p.s. Howard, how do you feel about a potential landmarking of the Ziegfeld as a premier example of a palace of its time in addition to its long history of movie premieres in New York?
But nobody notices it and nobody goes. I am a lifelong New Yorker and have expored the metro region quite a bit, but have never been to Patterson. I would even venture to say that probably no one that I know (I live in Manhattan) has ever been there either. Why would anyone go?
I personally have always wanted to visit because I have read about the history of Patterson and how important it was in the industrialization of America. I hear that there are quite a few beautiful building (though decaying) left over from its hey day. The Falls are also supposed to be beautiful, and yet, virtually no one even know the falls exist. I would bet that if you asked 100 people if they ever heard of the Falls in Patterson 99.9 of them would say no and 80 of them would probably say “Where’s Patterson?”
It’s a shame, because this city has the architecture, the history and a natural site that is beautiful and yet, it sits in decay and in obscurity.
Bob…my only experience with Patterson has been what I’ve read on this site and it just sounds so awful. It sounds like Patterson is North Jersey’s equivalent of Camden; another city that many feel is so far down the scale that it is impossible to revive, though they are a least trying. They have opened and aquarium, put in new transportation links, and I think and amphitheater. Campbell’s soups still maintains their Corporate HQ there. Alas, Patterson has none of this. Camden is very visible as it is jut across the river from Philadelphia. Paterson remains hidden and destitute. I don’t really see much hope; especially with the current economic environment.
Thanks Howard, I very much value your opinion and I would totally agree that theaters with architecture such as The Hollywood, Roxy, New Amsterdam, Beacon, and all of the Loew’s wonder theaters were more beautiful and opulent than The Ziegfeld. However, the Ziegfeld’s interior, in my opinion, is beautiful in its own right. I don’t compare it to the other styles that preceeded it. I feel the same way about Radio City. No one can say that Radio City isn’t one of the most beautiful and spectacular theaters ever built, but I would be hard pressed to compare it to The Roxy for example. I just find them so different. We don’t need to pick one over the other. We can apprecate them as the best of their type.
The entire city of Detroit, with a population of just under 1 million, does not have a single department store or a real supermarket. I heard on Bill Mahr’s show that the average price of a house is now $18,000!!!! It costs less to buy a house in Detroit than it does to buy an average new car! Though several of Detroit’s palaces have been restored I don’t beleive any operate as a pure theater. I think that some of them have occassional movies on their programs. There are several large cities around the country that don’t have a single remaining movie palace. The one that I can think of off the top of my head is Cincinatti. Philadelphia was very close to becoming the largest city without a palace but it looks like they have saved the Boyd.
JodarMovieFan….The interior of the Beacon is indeed beautiful, but I don’t think you can compare The Beacon and palaces like The New Amsterdam and Loew’s Wonder Theaters to modern palaces like The Ziegfeld and even the Art Deco splendor of palaces like Radio City and The Center. They are totally different styles that should stand on their own as magnificent examples of their genre.
East Coast Rocker….It is amazing how the economics of the movie exhibition industry has changed over the years. Staten Island, with a population of almost half a million has just 3 multiplexes. The Bronx, with a population of 1.6MM has 4 (I believe). Neither has any single screen theaters left. Neither does Brooklyn or Queens. Even Manhattan has very few single screen theaters; The Ziegfeld and The Paris being the best of the lot.
At least the Bronx and Staten Island still each have a restored palace in their midst: The Paradise (though currently out of commission) in the Bronx and The St. George (very successfully operating as a performing arts center) in Staten Island.
p.s. The Beacon theater in Manhattan, one of two Manhattan movie palaces to undergo renovation and restoration this year is getting a lot of great press and a lot of acts scheduled to perform. Patti Labelle was there last night. The other palace, The Apollo, is having an open house this weekend to show off its new face as part of its 75th Anniversary.
I do appreciate your passion and love for this theater, but I would love to still have the Academy of Music with us today as a disco than as a memory. I’m happy that the Henry Hudson theater is with us today as a conference center, the Brooklyn Paramount as a gym, etc…..
