Hobart Theatre

I worked at the Hobart from 1963-1964, its closing year. I used to go-fer coffee for the staff from the White Tower on Broadway. I started hanging out in the projection booth with the operators, Eddie Pearle, Nat Brody, Irwin “Smitty” Smith and others. The booth had 2 Motiograph 35MM projectors with Brenkert Enarc carbon arc lamphouses and RCA soundheads. I would run the show while the operators snoozed.

The address is definitely 51-06 as it was on the even side of the street and 60 feet from 51st St. (In Queens the number after the dash times 10 equals the approximate distance from the cross street. (So called “Philadelphia” system and, for my money the best of all the boroughs for ease of locating addresses). Note that Bryant HS, on the same side of the avenue as the Hobart is at 48-10 31Ave.

I recently looked at Wikipedia’s year by year list of movies in order to pinpoint when the Hobart closed. It would be 1964 as I remember Goldfinger played there. None of the 1965 movies were shown, so it closed in late 1964. At the time it was managed by Stanley Borushik, the step-son of mini-chain owner Philip Steinberg. Before Stanley took over, Steinberg’s right hand man, Eddie Bigelper(?), “Mr. B” ran it. Steinberg owned several other dumps, the Olympia on Steinway Street and a few in Brooklyn, including the Boro Park. I ran into Steinberg at the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, NY at Frank Zappa Concer in 1970. Apparently he had a piece of that.

Steinberg would come every night to pick up the day’s receipts after box-office closing at 10 PM. He would park his big white Caddy right in front of the marquee (illegally).

The entrance was definitely a “tunnel” consisting of an outer lobby, inner lobby with concession and stairway to the 2nd floor toilets. As noted by a previous poster, the entrance was to the crosswalk separately the stadium-style balcony from the orchestra. There were just under 600 seats, a threshhold set by the Projectionist Union, Local 306, which I joined in 1969 after turning 21 and passing a fairly stringent NYC Dept. of Water Supply, Gas and Electricity written and 3-part practical exam in the sub-basement of the Treasury Building in which a mock booth with one working projector was set up.

After the Hobart closed, it was gutted so that the sloping floor could be repoured as a flat one in preparation for the Associated Supermarket that took over the space. Its entrance was on 51st St. Where the two exit doors that straddled the screen was. After watching a matinee, some kids would crash out through theses doors which would flood the theatre with ugly daylight until the matron closed it.

Contact me at

I guess I probably know more about this than anyone. I lived in the Hobart Theatre Building. My father is the dentist referred to in one of the blogs. The building had two entrances, one: 31-12 54th Street and the other was a back door ( usually locked) on thirty first avenue. The tenants upstairs were: My father Dr. Irwin M Yarry, Dr. Wile, MD, A dental lab and the dance studio. On the ground floor was a hardware store, a barbershop, and a dry cleaner. On the corner was a restaurant, referred to as “ the greeks”, then the movie entrance and a liquor store. This was as late as 1958. I worked as an usher after school, had free movie tickets all my childhood. It was a beautiful theatre. The building now looks terrible. Our apartment was three bedrooms, one bath, my fathers office which had a separate door next to the apartment. Would love to hear from anyone in the old neighborhood. I went to PS 151, Junior HS 10 and Bryant H.S.

cont…laser disc and dvd prints and i rode that fear out by grasping onto the arms of the seat and dug my heels into the floor!
i know now that this was a ripp-off of ray harryhausen’s “7th voyage of sinbad with some of the same lead actors and inferior stop-motion animation models but it holds a special place in my heart to this day!
another great day at the hobart theatre!

Continued—
I remember when “Stagecoach” was playing at the Hobart and my mother MADE me take my two much younger brothers with me (Oh, the humiliation!) I needed another nickle for admission, so I had to agree. Unfortunately, both my brothers got so antsy and noisy the theater’s matron (white dress, gloves, cap and a flashlight) made me take them out. I didn’t get to see the end of “Stagecoach” until several years later.
We use to see 2 features, a action serial, one or sometimes 2 shorts, Movietone News and a couple of cartoons. All for 15 cents admission.

Not being from Queens I never visited the theatre . But my cousin did all the time and that is where he contracted ringworm.

It does seem that the majority of evidence suggests that 51-06 is correct, so I’ve updated the address. Should the balance sway towards 51-05, we can always change it back.

Thanks to Ed, Lost Memory, and Warren for putting some serious effort into getting the correct address.

Next time, though, please remember that the right answer can sometimes be fuzzy, and it’s ok to have a difference of opinion about something. ;)

Warren… Do you even read the posts that you attack so viciously and – seemingly – with impunity? The whole point that we “Cub Scouts” made in the posts above was to establish a proper address for the Hobart Theater, which, it turns out, is most definitely NOT at 51-05 31st Ave as you seemed to be so vehemently defending. When Lost Memory suggested that the 51-05 address was a city park, you responded with your typical condescension and instigated a good deal of ill-will on this page. The research that Lost and I did (separately but with a common goal) was the first to bear out what your photos and the newspaper clippings you recently posted have verified: that the Hobart was on the south side of 31st Ave at a building whose building lot address is 51-06 31st Avenue on a block bound by 51st and 54th Streets. Why do you persist in being so maddeningly obtuse and offensive? And why do you ridicule anyone else’s efforts to determine some facts here? You yourself have spent plenty of space on this site trying to confirm street addresses and verify that certain theaters never had the word “The” in their names… I mean, really!

