One down and three to go, Al. Is there any indication that the New Cinema Playhouse ever went porn? I’m sure some of those avant-garde works blurred the line in some views between art and porn.
In any event, as the Wurlitzer building is no more (gobbled up along with Henry Miller’s Theater for the rising Bank of America tower), the status for this theater should be changed to “demolished”.
Never heard of this one, but seems like it closed just a few years before my time frequenting the area – and I doubt I’d have ventured beyond 8th Ave in any event.
That address now corresponds with the Off-Broadway Little Shubert Theater, which opened in 2002 within a new 39 story apartment tower. The Shubert Organization (which runs the theater) claims it is the first Off-Broadway house to be built completely from the ground up – so we can safely update the 42nd Street Cinema’s status to “demolished”. Just about that whole side of the block between 9th Ave and Dyer has been built over with Off-B'way houses, including the Theatre Row and Playwrights Horizon complexes.
This website about the Little Shubert includes several photos of the new building’s exterior.
Warren… Do you even read the posts that you attack so viciously and – seemingly – with impunity? The whole point that we “Cub Scouts” made in the posts above was to establish a proper address for the Hobart Theater, which, it turns out, is most definitely NOT at 51-05 31st Ave as you seemed to be so vehemently defending. When Lost Memory suggested that the 51-05 address was a city park, you responded with your typical condescension and instigated a good deal of ill-will on this page. The research that Lost and I did (separately but with a common goal) was the first to bear out what your photos and the newspaper clippings you recently posted have verified: that the Hobart was on the south side of 31st Ave at a building whose building lot address is 51-06 31st Avenue on a block bound by 51st and 54th Streets. Why do you persist in being so maddeningly obtuse and offensive? And why do you ridicule anyone else’s efforts to determine some facts here? You yourself have spent plenty of space on this site trying to confirm street addresses and verify that certain theaters never had the word “The” in their names… I mean, really!
Here is an image of the deed for the Hobart building… You can read the property description to verify it discusses the lot between 54th and 51st on the south side of 31st Ave and identifies the “premises being known as 51-06 31st Ave” and you may further note that the “Thirty First Avenue Theater Corp” conveyed the property in 1981. Do I get to graduate to the real Boy Scouts now? Do I get a badge? You know what… don’t even answer. Frankly, starting here and now I’m not going to concern myself further with any of your antagonisms. Except for maybe reporting to Patrick and Ross what a complete ass you are being of late. And if that comment gets me a warning and/or 1 day suspension, I think it would have been well worth it just to make sure for myself that the owners of this site have been made aware of how insidious your comments have become.
And if nothing comes of that? Well, then I guess the lesson for me would be that – just as in other Democracies – justice is not always evenly dispensed on CT.
Those Dracula flicks went on and on didn’t he? The old Count had more lives than a cat! And what great pains each film (at least in the original cycle of films set in the 19th Century) took to pick up from the point of Dracula’s demise in the previous film and play out his elaborate resurrection! While in Florida, I caught the first of those films to try and bring Dracula into modern times. Called “Dracula AD 1972”, it had Christopher Lee swinging with hippie occult-worshipping chicks in Mod London and saw it on a double bill at the Tropicaire Drive In. Some years later, they finally released the last of those Lee/Dracula films here in the states… another modern-set film titled “Satanic Rites of Dracula” that I caught on the bottom of a triple bill on 42nd Street under the title “Count Dracula and His Vampire Bride” in 1980 or ‘81, I think. I’m almost positive that was at the Liberty Theater.
