Regal Times Square
247 W. 42nd Street,
New York,
NY
10036
247 W. 42nd Street,
New York,
NY
10036
31 people
favorited this theater
Showing 301 - 325 of 356 comments
In under six years, this place has managed to go from great to mediocre but it is still preferable to the AMC across the street.
The Loews State was closed for quite a few days after 9/11, probably due, in no small part, to those exact concerns.
>>The marquee has had the signage changed to a color digital sign, but the framing around the digital unit is way too plain for 42nd St. – it needs more neon and color.<<
I agree. The 42nd Street grind houses switched to that bland silver border after have glitzy flashing lights for decades. Looked awful.
What a dump this place has become! On 3 recent visits I have been forced to walk up several flights of stairs (Broken escaltors for over a month!), Dirty bathrooms, smelly theatres with torn seats and gum on them, watered down coffee and nasty workers! All this for $10.75 for a weekday matinee! Oh, and the place was practically empty!
The marquee has had the signage changed to a color digital sign, but the framing around the digital unit is way too plain for 42nd St. – it needs more neon and color. The LOEWS letters on the top of the marquee have also been changed to match the logo type. A photo can be seen here: View link
Long, long ago, in a world far, far away, Marcus Loew stated, “We sell tickets to THEATRES, not movies.” – As we all know, many of the theatres created for him by Lamb, Eberson, the Rapp brothers and a few others had lavish, palatial lobbies, but the architectural main event, as it were, was in the auditorium, where the architect usually went hog wild creating a spectacular fantasyland interior that was many times more entertaining to look at than what was on the stage or screen. Somehow, as the years went by, the architecture gradually fell by the wayside, reaching a low point in the 60s and 70s, with bland, plain lobbies (a la General Cinema), and even more bland, plain auditoriums. Todays theatres are trying to get some of that back, with a certain amount of theming in the lobbies, but the auditoriums are still bland and plain. Perhaps, if the movie theatre business is still around in twenty years, the powers-that-be will get around to doing something with the auditoriums. But, alas, there are no more Marcus Loews or Thomas Lambs – the bean-counters are running the show these days, so I’m not holding my breath. [Cynical?? ME??]
I visited this theatre in June. Very bland. Sound wasn’t all that great. Definitely nothing to write home about.
br91795 or dave-bronx: Did Garth get any property when Cineplex Odeon took over the Walter Reade chain in NYC? I know LCE owned the Baronet/Coronet at the time of its closing in 2001.
The Worldwide Cinemas closed their doors for business in February of 2001, as part of a major wave of properties Loews Cineplex was able to wiggle away from upon court approval of their bankruptcy organization plan.
Yes, for his $179 million, all Garth got was the RKO-CW business operations, no Manhattan real estate. Schwartz and Landis knew a sucker when they saw one. They may still own the Art-Greenwich property and lease it to Equinox.
Thanks for that info, Dave, as to who operated the Art Greenwich as an indie. This might a stunningly obvious thing to ask, but when you mentioned Al Schwartz and Michael Landis retained the real estate, did that mean they owned the building itself until selling it to Equinox?
The Worldwide Cinemas remained under the Cineplex Odeon aegis to the end and was the last C.O. house in Manhattan.
I think the Worldwide Cinemas became the Loews Cineplex Worldwide cinemas before closing down in the late ‘90s. The closest theatre near me that has the Cineplex Odeon name is the Route 4 Tenplex in Paramus (advertised as CO Route 4 Tenplex and Triplex); although several CO theatres (like the Menlo Park Mall theatre) changed to the Loews name. Once the AMC deal is done, expect the Loews name to go the way of the dinosaur!
Wasn’t the Wordwide the only original Cineplex Odeon Cinema, that kept the Cineplex Brand in Manhattan? I know the Baronet/Coronet was converted over to the Loews Coronet I/II.
The Regency was allowed to transfer over to Loews (though the signs were not changed) because prior to the merger it was already scheduled to close at the end of the lease, and divesting it wouldn’t accomplish anything.
The Art-Greenwich, when it re-opened as an independent, was operated by Al Schwartz and Michael Landis [ALMI Group] – former owners of RKO-CW. They had sold the business to Cineplex but retained the real estate.
Thanks for capturing the theatre locations Loews Theatres Management and Cineplex Odeon Corporation were forced to divest themselves of prior to their merger in ‘98. The two exceptions were the Regency – Cineplex Odeon was allowed to hold onto the Regency due to its impending shuttering and demolition – and the Art Greenwich, which closed as a Cineplex house that winter and, while the various permit and neighborhood considerations were worked out prior to the site being redeveloped as an Equinox Fitness Club, re-opened in late February of '99 and operated as an indie through May of the following year.
Hi Ron:
I remember visiting the Copley Place when I was in Boston a few years back, it had a nice gold colored Loews sign. The Boston Commons was really nice, sort of like our 34th Street, which opened the same year.
Unfortunately the only annual Loews Cineplex reports I have is on paper hard-copy, it used to be availible on the corporate website, but the link is now dead, sorry.
From 1998 onward, some Loew’s annual reports and other documents are available on the web site of the Securities & Exchange Commission:
Companies with names matching ‘Loews’
Loews Cineplex Entertainment Corp
Unfortunately, they appear to be in text and HTML format only — no pictures.
If you have an old PDF, please post it somewhere and link to it here.
Sack Theatres was the dominant chain in Boston in the late 1970s and early 1980s. They changed their name to USACinemas in December 1985. Over the following year, USACinemas bought three competing theatres, while two other competitors closed down. By the end of 1986, USACinemas had a total monopoly in central Boston and a near-monopoly in neighboring Cambridge.
Loews bought USACinemas in March 1988, giving Loews a presence in Boston for the first time since 1975. This was a full decade before Loews merged with Cineplex Odeon. Over the following 17 years, Loews proceeded to close almost every former Sack and USACinemas location.
For much more detailed discussion of this topic, see the Copley Place Cinemas page here at CinemaTreasures, and also the Old New England chains discussion at CinemaTour.
(My apologies if I’m hijacking your discussion of the E-Walk.)
The Port Chester was supposed to open LAST summer, something is wrong there, but I haven’t found out what. I went snooping around there last summer and the building was up, but it appeared that all work had stopped.
And the Loews Port Chester should be opening in October of this year.
The IMAX theatres are included in the count. They opened a couple of new ones, including Loews Alderwood in Seattle.
dave-bronx: Thanks, I think the Extra 3 theatres are the 3 IMAX theatres, In California and New York. They may be counted separately.
Also with the Fortway closed there are 41 Cineplex Odeon’s & 142 Total.
Theatrefan: Yes, most were taken over by Cineplex, but then Loews took over Cineplex and by default owns the stuff that Cineplex owned.
According to the April 2005 Loews directory, the company had 133 units with 1,442 screens.
According to the US Theatre Locations section of the Loews Cineplex Enjoythereeldeal website; as of Jan 12th, 2005 in the United States there are:
73 Loew’s Theatre Locations, 42 Cineplex Odeon Cinema Locations, 09 Star Theatre Locations(only in Michigan) & 06 Magic Johnson Theatre Locations. I believe that makes 130 Locations total.