Murray Hill Cinema

Before the reopened quad opening, they had charity screenings the night before. The films running were The Adventures Of Milo and Otis, The Jungle Book, The Bear and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.

The quadded Murray Hill opened on December 21st, 1990 with The Bonfire Of The Vanities (on two screens), The Sheltering Sky and The Field.

One more: Soup for One, 4/30/82.

Warren, no. Just Flickr. Flickr offers several options. You can link to the entire page (with space for viewer comments) or else to the image itself inder “all sizes.” I prefer direct linkage to the image in a specific size. Dec. 18 is an example of the whole page. Today I linked directly to the image, a procedure which nobody else seems to have trouble linking to. I’ve tested it after logging off CT and entering it anonymously, also at the public library yesterday. I will ask other people to try it. I prefer doing it that way because it desn’t make my 5,000+ photos and images (family, friends, travel, etc.) instantly available to folks who just came to see the one picture and not my family and personal history. If you have further trouble, just bookmark my Flickr account to find anything you may have missed, though most is not earth-shattering:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/italiangerry/
You can even perform an internal search for anything I have, since I tag everything profusely. Most of my posts will deal with Italian cinema publicity. That, and the movies themselves, have been a lifelong passion, as well as RI theatres. I have Flickr sets that are representative of those topics.

Here is a 1973 ad from the NY Times:
http://tinyurl.com/2htfcw

There is an excellent color photograph of the marquee of the 34th Street Theater which was located on E.34th close by Third Avenue. You can descend from the EL station and be a few feet from the marquee.
The photo is in the second edition of “By the El” by Lawrence Stelter, photos by Lothar Stelter, currently in print. An excellent book of color photos circa 1949-1953, taken along Third Avenue and adjacent streets.
The photo shows a marquee of 1930’s vintage, outlined in yellow with incandescent bulbs of yellow, name in red neon, white glass attraction board with black letters proclaiming the main feature as “Kangaroo” with Peter Lawford, circa 1953.

Hello everybody… I remember being in 3rd grade, which would of made that 1982 and passing by the Murray Hill and seeiing Psycho2 on the marquis.It is so funny that I didnt miss that theatre until I just read that it was demolished.Holiday Wishes to All.

Thank you, Warren! I would have had a tough time trying to find the old Murray Hill Th. here in CT. And yes, prior to 1970, there were many long-distance trains running out of GCT to points in New England, Montreal, upstate NY, and the Midwest (Chicago, St. Louis, etc.).

At the time it reopened after the collapse, the place was a dump. We tried to make what was there presentable and clean, but not a lot of money was spent because it was only supposed to be open for six weeks. We had to show ticket sales reciepts to prove to the city that it was operating, in order to maintain its ‘special occupancy’ status. If a theatre is closed for more than 2 years, it loses that status, and the owner has to jump through all kinds of flaming hoops with the city bureaucracy to regain it. The building and property were owned by an affiliate of Pacific Theatres, Almi Group held a lease and by that time Cineplex Odeon was involved with a booking arrangement. Everybody was suing everybody else due to the collapse, but they all agreed to get it open, since each thought they would prevail in court and finally end up with place. Nobodys name, Pacific, City Cinemas, Almi, RKO or Cineplex was put on it in any advertising or the signage, since it was a strained partnership, not to mention an embarrassment. I had to call in figures at night to both City Cinemas and Cineplex Odeon. In the beginning I argued that it be booked sub-run and charge a reduced price, because I knew the place was was not up to anybody’s standards for a first-run theatre, and predicted the complaints we received. But I was overruled by the powers that be.

1999 photo:
http://www.webcom.com/dsl/ny9.html

I worked at the Murray Hill theatre from June of 2001 to July of 2002. I’ll never forget my first day working there. On June 4th 2001, I began my job, and got to see Moulin Rouge for the first time, which soon became 14 times. I had a lot of great friends there, and it kept me busy. I loved dealing with the customers at the Box Office.

I remember one time, it was October 0f 2001, and I was seeing the movie “Joy Ride” before work. Right in the middle of one of the scenes, the lights come on, and the movie stops. But it only took about 10 minutes for everything to come back on. But it was a great place and I learned a lot working there.

Thank You,

Signed,
Rachael Keane

The ceiling fell down during the run of Psycho 3, whatever year that was – I thought it was 85, but it could have been 86. The Almi people were running it at the time. My boss and I heard about it as we were closing the Cinema I-II for the night and we raced down there. Initially, they thought the balcony had collapsed, but soon discovered it was the ceiling over the balcony. The few customers who were there that night said there was a big cracking noise that gave them warning and they got down on the floor between the rows of seats and were pretty much protected. One male was seriously injured – he was intox and sitting in the orchestra passed out. He didn’t get on the floor. When the ceiling fell on the balcony, it slid down into the orchestra and the intox male got speared with a steel bar. A couple of days later the remaining ceiling over the orchestra also fell down during the night. The newspaper stated that the ceiling was 90 thousand pounds of plaster and steel. The theatre remained closed for 2 years, then we had to open it up for a short time to maintain the special occupancy status, and they were still getting the plans for reconstruction together. They put up a new ceiling, used seats only in the orchestra (the balcony was empty), rented projection equipment. We were only supposed to be open for about 6 weeks. It was during this time that we played Bull Durham. They put more used seats in the balcony for the opening of Batman, and planned on keeping it open indefinately because they changed architects and were back to square-one with the reconstruction plans. It was open in that configuration for about 2 years, then it was gutted to the 4 walls and roof and the interior rebuilt, opening in 1990 as the 4-screen house that completely demolished in 2002.