Angelika 57
225 W. 57th Street,
New York,
NY
10019
225 W. 57th Street,
New York,
NY
10019
8 people
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Showing 51 - 69 of 69 comments
Sallah Hassenein is alive and well and was, last I heard, involved with Todd AO. For years after leaving UA he was Managing Director for Warner Bros Theatres international based in the UK. He doubt he was ever connected with the Angelika 57.
A story on the closing of the Biograph
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I remember this theatre as The Biograph, and around 1990 it was serving as a replacement for The Regency as a revival house. Over a period of three years I saw “Funny Girl,” “Harold and Maude,” “My Man Godfrey,” and “The Man Who Would Be King” here, all as revivals from 1989 to around 1992-ish. Was a pretty little theater, I don’t remember if there was a balcony, but the orchestra seated a larger crowd than the orchestra at the Regency. I liked the nice lobby that led from the street to the auditorium toward the rear left of the space. Everything seemed new and clean. Then poof! it’s all gone, and an overpriced Food Emporium is there instead of a wonderful theatre.
In 1964 the Lincoln Art day and dated with RKO 23rd St.
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Nova, I noticed the Anthology Film Archives is not listed yet on Cinema Treasures (except as the original user of the Public Theatre/Little Theatre.) Perhaps you should add it, what with your acquaintance with it.
I was working for the Anthology Film Archives during the summer that this theater closed. During the final showings of Godard’s Forever Motzart, folks from the Anthology were sent in to remove all the seats and take them for reuse. If you see a flick in the larger theater at the Anthology, you’ll be sitting in the Angelika 57’s seats…
Looks like it. If the building itself dates that far back, I never would have guessed it once housed an art gallery.
Is this the same location? View link
Hassanein is the right spelling.
When Salah was forced out of UA it started its slow decline to oblivion.
If memory serves, the name of the man who ran it when it was the Angelika 57 was Salah Hassenein. I four walled the theater to play my 3-D movie, “Run for Cover” in 1995 before it was demolished. In fact, when it shut down I lost the silver screen that I had installed there for my show. For our premiere we had celebrities like Ed Koch and Curtis Sliwa in attendence (they also had cameos in the movie) and a party at the Hard Rock Cafe next door. Ironically, there was a blizzard that day and I couldn’t travel to see my own premiere from Westchester.
Prior to it’s first run venue, I did attend this house when it was The Biograph and run by Frank Rowley. They basically had the same type of double bills as the Regency. They were set up for magnetic stereo and played a new 35mm print of “2001” circa 1991 there.
Although it had a short life as a first-run house, the Lincoln Art did preview some prize winning features. These included DARLING, THE GRADUATE and THE LION IN WINTER.
The policy on Cinema Treasures seems to be to give a venue its latest name. Amusing hypothesis: if before the Roxy Theatre closed, it had been a porno theatre for a few weeks under the name “Pussycat Palace”, would it have to be listed here as “Pussycat Palace” rather than the Roxy???
posted by Gerald A. DeLuca on Mar 24, 2004 at 11:19am
Well the Adonis had it’s name for 15 years, but was changed on here to Tivoli.
The ‘New Carnegie’ name lasted until late 1987/early 1988 when Cineplex Odeon ceased to operate it as a first-run house. In March of 1988, as an olive branch to Frank Rowley, the former programmer of the Regency Cinema (which was located at Broadway and 67th Street until its demolition in the spring of 1999) who was unceremoniously bumped from his position when Cineplex took over the lease of the Regency in the fall of 1987 and began booking it as a first-run house, gave him control of the space and re-named it as The Biograph. This lasted until the fall of 1991, when Cineplex Odeon opted not to renew the lease. Rowley then moved onto the Gramercy on 23rd Street in 1993 (which he programmed for barely a year, if that – actually, the Gramercy’s final months as part of the City Cinemas chain). The Biograph then sat empty for about a year, at which point the people who were running the Angelika Film Center at the time saw the opportunity to extend their name uptown by renovating the space slightly and reopened it as the Angelika 57.
The policy on Cinema Treasures seems to be to give a venue its latest name. Amusing hypothesis: if before the Roxy Theatre closed, it had been a porno theatre for a few weeks under the name “Pussycat Palace”, would it have to be listed here as “Pussycat Palace” rather than the Roxy???
I fully agree, but then the World should not be listed as the Embassy 49th Street either because it was a major art house under that name for many decades and “Embassy 49th Street” only for a relatively brief time also.
The Lincoln Art was as far as I go back…seeing THE LION IN WINTER there in 1969…my only other visits to this theater were in its short lived hard core porn years
The Angelika 57 closed for good in 1997 and was replaced shortly thereafter by a Morton Williams-Associated supermarket. No architectural elements from the site’s days as a movie theatre remain.
Some comments on this theatre can be found in the entry for the Little Carnegie Playhouse, which was located a block from the Angelika 57.