Comments about Beekman Theatre in New York, NY

marcusexp on December 30, 2005 at 4:38 pm

GREAT JOB documenting Sloan Kettering’s demolition of the Beekman!
Sloan Kettering should have listened to the community and found a way to build their cancer center and preserve this great theatre.
Your photos need to be posted on the first page of Cinema Treasures.
Thanks for being there with your camera.

bazookadave on December 30, 2005 at 3:43 pm

Miscellaneous Beekman demolition images: Sorry for the odd blurred lobby images, I took the pics through a black mesh fence. If you look closely, in the upper right of the lobby pics, the debris-strewn raked floor of the balcony is visible. In a couple of the images the star motif on the lobby floor can still be seen, though obscured by dust.

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frankdev on December 26, 2005 at 8:38 pm

gustavelifting i understand your point, but i spent many happy hours working there, it just won’t be the same when i go past the site. but yes at least there is a part of the beekman that remains and i thank you for your point

uncleal923 on December 26, 2005 at 6:25 pm

Guys, I was never to the Beekman, but we should be thankful the sign was saved. Many theaters leave without a trace of being there.

frankdev on December 26, 2005 at 4:08 pm

as always dave you hit the nail on the head

dave-bronx™ on December 26, 2005 at 2:58 pm

………so they are really dismembering him – I hope they at least gave the old Beek a good stiff drink or some other anesthesia -
Sloan-Kettering SUCKS!

frankdev on December 26, 2005 at 2:44 pm

ThankYou Again davebazooka, sadly now there are just wonderful memories of the beekman

bazookadave on December 26, 2005 at 12:52 pm

Beekman demolition, December 26, 2005:

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RobertR on December 18, 2005 at 6:05 am

After the roadshow it moved here
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dave-bronx™ on December 17, 2005 at 8:40 pm

The RKO Fantasy is listed here: /theaters/4041/

bazookadave on December 17, 2005 at 1:01 pm

Interesting, I wonder what the RKO Fantasy in Nassau was, I couldn’t find that theatre in a site search

RobertR on December 17, 2005 at 9:04 am

I don’t recall the Beekman running 70mm films like this.
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frankdev on December 12, 2005 at 3:53 pm

edsolero many of us feel the same way you do, i have managed both theaters, and although i did like them both, trust me the beekman was pure class, imiss it very much. As a matter of fact it was my first theater after i left Radio City Music Hall

Ed Solero on December 12, 2005 at 10:06 am

I think I saw “Frances” here in 1982 or so. This was the bio-pic starring Jessica Lange as troubled 1930’s film actress Frances Farmer. I’d been here more than once, but “Frances” is all that specifically leaps to mind. Nothing I can really add to the conversation here. What a shame. The subterranean New York Twin across the street is a dreary and unworthy successor to the “Beekman” name. I think I’d rather have that moniker retired than have its memory besmirched by association with the Twin.

I was in the neighborhood yesterday for a christmas party at my brother’s fire house on 67th Street between 3rd and Lex. I was surprised to see the New York Twin sign with the name “Beekman” which is what prompted me to post my 2 cents here.

bazookadave on December 12, 2005 at 9:57 am

You’re very welcome! :–)

frankdev on December 12, 2005 at 9:22 am

thanks davebazooka great shots

RobertR on December 12, 2005 at 6:06 am

I wonder why they left the other sign up there?

bazookadave on December 12, 2005 at 5:20 am

A snowy December Beekman:

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frankdev on December 11, 2005 at 9:16 pm

the other day i heard that a theater owner on long island paid $10.000 dollars for the Beekman Sign, and he is going to refurbish it and place on display in his theater, when i get more info i’ll pass it on

TheaterBuff1 on December 10, 2005 at 6:46 pm

So the quest to treat cancer strikes again as the big excuse why things people clearly love must be gotten rid of. And to the point in some cases that the Constitution of the United States is getting cast aside and fully trashed in the process. So in New York City it’s the Beekman Theatre that got targeted. And here in Philadelphia, PA, where I reside, for the past year and a half the Fox Chase Cancer Center has been trying its damndest to bring down historic and much loved Burholme Park just adjacent to it in its claim that it must expand and can only do so at its current location. Which, of course, is a total crock. So going by how cancer treatment was successfully used to bring down the Beekman, I’d say we’re seeing a most definite pattern going on here. Alas, I only wish I had learned about the Beekman Theatre sooner, so that I could’ve joined you all in the campaign to help save it.