Were it not for Studio 54’s turn as a club for those many years, we probably would not have it today as a restored Broadway theater. Today we can hope that the Brooklyn Paramount can be restored into a theater. Without LIU it would have been demolished years ago. Today we have hope.
Had the Palladium been able to hang on just a few more years, we may have been able to save it and, perhaps, restore it as a performing arts center.
The sad reality, and it is a reality, is that it was just impossible to save all or even most of the beautiful palaces of the past. Yes, the Academy was a beautiful theater, but we lost even more beautiful ones: The Roxy, Center, the original Ziegfeld, Proctor’s E. 58th St, Loews East 72nd, The Capitol, the Paramount, The Rivoli, and on and on. That is why we have to work hard to preserve the few that remain, and sometimes, that means it has to be used in a creative way.
It is a difficult process. The Loew’s Kings has been decaying for three decades. The city has been trying to come up with investors for years with little success. It is not enough to say that all of these theaters must be saved. They must also be able to pay for themselves on an operating basis; especially in these tough times.
I also disagree that Cinema Treasures doesn’t stand for “Great Renovations of the 20th Century” It most certainly does. The vast majority of CT members would back any restoration that brought back the beauty of the original theater whether it was used anew as a theater or not.
I stand by my comments that the Palladium was a fantastic and creative re-use of a faded movie palace. It allowed it to exist for a decade longer before finally succumbing to NYU. Had it not been for the Palladium, I and tens of thousands of others would not have had the opportunity to have seen this spectacular theater at all. So, yes, the success of the renovation is extremely relevant.
p.s. the Academy of Music did need to be cleaned up. It was a mess from its decades of neglect as it turned from an movie palace to a faded concert hall with minimal maintenance and cleaning. As The Palladium, it once again became a first class venue; one that the entire country saw weekly as the setting for one of MTV’s popular Video shows back in the 80’s.
Hi ECR, the success of the “renovation” of the Academy of Music into the Palladium is obviously open to interpretation, but I and, I believe, most others felt it was beautiful. So did a review by the esteemed New York Times architecture critic Paul Goldberger who said “It could almost be dismissed as a cynical exploitation of architecture’s current trendiness – if the results were not so truly excellent!” I have pasted the entire review in a prior post above.
The Academy of Music was decayed and in terrible shape when the Palladium conversion occurred and the architect wisely made the decay part of the new design. This theater was adaptively reused and lasted for almost a decade more than it otherwise might have. I have many wonderful memories at the Palladium and I will never forgive NYU for tearing down this beauty.
I know that is something we can both agree on! :–)
Peter K….Yes, there are still several of the old Banking Halls still serving their original purpose. Ridgewood is one, but the most prominent one for me is the Apple Bank main branch on Broadway and 74th Street. It is truly spectacular.
I have recently realized that more banking halls have been reused than I thought. Besides the banks that have been turned into catering halls (Citibank Wall Street, Greenwich Savings Broadway, Bowery Savings on 42nd Street and on the Bowery) I have come across the following other uses.
Trader Joe’s in downtown Brooklyn is inside an old Independence Savings Bank Bldg. Balducci’s market is inside an old NY Bank for Savings branch on 8th Ave and 14th St and right across the Street there is a day spa “Nickel” with condo residences above in another old banking hall. The old Williamsburgh Savings Bank headquarters on Flatbush Avenue is still for rent and awaiting its new retail life.
I don’t believe that any old theaters have been successfully turned into supermarkets and by successfully I mean that the architecture has been preserved and integrated into its new use as a food hall. Usually, when a supermarket takes over it is a gut renovation.
I truly wish that you worked in the building. That would mean it was still there. Trader Joe’s has adaptively resused an old Banking Hall in Brooklyn keeping the overall architectural integrity of the building. Alas, the Academy of Music was demolished by NYU and the retail space leased, in turn, by Trader Joe’s.
