Gaiety Burlesk
201 W. 46th Street,
New York,
NY
10036
201 W. 46th Street,
New York,
NY
10036
6 people
favorited this theater
Showing 51 - 73 of 73 comments
I can add some info on The Lenox Lounge since I’ve been there many times, both before its fairly recent renovation and after. It has recently been renovated — it is part of a redevelopment/empowerment district/zone (thanks to powerful Congressmen Charles Rangel) — and businesses in this zone are eligible for tax breaks/federal money. The Lenox Lounge owners took advantage of this and renovated three or four years ago. The front of the room is a bar and the back a restaurant/jazz club. The room is an art deco gem.
Prior to the renovation the back room where the jazz is played had a zebra motif. Spike Lee used the LL for some scenes in “Malcolm X” and it is not uncommon for movies to use the LL as a backdrop, but off hand I can’t recall any of the other films. The bar has been there for decades; Billie Holiday gigged there.
Getting back to Times Square, I think I attended a play at the Duffy Theatre in the late eighties/early nineties. It was some sort of play that ran for years and years and years. It was, if memory recalls, a clever murder mystery.
The Howard Johnson’s on Times Square IS like walking into a time-warp, it still has the late 60s ‘Lamplighter Grill’ decor. It has clearly seen better days and getting rather shabby, but it reminds me of my youth. Plus they have regular food – not this stuff from some far-flung corner of the planet that has been artfully draped across a plate in quantities that wouldn’t keep a bird alive. So I guess I’m more comfortable in the time-warp. But that’s another story –
I liked a place I saw on the way out of the city, called the Lenox Lounge near 125th St. I wonder what it looks like inside.
If I’d known the Ho Jo’s was closing, I would have taken some pictures inside. I did take a view of the neon on the outside.
As for the Duffy Theatre, they announced what names it went by as a strip club, but I forgot. It would be interesting to see Times Square pictures side by side, 1972 vs 2005 just to get an idea of what’s long gone. I remember 42nd St from a visit in 1972 and it’s not so scary anymore.
What was the relationship of the Gaiety Burlesk to the upstairs Duffy Theatre, if any? Were they originally one place?
The worst thing that I do see in Manhattan that seems impossible to stop is the elimination of anything “organic”, meaning “stuff” that arises from the people who choose to live in a neighborhood and either attract or create their own “thing”. I know this sound ambiguous but what I mean is stores, restaurants, bars, galleries that are not corporate sponsered or ridiculously upscale. These 30 story condos they’re building do not create a neighborhood. In fact, they’ve just completed tearing down a historic (albeit NOT landmarked) building across from the Crown Plaza Hotel. And what’s going up in it’s place? A condo building.
Several good points, CConnolly. I’m (obviously) not a big fan of the current Times Square, but compared to what I remember it being 10 years ago (and what I’ve read it described as 20 years ago) it is preferable; it’s just not a part of the city designed to cater by-and-large to the average New Yorker… and, for what it is, that’s O.K. – it’s just not a place for me…
People on this site and other places (New York Times, architectural writings, etc.) make statements about how the old Times Square is being destroyed and this new Times Square is somehow not as good as the old, etc, etc., blah, blah, blah.
I am sure that if you were to go back 50, 60, 70 or so years ago and more, you would find the same arguements made about Times Square and other areas of NYC (or any metropolitan area).
I know this is going to sound simplistic but areas change and keep changing IF they are in demand and considered valuable. Sure, to some, what’s happening in Times Square may seem poor. But the area 20 years ago was in need of some kind of revitalization. Putting up office towers and inviting in tourism and chain stores may not seem to many to be the way to go. But it has worked to a degree.
Last week, I had to go down to 30th Street between 7th & 8th Avenues in Manhattan for a business meeting (a construction firm…). Anyway, afterwards, as I was leaving the office, I walked down the street and noticed how almost all the stores on this particular block were NOT commercial establishments but Mom & Pop like stores. In particular, there was a hobby shop there that was decent and the kind of store that used to be all over the city. I wondered how long a place like this was going to be around with the city changing so much.
So you see, I’m not saying I’m 100% in favor or in love with all the changes but this is what cities go through when they are considered viable. All this change means that NYC, despite all it’s ups and downs is still a treasured city and commodity.
70 years from now when the demolition of the Morgan Stanley building is in the headlines because preservationists want it declared a landmark, people will say then what we’re saying now: the old Times Square is being destroyed. It’s all relative.
I’m going to make one last trip to the HoJo’s in Times Square before it closes; I usually tend to forget to do such things and can’t stand the increasingly abhorrent tourist trap the area has become but this is too worthwhile to miss.
