LOL Comedy Lounge
711 7th Avenue,
New York,
NY
10036
711 7th Avenue,
New York,
NY
10036
4 people
favorited this theater
Showing 1 - 25 of 55 comments
And it’s gone. Walked by last week and the building is completely demolished. So this needs to be marked as closed.
Note that it’s been the LOL comedy club since no later than August 2015, per Google streetview.
This site is now the LOL comedy club.
Just posted a pic I found on a Facebook group (The Forty-Deuce), labeled 1984 and credited to Kent Almqvist. It shows this theater under the banner of “The Big Apple Theater,” showing Caligula on one screen (in English with Spanish subtitles) and porno double bill on the other. Same Big Apple lettering and logo as the former Globe down on Broadway between 43rd and 42nd Streets. I guess we can add that to the list of names for this cinema. I don’t personally recall it ever being the Big Apple, and 1984 would have been a time of frequent visits to the area for me!
Looking at the photo section it looks like Show Follies and Peepland were next to each other at the same time and that Peepland was NOT another name for this theatre.
1978 photo added courtesy of Al Ponte’s Time Machine – New York Facebook page.
Undated marquee photo added, photo credit Stephen Harmon.
The theatre began its association with City Cinemas around November or December 1988. The first two movies I noticed on the City Cinemas block ad printed were Crossing Delancey and Mystic Pizza (both films deep into their runs).
Some films that the Cine Twin played in 1987 (the first year that the theatre was listed in the New York Times):
Platoon (second run)
Commando Squad (first run)
Beverly Hills Cop II (second run)
Dragnet (second run)
Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs (first run)
Adventures In Babysitting (second run)
Can’t Buy Me Love (second run)
The Garbage Pail Kids Movie (first run)
He’s My Girl (first run)
Barfly (second run)
Teen Wolf Too (second run)
The Stranger (first run, Manhattan exclusive)
Home Is Where The Hart Is (first run, Manhattan exclusive)
Leonard Part 6 (first run, on both screens)
That pic above as the Fantasy I believe was the last time it was used as a theatre. Here it is as a Spanish Twin
View link
As the Fantasy Twin, although I don’t remember it being called that.
View link
Cine 1 & 2 and the Embassy 2-3-4 on May 7, 1981
I think an AKA should be added here for Show Follies. The 1993 image I posted back on September 12, 2006, shows that the marquee boasts of “4 Theaters” showing “8 (XXX) Movies.” These may well have been video projections, but they were projections of feature movies nonetheless and would qualify as cinema (albeit in its absolute lowest form). AlAlvarez also posted of a Jocx cinema located at this address and advertised in a 1989 issue of the Village Voice as featuring all-male porn. I presume that these programs were presented in a separate area (perhaps upstairs) from the original Cine 1 & 2 auditoriums during the West Side Cine days. This space was likely re-used when Richard Basciano took over the entire facility and opened up as Show Follies.
And to see the posts of old newspaper movie ads is a real treat, too.
Ha ha, saps. I’ll try not to take it too personally if it does come to that.
I’m still trying to figure out why anyone would be making arrogant remarks in the first place (though, given some of the cantankerous know-it-alls we encounter on this site, I’m hardly surprised). All CT members should be thankful that Hollywood was eager to share his photographs with us. I would think that such posts are among the most (if not THE most) popular kinds of submissions on the site. It’s one thing to wax poetic about a vanished cinema treasure – but to offer up an image of that which no longer exists (regardless of one’s definition of “treasure”) would seem to me to be an invaluable contribution.
Hey Ed, if Hollywood emails you some of his photos (and he has posted tons) maybe you could re-post them. And then we can rip YOU a new one!
That’s a crying shame, Hollywood. Email me privately, please. I loved your collection and would love to see some of the latter photos you posted since I was last on here (I’ve been on a CT sabbatical) if we can arrange it. On behalf of the good citizens of NYC, may I say we’re not all that bad! Thanks so much!
Hey Gencin… The Cine 1 & 2 were actually on the same block just a few doors up from the Embassy 2-3-4. The Criterion was a couple of blocks in the other direction (past the Embassy 1).
Hey Hollywood… I’m sorry to hear that. Mind if I ask why? You can email me privately if you like:
This was a weird rheater. I remember my Dad taking me here in ‘88 as a kid to see “Shakedown” The auditoriums were down in the basement and it smelled bad. It was creepy. Cine 2 was showing some odd art house film called “Girl On A Swing”. I remember passing by here in Dec. of '89 and shocked to see this theater with two huge first run films" “The Little Mermaid” and “Christmas Vacation”. I believe this theater was sandwiched somewhere between the Embassy 2-3-4 and the Criterion Center. As bad as all theese theaters may have been, they sure looked pretty all lit up in a row at night. There was nothing like it. Times Square has lost all it’s original charm. It’s sad.
Hollywood… have you moved your photos to a new server? None of your links to Photobucket seem to work any more.
You can still see live naked girls just a block say from the New Amsterdam and there are three porn bookstores in a row on 41st street and 8th.
Don’t believe all the Guliani hype.
This theater was a scary roach trap, even in its “West Side Cinema” days, when it booked movies from Troma and from Sony’s schlock theatrical distribution arm, SVS Films. When I saw an Australian horror-thriller called VICIOUS in this dump in 1989, renovations were being done on the concession stand and I had to listen to buzzsaws whining through the entire movie.
That shot is 1993, not 1992 (as the link implies)… my typo.
Here’s a shot of the theater in October of 1993 when it was the Show Follies porn palace.
Show Follies and Embassy 2 3 4 – 1992
The Embassy 2, 3, 4 is still running at the time. Out of frame and to the left on the corner of 48th and 7th would have been the Doll Theater, which was closed sometime earlier and featured a mix of live sex shows and films. RobertR created a listing for the Doll and posted a great photo featuring a shot of the Cine 1 and 2 in its Spanish language days.