Roseland was not a theater! I too have danced here many a time and had an amazing time. Webster Hall looks like a theater, it even has a stage, but it was more of a meeting hall and so it is not on CT either. Webster Hall was used as the theater in “To Wong Fu, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar” I have yet to attend an event at the Hammerstein Ballroom. I hear its beautiful.
Wow! I’m happy to say that that was before my time, but I already feel old when I talk about Studio 54, Palladium, Red Parrot, Saint, Roxy, Sound Factory, Limelight, Copacabana, Danceteria, Tunnel, Area, Regines, Visage, 2001 Odyssey, Underground, Xenon, Webster Hall, etc, etc. It was the golden age of Discos and much like the theater palaces they will never be built like this again. I doubt that New York will ever see a return of the spectacular clubs that defined New York in the 80’s and early 90’s. They simply will never build them like that ever again. Manhattan has become too expensive. There are no more abandoned theaters and warehouses to be converted into clubs. I feel fortunate that I was able to enjoy them when they were in their prime which is something that I can’t say about the old movie palaces. By the time I started going to theaters in the 70’s, the vast majority of the theaters were already on their last legs, grimy and suffering from decades of neglect as they struggled to hold on. Ironically, I only got to see theaters like the Commodore, Forum, Gallo Opera House, Henry Miller, Academy of Music once they were converted to discoteques. I’m grateful to have seen them as they were all beautiful theaters that were adaptively resused and keep open for many more years than they otherwise would have been. Today, only the old Studio 54 (which actually never showed films) is still with us today; restored to a formal Broadway house.
Yes, Peter, of course….I was being cute Please forgive me. I do believe that the case can be made, as you said, by the right person using the right words with a certain persuassive passion that will convince the board of the merits of landmarking the facade. Here’s to that person!!!!
Hey ECR. I thought you were being sarcastic with your “5 minute” comment, but sure enough….there it is….. 9:30-9:35! :–)
I guess that’s enough time to say that the facade is darn pretty and we should keep it!
The only other church turned disco in real life that I can think of was the Limelight in London, which I believe might still be open almost 30 years after it opened.
Thanks Bway, I knew that you were kidding, but there are a lot of people who really did consider this sacriligious. We’re lucky we live in New York where religion doesn’t hold much sway. You probably wouldn’t have been able to do this in any other major city in the US with the exception of of our country’s other greatest city: San Francisco.
Back to the photo of the Bushwick: it’s funny that I said that the photo was from 70’s Bushwick, but in fact, it was the early 90’s! New York in general, and Bushwick in particular, has seen incredible strides in the last 15 – 20 years.
Also, Bway, since you’re interested in adaptive reuses, I remember going to a club in downtown Los Angeles in the late 80’s called “The Exchange” which was a disco created from the old Los Angeles Stock Exchange Bldg. All I really remember was that there were really high ceilings and a lot of interior greek columns (I think Corinthian). Oh, and that I had a lot of fun!
In today’s NY Times, there is a great photo of the ruined Bushwick in the bad old 70’s. The burnt out storefront is where the shiny new McDonald’s is today.
The Limelight’s transformation into a disco was truly amazing and incredibly well done. The Stained Glass windows were lit from the outside and so they were clearly visible to the dancers as they shimied where the pews once were.
There is nothing sacriligious about is. This church was deconsecrated before it became a disco and the church, now known as the Limelight and Avalon was able to be enjoyed by many more people over the decades then when it was a church. It is beautiful architecture that was adaptively reused when it was no longer able to serve its original purpose; much as many a theater.
The list of theaters that were spared the wrecking ball for many years in New York is significant: The Academy of Music (Palladium), Loews Commodore (The Saint), The Forum (Club USA), Henry Miller (Xenon), Gallo Opera House (Studio 54). Alas, the ball eventually came for all but Studio 54. But their use as clubs extended their lives, in some cases by at least a decade.
Agreed!!!!!!!
p.s. Howard, how do you feel about a potential landmarking of the Ziegfeld as a premier example of a palace of its time in addition to its long history of movie premieres in New York?
