Playpen Theatre
693 8th Avenue,
New York,
NY
10036
693 8th Avenue,
New York,
NY
10036
10 people
favorited this theater
Showing 26 - 50 of 126 comments
Well they have started to raze the theatre. They have lowered the facade front top by about 10 feet as of today. So most of the roof must be gone now.
all the interior plasterwork as seen in Warrens photo still exists (existed) but painted black, the coffered ceiling is intact, the lower stalls walls are plain but i think from the photo they were always that way, the floor had been levelled and the balcony partly levelled so video booths could be fitted.
the main floor was a maze of booths all the way down to the stage, like something from the 7th layer of Hell, with crack whores wandering round in their underwear and drug dealers crusing the dark narrow spaces, i didnt venture in very far, i was too worried about my camera being robbed.
as one of the few remaining intact Times Square/42nd St area movie theatres it really should have been saved, or at least the sky scraper built around and over it like the Liberty.
Here’s the photo “Woody” posted:
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Here’s Warren’s historical interior photo, which shows the same ornamentation:
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Of course the entire fascade of the building is original, and according to someone’s photos of the interior somewhere up above, still showed some of the theater’s original ornamentation.
Quite interesting! Can you please send some photos if you have a chance? You can e-mail me at
I saw the marquee has been re-used on a bookstore down the street.
I am working with the Committe to Save the Playpen. The Committee is working on a proposal to move the building to another site. You can contact the Committee by e-mailing You can contact the owner of the building, the Tishman Corporation at (Richard Kielar, Sr. VP for Corp. Comm.).
photos of the wrapped building being taken down… more civic vandalism
http://www.flickr.com/photos/woody1969/2008707042/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/woody1969/2008699642/
Now they have the work scaffolding erected above the sidewalk scaffolding around the building.
That’s a shame, I saw the marquee on Saturday the 6th while in the city.
(I was really lost)
Well the marquee for the Playpen was removed yesterday. Con Ed cut power sometime last week. And they have the sidewalk scaffolding is around the building now.
Organs were visible during its Cameo/Adonis/Playpen days.
Absolutely. The old 42nd street never died. It had to be murdered, with the likes of Brandt being thrown out kicking and screaming in court.
The empty marquees came in the very late ‘80’s and early '90’s at the hand of the City’s desire to have the area redeveloped – not due to dwindling movie-going crowds. Those theaters were forced to be shuttered – it was not a voluntary act. The Duece grinders drew substantial evening audiences through at least 1986 (when I stopped attending) and probably right up to 1988 – at which point the City took over half the theatre properties on the block and turned the strip into a veritable ghost-town. Even still, the Lyric, Selwyn, Rialto and Harris Theaters hung on for a few years beyond that.
42nd Street was trashed in the 80’s, and all it was was empty marquee after empty marquee of abandoned, and falling apart theaters, hardly “profitable” or in good shape. Intact perhaps, but far from a viable street, and certainly not in good shape.
You will find NYT articles about the decline of Times Square going back to prohibition when drugs and prostitution started to thrive on 42nd street. Even the Busby Berkeley movie musical (1933) already references the violence and sleaze. The situation became obvious when the fleets visited promiscuous war time New York. Even male prostitution was already a “problem”.
In the 19th century, before the Times and the theatres, prostitutes allegedly worked under the 42nd street cattle run. The street was never wholesome and every generation redefines their limits for tolerance of what goes on there. I draw the line at flying nannies.
I also loved those elaborate displays often put up for only a few day’s run. I laughed at the fake nurses waiting to take your blood pressure in case you might die watching some horror flick and those XXX films that ensured you would want to “Come and Come Again!”
As one book describes it, 42nd street has always been the symbol of unchecked capitalism in America. If nothing else, you have to admit it is still that.
I never knew the Times Square of the ‘20’s, '30’s, '40’s or '50’s so I can’t really relate to Mr. Astaire and others of or closer to his generation. I grew up knowing the Times Square of the late '70’s and '80’s. I understand that crime was a problem that needed to be solved and that a good deal of cleanup was required – but to completely sweep aside any semblance of its former attractions was uncalled for. But such is the way of real estate politics in NYC. It’s happening all over again right now in Coney Island (a place that cleaned up its act greatly in the last 20 years without sacrificing a lot of what made it such a unique and special destination).