Auto Age and HoJo Land are good web sites for HoJo’s fans.
Yup, one next to the old Loew’s State and the other was at 49th (?) btwn 7th & Bway…
at one time there were 3 howard johnsons in time square. on the 3 corners
That HoJo’s in Times Square is really an anachronism. It is like time has stood still. I think I may have been in there once, back in the 1980s. I think I went in and bought something just so I could use the facilities.
There are still places like HoJo’s that are spread throughout the city. For example, if you ever go to the American Museum of the Movie Image in Astoria and take the N or W trains when you get off the train walk east (on your way to AMMI) down 36th Avenue and on the north side of the street, around 35th/36th Streets on the corner, there is an old luncheonette with one of those signs with the coca cola logo that were big back in the 40’s and 50’s. You don’t see those often. I saw someone filming the luncheonette as a movie backdrop. There is also a barroom right next door that looks like it hasn’t changed since 1936. The people in there look like they’ve been sitting in there since 1936 as well.
Times Square is getting to look like a suburban shopping mall – just stand at the corner of 48th and Broadway looking downtown, imagine no cars in the streets and a roof at the 4th floor level, throw in a couple of potted palm trees and you have “The Galleria of Manhattan” – how depressing….
‘Perfect Crime’ has the distinction of being the longest-running play either on- or off-Broadway. (The Duffy Theatre, the only off-Broadway venue in the Times Square area located on Broadway, also once served as a burlesk house.)
To the right of the Howard Johnson in Times Square, is a little stairway leading upstairs to a theatre called the Duffy Theatre. They were running a play titled “Perfect Crime” until last weekend. I understand they’re moving to another Broadway address and a new 2nd floor theatre.
According to this web site – http://hojoland.homestead.com/locations.html – there are nine Howard Johnson’s restaurants still in operation, including the soon-to-close Times Square location (the last HoJo’s in NYC); one in Springfield, Vermont, which is shutting its doors for business this upcoming May 15th; and another in Millington, Maryland, which is currently up for auction on eBay. The remaining six – including one seasonal location in Asbury Park, NJ – are at least holding on… for now.
Surprisingly enough, the Times piece hardbop alludes to makes no mention of the building’s imminent demolition. Jeff Sutton, the individual whose group, Wharton Acquisitions, recently bought the property, is quoted as saying that the closing of the Gaiety Burlesk “has nothing to do with me”. Uh, Mr. Sutton, maybe we’re grasping at straws here and maybe you had nothing to do with the exact day the Gaiety’s ownership chose to close their establishment’s doors for business, but I kinda think that if you’re planning on redeveloping the land the Gaiety currently stands on, the closing DOES have something to do with you.
the last ho jo to go
Howard Johnson’s will soon be joined The Gaiety as a memory only. The whole building is coming down and a retail box store will replace the Howard Johnsons/The Gaeity. There was a piece about this in this weekend’s Times.
Slowly, but surely, the “old” Times Square is being erased. Soon, there will be nothing left of the Times Square I knew when I moved to NYC in ‘82.
Alas another victim of the clean up and theme park-isation of new york, all the character has been drained from this once wonderful city.
No great loss architecturally, it was a sweaty room with little decoration, a screen was lowered and clips of porn films were shown, then the lights would go up, the screen would wobble up into the ceiling and a bored voice would announce “and now the delicious and tallented whoever” and some random guy would bounce (or be pushed) on stage and do a striptease, he would then disappear and there would be more film, then the same thing only this time the poor dancer would be naked and aroused and gather up dollar bills from along the catwalk, then the film would resume…
you could also meet the dancers in the lobby next to the grubby vending machines.
The Gaiety acheived its pinnacle of glamour when Madonna filmed her EROTICA pop video there and a photo session for her SEX book.
The decor could only be described as greasy mid-western cafe/lap dance bar, but what the place had by the bucket was atmosphere and an undercurrent of danger, of being mugged, robbed or simply sitting in something unpleasant.
So there we have it, a genuine piece of NY history, not neccessarily a cinema treasure but deserving of listing and recording.
closed this week
Is that the joint upstairs of the last remaining Howard Johnson’s? What are they doing up there? I was eating in Howard Johnson’s and the chandeliers were swaying and rattling – I was worried the ceiling was going to come down into my Fisherman’s Platter…
You are correct Robert.
I have a current guide which states the Gaiety Theatre still operates as New York’s oldest gay burlesque. The status should now read; Open, Function; Live Performance space.
I think this is still open.