I never went to the National, but I must not have been in my right mind when I was visiting the Loew’s State, the Rivoli or any of the 42nd Street grind houses, as I frequently did in the 1980’s. Things were definitely colorful back in those days, but I came out of all my local moviegoing experiences relatively unscathed.
I’ll give you a factual error… The street view, above, points to the wrong side of 42nd Street. Swing that view around to the left to see the old American Theatre site, where the new NY Times tower has been constructed and now adjacent to the relocated shell of the Empire Theatre. The introductory comments should also be updated to reflect that the northern half of the Times building now stands on the site of the American.
Hey moviebuff82… The landmark installation of “Williamsburg: the Portrait of a Patriot,” which has been shown daily to vistors at Colonial Williamsburg, VA, for the past 55 years, was actually shot on horizontal 35mm VistaVision. It was eventually printed on 70mm film when the original negative was restored in the early 2000’s.
Always amazes me that people in New York actually go to a place like Olvie Garden. You can get superior Italian food from the kitchen of your local pizzeria, in these parts! I can understand in Manhattan, around Times Square, say, where you have a lot of tourists looking for something familiar and predictable… but in the local neighborhoods? Anyway, whatever greatness this theater once had was greatly diminished when this was triplexed – and later completely obliterated when it was gutted for mutli-plexing. Turning it into an ersatz ristorante can’t possibly do any more damage to the long-deceased Century’s Green Acres Theatre.
Actually, Tinseltoes… I believe that this is a photo of the Tribune Theatre, which was located closer to the Brooklyn Bridge entrance, in a block of buildings that no longer exist.
I’m trying to recall now, if this is the theatre where one could exit past a window that looked onto the projection equipment, giving patrons an appreciative glimpse into how massive the platter of IMAX film actually was. I may be thinking of the Lincoln Square IMAX in Manhattan (where you are made to exit the auditorium by climbing up the stairs to the back of the house). Whichever theater, I seem to recall seeing how the platter was mechanically lifted off the spindle to be rewound or replaced with a different film. The memory is a bit hazy.
One funny little bit of personal coincidence… the Street View above shows that Cher was the star performer appearing at the casino at the time of the image. I believe Cher was also the headliner at the Circus Maximus when I went to the OmniMax back in August, 1980 (with comedian Freddy Roman opening, if memory serves). I need to find my photos of that trip to be certain of that.
I remember seeing my very first IMAX film (or proto-IMAX, if that’s more accurate) here at the OmniMax in August of 1980. I think the film was about the eruption of Mount St. Helens – could that be? I believe the eruption was only a few months earlier in 1980, so, unless that short film was rushed into release, I might be mistaken. I know I still have my tickets for the show buried somewhere in my basement. If I can find them and get a good scan, I’ll upload an image here.
I always think back to the OmniMax presentation whenever I see an IMAX film today. Even when I go to purpose-built IMAX rooms, like the one at the AMC Lincoln Square Theater in NYC, I still remember how the OmniMax screen stretched up and partially over the audience with the curvature of the dome. The only other immersive cinematic experience I can relate the OmniMax presentation with, would be the 360 degree “O Canada” presentation I saw at Epcot Center, also back in the early ‘80’s.
Good question. A cursory review of NYC records doesn’t reveal much. The oldest viewable document online is a temporary C of O issued in October of 1964, not too long after the building was converted into a cinema. A list of prior actions on the property show a variety of building notices that reach all the way back to some “unsafe building” notices in 1905 and 1909. There’s another notice dated in 1915 and then activity picks up once again in the late 1920’s and throughout the following decades. But nothing prior to the 1964 C of O’s is viewable, so its impossible to know what those documents might reveal.
Assuming the comments near the “top” of this listing are correct that the cinema was previously a turn-of-the-century firehouse, it’s interesting that it would have been labeled as unsafe as early as 1905! Of course, one must keep in mind that the NYC DOB records from that period are very sketchy, and it is not uncommon to find documents filed under the wrong property binder.
That’s along the line I was thinking, CSWalczak. I just wonder, with movies now being stored as digital files, rectification might be something that could be virtually replicated. Of course, there are probably a very select number of screens in the world that would require such work to be done – no matter how easily completed the manipulation of data would be. Apart from the three extant Cinerama facilities, are there any deeply curved screens left on the planet?