Lost… I knew you were high brow. At the risk of veering off topic for a second, I recall my father taking me to see a double feature of the 1970 British horror-anthology “The House That Dripped Blood” which played on a double feature with the ‘66 Christopher Lee epic you mentioned, “Dracula: Prince of Darkness”. I can’t for the life of me remember where I saw the film, but I believe “House” was released here in the Spring of 1971. My family moved to Miami for a year towards the end of that summer and I’m pretty sure we saw the film while still in NYC. And me at the tender age of 6 and ½! Was that irresponsible of my dad? Ha… I never considered it. Those two flicks had some fairly gruesome scenes in them, despite the one being rated only PG and the other originally released here pre-MPAA ratings, but I don’t think it ruined me (no snickering). Anyway, if RobertR is out there listening, please post if you come across any ads for that twin bill, as I know you share a lot of 1970’s clippings with the group.
Also… I have to ask if any one is familiar with an online service called Newspaper Archive (at newspaperarchive.com). They claim to allow subscribers to view, download and print images of newspapers going back to 1759. They claim to have the largest such database available online and for a price that seems too good to be true, when you compare it to a service like Proquest. I’m tempted, but I don’t want to get bagged here. Anyone?
I think the image in the newspaper article confirms that we have the right building. I guess there was in fact a tunnel entrance under the peak of the facade on 31st which ran back to the auditorium, which was parallel to 31st, but set further back between 51st and 54th Streets. Decorative elements appear to have been removed and/or altered, losing the streamlined art deco look of the original facade. I’ll have to try and photograph the frontage as it exists today for comparison. So… I imagine the lobby ran straight back towards the auditorium allowing folks to enter at the cross aisle between the raised “smoking loge” on the left and the standard orchestra seating on the right. That would mean the screen wall ran at an angle to the outer wall on 51st, which probably created a vestibule for fire exits behind the screen leading to the street.
Fifty-first Street would be the street with the double yellow line on the right side of this view to the south also posted above.
Makes sense, RobertR. You and mike are right about the appeal of such a movie today. It would play in Manhattan and maybe Brooklyn Heights and then the Kew Gardens Cinemas and a select couple of theaters in Nassau and Suffolk. I’m not sure I’d draw the line along racial borders, so much as I would along much more arcane and harder to define economic and cultural borders. There was a version of Othello starring Laurence Fishburn released in the ‘90’s that did not get much play beyond the isle of Manhattan. It seems that these days, the only Shakespeare that translates across demographics is that in which swords and paternal clans are replaced by guns and modern day gangs (be it “West Side Story” or Baz Luhrman’s “Romeo and Juliet”). Come to think of it, there was also a modern day version of Othello with a high school setting called “O” not too long ago that was a minor success, relative to its small budget.
Thanks B'kylnJim… Appetite whetted! Poor Willis W. Smith! The little man – as ever – trampled under the corporate foot. I hope Hollingshead cashed in to his satisfaction. I fondly remember those intermission films! Sometimes that countdown clock wouldn’t move nearly as fast as I wanted. By the time I remember going to the Sunrise in the 1970’s those little films were chewed up pretty badly – I bet the countdown clock was off by more than just a few minutes due to the amount of dropped frames over the years. I remember the pizza at the Sunrise concession stand was about the worst slice of crap I’d ever tasted in my life! It consisted of a rectangular crust that seemed to be made of sheetrock, a dollop of brownish sauce and a smattering of shredded mozzarella. Sometimes the crust was so brittle, that a single bite would cause the slice to crack in half resulting in sauce spilt in your lap and the rubbery cheese topping hanging from your mouth after having slid off the sauce in one piece. Oh wait, was that the pizza in the Jamaica High School lunch room? My memories are so fuzzy!
I imagine Robert is referring to the fact that the Moor Othello was being portrayed by a white actor (Laurence Olivier), which might have fueled some fires in predominantly black neighborhoods during the heat of the Civil Rights movement.
