Criterion Theatre
1514 Broadway,
New York,
NY
10036
1514 Broadway,
New York,
NY
10036
18 people
favorited this theater
Showing 376 - 400 of 440 comments found
I remember the Palace having movies in the late 60’s until they booked Applause with Lauren Bacall. It’s been a legit house ever since.
Warren, The Palace will open the musical “All Shook Up” on
March 24 2005 with previews beginning on February 20, 2005
In the meanwhile, Vanessa Williams and Linda Elder have scheduled concerts in December. Wouldn’t it be fun to use the some of the dark time till Jan 20 with vaudeville shows and a movie? like the ole days. Yeah … that I’ll happen.
Which theater r u talking about Warren?
The theatre has no stage facilities, which would be a problem unless Disney wanted to show only movies there. But why would it when “exclusive” runs are no longer feasible? For stage productions, Disney already has the New Amsterdam, and makes deals with other “legit” houses when the need arises. The closing of Disney’s “Aida” has left the Palace dark, and “Lion King” will eventually have to be replaced at the New Amsterdam.
Marty,
The Criterion was a very elegant Art Deco theater with excellent sightlines. A spacious but not too large theater where the large screen was perfectly placed head on in front of the theater. It showed of its product as if they were jewels. Unless you were there during it’s heyday it’s hard to see in pictures what is more obvious in the old black and white photos of the Roccoco spectaculars built in the 20’s.
It was one of New York’s great movie theaters.
I agree with an earlier post, Disney should purchase the Embassy 2,3,4 aka Demille and restore it like the El Capitan in CA. They could have also purchased the Times Square theater.
Marty, we are all in mourning for these magnificent theatres, the likes of which we will never see again.
The Criterion was better known for it’s 50’s and 60’s attractions rather than it’s interior beauty.Like the DeMille (previously the Mayfair, since devided and now left to rot)it was basically 3 walls and a screen. Where was everybody when they demolished the Roxy, the Rivoli, the Paramount,the Strand, (the backstage of which became a porno house in the 70’s!)and the State?!
UA certainly did run down the Criterion. The last films I saw there was “My Best Friend’s Wedding” and “Ten Things I Hate About You.” Here’s what I wrote about it in the late 90s.
The one and only time I was in this theatre, until last year, it was to see Presumed Innocent. That was a few years ago, and it was a rather abysmal experience. Times Square was a much different place, and at any hour, even the early afternoon, was an opportunity to be surrounded by teenage delinquents or worse. The one time I was there, the fire alarm went off during the climax of the film. Of course, there was no fire, and of course, there was no one getting up to leave the movie either.
All that has changed, although the theatres themselves do not seem so different. A recent trip (to see My Best Friend’s Wedding) shows a whole different sort of clientele. The couple in front of me where speaking Russian and the man behind me only spoke French. The seats are still old; not the newer more comfortable ones theatres are installing when they renovate or are built new.
There are six theatres and they are split into two levels with separate entrances. This helps reduce sneaking into extra screenings, although once inside, it seems rather easy to walk into a second movie after having just seen one.
UA certainly did run down the Criterion. The last films I saw there was “My Best Friend’s Wedding” and “Ten Things I Hate About You.” Here’s what I wrote about it in the late 90s.
The one and only time I was in this theatre, until last year, it was to see Presumed Innocent. That was a few years ago, and it was a rather abysmal experience. Times Square was a much different place, and at any hour, even the early afternoon, was an opportunity to be surrounded by teenage delinquents or worse. The one time I was there, the fire alarm went off during the climax of the film. Of course, there was no fire, and of course, there was no one getting up to leave the movie either.
All that has changed, although the theatres themselves do not seem so different. A recent trip (to see My Best Friend’s Wedding) shows a whole different sort of clientele. The couple in front of me where speaking Russian and the man behind me only spoke French. The seats are still old; not the newer more comfortable ones theatres are installing when they renovate or are built new.
There are six theatres and they are split into two levels with separate entrances. This helps reduce sneaking into extra screenings, although once inside, it seems rather easy to walk into a second movie after having just seen one.
Wow.
Its to bad that some of the historic movie palaces of Times Sqaure weren’t given air rights the way most of the historic Broadway Legit theatres were given. This encouraged the Legit theatre owners to restore/renovate many of there theatres.The Palace and the Broadway were encorporated in a build over of a new building,this may have saved the Rivoli and a few others.The Criterion and the Rivoli were the perfect houses for the big musicals,but they didn’t have stage houses.I think the master plan in NYC was to revive 42nd St and many of its theatres and rebuild Times Square with new buildings. The revival of the Times Square moved much faster than people imagined and I think it caught the City by surprise. The revival of Times Square was good for the Legit community which had been pushing for a cleaner Times Square for many years,but caused us to loose the last of our big movie palaces in Times Square. Los Angeles is now the only big city to retain most of its big time movie palaces both Downtown and in Hollywood.Downtown Hollywood has restored/renovated all of its movie palaces with the exception of the Hollywood Pacific(Warner).The restored movie palaces of Hollywood would include the Chinese,El Capitan,Pantages and ongoing work on the Music Box(Henry Fonda).The Egyptian had been renovated but not restored and the Cinerama Dome though not a movie palace has also been renovated.The Vogue,Fox,New View,Holly,Hollywood and Vine are not movie palaces and have either closed or are used for other purposes. The Holly has been gutted and only the Vine still show movies.brucec
There’s a saying that “The old becomes the new,” and that seems to be the rule in the Broadway-Times Square area. The oldest buildings are always the targets for replacement by new ones. I’m surprised that the Paramount Building, which opened in 1926 at 1501 Broadway, still stands, but its turn will come eventually. It was still a comparative newcomer when the Astor Hotel was demolished.
