Palladium Times Square
1515 Broadway,
New York,
NY
10036
1515 Broadway,
New York,
NY
10036
33 people
favorited this theater
Showing 76 - 100 of 577 comments
I think the policy is that if a theater is currently in operation, even if it has been converted into a live venue and isn’t showing movies, it will be listed by its current name, and have its movie house names as AKAs.
In the case of theaters that are gone, such as the Rivoli, if they operated under one name for most of their history and under a later name for a fairly short time, it makes sense to use the name by which the greatest number of people visiting the site would probably remember it.
Incidentally, if you want to find the Rivoli under its final name, you have to search CT with the full name United Artists Twin. Nine other currently listed houses called UA Twin can be found only under the abbreviated name. Wikipedia-style redirects would be useful.
Unfortunately there are a number of listings set up as, for example, UA Twin,without a clue as to where they are. But current CT logic gives you many ways of tracking down a theatre/theater.
There are some odd wrinkles here and there, however, Bway. You can still find the old Rivoli Theatre under its original name, rather than the awful and generic “UA Twin,” as the grand old theater was known in its final years. And thank heaven for that!
By the way, the search feature on the site searches current AND former names. If you search “Astor Plaza” for this theater in the search box above….one theater comes up. The Best Buy Theater. So if you are searching theaters by their “most famous name”, even if the name is now some other name, the theater will come up in search.
Ed, in reference to “using the most recent name” is a decision that was made for consistency. Many theaters had several names, and sometimes it’s latest name is it’s most popular. Sometimes, it’s old name was the most popular, sometimes some name it had in the middle. For consistency’s sake, they chose to title theaters by their most recent name. For every theater that may have suffered by having it’s “most recent name” as the current heading name, there are others that benefited from it. It makes sense for consistency, and otherwise subjective things would have to be used to title a theater.
When I first started working in the movie theatre industry in 1974 it was very clear. Legit use was ‘theater’ and cinema use was ‘theatre’, even in cases where the same company owned both types of venues. Whether there was a stage or never a consideration.
I have always been told that a place with a stage and fly loft was a ‘theater’ A cinema without staging capabilities was a ‘theatre’.
Ed, you’ll notice that the aka portion of this theatre lists it as Astor Plaza, not Loews. You’ll find a lot of inconsistencies on how the theatres were set up. There are some Century’s listed with the Century, some without. But the aka ability does give you the best crack at something which is listed by it’s most recent name.
It’s primarily a concert venue.
I agree with LuisV that the theaters here should be posted by their most famoius name. When I put Loews Ator Plaza in the search engine, it came back as “theater not found”. What I’m not understanding about the Best Buy is: is it a theater, a club, or a concert venue?
In these type of venues the source of the unique ‘aroma’ is the carpeting – a combination of spilled beer, barf and far too frequent applications of carpet shampoo that isn’t allowed to dry before spilling more beer and barf on it.
I haven’t been there since it first reopened as the Nokia Theater shortly after it closed as the Astor Plaza. Too bad, as it was nice back then, but then again it was pretty new yet when I was there. Now it sounds like a typical club with sticky floors.
I saw two concerts there this weekend. They have turned this place into kind of a dump. It smelled bad and everything was sticky.
This was my favorite place to see a movie in NYC. I really miss it.
I saw this theater on TV…they had the Heisman Trophy ceremony where Cam Newton won the trophy despite being under investigation for NCAA violations as his team faces Oregon in the BCS Championship game. As for the name of the theater, I think Best Buy made a mistake by naming this theater after it. The company’s profits are not doing well but its mobile division is doing ok. Again, I’m off-topic.
I too saw the Wizard of Oz here when it was re-released. I think it might have been the last film that I saw there and it was spectacular. Sad to say, there weren’t that many other people in the audience which is why we have the Best Buy theater today. This was a truly great theater in a modern sense. Just like The Ziegfeld, though the Ziegfeld has more of a true palace feel. At least we still have that.
I remember seeing Titanic and The Wizard of Oz here in the late 90’s and loving the feel of this house. I have been to about a dozen concerts at the Nokia Theatre and never realized it was the same place until now. I knew the escalator seemed familiar.
Having seen Titanic here on that large screen and with great sound, I can not watch it when it comes on TV.
Till the next corporate name change!
They have the new Best Buy Theater signage up now. Time to change the name again.
Based on this, it would appear that the name change will be effective on or before September 14, and if the sketch of the signage and the text in the article is correct, Best Buy is going with “Theater” rather than “Theatre”: View link
Well they took the Nokia Theatre signage above the marquee down today. And they also took the Hilton Theatre signage too.
David Rockwell and the Rockwell Group were the architects for the conversion of the Astor Plaza into the Nokia Theatre, according to a Billboard article of October 1, 2005.
OY!!!! How painful. I wish the theaters were listed under the best known (most popular name) rather than their current name. However, I do understand why the current policy is in place. That said, I hate that the old Loew’s Astor Plaza is now a Best Buy theater.
What a stupid renaming change for this theater, although I like shopping there in Rockaway where the old Rockaway Outer 6 was.
Another one time Loews House, interesting.