Embassy 1,2,3 Theatre

The Columbia Theater was opened as the main theater of the Columbia Amusement Company, aka the Columbia Wheel or the Eastern Wheel. My Grandfather, Samuel A. Scribner, was the General manager and co-founder of the company. The Columbia Wheel operated 42 burlesque houses throughout the North-East from Chicago to Boston (Canada, too.) In its hayday the circuit would have something like 42 separate shows performing. Each week each show would rotate from one theater to another along the wheel. Three of the theaters in the wheel were in New York and Brooklyn, and the Columbia was the centerpiece. If you look closely at the Seventh Avenue exterior wall of the building, you will see, running up the wall, a small relief image of the head of a woman at each story — I believe that is the image of “Columbia”. The Company offices were in the building, around the 7th or 8th floor, according to my (late) father. Thge entrance to the office was on 47th Street. Other big-wigs in the business were John Herbert Mack and Rudolph Hynicka (Hynicka was the “boss” of the Cincinatti political machine, which he ran from his office at 47th and 7th.) The Columbia Circuit made zillions of dollars in the decade before 1919 and then lost zillions of dollars in the years thereafter. The Bronxville, NY Historical Conservancy ran a long article on Sam Scribner, including the Columbia Theater, in its 2004 publication.

I have a photo of the Embassy 2-3-4 with marquee loaded with titles and lit up. I’ll e-mail it to someone if they want to post it.

>>I wonder how long a lease the church has on the Mark Hellinger?

Answer, from Hollywood Thearer page:
By 1989, the Nederlander Organization, the current owners, leased the theater to a church group. Three years later, the building was sold for $17 million and became the home for the Times Square Church.

I hear rumors that someone has just about to sign a long term lease on the DeMille and do a major renovation. Anybody hear the same thing?

Didn’t the DeMille open SPARATACUS on October 7, 1960 and run it for almost 2 years?

It looks like they are going to cover more of the front of the building on the 7th Avenue side above the marquee. There are about 6 new holes cut into the building front.

This theater was a dump

I walked by yesterday. It looks like the scaffolding is there because a large billboard is about to be placed on the building above the marquee. Nothing else appeared to be going on.

A few notes about the Russian KinoPanorama showings at the Mayfair(DeMille, Embassy 1 or 2,3,4). In spite of the advertisements, the full 9 channels were not used, only 7, leading the “Variety” reviewer to comment that there was no loss there “as the narration borders on the inane.” The screen measured 60 x27 feet, the 3 projectors were the same ones used a year earlier at the Roxy for the CineMiracle presentation of “Windjammer.” Apparently, after the first week or so, public interest waned. By the 3rd week, box office grosses weren’t even reported to “Variety,” sure sign of embarrassment. The first attraction, “Great Is My Country” dragged on until mid-July 1959 when the second feature “The Enchanted Mirror” replaced it. So dismal was the business then that both films were shown together, something of a first for 3-panel presentation, and probably a boon for the concession stand in that the audience now had the opportunity to grab a bite to eat during all of two film changes plus two intermissions. Interestingly enough, later that year when exhibitor Walter Reade Jr (who now owned the theatre) was elected to the Board of Directors of Cinerama, Inc., he made noises to the press that Cinerama would from then on premiere at this theatre in New York. The Loews-Cinerama Inc deal less than a month later put the kabosh on that idea.

Something is going on with this theater today. There is scaffolding directly underneath the marquee. Does anyone know what’s up with this? Is it the beginnning of the end for the old DeMille?

You can see pictures of the Winter Garden as a movie theatre on the Criterion DVD of “The Killers” with Burt Lancaster.

Looking at those picture of Times Square during that era, was when Times Square was worth going to than now.

Thanks, Theatrefan. Those pictures are wonderful. I also never knew that the Winter Garden ever showed movies, and good ones, too (“Stairway to Heaven”).