The Lekrak reference was intentional, since that was the commodity that many of the more entrepreneurial residents chose to make a living from in those days. Maybe it’s changed, but I suspect it hasn’t. When I moved out I told them old Sam ought to consider leveling the whole place and plant wheat or corn on the property.
‘LeFrak’ was always listed in the annual Forbes 400 Richest People edition. In his bio it cited “…the centerpiece of his real estate empire is the 4,500-unit LeFrak City in Queens.” He was poorly served by his publicist – if I owned a place like that, I certainly would not want to draw attention to the fact.
You’re right that Times Square has lost it’s charm, but to me that’s more the fault of the high-rise buildings that occupy the area now and the overall planning of the area, not the lights and signs themselves. In the old Times Square, most of the buildings were only a few stories tall and completely hidden behind the signs. When the signs came down before the buildings were demolished, it exposed the fact that a lot of them were pretty wreched looking, but we never saw them thanks to the signs. Now, you can’t help but see some of these wreched high-rises and their bad architecture. I’ve seen the photos of the area in the 30s, 40s and 50s, and 42nd St. always seemed to have a more ‘honky-tonk’ atmosphere than the Square itself with a chaotic jumble of signs. Today, the chaos is planned, there is no spontanaity to it.
BTW, the three theaters mentioned above as being divided were the Loew’s East, Loew’s West and Loew’s Yorktown, all split around the same time. The West and Yorktown twinnings were ok, but the East was ruined.
Loew’s East was one of their worst examples of twinning a theatre. It was a orchestra/stadium style auditorium with 1600 seats. The problem was that where the side-walls of the auditorium splayed in towards the 50' screen in the front, they were not false walls, as in most theatres. They were the exterior walls of the six-sided building. This was fine when it was one auditorium, but when it was split it ended up with 2 five-sided 700 seat auditoriums that were extremely narrow in the front with very small screens. It was originally equipped with Norelco 35/70 projectors and mag stereo sound in the single auditorium. When it was being split and the RCA technicians were reconfiguring the the booth they asked Herb Brown, the division manager, which side he wanted the 70mm and stereo on, so they could run new wiring for the speakers. He said it doesn’t matter, and not to bother running any wire, just put 1 speaker behind the screen and set it up for mono only.
The 10 AMC/Loews theatres mentioned above are not closing, they are going to be sold to other operators to prevent acusations of monopoly in certain markets. This was negotiated with the Justice Dept. and various state attorneys general in order to get approval of the merger. Don’t worry, they will still be around, just not operated by AMC or Loews anymore.
Dolly (Mrs. Walter) Reade did the original interiors here. She is a nice lady, but in the lobby she did go a little overboard with the red and gold flocked wallpaper, the French provincial furniture and the red-globed gas-lamp replicas. That decor in a larger, taller room would have been ok, but in that room it was a somewhat overbearing. Still, it was more imaginative than other theatres built in that era. The decor in the auditorium, due to it’s size, came across better. I haven’t seen it since Wonder-Boy from Toronto had it renovated, so maybe it doesn’t look like that anymore.
When I existed briefly at LeKrak City (nobody LIVES there, they exist) in the 1980s, the renting office gave me the address as 97-20 57th Ave, Lefrak City NY 11368 – again, not acknowledging the Corona location. They also refused to acknowledge that you needed a bullet-proof vest to get in or out of there once the sun went down, and after the third mugging I moved out. This was probably also one reason the theatre shut down.
Freidberg, upon the merger of USA and Loews, became the chairman of Loews and Bernie Meyerson was pushed into retirement. As chairman, Friedberg got the grosses every morning, and saw the bookings every Monday. Since he came out of the Boston theatres you would think he would have paid special attention to them. He could have ‘educated’ the Loews film department as far as what type of audience each of those theatres had, what types of films work where, etc., if he chose to. From what I’ve heard from people who worked for Loews during his tenure, and his ‘leadership’ led the home office across the river to Secaucus NJ because he didn’t like New York City, and that’s about it, no other memorable decisions came from his office.
davebazooka – the theatre you photographed, the East 86th Street Cinemas was called, prior to it becoming a quad, 86th St. East Theatre.
This theatre at Lexington, while operated by RKO, was called RKO 86th Street Twin. But when it re-opened after the building was converted His Majesty The Grand Pooh-bah from Toronto had taken over, and, genius that he was, renamed it “Park & 86th Street Cinemas”. The place was a mile away from Park Avenue, but only a stones-throw from Lexington. If you were on Park Ave. looking for it you never would have found it.
