Playpen Theatre

693 8th Avenue,
New York, NY 10036

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Showing 51 - 75 of 126 comments

bruceanthony
bruceanthony on September 14, 2007 at 12:04 pm

I don’t miss the old Times Square of the 1970’s thru the early 1990’s. I miss the Times Square of the 1920’s thru the 1960’s. Im glad Times Square has improved and is the center of New York again. I wish better planning could have saved both Loew’s State and Warner theatres with buildings being built over them instead of every movie palace being demolished in Times Square except for the Hollywood(Mark Hellinger). The legit theatres have come back in a big way with 40 active Broadway Houses when the new Henry Miller opens next year and most have been renovated or restored in the improved Times Square. It was always a problem for the film palaces as real estate values climbed and being to large to house Broadway shows and Times Square improved more rapidly than anyone thought possible. The plus side was the saving of the Broadway, Palace,Globe,New Amsterdam,Victory,American Airlines, Hollywood and Radio City Music Hall once movie theatres.brucec

Al Alvarez
Al Alvarez on September 14, 2007 at 11:22 am

Rudy claimed the credit for a plan that predated mayor Lindsay.

Scholes188
Scholes188 on September 14, 2007 at 11:20 am

I miss the old Times Square. Everything down there is now so squeaky clean it is boring.

sarahjames
sarahjames on September 14, 2007 at 11:18 am

I read the story today about the Playpen closing and read all the commentaries here. A thought came to my mind too that I wanted to share with all of you.

We give Rudy G so much credit for cleaning up Times Square. Did he have something to do with this, and if he didn’t, will he somehow get credit for having something to do with this pending closure?

I did this and I did that and I’m all that, blah blah blah.

Mike (saps)
Mike (saps) on September 14, 2007 at 9:39 am

Times Square Playpen may get demolished for high-rise

BY LEO STANDORA
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Friday, September 14th 2007, 4:00 AM

Eighth Ave. theater dating to 1916 is likely be replaced by a tower.

A historic Times Square theater that opened as a vaudeville showplace 91 years ago and closed as a porn shop last month appears headed for a date with a wrecking ball.

Unless preservationists prevail, the Playpen on Eighth Ave. at W. 44th St., once considered for landmark status that would have protected it, likely will be torn down and replaced by a high-rise.

Leading the battle to save the Playpen, which opened in 1916 as the Ideal, is Michael Perlman of Manhattan, who wants to keep intact the building’s Beaux-Arts facade with its curved central arch, pilasters, statues and other ornate features.

With few theaters dating from the early 20th century still around, one of the oldest “shouldn’t be sacrificed for the sake of progress,” he said.

“It’s a culturally, architecturally significant structure, and we hope to preserve this gem for future generations.”

A group called the Committee to Save the Playpen Theater has joined Perlman in calling for the Playpen to be spared.

Perlman played a key role in the recent rescue of the Moondance Diner in SoHo, but saving the Playpen would be harder.

The Tishman Realty Corp. got the property in July and said it already was looking at “development options.”

During its life, the Playpen operated under at least eight different names, offering screen fare ranging from foreign films and Hollywood B-movies to Scandinavian skin flicks and gay movies.

As the Adonis, it was closed by city health inspectors in 1994 after patrons were seen taking part in “high-risk sexual activities.”

With The Associated Press

DjDoornob
DjDoornob on September 14, 2007 at 9:17 am

This is such a shame. I walked by a few weeks ago and noticed it was closed ( i swear I was going to The Funny Store next door!!). Besides being one of the oldest theaters around- it’s architecture is so distinct and cool, it’s neon sinage is awesome, and it’s just about the only reminder left of old school gritty New York. So much for character I guess. Yey for homogenization!

woody
woody on September 13, 2007 at 1:19 pm

an arty shot i took nov 2005 that kind of sums up the feel of the playpen, sad to see more new york heritage being swept away
View link

Al Alvarez
Al Alvarez on September 12, 2007 at 8:50 pm

I understand the site will be a hotel.

Ian
Ian on September 12, 2007 at 6:38 pm

Another view of the Playpen in 2000:–

View link

kencmcintyre
kencmcintyre on September 12, 2007 at 6:27 pm

I remember walking around Times Square in the mid seventies. It was quite a panorama. I think a lot of that has been lost now. Too bad.