Anything-05 would be on the opposite side of 31st Ave. If you look at the first local.live image I posted above, that would be above the triangular Stroppoli Park. If you click and drag the image down, you’ll see that the 54-xx block is actually comprised of a large complex of apartment buildings. If the Hobart had an address on 31st Ave, it was definitely an even numbered one as would be appropriate for the south side of 31st Ave. Lost Memory has alreay found that a company called Thirty First Ave Theater Corp owned the building at 51-06 31st Ave that was later leased to the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company (the parent company of A&P supermarkets) in 1966. We have an image of a building at that address that seems to indicate it was a former movie theater. The theater seems to have closed sometime after 1964 (since I have posted an ad from ‘64) and the building we think was the Hobart looks to be occupied by a supermarket. Further, the block front on 31st Ave we are talking about is bounded by both 51st and 54th Streets, so a location of 31st Avenue and 54th street would be consistent with the 51-06 address.
I’d say we have what the judicial system would recognize as a preponderance of evidence supporting the argument that building identified above in the aerial shot at 51-06 31st Avenue is in fact the former Hobart Theater. Unless it is in one’s nature to be a kne-jerk gainsayer, I would presume that most reasonable people would agree with that assessment.
Scroll down to “Jackson Ave” on this website and you’ll find that 251 Jackson Ave converts to an approximate current address of 2401 Jackson Ave with a cross street around 45th Avenue – at least according to the webmaster’s calculations. I do not attest to the veracity of the information on this website, but I thought I’d share with anyone interested.
Here is a link to the main page were a number online resources for converting archaic addresses to their modern day equivalents (as well as other property data resources) are located.
Not sure how accurately this relates to the Idle Hour Theater. The northwest corner of Jackson and 45th Ave is the location of the 50-story Citicorp Building. Could the remains of the Idle Hour exist in the skyscraper’s shadow or be buried beneath its footprint? The description above mentions the Masonic Building across the street… is this structure still standing?
Here’s a website that has links to a number of seemingly cool resources that might be of service in trying to identify archaic street names and addresses in NYC. If one uses this particular page on Queens and looks up both Jagger and Prospect one will find that they were renamed Main Street and 41st Road, respectively.
I can’t testify as to the usefulness of some of the other resources linked from the main page, but they might be worth a look.
I believe the address above is incorrect. The odd number 51-05 places the lot on the north side of 31st Ave to the east of 51st Street, which is in fact a wedge-shaped parcel called Strippoli Park.
If you follow this link to local.live you should see an east facing view of the sort of X-shaped intersection of 31st Ave (running from top-middle to lower-left with a bend in the road) and 51st Street (running from top-left to lower-right). Strippoli Park is easily identifiable as the triangular wedge on the left side of 31st. If you scan down 51st Street to the right, I think the former Hobart is the structure with the white facade to the right of the attached building with the green roof and to the left of the apartment building. Open the local.live window to its maximum size and close the welcome pane at the left of the screen to get the best overview.
Here’s a view to the south where it is easier to pick up the theater’s profile. It looks as though there could have been a tunnel entrance under the green roof where the facade peaks on 31st Ave, but unless someone has a definite recollection, I wouldn’t run with that thought. I think the entrance was probably along the angled frontage along 51st Street where there now appears to be a supermarket.
A check on oasisnyc.com shows that the theater building and attached commercial structures are on a single lot with the address 51-06 31st Avenue. Unless there was a tunnel entrance to 31st, the Hobart most likely had an odd numbered street address like 31-06 51st Street. From the oasisnyc site, I was able to link to the building department site and find that among the various C of O’s issued for this big lot is one for a supermarket dated 1966 pursuant to an alteration permit issued in 1965. I think it’s a more than decent bet that this refers to the Hobart structure.
Perhaps Lost can provide further research to lock down the address and any other details pertaining to the theater? I can’t link to the oasisnyc site without screwing up the layout of this page, for some reason, but the block# is 1131 and the lot# is 22.
It will be interesting to see if the Chamber of Commerce can secure a better print of a classic film than the bookers at the Zeigfeld Theater are typically able to obtain for their Classics series.