The marquee letters there appear to be slotted letters: there is just a notch in the plastic on the back and the rail on the sign just slips into the letter. A good wind tends to re-arrange them, which is why a lot of theatres in the 1960 started to use snap-lock letters, they have metal clips that grip the rails and holds them in place.
City Cinemas booked and operated the Columbia under a management agreement with the same owner as the D.W.Griffith, Nick and Justin (although Justin had passed away) in an effort to increase their number of screens and leverage with the studios. The place was a dump, all I remember is it had a hideous yellow wall in the lobby, and the auditorium floor was made of wood. They didn’t have a 306 projectionist – a friend or relative of the owner ran the machines, and we never heard from the union. The ushers were kept busy chasing the rats and hitting them with brooms. After a short time City Cinemas realized what a disaster the place was and got out. It was then converted into a Woolworth store.
This building is still standing, occupied by a linen store, I think. It is on 3rd Ave. btwn 102 & 103 Streets, around the corner from the 23rd Precinct. I knew it had been a theatre at one time (you can always spot those old theatres by the shape of the roof) but never knew the name. The marquee, with different signage than what a theatre would have, was removed about 3 years ago, and replaced with one of those eye-sore awning type signs across the entire front of the building.
I haven’t been to Detroit in nearly 30 years and forgot what the Qua Vadis looked like.
Yamasaki’s use of the narrow windows and tinted aluminum give it an eerie resemblance to to a single floor of The World Trade Center. Minoru Yamasaki was awarded the design commission for The World Trade Center in 1962, and he was busy with the design and construction phases for the next 14 years until it was completed in 1976. He may have used this and other smaller jobs his office was working on during these years as a ‘petri-dish’ for his ideas for the WTC. For instance, here they used aluminuium with a gold-tint surface coating for the exterior facade. In accounts of the design and construction of the WTC, Yamasaki was going to clad the Twin Towers in stainless-steel, even though aluminum is a lighter and cheaper material, because he didn’t like the color of untinted aluminum or the way the surface tinted aluminum weathered over time. In the first photo posted by Lost Memory, the fading and streaking is obvious. The result at the WTC was that Alcoa, wanting to win this large contract, changed the alloy composition to a silver alloy that “had the uncanny ability to reflect different shades of sunlight”.
Sloan-Kettering doesn’t need to make the site pay – I believe they are a non-profit organization, and have various endowments and foundations that maintain their operations.
According to the Greenport’s page on this site, the lobby there has been re-done with a nostalgia or memorobilia theme. I will give Clearview the benefit of the doubt, and say they probably wanted to put those signs on the Twin but the landlord prevented it. When they signed the lease they didn’t realize that the landlord was a psycho – they’ve been there six months now, and are propbably starting to come to that realization.
Could it be that was the original color-scheme, and over the many years it became bleached and faded by the sun?
What is that sign made of? The first time I saw a photo of it I thought it was mosaic tile. The photo at the heading of this page shows it as plain beige.
The many photos posted by davebazooka are excellent.
Sloan-Kettering worked the whole scheme pretty good: Not wanting the bad publicity of evicting tenants out of ancient run-down tenement apartments whose demolition really would be a public service, they focused their sights on the the hapless Beekman Theatre, a one-story commercial building, with no surly residential tenants upstairs running to the newspapers or TV newscasts making a fuss. When a few people decried the loss of what was arguably New Yorks last classy movie theatre, Sload-Kettering successfully neutralized any criticism by invoking the ultra-PC topic of breast cancer: “Yes, the theatre is beautiful, but out of all the property in the five boroughs of New York City, this is the only one where we can plop down a breast cancer clinic.” And of course, all public criticism ceased, the theatre will be sacraficed so we can solve the mystery of breast cancer, in a neighborhood already over-saturated with medical facilities. Real Estate Developers note: You could probably demolish Grand Central Terminal or the Empire State Building as long as you said that a breast cancer clinic will occupy part of whatever piece of schlock architecture were to be the replacement.
The Lekrak reference was intentional, since that was the commodity that many of the more entrepreneurial residents chose to make a living from in those days. Maybe it’s changed, but I suspect it hasn’t. When I moved out I told them old Sam ought to consider leveling the whole place and plant wheat or corn on the property.
