Variety Theatre

The current demolition of the Variety has me more pissed-off than I usually am about stuff like this although it always bothers me regardless. As a long-time resident of Manhattan I feel like I should be playing the Pretenders song ‘My City Was Gone’ everytime I walk outside. These things are happening at a frightening pace all around. It almost seems like I’m a visitor in my own city. You’ll be away from a certain block or neighborhood for a month and the next time you go there WHAM-O: the Sutton is leveled, the Astor Plaza closes, the Baronet and Coronet are gone, and now The Variety. I mean the place was there for over 70 years and they can’t preserve it somehow? I walked past the other day and noticed the cornices gone, and last night I sailed by in a cab and the marquee is gone!! What is happening to this city, and why doesn’t anybody care? They are sucking the life out of this town. It seems to me that the new generation of MTV kids coming ionto this town have no regard for the past and just want to go to some jerk-off club, pay $12 for a Stoli & Cranberry and try to get a seat in the VIP booth.

Unfortunately I never got to go into the Variety, but back int he 80s when it was still a porn theater I remember my roomate who had gone there had some pretty wierd stories about the place. I remember him telling me that they played those old ‘medical’ films from the 60s that had people having sex but couldn’t be considered porn because they were ‘educational’.

Walked past the Variety within the hour and the building gives that distinct chill of being doomed. Of course, one of the posted working permits notes that the construction work won’t involve interior alterations, but that seems like only a matter of time. (Interesting sidenote: the two permits note the building is not a landmark, which an alert contradictory sort contradicted by writing in black marker by each permit, ‘YES, THIS IS A LANDMARK!’ Right on, brother – or sister… )

Nihilism marches on.

This is indeed very sad news. It is one of the oldest, most historic movie theatres in Manhatten. I have taken the opportunity to photograph it on several of my visits to NYC as it is a very photogenic building.

Just around the corner a couple of blocks away on E 14th St is the still empty site of the former RKO Jefferson Theatre /theaters/1357/ another historic theatre destroyed for no reason at all only just a couple of years ago or so. Why can’t they build a student dormitory there!

Ron…If that is the case, then it should be listed as “Variety Arts”, which was the last name used when it was used as an off-Broadway theater. I am 100% sure of this fact because the company I work for was one of the producers of “Return to the Forbidden Planet”, which was the first off-Broadway production to play the theater after it was completely renovated after closing as “Variety Photoplays”.

To answer Don Rosen…Yes, this is the Variety Arts Theater. The sequel to the Broadway show “Annie”, being referred to, was called “Annie Warbucks”, which starred Harve Presnell and Donna McKechnie. The show was mildly successful having played 200 performances between 10/9/93 and 1/31/94.

To our webmaster…Shouldn’t this theater be listed as “Variety Photoplays” and then aka “Variety Theater”? After all, it was known as “Variety Photoplays” for a good 75 years !

Is this the Variety Arts Theatre? If so, I believe the sequel to “Annie”, orginally to open on Broadway as “Annie 2”, was pulled and re-worked with another “Annie” title and played at this theatre.

The December 22, 2004 issue of The Villager, a weekly newspaper, reports rumors that New York University plans to buy and demolish the theatre to build a dormitory.

I worked at night as a teenager during the summer helping to fix the seats in the Variety .It was a wierd place in 1946.Close to the Bowery and drunks sleeping it off.If I remember they closed it down at 2 AM and threw everyone out. so we could fix the seats. I always remember the tail end of almost every movie when we came in to work- but not one from that place. The marquee is a classic that show up in serious photography all the time and underneath the 3rd Ave EL.
David Robertson

According to the book The Ghastly Ones, this was one of (director) Andy Milligan’s favorite hangouts.

I can’t imagine that part of 3rd Avenue without the Variety Theatre; it’s an unofficial neighborhood landmark, it’s been a familiar sight on many a weekday morning on my way to work and many a Friday and Saturday night, stumbling home after having a BIT too much fun (as usual :–), and most definitely should be saved.

There was an arty soft-core-porn movie called “Variety” (late 1980’s?) that used this theater as its main character, but some of it was actually shot at a 42nd street hard-core movie house. The plot involved a girl who took a job as an usherette and gradually got drawn into the degenerate eroticism of her workplace.

In 1969-70, I used to go there every couple of weeks with a friend when we finished doing layouts and cartoons at Rat Subterranean News around the corner on 14th street. My friend had a bad habit of bringing a few of bottles of Ripple wine, and tossing our empties against the side wall – the audience barely noticed. Admission prices started at about 25 cents in the morning, and gradually rose to a dollar or two by evening. The shows – always double features – were absolutely random. A typical show would combine a kiddie movie about a pet bear cub and the trashiest low-budget porn available – I think this was before the ratings systems was mandated. The weirdest thing was the rest rooms, both of which were unusable due to always being jam-packed with homosexual orgies; if you opened the door, someone would grab you to try to pull you in to join the party.

Next door was a little underground bar called the Dugout. In early 1970, I made the mistake of taking a girl there. She was a member of W.I.T.C.H., the Women’s International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell, which had just seized control of Rat (purging the male staff, myself included) in one of the historic early victories of radical feminism. We didn’t realize the Dugout had a male-only policy; it turned out she was the first female to actually get served at the bar, but with a polite warning not to come back. Except for a name change and a female bartender, the Dugout was exactly the same in 2004. The Variety Photoplay didn’t look all that different either.

I used to walk past this theater and see posters advertising cowboy films there.