Yes. Searched the TimesMachine for an ad for this double-feature but could not find one, unfortunately. This pic was taken sometime of the week beginning Aug. 20, 1945.
It’s possible the photo was taken earlier. The overview states that Loew’s Delancey was a vaudeville house from inception (1912) to 1917 when it went to full-time motion picture showing.
The overview for this theater is woefully inadequate. One post from around 2006 has a more thorough history, but I can’t seem to find what year it finally went out of business or what was playing there in its final days. Still gay porn? Anybody know of its fate?
Anyone have an idea what film was playing here? An “international spectacle” of…? With ROME in the title as the last word. Assuming the letters “-LONE” were part of the last name of a star in the film. Raf Vallone? Somebody Malone?
King Hing still standing as of Feb. 2017 per Google maps. You can glimpse the vertical marquee in the distance down N. Spring St (from Ord St.) in Polanski’s CHINATOWN (1974). Presumably the entire climax of the film was filmed on that block of N. Spring between Ord St. & W. Cesar Estrada Chavez Avenue. See accompanying screen shot from CHINATOWN in King Hing photos..
@NYer “What were they thinking?” Indeed. The age-old preservationist’s lament, echoed down through history. Living in Manhattan and being one who bows down at the rapidly vanishing glorious cathedrals of live as well as filmed performance, I often find myself traveling through Times Square, and in my mind, ennobling that forsaken wasteland with memories of the ghosts of movie palaces past.
For what it’s worth, the NY Times has an article about an incident that took place outside the Waco Theatre on January 8, 1922. The article itself appeared the following day, Jan. 9, 1922, on the front page of the Times. It mentions that the address of the Waco was at 130 Rivington St.
Enrnie Pyle (1900-1945) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who was an American war correspondent at the time of death during World War II. He had moved to Albuquerque in 1940 and maintained a residence there until his death in April 1945, about a year and a half before this theater was named & opened in his honor.
Saw this same ad listed in the NYTimes Dec. 19, 1941 and got curious. Searched CT for about half an hour looking for this iteration of the Cinema Verdi, until I randomly clicked on the Arena Theater and found that it had later changed its name. There’s gotta be a better way to cross-reference the name changes so readers don’t have to waste time playing a guessing game.
Somebody felt the need to get a lot of coverage of 10 Days in a Nudist Camp. IMDB lists it as a 1952 documentary by Samuel Cummins ~ “A documentary that profiles nudism and its lifestyle around the world.” Reviewer comments are none too favorable.
Love the play on “Cinerama.” All those old buildings on the south side of 42nd St east of 8th Avenue stretching to the McGraw-Hill Building torn down to make way for the hideous Port Authority bus station. And so the empire that was once known as New York City came slowly, inevitably to its demise.
Agreed, the sale of the Mark Hellinger was so shortsighted by the Nederlander Organization. $17 millions now seems a pittance for that kind of real estate; maybe it was even then (air rights, anyone?). The church can be commended for being a fine caretaker of the space, but the Broadway community would now kill these days for a theater that gorgeous and of that size to be able to house live theater again. By all rights, it should. A church can occupy just about any space it wants. Old Broadway houses once gone, are gone for good. They will never build a new comparable sized house with the same attention to detail and aesthetics. Unlikely the current owners of Times Square would ever sell the place back to one of the three big Broadway landlords, but if they do, they should ask for the moon.
For what it’s worth, there was a movie theatre at or around 50 Cours Mirabeau as far back as 1983. I post my comment here as this theatre is the closest of Aix’s 3 existing theatres to 50 Cours Mirabeau.