‘LeFrak’ was always listed in the annual Forbes 400 Richest People edition. In his bio it cited “…the centerpiece of his real estate empire is the 4,500-unit LeFrak City in Queens.” He was poorly served by his publicist – if I owned a place like that, I certainly would not want to draw attention to the fact.
When I leved in the area in the mid-1990s it was being used as a church – I recall ‘Iglesia de Cristo’ or something similar on the marquee.
You’re right that Times Square has lost it’s charm, but to me that’s more the fault of the high-rise buildings that occupy the area now and the overall planning of the area, not the lights and signs themselves. In the old Times Square, most of the buildings were only a few stories tall and completely hidden behind the signs. When the signs came down before the buildings were demolished, it exposed the fact that a lot of them were pretty wreched looking, but we never saw them thanks to the signs. Now, you can’t help but see some of these wreched high-rises and their bad architecture. I’ve seen the photos of the area in the 30s, 40s and 50s, and 42nd St. always seemed to have a more ‘honky-tonk’ atmosphere than the Square itself with a chaotic jumble of signs. Today, the chaos is planned, there is no spontanaity to it.
BTW, the three theaters mentioned above as being divided were the Loew’s East, Loew’s West and Loew’s Yorktown, all split around the same time. The West and Yorktown twinnings were ok, but the East was ruined.
Loew’s East was one of their worst examples of twinning a theatre. It was a orchestra/stadium style auditorium with 1600 seats. The problem was that where the side-walls of the auditorium splayed in towards the 50' screen in the front, they were not false walls, as in most theatres. They were the exterior walls of the six-sided building. This was fine when it was one auditorium, but when it was split it ended up with 2 five-sided 700 seat auditoriums that were extremely narrow in the front with very small screens. It was originally equipped with Norelco 35/70 projectors and mag stereo sound in the single auditorium. When it was being split and the RCA technicians were reconfiguring the the booth they asked Herb Brown, the division manager, which side he wanted the 70mm and stereo on, so they could run new wiring for the speakers. He said it doesn’t matter, and not to bother running any wire, just put 1 speaker behind the screen and set it up for mono only.
The 10 AMC/Loews theatres mentioned above are not closing, they are going to be sold to other operators to prevent acusations of monopoly in certain markets. This was negotiated with the Justice Dept. and various state attorneys general in order to get approval of the merger. Don’t worry, they will still be around, just not operated by AMC or Loews anymore.
It’s Times Square, for crying out loud, NOT Beverly Hills….
You’re thinking of the Beekman…
The RKO Fantasy is listed here: /theaters/4041/
Dolly (Mrs. Walter) Reade did the original interiors here. She is a nice lady, but in the lobby she did go a little overboard with the red and gold flocked wallpaper, the French provincial furniture and the red-globed gas-lamp replicas. That decor in a larger, taller room would have been ok, but in that room it was a somewhat overbearing. Still, it was more imaginative than other theatres built in that era. The decor in the auditorium, due to it’s size, came across better. I haven’t seen it since Wonder-Boy from Toronto had it renovated, so maybe it doesn’t look like that anymore.
Wedding hall chic? I always thought of it as ‘New Orleans Whorehouse Chic’… at least in the lobby…
Yes, and it’s already been used as a playhouse by Roundabout, and not need as much modification.
When I existed briefly at LeKrak City (nobody LIVES there, they exist) in the 1980s, the renting office gave me the address as 97-20 57th Ave, Lefrak City NY 11368 – again, not acknowledging the Corona location. They also refused to acknowledge that you needed a bullet-proof vest to get in or out of there once the sun went down, and after the third mugging I moved out. This was probably also one reason the theatre shut down.
Freidberg, upon the merger of USA and Loews, became the chairman of Loews and Bernie Meyerson was pushed into retirement. As chairman, Friedberg got the grosses every morning, and saw the bookings every Monday. Since he came out of the Boston theatres you would think he would have paid special attention to them. He could have ‘educated’ the Loews film department as far as what type of audience each of those theatres had, what types of films work where, etc., if he chose to. From what I’ve heard from people who worked for Loews during his tenure, and his ‘leadership’ led the home office across the river to Secaucus NJ because he didn’t like New York City, and that’s about it, no other memorable decisions came from his office.
davebazooka – the theatre you photographed, the East 86th Street Cinemas was called, prior to it becoming a quad, 86th St. East Theatre.
This theatre at Lexington, while operated by RKO, was called RKO 86th Street Twin. But when it re-opened after the building was converted His Majesty The Grand Pooh-bah from Toronto had taken over, and, genius that he was, renamed it “Park & 86th Street Cinemas”. The place was a mile away from Park Avenue, but only a stones-throw from Lexington. If you were on Park Ave. looking for it you never would have found it.
