like the lobby floor is new and the appointments spiffed up a bit. If there were any replicas of the hand and foot prints of the stars ala Grauman’s (which I don’t recall at all, honestly), they seem to have been removed as part of the overhaul. At the far left end of the lobby (I couldnt' get a shot of this) there is also a chain pizza cafe outlet as an adjunct to the candy counter. And they serve Starbuck’s coffee.
No amount of renovations, however, could have imbued any sort of charm in the screening rooms. I don’t think I’ll ever revisit this particular theater as a paying customer.
It’s surprising – or then again, maybe not – that theatrical spaces do not have a codicil in their interior landmark designations that would allow for the accepted practice of having temporary alterations made to accommodate visiting productions. I would imagine that the costs to effect these alterations, as well as the cost to restore the facilities to their proper configuration once the production vacates, would be covered by that show’s producers. At the very least, a quick and easy process should be established for theater owners to obtain some sort of temporary variance to allow the necessary work to be performed. I know nothing is quick and easy with the LPC but it seems rather obvious that in the absence of such a process, the LPC is hindering the economic viability of any theater whose auditorium it designates a landmark. What a great service… preserve, protect and render obsolete!
Wally… If you have a scanner, you can scan the photos into your computer hard drive and then host them on a website (such as flickr.com, photobucket.com or webshots.com). You can then link those photos in a comment as many of us who contribute regularly do. You can get a free account relatively easy at most of those websites. If you don’t have a scanner, you should be able to go down to your local CVS (or other chain store with a photo development center) and they should be able to have your photos digitized and placed on a CD ROM for you. If you have the negatives, I think it’s cheapest.
I have many theater photos that I’ve personally shot and many that I’ve snagged online (more than a few thanks to CT contributors like Warren, RobertR, Jerry Kovar and others) located in my photobucket album. If you already have the photos scanned into your computer (or once you do so) I’d be more than happy to throw them up on my account and post a link to them for you. You can click the following link to peruse the photos I have already placed on my account: View link
Anyway… no matter how you manage to share them, I’d sure love to see your photos. Good luck. If you click on my name below, you will find my email address located in my profile. Feel free to contact me.
Did he call it the Penthouse West in some sort of pornographic answer to Bill Graham’s great Fillmore rock venues?
This film had played here for an amazing 82 weeks by the time this ad was published in the Daily News on 12/12/80, and it continued on at the theater even while it expanded to a select few other theaters in Manhattan, Queens and Nassauc County:
La Cage expanded release
Forgot to add that the newspaper movie clock in that 12/12/80 edition of the News has the Continental as a single theater. I have some newspapers from March of 1982 that indicate the theater as a twin. That pretty much nails down the twinning as occuring sometime in 1981. Perhaps the theater’s description above can be amended to include some of the information provided on this page including the theater’s single screen origins and AKA as well as correcting the photo caption as RobertR suggested in July of 2005, to remove the erroneous reference to the name “Austin”.
According to the following ad, the film played some 82 weeks at Manhattan’s 68th Street Playhouse before finally broadening its release to Times Square and these select nabes:
La Cage Daily News 12/12/80
The Continental had the exclusive outer boroughs booking. Sorry for the blurry image.
Dave-bronx… not to be argumentative – because I certainly see your point – but the United Church is not a functioning theater but a church. The point I was making is that it seems CT has a policy of using the current working name for any theater listed here that is still in theatrical operation. Hence, the Selwyn is now the American Airlines Theater, the Victory now the New Victory, the Winter Garden now the Cadillac Winter Garden, the Oriental in Chicago now the Ford Center for Performing Arts and the Metropolitan in Boston now the Wang Center. While those theaters may not have quite the magnificent opulence of the Loew’s Paradise, neither are they just some ordinary theaters in Kansas.
Perhaps CT should just follow the convention used in most books on the subject of theatrical architecture and use the original name under which the theater first opened. Whatever the choice, it should be consistent. The AKA search works quite well and folks looking for a specific theater (provided they have the right spelling) should have little trouble tracking it down.
According to the asterisk in the following ad, only the bottom half of this double bill was playing one of the Alden’s four auditoriums in December of 1980:
Vampire Playgirls Daily News 12/12/80
No Manhattan theaters are listed in the ad, but don’t tell me this pairing didn’t wind up in one of the 42nd Street grind houses! Sorry for the blurry image.