But nobody notices it and nobody goes. I am a lifelong New Yorker and have expored the metro region quite a bit, but have never been to Patterson. I would even venture to say that probably no one that I know (I live in Manhattan) has ever been there either. Why would anyone go?
I personally have always wanted to visit because I have read about the history of Patterson and how important it was in the industrialization of America. I hear that there are quite a few beautiful building (though decaying) left over from its hey day. The Falls are also supposed to be beautiful, and yet, virtually no one even know the falls exist. I would bet that if you asked 100 people if they ever heard of the Falls in Patterson 99.9 of them would say no and 80 of them would probably say “Where’s Patterson?”
It’s a shame, because this city has the architecture, the history and a natural site that is beautiful and yet, it sits in decay and in obscurity.
Bob…my only experience with Patterson has been what I’ve read on this site and it just sounds so awful. It sounds like Patterson is North Jersey’s equivalent of Camden; another city that many feel is so far down the scale that it is impossible to revive, though they are a least trying. They have opened and aquarium, put in new transportation links, and I think and amphitheater. Campbell’s soups still maintains their Corporate HQ there. Alas, Patterson has none of this. Camden is very visible as it is jut across the river from Philadelphia. Paterson remains hidden and destitute. I don’t really see much hope; especially with the current economic environment.
Thanks Howard, I very much value your opinion and I would totally agree that theaters with architecture such as The Hollywood, Roxy, New Amsterdam, Beacon, and all of the Loew’s wonder theaters were more beautiful and opulent than The Ziegfeld. However, the Ziegfeld’s interior, in my opinion, is beautiful in its own right. I don’t compare it to the other styles that preceeded it. I feel the same way about Radio City. No one can say that Radio City isn’t one of the most beautiful and spectacular theaters ever built, but I would be hard pressed to compare it to The Roxy for example. I just find them so different. We don’t need to pick one over the other. We can apprecate them as the best of their type.
The entire city of Detroit, with a population of just under 1 million, does not have a single department store or a real supermarket. I heard on Bill Mahr’s show that the average price of a house is now $18,000!!!! It costs less to buy a house in Detroit than it does to buy an average new car! Though several of Detroit’s palaces have been restored I don’t beleive any operate as a pure theater. I think that some of them have occassional movies on their programs. There are several large cities around the country that don’t have a single remaining movie palace. The one that I can think of off the top of my head is Cincinatti. Philadelphia was very close to becoming the largest city without a palace but it looks like they have saved the Boyd.
JodarMovieFan….The interior of the Beacon is indeed beautiful, but I don’t think you can compare The Beacon and palaces like The New Amsterdam and Loew’s Wonder Theaters to modern palaces like The Ziegfeld and even the Art Deco splendor of palaces like Radio City and The Center. They are totally different styles that should stand on their own as magnificent examples of their genre.
East Coast Rocker….It is amazing how the economics of the movie exhibition industry has changed over the years. Staten Island, with a population of almost half a million has just 3 multiplexes. The Bronx, with a population of 1.6MM has 4 (I believe). Neither has any single screen theaters left. Neither does Brooklyn or Queens. Even Manhattan has very few single screen theaters; The Ziegfeld and The Paris being the best of the lot.
At least the Bronx and Staten Island still each have a restored palace in their midst: The Paradise (though currently out of commission) in the Bronx and The St. George (very successfully operating as a performing arts center) in Staten Island.
p.s. The Beacon theater in Manhattan, one of two Manhattan movie palaces to undergo renovation and restoration this year is getting a lot of great press and a lot of acts scheduled to perform. Patti Labelle was there last night. The other palace, The Apollo, is having an open house this weekend to show off its new face as part of its 75th Anniversary.
Wow! Finally, a piece of good news for Patterson! Alas, it needs much, much more.
KSwizz….Do you have any knowledge on the current condition of the interior for this theater?
I do appreciate your passion and love for this theater, but I would love to still have the Academy of Music with us today as a disco than as a memory. I’m happy that the Henry Hudson theater is with us today as a conference center, the Brooklyn Paramount as a gym, etc…..