I’ve been involved with the theatres since the stone-age and I’m on here nearly every day – let me know if there is anything I can do…
It was demolished in either late 84 or early 85 – I moved to Manhattan 7/84 and it was only there briefly after I got here.
The marquee letters there appear to be slotted letters: there is just a notch in the plastic on the back and the rail on the sign just slips into the letter. A good wind tends to re-arrange them, which is why a lot of theatres in the 1960 started to use snap-lock letters, they have metal clips that grip the rails and holds them in place.
City Cinemas booked and operated the Columbia under a management agreement with the same owner as the D.W.Griffith, Nick and Justin (although Justin had passed away) in an effort to increase their number of screens and leverage with the studios. The place was a dump, all I remember is it had a hideous yellow wall in the lobby, and the auditorium floor was made of wood. They didn’t have a 306 projectionist – a friend or relative of the owner ran the machines, and we never heard from the union. The ushers were kept busy chasing the rats and hitting them with brooms. After a short time City Cinemas realized what a disaster the place was and got out. It was then converted into a Woolworth store.
This building is still standing, occupied by a linen store, I think. It is on 3rd Ave. btwn 102 & 103 Streets, around the corner from the 23rd Precinct. I knew it had been a theatre at one time (you can always spot those old theatres by the shape of the roof) but never knew the name. The marquee, with different signage than what a theatre would have, was removed about 3 years ago, and replaced with one of those eye-sore awning type signs across the entire front of the building.
I haven’t been to Detroit in nearly 30 years and forgot what the Qua Vadis looked like.
Yamasaki’s use of the narrow windows and tinted aluminum give it an eerie resemblance to to a single floor of The World Trade Center. Minoru Yamasaki was awarded the design commission for The World Trade Center in 1962, and he was busy with the design and construction phases for the next 14 years until it was completed in 1976. He may have used this and other smaller jobs his office was working on during these years as a ‘petri-dish’ for his ideas for the WTC. For instance, here they used aluminuium with a gold-tint surface coating for the exterior facade. In accounts of the design and construction of the WTC, Yamasaki was going to clad the Twin Towers in stainless-steel, even though aluminum is a lighter and cheaper material, because he didn’t like the color of untinted aluminum or the way the surface tinted aluminum weathered over time. In the first photo posted by Lost Memory, the fading and streaking is obvious. The result at the WTC was that Alcoa, wanting to win this large contract, changed the alloy composition to a silver alloy that “had the uncanny ability to reflect different shades of sunlight”.
Sloan-Kettering doesn’t need to make the site pay – I believe they are a non-profit organization, and have various endowments and foundations that maintain their operations.
According to the Greenport’s page on this site, the lobby there has been re-done with a nostalgia or memorobilia theme. I will give Clearview the benefit of the doubt, and say they probably wanted to put those signs on the Twin but the landlord prevented it. When they signed the lease they didn’t realize that the landlord was a psycho – they’ve been there six months now, and are propbably starting to come to that realization.
Could it be that was the original color-scheme, and over the many years it became bleached and faded by the sun?
What is that sign made of? The first time I saw a photo of it I thought it was mosaic tile. The photo at the heading of this page shows it as plain beige.
The many photos posted by davebazooka are excellent.
Sloan-Kettering worked the whole scheme pretty good: Not wanting the bad publicity of evicting tenants out of ancient run-down tenement apartments whose demolition really would be a public service, they focused their sights on the the hapless Beekman Theatre, a one-story commercial building, with no surly residential tenants upstairs running to the newspapers or TV newscasts making a fuss. When a few people decried the loss of what was arguably New Yorks last classy movie theatre, Sload-Kettering successfully neutralized any criticism by invoking the ultra-PC topic of breast cancer: “Yes, the theatre is beautiful, but out of all the property in the five boroughs of New York City, this is the only one where we can plop down a breast cancer clinic.” And of course, all public criticism ceased, the theatre will be sacraficed so we can solve the mystery of breast cancer, in a neighborhood already over-saturated with medical facilities. Real Estate Developers note: You could probably demolish Grand Central Terminal or the Empire State Building as long as you said that a breast cancer clinic will occupy part of whatever piece of schlock architecture were to be the replacement.
WOW! I just looked at the map, and Greenport is way out there at the end of the island –