Thanks, Ross. Sometimes our passions get the best of us. I’m actually quite pleased to know that some of these comments are being closely monitored, for I feel that there are definite instigators on this site who seem particularly skilled in the art of subtle agitation. While I agree that we should all turn the other cheek (and I shall endeavor to do so in the future), I only hope that those who are guilty of casting first stones are being properly warned by CT management to play nice.
Ah… “Master of the Flying Guillotine”… one of the chop-sockey genre’s greatest (and most outlandish) entries. A martial arts classic that was a key influence on a young Quentin Tarantino. But, let me stop this musing before Warren swoops in to admonish me and poke fun at all of us for quibbling over the RKO’s closing date!
Art… I mean, Warren… Are you accusing mike of not really being named mike? After all, in his moniker he has given us just as much information about his name as you have in yours. Anyway, I use my real name here… too bad decorum doesn’t allow me to express my real thoughts about the tenor of your postings on this site.
Great shot, ken. Click on the small photo to open it large. Judging by the titles on the marquee – Ralph Bellamy and Fay Wray in “Smashing the Spy Ring” and Ralph Byrd in “Fighting Thoroughbreds” – the photo dates to 1939.
The glass curtain would be almost as much of an insult to the theater’s landmark status as the destruction caused by Huang and his thugs. By the way, dave… I was perusing the shelves at Barnes and Noble the other day and found a book entitiled “The Landmarks of New York” by Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel (published 2005). On page 508 of this rather weighty tome, there is a listing for the RKO Keith’s which is accompanied by a photo of – you guessed it – the ticket lobby taken from an angle that reveals a good deal of the gallery above. It’s a small photo, but once I saw it, a light wisp of memory came floating back through my mind. I can’t believe I didn’t remember this feature at all… and it still remains only a faintly familiar detail.
Warren… there is absolutely no reason for you to be as snide and obnoxious as you are coming across in your last few posts on this page. Why are you trying to provoke an argument between yourself and Lost Memory? Or am I the only person who thinks this is what’s going on? It seems to me that a reasonably intelligent person such as yourself would understand that when Lost states “NYC shows a park at this address” it is obviously not meant to be taken so literally. A proclamation indeed! You know precisely what Lost meant, but you choose to go on the offensive and needle him instead! By starting this pointless thread with your post of 10:23am on Septmeber 17th, you have now crowded this page with the very sort of off topic gibberish you’ve been railing against on the Ridgewood and Willard pages. Give it a rest, please! If you’ve nothing intelligent or constructive to add to the conversation, why not do us all a favor and log off?!?
Lost… I did alot of that same research you did on the Madison, using the Times online archives. There are some gaps in what the Times has digitized, but I searched every single “Weekend Movie Clock” I could find from late 1977 through early 1978. The very latest Movie Clock where I could find the Madison listed was that 9/23/77 one. Here’s an image:
Looks like Dario Argento’s hypnotic thriller “Suspiria” was playing on a double bill, judging from the showing times. Perhaps it was paired with “Devil’s Express” as it seems to have been over at the Loew’s Metropolitan". Unfortunately, as you know, the archives are missing any Movie Clocks for the month of October and that first weekend in November so there is no way of knowing if there were other showings prior to 11/11/77. There is a 9/30/77 movie clock that does not list the Madison at all, but it seems that in many of these clocks, some of the boroughs and outlying areas got abreviated coverage (Queens would often be cut off alphabetically at Jackson Heights and the Jamaica theaters were frequently missing) so that’s really no positive verification. I think we’ve narrowed it down pretty well, however. Halloween ‘77 is probably a good recollection from Don Novack and gels with the sketchy info and other memories we have.
One down and three to go, Al. Is there any indication that the New Cinema Playhouse ever went porn? I’m sure some of those avant-garde works blurred the line in some views between art and porn.
In any event, as the Wurlitzer building is no more (gobbled up along with Henry Miller’s Theater for the rising Bank of America tower), the status for this theater should be changed to “demolished”.