Were it not for Studio 54’s turn as a club for those many years, we probably would not have it today as a restored Broadway theater. Today we can hope that the Brooklyn Paramount can be restored into a theater. Without LIU it would have been demolished years ago. Today we have hope.
Had the Palladium been able to hang on just a few more years, we may have been able to save it and, perhaps, restore it as a performing arts center.
The sad reality, and it is a reality, is that it was just impossible to save all or even most of the beautiful palaces of the past. Yes, the Academy was a beautiful theater, but we lost even more beautiful ones: The Roxy, Center, the original Ziegfeld, Proctor’s E. 58th St, Loews East 72nd, The Capitol, the Paramount, The Rivoli, and on and on. That is why we have to work hard to preserve the few that remain, and sometimes, that means it has to be used in a creative way.
It is a difficult process. The Loew’s Kings has been decaying for three decades. The city has been trying to come up with investors for years with little success. It is not enough to say that all of these theaters must be saved. They must also be able to pay for themselves on an operating basis; especially in these tough times.
I also disagree that Cinema Treasures doesn’t stand for “Great Renovations of the 20th Century” It most certainly does. The vast majority of CT members would back any restoration that brought back the beauty of the original theater whether it was used anew as a theater or not.
I stand by my comments that the Palladium was a fantastic and creative re-use of a faded movie palace. It allowed it to exist for a decade longer before finally succumbing to NYU. Had it not been for the Palladium, I and tens of thousands of others would not have had the opportunity to have seen this spectacular theater at all. So, yes, the success of the renovation is extremely relevant.
p.s. the Academy of Music did need to be cleaned up. It was a mess from its decades of neglect as it turned from an movie palace to a faded concert hall with minimal maintenance and cleaning. As The Palladium, it once again became a first class venue; one that the entire country saw weekly as the setting for one of MTV’s popular Video shows back in the 80’s.
Hi ECR, the success of the “renovation” of the Academy of Music into the Palladium is obviously open to interpretation, but I and, I believe, most others felt it was beautiful. So did a review by the esteemed New York Times architecture critic Paul Goldberger who said “It could almost be dismissed as a cynical exploitation of architecture’s current trendiness – if the results were not so truly excellent!” I have pasted the entire review in a prior post above.
The Academy of Music was decayed and in terrible shape when the Palladium conversion occurred and the architect wisely made the decay part of the new design. This theater was adaptively reused and lasted for almost a decade more than it otherwise might have. I have many wonderful memories at the Palladium and I will never forgive NYU for tearing down this beauty.
I know that is something we can both agree on! :–)
Panzer65…How does it look? Which theater was it?
Peter K….Yes, there are still several of the old Banking Halls still serving their original purpose. Ridgewood is one, but the most prominent one for me is the Apple Bank main branch on Broadway and 74th Street. It is truly spectacular.
I have recently realized that more banking halls have been reused than I thought. Besides the banks that have been turned into catering halls (Citibank Wall Street, Greenwich Savings Broadway, Bowery Savings on 42nd Street and on the Bowery) I have come across the following other uses.
Trader Joe’s in downtown Brooklyn is inside an old Independence Savings Bank Bldg. Balducci’s market is inside an old NY Bank for Savings branch on 8th Ave and 14th St and right across the Street there is a day spa “Nickel” with condo residences above in another old banking hall. The old Williamsburgh Savings Bank headquarters on Flatbush Avenue is still for rent and awaiting its new retail life.
I don’t believe that any old theaters have been successfully turned into supermarkets and by successfully I mean that the architecture has been preserved and integrated into its new use as a food hall. Usually, when a supermarket takes over it is a gut renovation.
I truly wish that you worked in the building. That would mean it was still there. Trader Joe’s has adaptively resused an old Banking Hall in Brooklyn keeping the overall architectural integrity of the building. Alas, the Academy of Music was demolished by NYU and the retail space leased, in turn, by Trader Joe’s.
