Beekman Theatre

Is it gone? Did it close this weekend?

Excellent photos! For those unfamiliar with New York theatres, in the photo (marquee.jpg) davebazooka mentions in the previous post, the tall black glass building in the background houses the former Loews/Crown now Clearview New York twin theatre, which is going to be renamed ‘Beekman One Two’.

Sic transit gloria Beekmani!
Dave, great shots! I took similar photos a couple of weeks ago and was going to post mine. You saved me the need.

Simple, post them on Photobucket.com and then link to the images.

The Beekman theater, regarded as one of New York’s premier movie art houses since it opened in 1952 and one of the last single-screen theaters in Manhattan, will shut down next Sunday. A spokesman for Clearview Cinemas, the theater chain that operates the Beekman, told Reuters that it was being forced to close because its landlord, the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, had exercised a lease option to take back the property in order to establish an outpatient care facility there. In an interview with Reuters, Woody Allen, who featured the theater in Annie Hall, mourned its extinction. “The Beekman epitomized New York movie houses at their best,” he said. “The size, the architecture, the location seemed perfect. I saw many great films there by great foreign filmmakers, and it was an honor to have my films shown there.”

It is time to start adding one or two 1000 seat auditoriums to complexes with wrap around curved screens. In Times Square AMC could convert a few of those auditoriums in one of the complexes to IMAX. The DeMille-Mayfair would make an incredible Cinerama Imax house, but I see this buisness getting smaller again instead of growing. Boy do we need CINERAMA again, it’s time. But not half assed like the Ziegfeld revival, a screen with no curtains is not Cinerama.

‘Annie Hall’ movie theater closing
Beekman has been fixture of New York’s Upper East Side
Tuesday, June 21, 2005

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) — When it opened in 1952, New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther called it a “class theater.” Twenty-five years later, Woody Allen elevated it to icon status by featuring it in his Oscar-winning “Annie Hall.” And this Sunday, the Beekman Theater will show its last film — a screening of Universal’s “The Interpreter.”

“The Beekman epitomized New York moviehouses at their best,” remembers Allen, whose films often had exclusive engagements at the Upper East Side moviehouse. “The size, the architecture, the location seemed perfect. I saw many great films there by great foreign filmmakers, and it was an honor to have my films shown there.”

So what has brought down one of the last remaining single-screen theaters in the city? Not finances, and not neglect. Beth Simpson, a spokeswoman for Clearview Cinemas, which has operated the house for more than six years, says, “We love the neighborhood, and have proudly brought quality movies to this community. Unfortunately, the theater’s landlord has exercised a lease option to take back the property. Regrettably, we have no choice but to cease operation of the theater.”

That leaseholder is Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and the Beekman — along with the other buildings in the immediate area — will be replaced by a breast and imaging center for outpatient care. Which more or less nullifies the argument for preservation.

“It’s hard to make the case for preservation when that’s going to be taking precedence,” admits Seri Worden, executive director of Friends of the Upper East Side Historic Districts, an organization that has lobbied for the Beekman’s landmark designation since 2001. A last-minute postcard campaign directed at the landmarks commission is under way, but Worden concedes the cause is lost.

“Still,” she says, “we can make a little bit of noise.”

Built to accommodate postwar movie audiences, the Beekman’s “class theater” status was typical of the small, neighborhood theaters that took root in the 1950s and ‘60s. Tied into the switch-over from newsreel theaters into art house theaters, the Beekman was designed to appeal to wealthy and upper-middle-class locals and features a Streamline Moderne late-period art deco design, exhibited best in its scripted neon name perched on the marquee. Inside, the 510-seat theater’s mezzanine and arced rows feel like a small opera house, not a cinema.

Over the years, the Beekman has maintained its classy status, even if moviegoers now all come in jeans, and remains a favorite among cinemaphiles and historians alike.

“The Beekman always attempted to create an upscale version of moviegoing, maintaining a meticulous theater that really has an emphasis on presentation,” explains Ross Melnick, co-founder of the Cinema Treasures Web site and co-author of a book by the same name. “People have a hankering for the ‘old days.’ They appreciate that attention to detail and service, even to the opening and closing of curtains over the screen before every showing.”

The theater’s name will live on a block away, as Clearview re-names its New York One Two theaters the Beekman One and Two. Yet it’s hard to imagine Allen’s Alvy Singer trying to buy tickets in that recessed interior for himself and Annie.

“It may be nice to have a Beekman One and Two so residents can remember the theater they will ultimately miss,” Melnick muses. “But I think the Beekman will always be the Beekman and will never be replaced.”

Some public and college libraries offer free access to something called ProQuest, which serves up page images from old issues of the New York Times. Check with your local library.

Pomeii had Vesuvius.
New York has Disney.

Hey Box Office Bill:

Where did you get that page from the NY Times? I used to look at them at the library, but can you see the page “without buying it” from the New York Times Online?

RobertR – With AMC taking over Loews, I’m afraid the Tower East may be doomed – I don’t think AMC even knows what a 1-screen theatre looks like. As a matter of fact, do they own any theatres with less than 15 screens? I even wonder about the future of 84th/Orpheum/19th/Village theatres.

According to BOB’s post you could see(from what I could make out)on Broadway;
Ethel Merman, Olivia de Havilland, Charles Boyer, Agnes Moorehead, Audrey Hepburn, Julie Harris, Jack Carson, James Barton, Vivienne Segal, Harold Lang, Henry Fonda, John Hodiak, Kim Hunter, Jessica Tandy, Hume Cronyn, Gertrude Lawrence, Robert Preston, Jose Ferrar, John Raitt,and Phil Silvers.
And Singing in the Rain was playing with the Easter show at the Music Hall.
The Beekman will be closing in a New York considerally more culturally impoverished than the one it opened in.
As the people who I worked with at the Music Hall in the 70’s who had been around in the halcyon days of the 40’s said of those dark days it was simply unimaginable.

Here’s the ad from the NY Times announcing the Beekman’s opening on 28 April, 1952. If you wanted to see a movie that evening, there were plenty of good offerings to choose from at other theaters, too.

View link

The offerings at live theaters were at least as good:

View link

I will always associate the Beekman with gain and loss. In the late ‘60s, its bookings turned more and more to Hollywood product. On a cold January Saturday in ’68 on a pre-marital date with my now-wife who then lived nearby, we walked to the Beekman to see “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” which was day-dating at the Victoria. The line stretched around the block and would have convinced a fool that we couldn’t get in by show-time, so we proceeded south toward the Victoria. On E 57 Street, a strong gust blew a twenty-dollar bill into my hands, a genuine windfall since I was then unemployed. The outcome paid for the show on Times Square and for manicotti afterward at Luigino’s. We felt like a couple o’ swells.

Win some, lose some. In Fall ’68 we returned to the Beekman to see Joanne Woodward in “Rachel, Rachel,” having tied the knot meanwhile. My wedding gift to M. was an inexpensive but tasteful bracelet whose sentiment we counted on to mature over the years. As luck would have it, the band came undone and the bracelet fell away during the film. In ensuing days, I returned repeatedly to the Beekman to inquire whether it had been found, but with no success. I wonder whether it’s still hidden between the seats? I’d prefer that to the likelihood that an East Side yuppie found it and tossed it away for being so spare. When this theater is razedâ€"all good ones eventually are, and bad ones tooâ€"perhaps someone will find that bracelet beneath the carpeting among all the lost or discarded ticket stubs, espresso cups, and Showbill Programs.