Ugh! That is awful! And with the summer tourist season coming up? I always hoped to get back up there and actually catch a flick. As long as it’s still standing, I suppose there is hope.
That’s really stretching my memory muscles more than they can flex… But I would have to say that there probably was a VHS release after the theatrical runs were completed back in the mid ‘80’s. I saw very good prints of “Rear Window,” “The Man Who Knew Too Much” and “Vertigo” in theaters at the time, and I also caught cable TV broadcasts of “Rope” and “The Trouble with Harry” shortly thereafter. I recall that they looked to be in very good shape.
The restoration job on “Vertigo,” of course, was a revelation.
Most of my knowledge comes from nearly 8 years trolling this site and doing research for some of the theaters I added here. I actually did add the listing for the Eros 2, another of Chelly Wilson’s porn houses that later became known as the Venus. I don’t recall ever seeing a mention of a Denise at the Gaiety while I was looking at old articles to dig up info on the Eros 2, but that research was completed a few years back, so I might have run across something and just forgot it!
I never frequented any porn houses (gay or otherwise), but I was a steady patron of the big theaters along Broadway and the grind houses on 42nd Street for a number of years in the late ‘70’s into the early '80’s, and have always held a fascination for the area as it was in those days.
Anyway, all of Chelly’s theaters are listed on CT and any thing of note that I might have learned would surely be posted on those pages:
This theater should be listed as “demolished.” The building that contained both the Garrick Cinema and the Cafe Au Go Go (as well as the old residence hotel on the corner of Thompson) were demolished to make way for a new mid-rise apartment building with a Capital One Bank branch at ground level. The street view above is pointed towards the wrong corner of Bleecker and Thompson Streets. Swing it around 180 degrees to the left to view the current state of the theater’s former location.
Sharp eye, bigjoe59! Yes, that ad belongs to the Cinema Village annex that was in the former Bijou Theatre, located several blocks away on Third Avenue between East 12th and 13th Streets.
A fair point, bigjoe59. It should read that the theater was demolished after the roadshow engagement of “2001: A Space Oddyssey” was moved over to the Warner in September of 1968.
Bigjoe59… there were five films in that copyright entanglement with the Hitchcock Estate: “Rope,” “Rear Window,” “The Man Who Knew Too Much” (1956 version), “The Trouble With Harry,” and “Vertigo.” Quite a significant collection of the Master’s work that was unavailable for as long as 36 years (in the case of the 1948 “Rope”) until 1984, when Universal finally acquired the rights. I remember a lot of ballyhoo surrounding the resurfacing of these films at the time.
Ratkat… If you are still following this page, you can upload your photos from the “Photos” tab near the top of this page. You simply need to have them saved on your computer, then you can use the “Add New Photo” function to browse your hard drive for the photo files and upload them. I hope you take advantage of that feature and share your images with us!
I’ll give you this much… that it is certainly not a mere unadorned box, like most theaters built after it (including its one-time rival, the Loew’s Astor Plaza). Over the years, I have come to better appreciate the theater’s appointments, and did not necessarily intend to denigrate it’s architectural merits – which are not particularly to my own liking. I suppose I’m not enough of a modernist enthusiast to have much of an informed opinion, but it doesn’t seem to me that the Ziegfeld’s design and decorative motifs will make the basis of a strong landmark case. I believe that its significance and worthiness of preservation go beyond the mere brick and mortar.
And, as usual, Al brings up a good point regarding how long Cablevision has been looking to bail on the theater chain. It may well be several years before any deal is completed. And what of the 15 year term remaining on the lease? I suppose a lease could be bought out, if it came right down to it.
I would probably stop well short of calling the Ziegfeld a palace (perhaps, at best, an ersatz palace), but that doesn’t mean I don’t support a full court press to try and save it from closure. Pale as it may compare to the legion of true palaces that have been pounded to dust just around the corner along Broadway and Seventh Avenue, it does stand alone, sadly, as the sole surviving single screen premiere house in New York City (like LuisV, I discount the art-house Paris, too). If it were to be proposed for landmark status, I’m not so sure anyone would be able to rest its case purely on its architectural merits.
I never went to the National, but I must not have been in my right mind when I was visiting the Loew’s State, the Rivoli or any of the 42nd Street grind houses, as I frequently did in the 1980’s. Things were definitely colorful back in those days, but I came out of all my local moviegoing experiences relatively unscathed.