Never heard of this one, but seems like it closed just a few years before my time frequenting the area – and I doubt I’d have ventured beyond 8th Ave in any event.
That address now corresponds with the Off-Broadway Little Shubert Theater, which opened in 2002 within a new 39 story apartment tower. The Shubert Organization (which runs the theater) claims it is the first Off-Broadway house to be built completely from the ground up – so we can safely update the 42nd Street Cinema’s status to “demolished”. Just about that whole side of the block between 9th Ave and Dyer has been built over with Off-B'way houses, including the Theatre Row and Playwrights Horizon complexes.
This website about the Little Shubert includes several photos of the new building’s exterior.
Never realized the above comment was broken… so here’s a fix.
Here’s a new link to the recent photo I posted in September. The old one no longer works.
Warren… Do you even read the posts that you attack so viciously and – seemingly – with impunity? The whole point that we “Cub Scouts” made in the posts above was to establish a proper address for the Hobart Theater, which, it turns out, is most definitely NOT at 51-05 31st Ave as you seemed to be so vehemently defending. When Lost Memory suggested that the 51-05 address was a city park, you responded with your typical condescension and instigated a good deal of ill-will on this page. The research that Lost and I did (separately but with a common goal) was the first to bear out what your photos and the newspaper clippings you recently posted have verified: that the Hobart was on the south side of 31st Ave at a building whose building lot address is 51-06 31st Avenue on a block bound by 51st and 54th Streets. Why do you persist in being so maddeningly obtuse and offensive? And why do you ridicule anyone else’s efforts to determine some facts here? You yourself have spent plenty of space on this site trying to confirm street addresses and verify that certain theaters never had the word “The” in their names… I mean, really!
Here is an image of the deed for the Hobart building… You can read the property description to verify it discusses the lot between 54th and 51st on the south side of 31st Ave and identifies the “premises being known as 51-06 31st Ave” and you may further note that the “Thirty First Avenue Theater Corp” conveyed the property in 1981. Do I get to graduate to the real Boy Scouts now? Do I get a badge? You know what… don’t even answer. Frankly, starting here and now I’m not going to concern myself further with any of your antagonisms. Except for maybe reporting to Patrick and Ross what a complete ass you are being of late. And if that comment gets me a warning and/or 1 day suspension, I think it would have been well worth it just to make sure for myself that the owners of this site have been made aware of how insidious your comments have become.
And if nothing comes of that? Well, then I guess the lesson for me would be that – just as in other Democracies – justice is not always evenly dispensed on CT.
Those Dracula flicks went on and on didn’t he? The old Count had more lives than a cat! And what great pains each film (at least in the original cycle of films set in the 19th Century) took to pick up from the point of Dracula’s demise in the previous film and play out his elaborate resurrection! While in Florida, I caught the first of those films to try and bring Dracula into modern times. Called “Dracula AD 1972”, it had Christopher Lee swinging with hippie occult-worshipping chicks in Mod London and saw it on a double bill at the Tropicaire Drive In. Some years later, they finally released the last of those Lee/Dracula films here in the states… another modern-set film titled “Satanic Rites of Dracula” that I caught on the bottom of a triple bill on 42nd Street under the title “Count Dracula and His Vampire Bride” in 1980 or ‘81, I think. I’m almost positive that was at the Liberty Theater.
Lost… I knew you were high brow. At the risk of veering off topic for a second, I recall my father taking me to see a double feature of the 1970 British horror-anthology “The House That Dripped Blood” which played on a double feature with the ‘66 Christopher Lee epic you mentioned, “Dracula: Prince of Darkness”. I can’t for the life of me remember where I saw the film, but I believe “House” was released here in the Spring of 1971. My family moved to Miami for a year towards the end of that summer and I’m pretty sure we saw the film while still in NYC. And me at the tender age of 6 and ½! Was that irresponsible of my dad? Ha… I never considered it. Those two flicks had some fairly gruesome scenes in them, despite the one being rated only PG and the other originally released here pre-MPAA ratings, but I don’t think it ruined me (no snickering). Anyway, if RobertR is out there listening, please post if you come across any ads for that twin bill, as I know you share a lot of 1970’s clippings with the group.