I’m currently involved in a struggle to restore an historic theater here in Philly, and if the effort ever does prove successful, I’m seeing all kinds of things in the Beekman Theatre’s design that could be incorporated into this theater here, and that I feel this theater’s designer, William Harold Lee, would’ve fully approved of. For the design of the Beekman was brilliant, it truly was! Every aspect of it screamed class, and what the heck is wrong with a little class I ask!?

dave-bronx™ on December 10, 2005 at 6:54 am

Sloan-Kettering doesn’t need to make the site pay – I believe they are a non-profit organization, and have various endowments and foundations that maintain their operations.

According to the Greenport’s page on this site, the lobby there has been re-done with a nostalgia or memorobilia theme. I will give Clearview the benefit of the doubt, and say they probably wanted to put those signs on the Twin but the landlord prevented it. When they signed the lease they didn’t realize that the landlord was a psycho – they’ve been there six months now, and are propbably starting to come to that realization.

bazookadave on December 10, 2005 at 6:29 am

Why is the Beekman logo going to be placed in a distant LI theatre instead of right across the street at the new Beekman? That makes no sense.

I don’t see how Sloan-Kettering is going to be able to make that site pay with only a breast cancer clinic. They must be going to include a skinny luxury tower above the clinic from which they can collect massively high rent. Re the Beekman logos on the old building, I would think they belonged to Sloan Ketering and not Clearview, so the hospital folks get to sell the logos for high prices too! Bummer. Is the Greenport a Clearview theatre?

dave-bronx™ on December 9, 2005 at 9:52 pm

The many photos posted by davebazooka are excellent.
Sloan-Kettering worked the whole scheme pretty good: Not wanting the bad publicity of evicting tenants out of ancient run-down tenement apartments whose demolition really would be a public service, they focused their sights on the the hapless Beekman Theatre, a one-story commercial building, with no surly residential tenants upstairs running to the newspapers or TV newscasts making a fuss. When a few people decried the loss of what was arguably New Yorks last classy movie theatre, Sload-Kettering successfully neutralized any criticism by invoking the ultra-PC topic of breast cancer: “Yes, the theatre is beautiful, but out of all the property in the five boroughs of New York City, this is the only one where we can plop down a breast cancer clinic.” And of course, all public criticism ceased, the theatre will be sacraficed so we can solve the mystery of breast cancer, in a neighborhood already over-saturated with medical facilities. Real Estate Developers note: You could probably demolish Grand Central Terminal or the Empire State Building as long as you said that a breast cancer clinic will occupy part of whatever piece of schlock architecture were to be the replacement.

TheaterBuff1 on December 9, 2005 at 8:53 pm

As I look at every one of the many photos you’ve posted, seeing this theater’s design from so many different angles, it just breathes this intelligence through and through — clearly the work of a master hand. Almost superhuman in its utter perfection. The design seems to be such, that even if you tried, you couldn’t get a photograph of it in a way that would make it look bad, this being the very thing I look for in architecture, and which is oh so rare! So something went terribly wrong when whoever it was decided to tear this priceless gem down. As theaters go, it is a perfect gestalt, everything balanced so perfectly. And though parts might be salvaged, the point of its all having been a perfect gestalt will be lost. So of its demolishers, forgive them Father, they knoweth not what they do. For this was a theater that a hundred years from now, three-hundred years from now, would still be classifiable as “contemporary.” So what is going on!? Anyone have the foggiest idea?

dave-bronx™ on December 9, 2005 at 5:47 pm

WOW! I just looked at the map, and Greenport is way out there at the end of the island –

Beekman Theatre

1254 2nd Avenue, New York, NY 10021

1254 2nd Avenue,
New York, NY 10021