I’ll give you a factual error… The street view, above, points to the wrong side of 42nd Street. Swing that view around to the left to see the old American Theatre site, where the new NY Times tower has been constructed and now adjacent to the relocated shell of the Empire Theatre. The introductory comments should also be updated to reflect that the northern half of the Times building now stands on the site of the American.
If it’s in conjunction with the bluray release, moviebuff82, you can bet your house that it’ll be a digital presentation.
Hey moviebuff82… The landmark installation of “Williamsburg: the Portrait of a Patriot,” which has been shown daily to vistors at Colonial Williamsburg, VA, for the past 55 years, was actually shot on horizontal 35mm VistaVision. It was eventually printed on 70mm film when the original negative was restored in the early 2000’s.
Always amazes me that people in New York actually go to a place like Olvie Garden. You can get superior Italian food from the kitchen of your local pizzeria, in these parts! I can understand in Manhattan, around Times Square, say, where you have a lot of tourists looking for something familiar and predictable… but in the local neighborhoods? Anyway, whatever greatness this theater once had was greatly diminished when this was triplexed – and later completely obliterated when it was gutted for mutli-plexing. Turning it into an ersatz ristorante can’t possibly do any more damage to the long-deceased Century’s Green Acres Theatre.
Actually, Tinseltoes… I believe that this is a photo of the Tribune Theatre, which was located closer to the Brooklyn Bridge entrance, in a block of buildings that no longer exist.
Appears to be a blank marquee. I wouldn’t be surprised if this theater was dark for stretches during the Depression.
I’m trying to recall now, if this is the theatre where one could exit past a window that looked onto the projection equipment, giving patrons an appreciative glimpse into how massive the platter of IMAX film actually was. I may be thinking of the Lincoln Square IMAX in Manhattan (where you are made to exit the auditorium by climbing up the stairs to the back of the house). Whichever theater, I seem to recall seeing how the platter was mechanically lifted off the spindle to be rewound or replaced with a different film. The memory is a bit hazy.
One funny little bit of personal coincidence… the Street View above shows that Cher was the star performer appearing at the casino at the time of the image. I believe Cher was also the headliner at the Circus Maximus when I went to the OmniMax back in August, 1980 (with comedian Freddy Roman opening, if memory serves). I need to find my photos of that trip to be certain of that.
Fred1, your comment is barely in English! Sorry, couldn’t resist…
I remember seeing my very first IMAX film (or proto-IMAX, if that’s more accurate) here at the OmniMax in August of 1980. I think the film was about the eruption of Mount St. Helens – could that be? I believe the eruption was only a few months earlier in 1980, so, unless that short film was rushed into release, I might be mistaken. I know I still have my tickets for the show buried somewhere in my basement. If I can find them and get a good scan, I’ll upload an image here.
I always think back to the OmniMax presentation whenever I see an IMAX film today. Even when I go to purpose-built IMAX rooms, like the one at the AMC Lincoln Square Theater in NYC, I still remember how the OmniMax screen stretched up and partially over the audience with the curvature of the dome. The only other immersive cinematic experience I can relate the OmniMax presentation with, would be the 360 degree “O Canada” presentation I saw at Epcot Center, also back in the early ‘80’s.
Wow! I love this triple feature! Three of my favorite horror flicks from childhood!!! Have to join this group on FB. Great ad!
Good question. A cursory review of NYC records doesn’t reveal much. The oldest viewable document online is a temporary C of O issued in October of 1964, not too long after the building was converted into a cinema. A list of prior actions on the property show a variety of building notices that reach all the way back to some “unsafe building” notices in 1905 and 1909. There’s another notice dated in 1915 and then activity picks up once again in the late 1920’s and throughout the following decades. But nothing prior to the 1964 C of O’s is viewable, so its impossible to know what those documents might reveal.
Assuming the comments near the “top” of this listing are correct that the cinema was previously a turn-of-the-century firehouse, it’s interesting that it would have been labeled as unsafe as early as 1905! Of course, one must keep in mind that the NYC DOB records from that period are very sketchy, and it is not uncommon to find documents filed under the wrong property binder.
That’s along the line I was thinking, CSWalczak. I just wonder, with movies now being stored as digital files, rectification might be something that could be virtually replicated. Of course, there are probably a very select number of screens in the world that would require such work to be done – no matter how easily completed the manipulation of data would be. Apart from the three extant Cinerama facilities, are there any deeply curved screens left on the planet?