Also… I have to ask if any one is familiar with an online service called Newspaper Archive (at newspaperarchive.com). They claim to allow subscribers to view, download and print images of newspapers going back to 1759. They claim to have the largest such database available online and for a price that seems too good to be true, when you compare it to a service like Proquest. I’m tempted, but I don’t want to get bagged here. Anyone?
I think the image in the newspaper article confirms that we have the right building. I guess there was in fact a tunnel entrance under the peak of the facade on 31st which ran back to the auditorium, which was parallel to 31st, but set further back between 51st and 54th Streets. Decorative elements appear to have been removed and/or altered, losing the streamlined art deco look of the original facade. I’ll have to try and photograph the frontage as it exists today for comparison. So… I imagine the lobby ran straight back towards the auditorium allowing folks to enter at the cross aisle between the raised “smoking loge” on the left and the standard orchestra seating on the right. That would mean the screen wall ran at an angle to the outer wall on 51st, which probably created a vestibule for fire exits behind the screen leading to the street.
Fifty-first Street would be the street with the double yellow line on the right side of this view to the south also posted above.
Makes sense, RobertR. You and mike are right about the appeal of such a movie today. It would play in Manhattan and maybe Brooklyn Heights and then the Kew Gardens Cinemas and a select couple of theaters in Nassau and Suffolk. I’m not sure I’d draw the line along racial borders, so much as I would along much more arcane and harder to define economic and cultural borders. There was a version of Othello starring Laurence Fishburn released in the ‘90’s that did not get much play beyond the isle of Manhattan. It seems that these days, the only Shakespeare that translates across demographics is that in which swords and paternal clans are replaced by guns and modern day gangs (be it “West Side Story” or Baz Luhrman’s “Romeo and Juliet”). Come to think of it, there was also a modern day version of Othello with a high school setting called “O” not too long ago that was a minor success, relative to its small budget.
Thanks B'kylnJim… Appetite whetted! Poor Willis W. Smith! The little man – as ever – trampled under the corporate foot. I hope Hollingshead cashed in to his satisfaction. I fondly remember those intermission films! Sometimes that countdown clock wouldn’t move nearly as fast as I wanted. By the time I remember going to the Sunrise in the 1970’s those little films were chewed up pretty badly – I bet the countdown clock was off by more than just a few minutes due to the amount of dropped frames over the years. I remember the pizza at the Sunrise concession stand was about the worst slice of crap I’d ever tasted in my life! It consisted of a rectangular crust that seemed to be made of sheetrock, a dollop of brownish sauce and a smattering of shredded mozzarella. Sometimes the crust was so brittle, that a single bite would cause the slice to crack in half resulting in sauce spilt in your lap and the rubbery cheese topping hanging from your mouth after having slid off the sauce in one piece. Oh wait, was that the pizza in the Jamaica High School lunch room? My memories are so fuzzy!
I imagine Robert is referring to the fact that the Moor Othello was being portrayed by a white actor (Laurence Olivier), which might have fueled some fires in predominantly black neighborhoods during the heat of the Civil Rights movement.
No. 41st Road.
Anything-05 would be on the opposite side of 31st Ave. If you look at the first local.live image I posted above, that would be above the triangular Stroppoli Park. If you click and drag the image down, you’ll see that the 54-xx block is actually comprised of a large complex of apartment buildings. If the Hobart had an address on 31st Ave, it was definitely an even numbered one as would be appropriate for the south side of 31st Ave. Lost Memory has alreay found that a company called Thirty First Ave Theater Corp owned the building at 51-06 31st Ave that was later leased to the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company (the parent company of A&P supermarkets) in 1966. We have an image of a building at that address that seems to indicate it was a former movie theater. The theater seems to have closed sometime after 1964 (since I have posted an ad from ‘64) and the building we think was the Hobart looks to be occupied by a supermarket. Further, the block front on 31st Ave we are talking about is bounded by both 51st and 54th Streets, so a location of 31st Avenue and 54th street would be consistent with the 51-06 address.