Here is an image of the deed for the Hobart building… You can read the property description to verify it discusses the lot between 54th and 51st on the south side of 31st Ave and identifies the “premises being known as 51-06 31st Ave” and you may further note that the “Thirty First Avenue Theater Corp” conveyed the property in 1981. Do I get to graduate to the real Boy Scouts now? Do I get a badge? You know what… don’t even answer. Frankly, starting here and now I’m not going to concern myself further with any of your antagonisms. Except for maybe reporting to Patrick and Ross what a complete ass you are being of late. And if that comment gets me a warning and/or 1 day suspension, I think it would have been well worth it just to make sure for myself that the owners of this site have been made aware of how insidious your comments have become.
And if nothing comes of that? Well, then I guess the lesson for me would be that – just as in other Democracies – justice is not always evenly dispensed on CT.

I think the image in the newspaper article confirms that we have the right building. I guess there was in fact a tunnel entrance under the peak of the facade on 31st which ran back to the auditorium, which was parallel to 31st, but set further back between 51st and 54th Streets. Decorative elements appear to have been removed and/or altered, losing the streamlined art deco look of the original facade. I’ll have to try and photograph the frontage as it exists today for comparison. So… I imagine the lobby ran straight back towards the auditorium allowing folks to enter at the cross aisle between the raised “smoking loge” on the left and the standard orchestra seating on the right. That would mean the screen wall ran at an angle to the outer wall on 51st, which probably created a vestibule for fire exits behind the screen leading to the street.

Fifty-first Street would be the street with the double yellow line on the right side of this view to the south also posted above.

Anything-05 would be on the opposite side of 31st Ave. If you look at the first local.live image I posted above, that would be above the triangular Stroppoli Park. If you click and drag the image down, you’ll see that the 54-xx block is actually comprised of a large complex of apartment buildings. If the Hobart had an address on 31st Ave, it was definitely an even numbered one as would be appropriate for the south side of 31st Ave. Lost Memory has alreay found that a company called Thirty First Ave Theater Corp owned the building at 51-06 31st Ave that was later leased to the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company (the parent company of A&P supermarkets) in 1966. We have an image of a building at that address that seems to indicate it was a former movie theater. The theater seems to have closed sometime after 1964 (since I have posted an ad from ‘64) and the building we think was the Hobart looks to be occupied by a supermarket. Further, the block front on 31st Ave we are talking about is bounded by both 51st and 54th Streets, so a location of 31st Avenue and 54th street would be consistent with the 51-06 address.

I’d say we have what the judicial system would recognize as a preponderance of evidence supporting the argument that building identified above in the aerial shot at 51-06 31st Avenue is in fact the former Hobart Theater. Unless it is in one’s nature to be a kne-jerk gainsayer, I would presume that most reasonable people would agree with that assessment.

I believe the address above is incorrect. The odd number 51-05 places the lot on the north side of 31st Ave to the east of 51st Street, which is in fact a wedge-shaped parcel called Strippoli Park.

If you follow this link to local.live you should see an east facing view of the sort of X-shaped intersection of 31st Ave (running from top-middle to lower-left with a bend in the road) and 51st Street (running from top-left to lower-right). Strippoli Park is easily identifiable as the triangular wedge on the left side of 31st. If you scan down 51st Street to the right, I think the former Hobart is the structure with the white facade to the right of the attached building with the green roof and to the left of the apartment building. Open the local.live window to its maximum size and close the welcome pane at the left of the screen to get the best overview.

Here’s a view to the south where it is easier to pick up the theater’s profile. It looks as though there could have been a tunnel entrance under the green roof where the facade peaks on 31st Ave, but unless someone has a definite recollection, I wouldn’t run with that thought. I think the entrance was probably along the angled frontage along 51st Street where there now appears to be a supermarket.

A check on oasisnyc.com shows that the theater building and attached commercial structures are on a single lot with the address 51-06 31st Avenue. Unless there was a tunnel entrance to 31st, the Hobart most likely had an odd numbered street address like 31-06 51st Street. From the oasisnyc site, I was able to link to the building department site and find that among the various C of O’s issued for this big lot is one for a supermarket dated 1966 pursuant to an alteration permit issued in 1965. I think it’s a more than decent bet that this refers to the Hobart structure.

Perhaps Lost can provide further research to lock down the address and any other details pertaining to the theater? I can’t link to the oasisnyc site without screwing up the layout of this page, for some reason, but the block# is 1131 and the lot# is 22.

Thanks, Ross. Sometimes our passions get the best of us. I’m actually quite pleased to know that some of these comments are being closely monitored, for I feel that there are definite instigators on this site who seem particularly skilled in the art of subtle agitation. While I agree that we should all turn the other cheek (and I shall endeavor to do so in the future), I only hope that those who are guilty of casting first stones are being properly warned by CT management to play nice.

Warren… there is absolutely no reason for you to be as snide and obnoxious as you are coming across in your last few posts on this page. Why are you trying to provoke an argument between yourself and Lost Memory? Or am I the only person who thinks this is what’s going on? It seems to me that a reasonably intelligent person such as yourself would understand that when Lost states “NYC shows a park at this address” it is obviously not meant to be taken so literally. A proclamation indeed! You know precisely what Lost meant, but you choose to go on the offensive and needle him instead! By starting this pointless thread with your post of 10:23am on Septmeber 17th, you have now crowded this page with the very sort of off topic gibberish you’ve been railing against on the Ridgewood and Willard pages. Give it a rest, please! If you’ve nothing intelligent or constructive to add to the conversation, why not do us all a favor and log off?!?