Michael Furlinger
Michael Furlinger on September 12, 2007 at 12:03 pm

This is the time of year were you see the most theaters close…….

Mike (saps)
Mike (saps) on September 12, 2007 at 11:23 am

Here’s the entire article.

September 7, 2007, 10:11 am

A Seedy Eighth Avenue Landmark, Gone Dark

By David W. Dunlap

[Photo caption: Until just a few weeks ago, the World Trade Center continued to glow at night on the facade of the Playpen cinema. (Photo: David W. Dunlap/The New York Times)]

The homogenization of the Times Square area (yes, The Times has contributed to the phenomenon with its new headquarters opposite the Port Authority Bus Terminal) has claimed another quirky victim: the Playpen, a former cinema that closed recently after 90-odd years.
Very odd years.

The Playpen is part of a larger parcel at the southwest corner of Eighth Avenue and 44th Street that is owned by a partnership including affiliates of the Tishman Realty Corporation. The partners have not gone public with their plans. They may not even have decided yet among themselves. But the future certainly does not include the old theater.

What Eighth Avenue will lose with its disappearance is more than an adults-only emporium with suggestive neon come-ons â€" “Live Girls,” “Preview Booths,” “Leather & Lace.” It will lose the last home of the Funny Store, an almost vaudevillian novelty shop. It will lose one of the most distinctive façades of any surviving theater from the early 20th century, a kind of heroic Palladian composition. And will lose a three-dimensional history lesson in the evolution of Times Square.

The Ideal Theater, designed by Eisendrath & Horwitz, opened in 1916 as a modest movie house, with 598 seats. It attracted some notice in 1935 for showing an Italian-language movie, “Dopo una Notte d’Amore” (”After a Night of Love”). Briefly known as the Esquire, it stayed in business until early 1937. It reopened a few months later as the Squire. In 1939, it was renamed the Cinecitta and played Italian films for a while.

Once again the Squire in 1941, it showed “The Eternal Gift,” said to be the first feature-length depiction of the Roman Catholic high mass, and the documentary, “Greece on the March.”

Such serious fare had disappeared by 1946, when “Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors” topped the bill. During a tense moment on screen one evening, a 10-by-20-foot section of the theater’s ceiling fell down, injuring 19 patrons. Those in the front seats were unruffled, thinking they were hearing weird sound effects. By the 1950s, “girlie” films were drawing customers to the Squire.

The theater’s next transformation occurred in 1956, when it reopened as the New Cameo, a theater devoted to Russian films, beginning with the Mosfilm production of “Boris Godunov,” starring Alexander Pirogov. “A casual observer must shudder at the thought of the terrible shock and dismay of a former Squire patron who might wander into the theater looking wistfully for Rose La Rose or Lili St. Cyr,” wrote Bosley Crowther, who was then The Times’s movie critic.

Eventually, the theater became simply the Cameo. This was its most fitting name since the central arch is flanked sculptural cameos, showing women in diaphanous robes, one with a spool of movie film and the other with a camera. The Cameo was the showcase in 1970 for the blue movie, “Sexual Freedom in Denmark.”

Blue gave way to X over time, and then the “Cameo” on the marquee gave way to the Adonis, when that gay movie theater was pushed out of its home six blocks north on Eighth Avenue. The new Adonis was closed by the city’s Department of Health in 1994 after inspectors observed what they called “high-risk sexual activities” taking place among patrons, without “any attempts to monitor or control them.”

Lately, the theater was the Playpen, whose marquee loosely traced the New York skyline in red neon. It included the twin towers of the World Trade Center, which still stood and still glowed at night in their uptown incarnation. And yes, Eighth Avenue is losing those, too.

NativeForestHiller
NativeForestHiller on September 9, 2007 at 10:31 pm

Shame on developer Daniel Tishman!

Scholes188
Scholes188 on August 27, 2007 at 11:11 am

I think we can safetly assume that this theater will be gone and replaced with an ugly hi-rise.

NativeForestHiller
NativeForestHiller on August 12, 2007 at 10:24 pm

Thank you for your clarification! I will follow up with the Municipal Arts Society.

nigelwhitham
nigelwhitham on August 12, 2007 at 10:01 pm

I am sorry to hear that you have received no reply to your emails. Unfortunately Place Matters is not an organisation which rescue buildings. Other organisations already do this, Like the Municiple Arts Society, who are co-creators of PM. MAS are aware of the threat to the Playpen, and it may be the case that your emails were forwarded to them.