The greatest Generation who went through the Depression and WW11 did not like the Times Square of the late 1960’s and beyond they remember it during its Golden Era fron the 1920’s into the 1950’s. Fred Astaire who performed on 42nd Street, was shocked by its decline even in 1953 when he filmed some scenes for the “Bandwagon” and thought it was a little seedy then. I can’t imagine what he thought of 42nd Street in the 70’s and 80’s. I wish they would have restored a little more of the feel of 42nd Street of the 1920’s. I for one never liked the 42nd Street of the porn era but I did like the 42nd St of the 1920’s thru the 1940’s. The Movie Palaces of Times Square forced 42nd Street theatres to become second rate first run theatres.Its ironic that the Times Sqaure movie palaces no longer exist and a few of the 42nd Street theatres have been restored and movies are no longer seen on Broadway but on 42nd Street.brucec
You hit the nail on the head, Al. I miss the honky-tonk atmosphere. The grinders on 42nd represented the last bastion of showmanship on the part of the motion picture exhibition industry. The very signage that clung to the entrances to each theater hawked passersby for their business with a flair and stylishness that has vanished from the moviegoing experience. Was the fare playing within lurid and exploitative? To be sure. This was not “grade A Hollywood product” for the most part – but it was cinema on the edge. Outlandish, independently made (or foreign) films that beckoned audience participation and therefore celebrated the very act of being part of a collective experience. Even the non-descript XXX mini-cinemas of the area that were converted from former store-fronts and office space did more to entice and intrigue potential customers than any of the full page ads one finds in the NY Times or the 30 second spots on TV today.
Another historic theater is in danger:
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I think Ed was referring mainly to 42nd street itself which was relatively intact through the eighties with architecturally impressive and profitable theatres. Unlike Hollywood, 42nd street theatres were thriving in spite of the real life horror show outside their doors (and sometimes inside). Their owners were forced to sell very profitable businesses in order to attract the new investments.
42nd street redevelopment sent drug dealers and the sex establishments “showcase” to a neighborhood near you, as it spread across the city instead of being most concentrated in one red light district.
I, like Ed, also do miss the divine decadence that was once 42nd Street and wish more of it had been conserved. However, at the risk of sounding hypocritical, I have since moved a block away, a move I would have never entertained before the clean-up.
The Playpen itself is a victim of this reinvention of a neighborhood that was always sleazy and to a certain extent still is. The sex shop that the Ideal eventually became bothered no one except those prudes who are in denial that this stuff will always be around next to someone in the city. My previous New York residence in Greenwich Village has since been transformed into a bar, a tattoo parlor and a sex shop. So goes the city.
Ed, the Times Square you are talking about was already dead by the late 60’s. The 70’s and 80’s Times Square was a pit, a piece of garbage, and had already been trashed, and destroyed. Sure it was all still there, but in ruins, and in shambles. At least through the 90’s, Times Square once again became a viable part of the city once again.
With the exception of the Rivoli the movie palace era of Times Square ended with the demolition of the Capitol in 1968. New theatres were created in the twin theatres of Strand/Warner/Cinerama and Loew’s State. Most of the movie palaces of Times Sqaure had been altered in a modernistic way by the early 1960’s with the exception of the Paramount and Rivoli. Read Ben Hall’s book as he strolls down Times Square in the 1960’s. The Disney Company has to be thanked for helping both Times Square with the restoration of the New Amsterdam when nobody else would touch that theatre and Hollywood with the resoration/renovation of the El Capitan. Remember the Shuberts and the Nederlanders were pushing for the clean up of Times Sqaure because its terrible condition was hurting Broadway in a major way. The improved Times Square caused real estate prices to soar and every major company who in the past wouldn’t be caught dead in midtown, wanted to be part of its rebirth. Keep in mind that the City tried to bring back Times Square several times starting in the 1960’s and it took nearly 40 years before things started to improve. Hollywood which was never as bad as Times Square has taken decades to reverse the decline.Hollywood at least has all its movie palaces from the past but wasn’t a major Broadway hub like Times Square with its 40 plus theatres.brucec
The problem with the new Times Square is that the area has become an ersatz and expensive “Main Street USA” version of its former self. So much rich and colorful history was bulldozed for glossy high-rise office towers or upscale/overpriced franchised eateries, boutiques and Disney-like attractions. Yes, all the screens lost in Times Square and 42nd Street were eventually replaced (and more than doubled) between 25 screens of the AMC Empire and the 13 across the street at the E-Walk – but with none of the charm, identity or unique programming and showmanship of the original movie houses in the area. We now have Madam Tussauds and have seen the return of Ripley’s Believe it Or Not… but at admission prices upwards of $23 per person? It’s very nice to have at least some of the old theaters on 42nd Street returned to their original glory – but of the 9 historic houses that dotted the Duece only 3 houses have legitimately been restored and put to good use (I refuse to count the dismantling and combination of the original Lyric and Apollo sites). And who can afford to go to a legitimate show these days anyhow? Tickets priced at $120 per seat are bad enough, but come October folks will have the privelege of being able to shell out as much as $450 a ticket for the new Mel Brooks musical version of “Young Frankenstien!”
Is there some good mixed in with the loss? Sure… I absolutely love the family theater that has been presented for reasonable admission prices at the gloriously restored New Victory Theater and the restoration job that Disney did at the New Amsterdam is nothing short of breathtaking. But for the most part, all of the rezoning and rebuilding was done for the tourists and the real estate developers – without a whole lot of thought given to the average New Yorker. And the glorious history of motion picture exhibition that was as much a part of the area’s history as legitimate theater was utterly and completly ignored in the “grand design.”
The Globe’s (Lunt-Fontanne) marquee on Broadway was gorgeous. /theaters/2924/