Both the Elgin and Winter Garden have projectors installed by Christie every September for the Toronto Film Festival. It’s a fairly major venue for the TIFF.
Sadly, this cinema was ruined on the morning of January 13, 2020, when a massive water main break in the neighborhood flooded its basement auditorium up to the ceiling, collapsing the walls and wiping out the projection room. It’s very sad to see this labor of love meet its end this way.
Photographs of the remains of the drive-in in October 2019 added. No sign of the screen tower, unfortunately. As you will see, the lot is quite overgrown with weeds.
Thank you, Robert Endres. If I may ask you, would you know about when the Zeiss machines were removed for the JJs? (not exactly, but ballpark is fine).
Can anyone say with confidence what kind of film projectors the Ziegfeld had? I know that they opened with Zeiss Favorit 35/70 machines which I saw in place around 1982 or so, but I seem to recall that they were taken out in the late eighties for … Century JJs? Does anyone know for sure?
R.I.P. Ben Barenholtz, owner of the Elgin May 1968 until pushed out by the building owner sometime in 1975. It was Ben who first decided it would be a good idea to run “El Topo” at midnight, thus beginning the “midnight movie” cult film craze. He followed it up with “Pink Flamingos” and “The Harder They Come”. Ben ran the theatre with Chuck Zlatkin and Steve Gould as his managers during a great era in repertory exhibition. He later began Libra Films, and was the first distributor of David Lynch’s “Eraserhead”, perhaps the ultimate midnight movie, and went on to start Circle Releasing, another speciality film distributor. Ben died in Prague on June 27, 2019, at age 83.
bigjoe59: I believe you are a bit confused, the Lincoln Plaza never reopened. You are seeing ads for the New Plaza Cinema, located across the street at the NYIT auditorium. This is a non-profit cinema guild that used to operate uptown at a Jewish Community Center. They are floating around the west side looking for a permanent home.
2001 is being presented in the Dome on 70mm in it’s correct aspect ratio of 2.20:1, as it was photographed. There is NO stretching or cropping. Period. Full stop.
Bolorkay: bad guest experiences are getting to be par-for-the-course at the GS16, especially since the Wanda take over of AMC. It seems like all they want to do is take care of their “Stubs” members, the rest can go scratch. I’m not going to pay $12.00 a year to be first in line to buy a $10.00 bag of popcorn, so you wind up being made to feel like a peasant both at the boxoffice and the concession line. Usually most of the self-ticketing machines are unresponsive, so just getting into the theatre becomes a chore. I’m avoiding this place at present in favor of the Nat'l Amusements Edgewater.
This place is nothing special. Expensive ($18.50) with smallish screens that have no masking whatsoever. The sound is pretty good. But the worst thing is the seats in the larger auditoriums, they force you to lean back, you cannot sit upright in them. Any bit of back pressure on the seat back causes it to recline and quite steeply, and they cannot be locked. If you don’t want to recline, you have to make a conscious effort to sit upright and hunch forward a bit. The smaller houses have conventional recliners that are just fine, but at least you get a choice if you want to kick back or not.
It was called “Pyramid” Mall because it was originally built by the Pyramid Corporation, a large developer of shopping centers. There were at one time many different malls that carried the name Pyramid in the northeast. They built and own DestiNY Mall in Syracuse.
To be fair Mike, Craig O'Connor of Clearview DID try to do what you suggested. If you go back to your own list and check the spring of 2008 and 2009, and various other days in 2010, there were classic films played at the Zieg, under the “Hollywood Classics” banner. I remember revivals of things like “Back To The Future”, “Grease”, “The Sound of Music” (both regular and sing-a-long versions), and other titles. They did OK, but did they make back the house expenses?
I loved the theatre as much as anyone here, but it is pointless to try to second-guess what should and shouldn’t have been booked there. At the end of the day, the place was too big and expensive to operate as a single screen, and while some big screen classics may have brought in some business during off weeks, none of us here can conclusively say that they would have made enough money to keep the place afloat, even at a break-even level.
BowTie is NOT a particularly big chain. AMC is a big chain, they have a new Dolby Vision PLF screen at the Empire and locations all over the city and the tristate area. Regal is a big chain, with large screens in Midtown and the Village. My bet is that Star Wars goes to AMC and the Ziegfeld gets Hateful 8.
SDDS was a film-only sound format. There is no digital projection version. It is no longer supported by Sony, although theaters that are still equipped with readers and who still receive 35mm prints that support the format can still play it.
This place has been advertised as reopening in “late 2014 or early 2015” but I walked past it today and it is totally gutted inside, with the roof opened in spots. I don’t see this opening much before late spring or summer. Wonder what the holdup is?
Does anyone have any idea what is happening at this place? There are no showtimes scheduled after tonight, and there is a cryptic note on their website about a “theatre outage” but no further information. I know this place isn’t getting the business it once did, but could it finally be over, or just another bedbug fumigation?
Can anybody state with accuracy what the projection throw distance was at the Zieg, and the lamphouse wattage? Thanks!
Both the Elgin and Winter Garden have projectors installed by Christie every September for the Toronto Film Festival. It’s a fairly major venue for the TIFF.
Belay my comment above. I heard something completely different today. One says it’s gone, the other says it’s staying. We’ll see.