It was very frustrating during the 70’s and 80’s seeing two beautiful NY buildings like the Criterion and the Rivoli being so badly utilized while the comparatively worthless Astor Plaza and Ziegfeld were treated like jewels. For some reason when the 60’s became the 70’s both these theaters became undesirable dumping grounds but they were exactly as they were in the 60’s when they were the most desirable bookings in NY. Is it simply location? The destruction of the Astor Hotel was the worst thing to happen to Times Square and it has never recovered(unless of course you consider a New Jersey by way of Tokyo shopping mall an improvement.)
Virtually nothing ever built in the Times Square area has proved “permanent.” The real estate is too valuable, so the owners are always ready to sell if a buyer offers the right price. The Toys ‘R Us chain is reported near bankruptcy, so that Times Square store seems likely to close before the site gets re-developed.
Thanks BR. I didn’t know they split the orchestra. I rememebr seeing Bette Midler in Divine Madness there in 70mm. I sat up in the balcony. I am glad I got to see it before they carved it up. I was also lucky enough to have been to the Rivoli many times before they carved that up.
The Criterion couldn’t have survived after the AMC Empire 25 opened and had already begun to suffer (as did the other Times Square movie houses) after the opening of the Loews 42nd Street E-Walk in November of 1999. Two harsh realities helped contribute to the downfall of the Criterion: studios always want to book their product into the top available venues, and the best ones at that (i.e., ones with stadium seating, etc.), which means that older sites within or close to the same booking zone traditionally become little more than move-over houses or dumping spots for films that stand zero chance of doing bang-up business and of turning any sort of profit. Studios also, quite often, won’t book their product into two sites within the same zone (the E-Walk and Astor Plaza double-bookings being a unique circumstance because of their Times Square location, along with the movie-going crowds drawn to the area; the prestige house the Astor Plaza was – as opposed to the carve-up job the Criterion became; and Loews keeping the revenue the Astor Plaza strong, or at the least, solid, by limiting most of the films it ran in concurrence with the E-Walk to 2-3 week engagements).
(To answer your other question, Mike, the Criterion’s layout, at the end, was as follows: orchestra split left/right – auditoriums 1 and 2; balcony – auditorium 3; basement/former lounge area – auditoriums 4 through 7.)
If the Moss family still owns the building, why did they allow the theater to be closed and a stupid toy store open? When they first divided the theater in the 80’s they just divided the original theater in 2. The orchestra was kept intact and the balcony was made theater 2. Did UA divide the orchestra after they took over?
The block the Criterion sits on is waiting for a major high rise development.The Moss family still owns the building and is waiting for the right project.The Toys R Us was only temprorary,so the Criterion would have been lost anyway.The Criterion was a modern showcase for the roadshow attraction but the Rivoli was more of a movie palace.When the Criterion was plexed it would have been smarter of UA to have left the orchestra section alone along with the big screen. Then again UA was not very smart and was one of the worst operators of the large circuits.brucec
The final features shown at the Criterion, which closed one week after the AMC Empire 25 on 42nd Street opened its doors to the public in April of 2002, were ‘Black and White’ (on 2 screens), ‘Boys Don’t Cry’, ‘The Cider House Rules’, ‘High Fidelity’, ‘The Hurricane’, and ‘The Sixth Sense’, which, from the day it opened at the Criterion, wound up having a nine-month engagement. (The films I personally saw there were ‘Deep Blue Sea’, in the former balcony; the Jackie Chan flick ‘Twin Dragons’ in the right ochestra split; and ‘Cider House’ and ‘Lake Placid’ in two of the basement auditoriums. It was far from the best venue in the city after its many subdivisions, but the crowds it drew for action and horror films, especially on weekend nights, IMHO, made it a fun place to be.)
In 1952, the Criterion was one of the first Broadway first-run theatres to show a movie simultaneously with a first-run in another part of Manhattan, in this case the Paris Theatre, on 58th Street just west of Fifth Avenue. The movie was Samuel Goldwyn’s “Hans Christian Andersen,” an RKO release starring Danny Kaye, with musical score by Frank Loesser. At peak times, which included Christmas week of that year, the Criterion ran nine showings per day, the first at 9AM and the last starting at 1AM. The Paris had eight showings, with the first at 10AM and the last at midnight.
I remember those stairwells, one of the only ways to tell this used to be a theatre. I hate to say this, but this building probably will never be used for motion picture exibition again. It would take an investor with a big dream and even deeper pockets to make this happen.
Well last week they took off the side exit metal stairwells on the north side of the building that was for the balcony.
I think the Loew’s booking office was better at getting product for their theatres during this era, I remember Loew’s almost always having the top blockbusters of the day in the 70’s and 80’s.
The Criterion was always a money-maker due to its location and moderate size (low operating “nut”). When it first opened in the 1930s, the Moss ownership couldn’t get top product, so it made a deal with the Loew’s circuit to run the Criterion, sharing any profits 50-50. Under Loew’s the Criterion got first-run MGM, Columbia, and Universal product. Loew’s finally had to give up the Criterion due to the Federal anti-trust suit against the company, after which Moss took over 100%. By that time, the Criterion had established itself as a desirable house and they had no trouble getting top movies. When the hard-ticket era started, the Criterion was a prime target because of its size, which was similar to many “legit” theatres. The bigger palaces were not suited to reserved seat policies.