I was in Aix that spring visiting a girlfriend who was doing a bus & truck tour of West Side Story through Europe. They settled in to Aix for about 3 nights around Palm Sunday and performed on a small stage at the Rex, which, as I recall, was normally a cinema but was also hosted live events. The performers complained of the cramped stage and cramped backstage performing their musical, but it wasn’t built for stage shows. It was a movie house. Or had been a small legit theatre originally and converted to a cinema at some point. I guess that the theatre maybe dated back to the teens or 1920s. Seated mybe 500-600. Quaint. Charming outer box office and open air lobby beneath the big marquee that read “REX.” A return visit in summer of 1992 saw that the theatre was closed and awaiting renovation into apartments; the complex was to be called the “Rex.” A recent look at Google maps shows no Rex apartment building but there appears to be a newish building modeled in the style of older ones along the Cours Mirabeau.
Don’t imagine this entry gets too much traffic, but curious to know if anyone recalls an old deco theatre (maybe from the ‘20s or '30s) either on 101 or S. Cedros just south of Lomas Santa Fe? It had a period vertical neon sign, I believe it was called the Solana. I went there twice as a kid in the summers of 1974 and '75, seeing Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid and The Towering Inferno, respectively. Butch was a re-issue that summer and Inferno was a straggler in a prolonged second-run showing at this theatre, 2nd-runs being probably all it was showing by this point in its history. Big auditorium, maybe 900-1000 seats, but looking somewhat derelict inside. Hardly anyone in the house at either screening (matinees, I think) except my brother and I. Don’t know when it would have closed, but a return visit to Solana Beach in 1992 saw that it had been taken over by a used furniture store. The vertical sign was stil extant, but maybe the lettering was missing. Looking at Google maps now, it must have been demolished; there’s no trace of it either on 101 or South Cedros.
Yes, it’s a classic theater that deserves to be restored and showing repertory fare, like the Castro or the Stanford. Trouble will always be parking on Solano Avenue.
Truly remarkable. Opened in 1915, lasted for 92 years before it met the wrecking ball.
Yes. Searched the TimesMachine for an ad for this double-feature but could not find one, unfortunately. This pic was taken sometime of the week beginning Aug. 20, 1945.
It’s possible the photo was taken earlier. The overview states that Loew’s Delancey was a vaudeville house from inception (1912) to 1917 when it went to full-time motion picture showing.
Any idea what the old auditorium is used for now? Is it part of the medical clinic, presumably?
The overview for this theater is woefully inadequate. One post from around 2006 has a more thorough history, but I can’t seem to find what year it finally went out of business or what was playing there in its final days. Still gay porn? Anybody know of its fate?
An ignominious end for a grand old dame.
Anyone have an idea what film was playing here? An “international spectacle” of…? With ROME in the title as the last word. Assuming the letters “-LONE” were part of the last name of a star in the film. Raf Vallone? Somebody Malone?
This was other Globe on the west side of Broadway, not the re-named New York Theatre of 1958 and afterwards.
King Hing still standing as of Feb. 2017 per Google maps. You can glimpse the vertical marquee in the distance down N. Spring St (from Ord St.) in Polanski’s CHINATOWN (1974). Presumably the entire climax of the film was filmed on that block of N. Spring between Ord St. & W. Cesar Estrada Chavez Avenue. See accompanying screen shot from CHINATOWN in King Hing photos..
@NYer “What were they thinking?” Indeed. The age-old preservationist’s lament, echoed down through history. Living in Manhattan and being one who bows down at the rapidly vanishing glorious cathedrals of live as well as filmed performance, I often find myself traveling through Times Square, and in my mind, ennobling that forsaken wasteland with memories of the ghosts of movie palaces past.
And now, the Sunshine is gone, too.
For what it’s worth, the NY Times has an article about an incident that took place outside the Waco Theatre on January 8, 1922. The article itself appeared the following day, Jan. 9, 1922, on the front page of the Times. It mentions that the address of the Waco was at 130 Rivington St.
An actual tree on the Deuce (upper right corner), on the north side. Impossible to believe.
And so it sits there, 42nd Street’s version of a Roman ruin, awaiting rediscovery & reuse, or the wrecking ball.
Enrnie Pyle (1900-1945) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who was an American war correspondent at the time of death during World War II. He had moved to Albuquerque in 1940 and maintained a residence there until his death in April 1945, about a year and a half before this theater was named & opened in his honor.
