Astor Theatre

Here’s a 1931 aerial view of the massive Astor Hotel, with the Astor Theatre on the corner of the next northerly block, The caption should read 44th Street, not 43rd Street. The hotel fronted on Broadway between 44th and 45th Streets: View link

Here’s the 1938 spectacular for a 20th-Fox blockbuster: http://www.howardfrank.com/Street_02.html

Thank You for the lead…I will do just that. I will update my findings with a comment here –

I received the glass as a gift from a former New Yorker who’s brother was on the police force the day the wrecking ball was to raise the theatre. I was told his brother helped himself with it’s removal. I was also told that this glass was back lit with a blue lite bulb. I am wondering if perhaps their were 3 of these…the Nina, Pinta and Santa maria??

I have recently acquired a piece of stained glass from the Astor theatre. It is of a sailing ship with a cross on the front billowing sail. It appears to be made entirely of white “slag” glass. Are there any books where I might find a picture fo my ship??

I seem to recall that my favorite Bond film, “You Only Live Twice,” played at the Astor and Victoria at the same time. I know that I saw it at one of those two theaters. I also recall that enormous sign on the building above the theaters, several stories high, for this Bond film with that great Robert McGuiness artwork. It was quite incredible, I’m only sorry I didn’t take a picture of it. I also remember seeing two of my favorite war films at one of these two theaters, (I can’t remember which one,) Burton and Eastwood in “Where Eagles Dare” and William Holden in “The Devils Brigade.”

This January, 1954 view looking north shows “The Bigamist” at the Astor, “Forever Female” at the Victoria, and “How To Marry a Milionaire” at the Globe:
View link

Here’s a link to a great photo by Ruth Orkin that shows Times Square at the time of the 1939 New York World’s Fair. To assist tourists, MGM had set up an information booth on a traffic island in front of Loew’s Inc. headquarters at 1540 Broadway. I can’t make out the attractions at Loew’s State, but the Astor had “Goodbye, Mr. Chips,” which would later win an ‘Oscar’ for Robert Donat as best actor of that year:
View link

That is the difficult question to answer. These ads are not coming from one source. You can try a Google search for old movie ads and you might find some. Old ads can be more difficult to find than photos.

I wasn’t specifically looking for that ad. I just happened to come across a number of old ads. If I was looking for that particular ad, I probably wouldn’t have found it. Some of the ads are difficult to read and I won’t post those. Ads can be a good research tool. They tell us that a theater was showing movies on a certain date, the name of the theater at that time and some ads will include an address or location. The movie playing at the time of the ad might not be too interesting but the rest of the information can be useful. My favorite ads are opening day ads but they are usually more difficult to find.

This is a September 1925 ad for “The Phantom of the Opera”.

This is an ad for “Lifeboat” in it’s 8th week at the Astor.

Here is an undated color photo from Life:
http://tinyurl.com/nofahs