So, Ultra-Panavision, meaning a rectified image for the curvature of the screen?
Ugh! That is awful! And with the summer tourist season coming up? I always hoped to get back up there and actually catch a flick. As long as it’s still standing, I suppose there is hope.
That’s really stretching my memory muscles more than they can flex… But I would have to say that there probably was a VHS release after the theatrical runs were completed back in the mid ‘80’s. I saw very good prints of “Rear Window,” “The Man Who Knew Too Much” and “Vertigo” in theaters at the time, and I also caught cable TV broadcasts of “Rope” and “The Trouble with Harry” shortly thereafter. I recall that they looked to be in very good shape.
The restoration job on “Vertigo,” of course, was a revelation.
Most of my knowledge comes from nearly 8 years trolling this site and doing research for some of the theaters I added here. I actually did add the listing for the Eros 2, another of Chelly Wilson’s porn houses that later became known as the Venus. I don’t recall ever seeing a mention of a Denise at the Gaiety while I was looking at old articles to dig up info on the Eros 2, but that research was completed a few years back, so I might have run across something and just forgot it!
I never frequented any porn houses (gay or otherwise), but I was a steady patron of the big theaters along Broadway and the grind houses on 42nd Street for a number of years in the late ‘70’s into the early '80’s, and have always held a fascination for the area as it was in those days.
Anyway, all of Chelly’s theaters are listed on CT and any thing of note that I might have learned would surely be posted on those pages:
Adonis
Cameo
Capri
Eros
Eros 2
This theater should be listed as “demolished.” The building that contained both the Garrick Cinema and the Cafe Au Go Go (as well as the old residence hotel on the corner of Thompson) were demolished to make way for a new mid-rise apartment building with a Capital One Bank branch at ground level. The street view above is pointed towards the wrong corner of Bleecker and Thompson Streets. Swing it around 180 degrees to the left to view the current state of the theater’s former location.
Sharp eye, bigjoe59! Yes, that ad belongs to the Cinema Village annex that was in the former Bijou Theatre, located several blocks away on Third Avenue between East 12th and 13th Streets.
A fair point, bigjoe59. It should read that the theater was demolished after the roadshow engagement of “2001: A Space Oddyssey” was moved over to the Warner in September of 1968.
Bigjoe59… there were five films in that copyright entanglement with the Hitchcock Estate: “Rope,” “Rear Window,” “The Man Who Knew Too Much” (1956 version), “The Trouble With Harry,” and “Vertigo.” Quite a significant collection of the Master’s work that was unavailable for as long as 36 years (in the case of the 1948 “Rope”) until 1984, when Universal finally acquired the rights. I remember a lot of ballyhoo surrounding the resurfacing of these films at the time.
Ratkat… If you are still following this page, you can upload your photos from the “Photos” tab near the top of this page. You simply need to have them saved on your computer, then you can use the “Add New Photo” function to browse your hard drive for the photo files and upload them. I hope you take advantage of that feature and share your images with us!
I’ll give you this much… that it is certainly not a mere unadorned box, like most theaters built after it (including its one-time rival, the Loew’s Astor Plaza). Over the years, I have come to better appreciate the theater’s appointments, and did not necessarily intend to denigrate it’s architectural merits – which are not particularly to my own liking. I suppose I’m not enough of a modernist enthusiast to have much of an informed opinion, but it doesn’t seem to me that the Ziegfeld’s design and decorative motifs will make the basis of a strong landmark case. I believe that its significance and worthiness of preservation go beyond the mere brick and mortar.
And, as usual, Al brings up a good point regarding how long Cablevision has been looking to bail on the theater chain. It may well be several years before any deal is completed. And what of the 15 year term remaining on the lease? I suppose a lease could be bought out, if it came right down to it.
I would probably stop well short of calling the Ziegfeld a palace (perhaps, at best, an ersatz palace), but that doesn’t mean I don’t support a full court press to try and save it from closure. Pale as it may compare to the legion of true palaces that have been pounded to dust just around the corner along Broadway and Seventh Avenue, it does stand alone, sadly, as the sole surviving single screen premiere house in New York City (like LuisV, I discount the art-house Paris, too). If it were to be proposed for landmark status, I’m not so sure anyone would be able to rest its case purely on its architectural merits.