Guild 50th Street Theater
33 W. 50th Street,
New York,
NY
10020
33 W. 50th Street,
New York,
NY
10020
14 people
favorited this theater
Showing 76 - 100 of 102 comments
I recall using the subway entrance to get into the music hall several times in the late 50’s and early sixties. We always used it on sat. morning for the 1st show. Think it was 50 cents to get in. Don’t recall where we arrived at once we went through the door.
This was a DISNEY HOUSE FOR MANY YEARS
RobertR: The Music Hall was a bit more unique than most theatres. Its multiple box offices could be set up to sell for particular areas of the auditorium. The first mezzanine was the only part that was reserve seating.
TomR
Thanks for the info, so in a multiple box office house like the Music Hall would each box office would call each other constantly to compare tickets sold?
CConnolly: the stair flanking the downstairs box office most likely went to the the Museum of Science & Industry, that occupied the space during the 1930’s. The museum space was designed the fill in the was thought to be non-profit making interior space at that end of the RCA Building, actually the RCA Building West.
The passageway from the concourse to the Lower Lounge of Radio City Music Hall most likely has a corresponding passageway theat lead into the lower level of the old Center Theatre. All of the buildings in Rockefeller Center were connected by the concourse.
RobertR: Before computerized box offices, we did stop selling tickets and did a count of tickets sold for that show. Once we knew the count, we knew how much more we could sell. We never actually sold out an auditorium. We always stop selling with about 50 seats left. These were usually the seats in the first two rows. Peopel did not want to crain their necks to watch the movie. Also, we never sold every seat beacuse in the summertime, no amount of air conditions will cool down an auditorium filled to capacity. The same in the winter, as it it would become very stuffy. Even today, most computerized box office will cut off selling tickest when they reach a certain number of tickets sold.
RE: the downstairs boxoffice…one more question. The stairs that are on either side of it. Did these at one time lead up to the lobby of the building (not Radio City but the main Rock Center building)? Just curious…Right now the stairs go to a small landing and there is a door but it’s a janitor’s closet now.
Does anyone know in the days before computer box office systems how theatres with multiple box offices kept track of the seats left to sell? Was it as simple as doing the tally and calling each other?
TomR: that’s intriguing…that concourse entrance thing. So people would enter the Music Hall from inside the Rockefeller Center concourse to where? The lower level area of RCMH? Was this removed during the remodelling that took place a few years ago?
Thanks for the reply…that box office is funky looking right out in the hallway like that.
This box office was once intended for use by the Music Hall. The idea was guests coming in via the the new 6th Avenue Subway would proceed directly to this box office. Directly opposite, behind a wall, is the old concourse entrance to the Music Hall. In the old day when movioe & stage show was the norm at the Music Hall, this was the entrance used by large groups. The old Rockefeller Center tour used to enter the theater via this entrance,
Hope someone can help me figure this out. If you are in Rockefeller Center inside, downstairs on the lower concourse, right across the hallway from the GNC (Vitamin) Store, there is what looks like a box office of sorts with a set of stairs wrapping around it on either side. Like an idiot, one day I actually walked up thoses stairs and went up and came down the other side (I felt really stupid…). I though maybe this was the box office for The Guild but I don’t think so because it’s so far away from it. It’s obviously some kind of box office or ticket selling window but can anyone tell me what it was for? Radio City?
The Nautica store has closed and is being replaced by a make-your-teddy-bear store. The building, the former Associated Press Building, was landmarked by the city, which included the exterior features of the old theatre. The re-creation of the old screen curtain can still be seen through the shop windows.
Wow! that’s amazing because I pass it every day and from the door before they covered the glass on the doors with paper you can see the former seating area and where the screen was. By the way why do the theatre owners or who ever is responsible for closing up a theatre for good always either put papers on the entrance doors or put some kind of covering on the dooway like smudge out the glass I don’t know if i"m saying it right but you can never see inside is this to prevent vandalism or something can somone explain.
I haven’t seen it, but there are a lot of elements of Rockefeller Center that are landmarked, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this was one of them. Usually a big retailer wants their own design and wouldn’t retain decor from a previous tenant unless their removal was prohibited by the lease. Landmarking makes the property owner responsible, who in turn must make sure the tenants also comply, so they write it in the lease.
the Nuatica shop which now occuppies this space is either closed or renovating becuse I see no activiy or manneqins in the window. It looked like Nuatica tried to keep a little of the look on the exterior and some on the interior because where the screen once stood there are store advertisements with a black masking on either side and curtains as well. like the old cinema can anyone confirm this.
This was right across the street from NBC Studios. When I worked there as a Page, me and other pages would go to the movies if we got off early enough.
In the early 70’s when it played family fare I remember the Guild would get the spillover of the holiday crowds from Radio City. Yes, the Music Hall still had lines in the very early 70’s for their holiday shows. Kind of like what I heard about the 50’s. If the lines at the Music Hall were very long people would go to the Roxy instead. Imagine having such a choice!
I remember this theatre when my family moved back to NYC around 1959. I saw THE MOUSE THAT ROARED among other films at this nice little theatre.
They’ve got plenty of disposable income… and they’re apparently spending it somewhere else. Nautica announced last week that they bought out the remaining 12 years of their lease, pointing to the ever-so-fickle spending habits of teens as one of the main reasons behind their decision.
I think I saw the last film shown at this theatre, or one of them, which was a distressingly mild Albert Brooks comedy called “The Muse.” The theatre was excellent, but the seats and carpets were astonishingly threadbare given the theatre’s superb location, and now that I’ve read about the 25-year lease expiring, I finally understand why. Reminds me of Hong Kong being turned over to mainland China, although instead of a single hundred-year lease, it had successive 25-year ones. I was fascinated to learn on this site that the theatre started as a “newsreel house” (something I never even suspected existed; sort of the 1930s version of CNN, I guess). I don’t quite understand why the theatre wasn’t more successful toward the end, since the attendance seemed fairly sparse to me, given its wet-dream of a location smack in the very middle of Rockefeller Center. I miss the place, and resent the Nautica store every time I see it, which is several times a week.
Camden
Camden
I believe that in its final years the Guild concentrated mainly on childrens' films and family fare.
My main Guild memory is of subwaying into the Manhattan to see “Planet of the Apes” which, if memory serves, had a very long run there.
sorry, Crowther.
I don’t believe the U.S. release of AIDA was of a subtitled print at all. While indeed sung in Italian, there were sporadic bits of “summarizing” English narration for each episode and no subtitles provided. The 1982 re-issue (same version) at the Guild was with reserved performances, but not reserved seats. The original opera was heavily truncated, with startling jumps, even within arias, where music was cut out. In his review for the New York Times for the 1954 opening, Bosley Crother referred to the then virtualy unknown Sophia Loren as “a handsome woman”!!!
“Aida” was a revival. I remember it shown in the early 50’s. Renata Tebaldi did the singing and Sophia Loren was Aida. Lois Maxwell, the original “Moneypenny” was also in the film. You are right, the theatre was a gem. I remember seeing Frankenheimer’s “The Young Stranger” there in 1957
I loved this theatre I first discovered it in the seventies when it ran a reserved seat engagement of an Italian version of Aida with Sophia Loren lip syncing to someone elses voice. It was made in the fifties and never released here until then. A truely bizzare film, I have not heard of it since then. If I am correct the distributor was 21st Century Distribution who released all those dubbed Italian horror films.