Here’s an rather plain ad from December 1980 when the theater was called Entermedia (a name that ought to be added to the list of AKA’s above):
Samurai/Wolves 12/14/80
The Samurai Triology is a fairly well known series of Japanese films from the 1950’s, but I can not identify the other feature at all.
Here’s an ad for Guccione’s “Caligula” from December 1980 boasting of the film’s “11th record-shattering month in NY!” Huh? Didn’t roadshow films in the late ‘50’s and early '60’s run well over a year in a few instances?
For Mature Audiences Only
The film was still being four-walled at the temporarily re-christened “Penthouse East”, but the movie clock from that day’s paper (check out the “Movie Directory” at the bottom center of the image below) clearly shows that it had already widened its distribution to a number of nabe houses like the Center in Sunnyside and the Walker and Kent in Brooklyn:
Movie Clock Daily News 12/14/80
Interesting how the Penthouse East listing says “Exclusive Engagment” even though the movie was in several other NYC theaters. Perhaps exclusive to Manhattan?
Is there an actual CT policy? I agree with Warren that CT always seems to display the current working theater’s name on its listings (so the Loew’s Astor Plaza is listed as the Nokia Theater), but there is some inconsistency as to which name a theater goes by if it is no longer in theatrical operations or has been demolished. It seems that the best known name prevails, but that can be a pretty subjective call and I’m not sure if that is official policy. I certainly wouldn’t want to see the Strand listed as “Warner Twin” just as surely as I wouldn’t want the Rivoli listed as “UA Twin”, but a consistent naming convention should be established. And it does make sense to use the current operating name for those theaters still in operation.
Ha! Very funny Al! I have a number of those little XXX ads that the Post and Daily News would run in their movie section. Newsday and the Times always avoided them, as best I can remember. Anyway… I saved a number of papers from the time of John Lennon’s murder in December of ‘80 and John Belushi’s death in March '82 and will continue to post those ads wherever I can determine the proper CT page to do so. I don’t think all of those theaters (carved as they were from previous commercial usage) are listed here, however. Visit my photobucket album if you care to peruse the clippings I made (it’s not all porn, by the way).
It’s a little blurry, but the ads do indicate the location of the theater as Broadway at 48th Street. That plus the connection with the Lido East in both 1980 and 1982… I guess I assumed this was the same theater as the Cine Lido. It also appears that the “Pussycat”, as it was called in 1980, and “The Grand Pussycat”, as it is referred to in the 1982 ad, are one and the same since both are dubbed “The ‘Couples’ Theater”. I have an ad from the same 1980 Daily News as the first ad I posted on May 30th for Marilyn Chambers' “Insatiable” which was playing at the Pussycat 2 – also located at Broadway at 48th but with a completely different phone number than the Pussycat.
I remember laughing my tail off when I first saw “Porky’s” – probably at the Sunrise Multiplex in Valley Stream. Of course, it is unabashedly crude and lewd, taking its lead (as did all of the sex-filled gross-out comedies of the period) from “Animal House” and pushing the envelope farther than Harold Ramis and the folks at National Lampoon ever imagined. In any event, I haven’t watched the movie in many years, but I will always be thankful to “Porky’s” for introducing the word “tallywhacker” into my vocabulary.
This page of movie ads from the 12/14/80 edition of the NY Daily News shows that a pair of grind house worthy double features occupied half of theater’s screens while Jane, Lily and Dolly would be added to the mix the following Friday:
Quartet movie ads
The movie clock in that same paper indicates that THREE of the four auditoriums were featuring double bills that week! In addition to the two shown in the above image, one of the auditoriums featured a double bill of “The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood” along with the original “The Happy Hooker”! Meanwhile, fourth theater seemed to have been offering the single feature and comparitively upscale “Flash Gordon” even though the ad for the film in the same paper doesn’t list the Quartet at all!
The infamous “Porky’s” had a sneak preview at one of the three Prospect auditoriums (as well as a select number of other theaters around the Metro area) in March of 1982:
NY Post 3/6/82
According to the movie clock in that same edition, the regular film playing with the preview (back in the days when you actually got to see both movies on the same ticket) was Charles Bronson’s “Death Wish II”.