I agree with your comments about the likely sad loss of this building. But the PM project is more of an oral history/architecture exercise. Recording NY places of significance from New Yorkers perspective and researching these places further for the benefit of future generations.

Hope that clarifies.

NativeForestHiller
NativeForestHiller on August 12, 2007 at 8:09 pm

I have e-mailed Place Matters regarding other endangered & worthy sites, but haven’t received a reply. How does nominating a site for placement on Place Matters help in its rescue? Please explain.

This theater would be a shame to lose at the sake of progress. I hope this architecturally significant building can be incorporated in the new condo development, rather than undergoing demolition. It would give the new condo a distinctive presence, merging the best of both worlds, and would be a great marketing strategy for the developers.

If it can’t be incorporated (which it probably can), it should be transported to a new site & gain a new lease on life. Please help us. This could meet the same fate with the Moondance Diner, which has been spared from demolition, & is now on its way to Wyoming. It can be donated to a theater non-profit & the developers could be eligible for a tax write-off. It could then be sold.

nigelwhitham
nigelwhitham on August 12, 2007 at 4:42 pm

Hello everyone,

Great to read all the interesting posts about the Cameo.

I am involved with a non-profit organisation called Place Matters. Which aims to collect information on places of interest, within the 5 boroughs, in order to keep them alive. This seems appropriate for the Cameo / Paypen. Once buildings are nominated some will be further reseached, and there seems a wealth of information here to start that process.

Place Matters conducts a citywide survey called the Census of Places that Matter to discover places that evoke associations with history, memory, and tradition. Hundreds of New Yorkers have nominated places to the Census. Amounting to a new knowledge bank, the Census identifies places of public significance and helps us understand how and why “place” is meaningful to people. Please check out the website.

http://www.placematters.net/flash/home.htm

As many of you appear to have information about the Playpen, and even some wonderful photos. I thought that you may be interested to nominate it on the website. Feel free to include photos and your experience. Or even nominate something else. I hope this is of interest to you. Thanks for reading.

Luis Vazquez
Luis Vazquez on August 5, 2007 at 8:30 pm

Hi Ed, I was just about to post the same info and saw that you beat me to it. The gentrification of Times Square goes on! I believe that almpst the entire block is coming down with the exception of the Southern corner.

Ed Solero
Ed Solero on August 3, 2007 at 1:21 am

There was an article in the NY Times a couple of weekends ago that focused on the adjacent novelty shop, The Funny Store. The story had to do with the store having to pack up and move to another location due to the sale of the building to developers. Here’s a passage:

<<The business, now at 44th Street and Eighth Avenue, has been part of the Times Square scene since 1957, changing owners and locations several times but always sticking to the same few blocks and staying ahead of rising rents, new zoning laws and new construction.

Now, it will have to move again. Mr. Martin’s landlord is selling the building, at 693 Eighth Avenue, to a developer, and he has to vacate the store by the end of the month to make way for condominiums. And retail rents in Times Square are now so high that he cannot afford to stay>>

The article makes a passing reference to the adjacent Playpen in this passage:

<<The Funny Store had an agreement with the Playpen, a shop selling sexually explicit materials next door that provided an entrance through the magic shop. The arrangement was drawn up after a 1995 antipornography law limited the amount and display of such materials sold in parts of the city to 40 percent of a store’s inventory or floor space.

That agreement ended last year, and now a wall has replaced the curtain.>>

Bottom line – Looks like the Times Square area gets another high rise condo and yet another of the neighborhood’s old cinemas bites the dust.

NativeForestHiller
NativeForestHiller on August 2, 2007 at 8:34 pm

Disheartening news for the relatively intact theater in particular! Who did you hear it from?

Bway
Bway on August 2, 2007 at 8:24 pm

I heard the whole block will be torn down.

William
William on August 1, 2007 at 10:25 am

The days might be numbered for this former theatre. Most of the retail stores near by have all closed or moved. They have removed all the video stuff from inside.

Bway
Bway on March 18, 2007 at 10:57 am

I haven’t a clue if it’s only women. Don’t take my word, I was only in that place that one time.

Rodney
Rodney on March 18, 2007 at 8:51 am

Oh daddy, beat me, demean me, make me feel cheap!
Just joking.
Acutally, if the backroom has only women, naked or dressed, then think I’ll just mosey along past this one.