I’d say we have what the judicial system would recognize as a preponderance of evidence supporting the argument that building identified above in the aerial shot at 51-06 31st Avenue is in fact the former Hobart Theater. Unless it is in one’s nature to be a kne-jerk gainsayer, I would presume that most reasonable people would agree with that assessment.
Scroll down to “Jackson Ave” on this website and you’ll find that 251 Jackson Ave converts to an approximate current address of 2401 Jackson Ave with a cross street around 45th Avenue – at least according to the webmaster’s calculations. I do not attest to the veracity of the information on this website, but I thought I’d share with anyone interested.
Here is a link to the main page were a number online resources for converting archaic addresses to their modern day equivalents (as well as other property data resources) are located.
Not sure how accurately this relates to the Idle Hour Theater. The northwest corner of Jackson and 45th Ave is the location of the 50-story Citicorp Building. Could the remains of the Idle Hour exist in the skyscraper’s shadow or be buried beneath its footprint? The description above mentions the Masonic Building across the street… is this structure still standing?
Here’s a website that has links to a number of seemingly cool resources that might be of service in trying to identify archaic street names and addresses in NYC. If one uses this particular page on Queens and looks up both Jagger and Prospect one will find that they were renamed Main Street and 41st Road, respectively.
I can’t testify as to the usefulness of some of the other resources linked from the main page, but they might be worth a look.
I believe the address above is incorrect. The odd number 51-05 places the lot on the north side of 31st Ave to the east of 51st Street, which is in fact a wedge-shaped parcel called Strippoli Park.
If you follow this link to local.live you should see an east facing view of the sort of X-shaped intersection of 31st Ave (running from top-middle to lower-left with a bend in the road) and 51st Street (running from top-left to lower-right). Strippoli Park is easily identifiable as the triangular wedge on the left side of 31st. If you scan down 51st Street to the right, I think the former Hobart is the structure with the white facade to the right of the attached building with the green roof and to the left of the apartment building. Open the local.live window to its maximum size and close the welcome pane at the left of the screen to get the best overview.
Here’s a view to the south where it is easier to pick up the theater’s profile. It looks as though there could have been a tunnel entrance under the green roof where the facade peaks on 31st Ave, but unless someone has a definite recollection, I wouldn’t run with that thought. I think the entrance was probably along the angled frontage along 51st Street where there now appears to be a supermarket.
A check on oasisnyc.com shows that the theater building and attached commercial structures are on a single lot with the address 51-06 31st Avenue. Unless there was a tunnel entrance to 31st, the Hobart most likely had an odd numbered street address like 31-06 51st Street. From the oasisnyc site, I was able to link to the building department site and find that among the various C of O’s issued for this big lot is one for a supermarket dated 1966 pursuant to an alteration permit issued in 1965. I think it’s a more than decent bet that this refers to the Hobart structure.
Perhaps Lost can provide further research to lock down the address and any other details pertaining to the theater? I can’t link to the oasisnyc site without screwing up the layout of this page, for some reason, but the block# is 1131 and the lot# is 22.
To get back on track, here are some ads from the early ‘60’s when nabe programs changed every 3 or 4 days (usually Wednesdays and Saturdays):
The Condemned of Altona – LI Star Journal 11/23/63
Battle of the Titans – LI Star Journal 11/25/63
Rampage – LI Star Journal 11/30/63
55 Days at Peking – LI Star Journal 5/18/64
Any idea when the Hobart closed?