I noticed a “PROPERTY AVAILABLE” sign on the theater today. I guess that’s a wrap for the Wayne 14.
Sadly, this cinema was ruined on the morning of January 13, 2020, when a massive water main break in the neighborhood flooded its basement auditorium up to the ceiling, collapsing the walls and wiping out the projection room. It’s very sad to see this labor of love meet its end this way.
Photographs of the remains of the drive-in in October 2019 added. No sign of the screen tower, unfortunately. As you will see, the lot is quite overgrown with weeds.
Closed and for sale as of July 2019.
Thank you, Robert Endres. If I may ask you, would you know about when the Zeiss machines were removed for the JJs? (not exactly, but ballpark is fine).
Can anyone say with confidence what kind of film projectors the Ziegfeld had? I know that they opened with Zeiss Favorit 35/70 machines which I saw in place around 1982 or so, but I seem to recall that they were taken out in the late eighties for … Century JJs? Does anyone know for sure?
R.I.P. Ben Barenholtz, owner of the Elgin May 1968 until pushed out by the building owner sometime in 1975. It was Ben who first decided it would be a good idea to run “El Topo” at midnight, thus beginning the “midnight movie” cult film craze. He followed it up with “Pink Flamingos” and “The Harder They Come”. Ben ran the theatre with Chuck Zlatkin and Steve Gould as his managers during a great era in repertory exhibition. He later began Libra Films, and was the first distributor of David Lynch’s “Eraserhead”, perhaps the ultimate midnight movie, and went on to start Circle Releasing, another speciality film distributor. Ben died in Prague on June 27, 2019, at age 83.
bigjoe59: I believe you are a bit confused, the Lincoln Plaza never reopened. You are seeing ads for the New Plaza Cinema, located across the street at the NYIT auditorium. This is a non-profit cinema guild that used to operate uptown at a Jewish Community Center. They are floating around the west side looking for a permanent home.
The theatre will cease operations on Tuesday, November 13, 2018.
2001 is being presented in the Dome on 70mm in it’s correct aspect ratio of 2.20:1, as it was photographed. There is NO stretching or cropping. Period. Full stop.
Bolorkay: bad guest experiences are getting to be par-for-the-course at the GS16, especially since the Wanda take over of AMC. It seems like all they want to do is take care of their “Stubs” members, the rest can go scratch. I’m not going to pay $12.00 a year to be first in line to buy a $10.00 bag of popcorn, so you wind up being made to feel like a peasant both at the boxoffice and the concession line. Usually most of the self-ticketing machines are unresponsive, so just getting into the theatre becomes a chore. I’m avoiding this place at present in favor of the Nat'l Amusements Edgewater.
This place is nothing special. Expensive ($18.50) with smallish screens that have no masking whatsoever. The sound is pretty good. But the worst thing is the seats in the larger auditoriums, they force you to lean back, you cannot sit upright in them. Any bit of back pressure on the seat back causes it to recline and quite steeply, and they cannot be locked. If you don’t want to recline, you have to make a conscious effort to sit upright and hunch forward a bit. The smaller houses have conventional recliners that are just fine, but at least you get a choice if you want to kick back or not.
It was called “Pyramid” Mall because it was originally built by the Pyramid Corporation, a large developer of shopping centers. There were at one time many different malls that carried the name Pyramid in the northeast. They built and own DestiNY Mall in Syracuse.
Unless this thread is intended to stay exclusively about the old place, the theatre address is now 120 East Green St., and it is now five screens.
Closed as of 2/21/16.
Theater now closed.
To be fair Mike, Craig O'Connor of Clearview DID try to do what you suggested. If you go back to your own list and check the spring of 2008 and 2009, and various other days in 2010, there were classic films played at the Zieg, under the “Hollywood Classics” banner. I remember revivals of things like “Back To The Future”, “Grease”, “The Sound of Music” (both regular and sing-a-long versions), and other titles. They did OK, but did they make back the house expenses?
I loved the theatre as much as anyone here, but it is pointless to try to second-guess what should and shouldn’t have been booked there. At the end of the day, the place was too big and expensive to operate as a single screen, and while some big screen classics may have brought in some business during off weeks, none of us here can conclusively say that they would have made enough money to keep the place afloat, even at a break-even level.
BowTie is NOT a particularly big chain. AMC is a big chain, they have a new Dolby Vision PLF screen at the Empire and locations all over the city and the tristate area. Regal is a big chain, with large screens in Midtown and the Village. My bet is that Star Wars goes to AMC and the Ziegfeld gets Hateful 8.
SDDS was a film-only sound format. There is no digital projection version. It is no longer supported by Sony, although theaters that are still equipped with readers and who still receive 35mm prints that support the format can still play it.
This place has been advertised as reopening in “late 2014 or early 2015” but I walked past it today and it is totally gutted inside, with the roof opened in spots. I don’t see this opening much before late spring or summer. Wonder what the holdup is?
Belay that last post. Showtimes now up, but “theatre outage” note still there. Hmmm.
Does anyone have any idea what is happening at this place? There are no showtimes scheduled after tonight, and there is a cryptic note on their website about a “theatre outage” but no further information. I know this place isn’t getting the business it once did, but could it finally be over, or just another bedbug fumigation?