Movie-Plex 42
244 W. 42nd Street,
New York,
NY
10036
244 W. 42nd Street,
New York,
NY
10036
9 people
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Okay thanks!
It closed in March of 1996.
probably in 1998 or 1999
What year did this theater closed
1972 photo added via Photographs From The 1970s Facebook page.
1971 photo added of the Roxy Bulesk/Joy 42nd Street Theatre marquee. Thanks to Ed Solero for the detective work.
Thanks, neeb. I love that site. By the way, the photo at the bottom of that page is actually of the other Roxy porn house that was immediately adjacent to the New Amsterdam Theatre – and does not have a listing here yet.
Anyway, here’s an active link to that page you posted.
Some good info here: http://www.grindhousedatabase.com/index.php/Roxy_Twin
KingBiscuits, you might as well be talking about the old 42nd Street grindhouses, which the Movie-Plex replaced. Each of them were doing quite well on weekends and were only closed when they were evicted by the city for redevelopment.
As it turns out, the theatre actually did rather well in its short time span. Fridays and Saturdays reportedly had many sellouts and the theatre attracted many teens and couples. The theatre actually closed due to the city evicting the old tenants of 42nd Street despite business. The owners later sued the city but I don’t know how that went.
I remember seeing Cowboy Way here. Does anyone else remember that some of the last surviving cinemas on the deuce in the early 90’s used to show pictures that were opening on Friday on the Thursday night preceding. I believe there was about 2 theaters then. I can remember seeing Mother’s Boys with Jamie Lee Curtis and Naked Gun 33 1/3 double billed on the Thursday night before they opened the next day everywhere else. Saw a few other pics at Movie-Plex 42 but don’t remember what.
Movie-Plex 42 opened on June 24th, 1994 with the films Wolf, Speed, City Slickers II, The Cowboy Way, The Flintstones and Getting Even With Dad.
Later in the year, business apparently was so bad that they started doing shows at 2:00 am to get the target crowd. And they also ran some kids movies there like The Pagemaster. Imagine watching something like that in the old Times Square.
Roxy Twin should be added as an aka here.
It was the only grindhouse in town after the Harris was shuttered. I liked the switching auditoriums, walking in and out of different movies. And they weren’t all on the same floor, which means you had to do a little research to see the movies you wanted.
I remember, though, that the theaters weren’t as darkly lit as their forebears — and the ushers more vigilant — which made some patrons a bit self-conscious about smoking weed right in the theater. Luckily there was an open fire escape in the rear that filled the bill.
Tkinz… this must have definitely been the Deuce movie-going experience at its very nadir! Mercifully, the theater’s existence was very short-lived.
I went to this theater once – opening weekend of “Pulp Fiction” – all other theaters were sold out, but this one you could walk right in. An unbelievable experience, but kindof fitting for that movie – people shouting, snoring and breaking bottles along with a constant stream of transients coming in and out. Needless to say, the projection and sound were terrible, and the whole experience was like being in a dirty, smelly plywood shack.
Things apparently were off to a rocky start immediately for the doomed MoviePlex 42, as an usher was shot and wounded outside the theater in September 1994.
query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=980CEFDA153AF937A1575AC0A962958260
I recall waiting many months for the MoviePlex 42 to finally open. A poster for Chuck Norris in Hellbound seemed to be up there forever before the plex finally opened. The place didn’t have much atmosphere and represented a sad harbinger of things to come (and all too quickly at that) but was better than nothing during the short time it existed.
2 West 59th Street tracks as the Plaza Hotel so it is probably the venue address before it became a theatre with an entrance on Central Park South.
LOL. I think that wwbsite is a time travel portal. Just what we needed here!
Sheesh, Al… when was the last time that page was updated? The David is still listed as are the Cinema III (in the Plaza Hotel) and the Hollywood on 8th Ave. Not sure I’d classify the Cinema III address at 2 West 59th Street as “Clinton”, however. It might be interesting to search different nieghborhoods on the site to see what other old listings and addresses are still there.
To try and answer my own question from Jan 30th, perhaps Movieplex 42 was created in the space formerly occupied by the 2nd Roxy Twin that opened between the Empire and Anco in the late ‘70’s or '80’s? I forgot there were two Roxy locations and the address seems right.
The Zami Yellow pages:
http://newyork.zami.com/Movie_Theater/Clinton
Still list this as 244 W. 42nd street.
Bless!
What former porn theater was this short lived multi-plex carved from? The Anco Theater’s address is listed on this site as having been 254 W. 42nd and #234 is the address given for the old Liberty Theater entrance. Number 244 would have been somewhere in between and I can’t recall a porn theater being in this vicinity. The only actual porn theaters I remember from the block were the Harem (across the street) and then the Victory, Rialto and Roxy on the eastern end of the block. Perhaps it was a peep-show and video store? I have a photo of the Harris (at #226) from 1993 and I believe there is a sign advertising the Movieplex 42 as “coming soon.”
It’s silly, but I want to cry over this being gone. We were so broke when we got married in 10/94 that our honeymoon consisted of going into Manhattan to see J&MC at Academy, then “Exit to Eden” (which was playing with some awful VanDamme film which put us both to sleep) while we were waiting for our ride to get out of another concert.
So not everyone has bad memories of it :) Just of Rosie O'Donnell in that movie.
It turned into a “Crackhouse”!