It will be interesting to see if the Chamber of Commerce can secure a better print of a classic film than the bookers at the Zeigfeld Theater are typically able to obtain for their Classics series.
My name is actualy Ed Sol Ero.
Thanks, Ross. Sometimes our passions get the best of us. I’m actually quite pleased to know that some of these comments are being closely monitored, for I feel that there are definite instigators on this site who seem particularly skilled in the art of subtle agitation. While I agree that we should all turn the other cheek (and I shall endeavor to do so in the future), I only hope that those who are guilty of casting first stones are being properly warned by CT management to play nice.
Ah… “Master of the Flying Guillotine”… one of the chop-sockey genre’s greatest (and most outlandish) entries. A martial arts classic that was a key influence on a young Quentin Tarantino. But, let me stop this musing before Warren swoops in to admonish me and poke fun at all of us for quibbling over the RKO’s closing date!
Art… I mean, Warren… Are you accusing mike of not really being named mike? After all, in his moniker he has given us just as much information about his name as you have in yours. Anyway, I use my real name here… too bad decorum doesn’t allow me to express my real thoughts about the tenor of your postings on this site.
Great shot, ken. Click on the small photo to open it large. Judging by the titles on the marquee – Ralph Bellamy and Fay Wray in “Smashing the Spy Ring” and Ralph Byrd in “Fighting Thoroughbreds” – the photo dates to 1939.
The glass curtain would be almost as much of an insult to the theater’s landmark status as the destruction caused by Huang and his thugs. By the way, dave… I was perusing the shelves at Barnes and Noble the other day and found a book entitiled “The Landmarks of New York” by Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel (published 2005). On page 508 of this rather weighty tome, there is a listing for the RKO Keith’s which is accompanied by a photo of – you guessed it – the ticket lobby taken from an angle that reveals a good deal of the gallery above. It’s a small photo, but once I saw it, a light wisp of memory came floating back through my mind. I can’t believe I didn’t remember this feature at all… and it still remains only a faintly familiar detail.
Warren… there is absolutely no reason for you to be as snide and obnoxious as you are coming across in your last few posts on this page. Why are you trying to provoke an argument between yourself and Lost Memory? Or am I the only person who thinks this is what’s going on? It seems to me that a reasonably intelligent person such as yourself would understand that when Lost states “NYC shows a park at this address” it is obviously not meant to be taken so literally. A proclamation indeed! You know precisely what Lost meant, but you choose to go on the offensive and needle him instead! By starting this pointless thread with your post of 10:23am on Septmeber 17th, you have now crowded this page with the very sort of off topic gibberish you’ve been railing against on the Ridgewood and Willard pages. Give it a rest, please! If you’ve nothing intelligent or constructive to add to the conversation, why not do us all a favor and log off?!?
Lost… I did alot of that same research you did on the Madison, using the Times online archives. There are some gaps in what the Times has digitized, but I searched every single “Weekend Movie Clock” I could find from late 1977 through early 1978. The very latest Movie Clock where I could find the Madison listed was that 9/23/77 one. Here’s an image:
Brooklyn – 9/23/77
Looks like Dario Argento’s hypnotic thriller “Suspiria” was playing on a double bill, judging from the showing times. Perhaps it was paired with “Devil’s Express” as it seems to have been over at the Loew’s Metropolitan". Unfortunately, as you know, the archives are missing any Movie Clocks for the month of October and that first weekend in November so there is no way of knowing if there were other showings prior to 11/11/77. There is a 9/30/77 movie clock that does not list the Madison at all, but it seems that in many of these clocks, some of the boroughs and outlying areas got abreviated coverage (Queens would often be cut off alphabetically at Jackson Heights and the Jamaica theaters were frequently missing) so that’s really no positive verification. I think we’ve narrowed it down pretty well, however. Halloween ‘77 is probably a good recollection from Don Novack and gels with the sketchy info and other memories we have.