Saw this same ad listed in the NYTimes Dec. 19, 1941 and got curious. Searched CT for about half an hour looking for this iteration of the Cinema Verdi, until I randomly clicked on the Arena Theater and found that it had later changed its name. There’s gotta be a better way to cross-reference the name changes so readers don’t have to waste time playing a guessing game.
Somebody felt the need to get a lot of coverage of 10 Days in a Nudist Camp. IMDB lists it as a 1952 documentary by Samuel Cummins ~ “A documentary that profiles nudism and its lifestyle around the world.” Reviewer comments are none too favorable.
Love the play on “Cinerama.” All those old buildings on the south side of 42nd St east of 8th Avenue stretching to the McGraw-Hill Building torn down to make way for the hideous Port Authority bus station. And so the empire that was once known as New York City came slowly, inevitably to its demise.
No other Shakespeare film adaptation probably ever saw a crowd like this.
Agreed, the sale of the Mark Hellinger was so shortsighted by the Nederlander Organization. $17 millions now seems a pittance for that kind of real estate; maybe it was even then (air rights, anyone?). The church can be commended for being a fine caretaker of the space, but the Broadway community would now kill these days for a theater that gorgeous and of that size to be able to house live theater again. By all rights, it should. A church can occupy just about any space it wants. Old Broadway houses once gone, are gone for good. They will never build a new comparable sized house with the same attention to detail and aesthetics. Unlikely the current owners of Times Square would ever sell the place back to one of the three big Broadway landlords, but if they do, they should ask for the moon.
I must have walked past that marquee because I marched that day with the protesters from the Village to Central Park.
Visited here in summer of 2011, but did not go inside. Posted a photo of the exterior. Maybe built in the 1930s or not too long after the war?
For what it’s worth, there was a movie theatre at or around 50 Cours Mirabeau as far back as 1983. I post my comment here as this theatre is the closest of Aix’s 3 existing theatres to 50 Cours Mirabeau.
I was in Aix that spring visiting a girlfriend who was doing a bus & truck tour of West Side Story through Europe. They settled in to Aix for about 3 nights around Palm Sunday and performed on a small stage at the Rex, which, as I recall, was normally a cinema but was also hosted live events. The performers complained of the cramped stage and cramped backstage performing their musical, but it wasn’t built for stage shows. It was a movie house. Or had been a small legit theatre originally and converted to a cinema at some point. I guess that the theatre maybe dated back to the teens or 1920s. Seated mybe 500-600. Quaint. Charming outer box office and open air lobby beneath the big marquee that read “REX.” A return visit in summer of 1992 saw that the theatre was closed and awaiting renovation into apartments; the complex was to be called the “Rex.” A recent look at Google maps shows no Rex apartment building but there appears to be a newish building modeled in the style of older ones along the Cours Mirabeau.
Don’t imagine this entry gets too much traffic, but curious to know if anyone recalls an old deco theatre (maybe from the ‘20s or '30s) either on 101 or S. Cedros just south of Lomas Santa Fe? It had a period vertical neon sign, I believe it was called the Solana. I went there twice as a kid in the summers of 1974 and '75, seeing Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid and The Towering Inferno, respectively. Butch was a re-issue that summer and Inferno was a straggler in a prolonged second-run showing at this theatre, 2nd-runs being probably all it was showing by this point in its history. Big auditorium, maybe 900-1000 seats, but looking somewhat derelict inside. Hardly anyone in the house at either screening (matinees, I think) except my brother and I. Don’t know when it would have closed, but a return visit to Solana Beach in 1992 saw that it had been taken over by a used furniture store. The vertical sign was stil extant, but maybe the lettering was missing. Looking at Google maps now, it must have been demolished; there’s no trace of it either on 101 or South Cedros.
Yes, it’s a classic theater that deserves to be restored and showing repertory fare, like the Castro or the Stanford. Trouble will always be parking on Solano Avenue.