Roseland was not a theater! I too have danced here many a time and had an amazing time. Webster Hall looks like a theater, it even has a stage, but it was more of a meeting hall and so it is not on CT either. Webster Hall was used as the theater in “To Wong Fu, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar” I have yet to attend an event at the Hammerstein Ballroom. I hear its beautiful.
Wow! I’m happy to say that that was before my time, but I already feel old when I talk about Studio 54, Palladium, Red Parrot, Saint, Roxy, Sound Factory, Limelight, Copacabana, Danceteria, Tunnel, Area, Regines, Visage, 2001 Odyssey, Underground, Xenon, Webster Hall, etc, etc. It was the golden age of Discos and much like the theater palaces they will never be built like this again. I doubt that New York will ever see a return of the spectacular clubs that defined New York in the 80’s and early 90’s. They simply will never build them like that ever again. Manhattan has become too expensive. There are no more abandoned theaters and warehouses to be converted into clubs. I feel fortunate that I was able to enjoy them when they were in their prime which is something that I can’t say about the old movie palaces. By the time I started going to theaters in the 70’s, the vast majority of the theaters were already on their last legs, grimy and suffering from decades of neglect as they struggled to hold on. Ironically, I only got to see theaters like the Commodore, Forum, Gallo Opera House, Henry Miller, Academy of Music once they were converted to discoteques. I’m grateful to have seen them as they were all beautiful theaters that were adaptively resused and keep open for many more years than they otherwise would have been. Today, only the old Studio 54 (which actually never showed films) is still with us today; restored to a formal Broadway house.
The press release doesn’t note that the landmark designation is only for the facade. Is it, in fact, for the whole theater?
Great quote Peter K!!!!!!! I like it!
Yes, Peter, of course….I was being cute Please forgive me. I do believe that the case can be made, as you said, by the right person using the right words with a certain persuassive passion that will convince the board of the merits of landmarking the facade. Here’s to that person!!!!
Hey ECR. I thought you were being sarcastic with your “5 minute” comment, but sure enough….there it is….. 9:30-9:35! :–)
I guess that’s enough time to say that the facade is darn pretty and we should keep it!
The only other church turned disco in real life that I can think of was the Limelight in London, which I believe might still be open almost 30 years after it opened.
Thanks Bway, I knew that you were kidding, but there are a lot of people who really did consider this sacriligious. We’re lucky we live in New York where religion doesn’t hold much sway. You probably wouldn’t have been able to do this in any other major city in the US with the exception of of our country’s other greatest city: San Francisco.
Back to the photo of the Bushwick: it’s funny that I said that the photo was from 70’s Bushwick, but in fact, it was the early 90’s! New York in general, and Bushwick in particular, has seen incredible strides in the last 15 – 20 years.
Also, Bway, since you’re interested in adaptive reuses, I remember going to a club in downtown Los Angeles in the late 80’s called “The Exchange” which was a disco created from the old Los Angeles Stock Exchange Bldg. All I really remember was that there were really high ceilings and a lot of interior greek columns (I think Corinthian). Oh, and that I had a lot of fun!
In today’s NY Times, there is a great photo of the ruined Bushwick in the bad old 70’s. The burnt out storefront is where the shiny new McDonald’s is today.
The Limelight’s transformation into a disco was truly amazing and incredibly well done. The Stained Glass windows were lit from the outside and so they were clearly visible to the dancers as they shimied where the pews once were.
There is nothing sacriligious about is. This church was deconsecrated before it became a disco and the church, now known as the Limelight and Avalon was able to be enjoyed by many more people over the decades then when it was a church. It is beautiful architecture that was adaptively reused when it was no longer able to serve its original purpose; much as many a theater.
The list of theaters that were spared the wrecking ball for many years in New York is significant: The Academy of Music (Palladium), Loews Commodore (The Saint), The Forum (Club USA), Henry Miller (Xenon), Gallo Opera House (Studio 54). Alas, the ball eventually came for all but Studio 54. But their use as clubs extended their lives, in some cases by at least a decade.