Embassy 1,2,3 Theatre
707 7th Avenue,
New York,
NY
10036
707 7th Avenue,
New York,
NY
10036
38 people
favorited this theater
Showing 926 - 950 of 1,093 comments
The question becomes, “what, EXACTLY, is it that one would be trying to preserve through landmark designation?” Preservationists are usually very conscious that there has to be a legitimate reason for the government to designate private property as a landmark. Usually they favor landmark designation because of a building’s architectural or historical significance (or some combination).
Preservationists, so it seems to me, usually go to great pains to point out that they do NOT designate landmarks to preserve uses, to freeze (in a general way) a certain time or place, or to indulge in sentimental feelings (especially those of a small group of aficionados).
As I believe Warren, for example, was trying to point out, there appears to be a much better (more architecturally distinguished, more intact) example of the Times Square movie “palace” than the Mayfair. (And it also has some imporatance as a “legitimate” theater as well.) And this is not even to mention, the even grander outer borough movie palaces like the Paradise, the Valencia, the Brooklyn Paramount, the Kings and the Triboro and the Keith (the last two of which were essentially lost despite very strong credentials and efforts to save them).
And even if the Columbia hadn’t been transformed into the Mayfair, there are better examples of early 20th Century “legitimate” and “burlesque” theaters (some of which are already landmarked).
So, given the info that I’ve seen so far, I see only an extremely weak arguement — near non-existent, really — for landmarking, at least in terms of the generally accepted criteria that’s been used by preservationists over the years. And I think the argument would be weak, so it seems to me, even in the earlier, apparently less political, days of the Landmark Preservation Commission.
But who knows? I’ve been surprised by some of the buildings that have actually been designated and I’ve been surprised by some of buildings that haven’t even gotten a public hearing regarding designation.
Regarding the landmarks commission, as long as real estate values continue to escalate the way they are in the New York area, developers are going to cherish land above the structures sitting on them. If developers had their way, virtually every single structure in Times Square would be gone.
Rationally speaking, buildings are more than what they look like. They also represent a time and place. Ok, so the Mayfair/DeMille isn’t one of the greatest or most memorable places in Times Square. But for those of us who’ve seen those great photos, this place meant something to people.
Will the landmarks commission take this into consideration? What do YOU think?
I believe there’s an alley way behind the theater (behind where the screen would be…). It exits out onto 47th Street. You can actuall see the back of the theater from this exit area.
I believe the church bought the theatre. Disney is working on a new complex on 8th Avenue.
Sorry to beat a dead horse, but there was just enough space between the building and the auditorium for the fire escapes or was there an alley there? I wondered how people could exit the auditorium when there was no frontage on the 47th St. side. Was there an alley behind the auditorium too?
Also regarding the Mark Hellinger, does anyone know if the Church bought the building outright or do they just have a lease? Is there any chance it could revert back to a theater once the lease is up? I bet the Nederlander Org. regrets letting the building go with the shortage of large theaters currently available for musicals.
I think we might be talking about different fire escapes.
(To summarize and clarify: The “liner” office building around the Mayfair that is being discussed has an “L” shaped footprint, with the long part of the “L” running along 47th St. and the short part of the “L” running up Seventh Ave.)
If I understand you correctly, the fire escapes that you see are ones that start on the top floor (but on the “backside,” not the “streetside”) of the office buiding. I would assume that these fire escapes were always there for the office workers in the office building and were separate and apart from those needed to evacuate theater patrons less high up in the building.
The fire escapes that I was thinking about were on the street side of the building and jutted out from the long side of the “L,” from only about half-way up the building. I assume these fire escapes were devoted solely to evacuation of the masses of patrons occupying the Columbia’s two balconies.
After posting my question, it occured to me that maybe the fire escapes were hidden behind the giant billboard? In other words, maybe the billboard was hung, in part, upon the fire escapes? But I’m not sure if the City would have allowed them to jut such a billboard that far out over the sidewalk.
Regarding the definition of “landmark”:
Actually the definition of “landmark” appears to be contracting rather than expanding. This is part of the controversy about the Landmarks Preservation Commission that I mention in a recent post on the Beekman thread on the Cinema Treasures website.
Even before the apparent recent shrinkage in the definition of what constitutes a landmark, however, it seems to me that NYC landmarks, more often than not, are designated primarily for their architectural, rather than their historical, value. (Additionally, some kinds of architecture seem to be guarded more protectively than others.) I think this is because most people concerned with landmarks tend to be interested in design more than history. (And those in power seem to favor certain styles of architecture over others.) But there are, of course, exceptions, especially when a building has an overwhelming historic importance. (For example, my guess is that the NYU building that was the site of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire is one of these — architecturally undistinguished, but historically very important.)
Not to be political, but it seems to me that since the Giuliani (and perhaps Dinkens) administration, the LPC has been a lot “stingier” about designating landmarks. (The LPC is essentially controlled by the reigning Mayor.) I think what happened is by this time, 20-25 years after the signing of the landmarks law, so many buildings and areas had been designated landmarks that people were concerned about going “over board” with landmarking — impeding future development. So developers (and others) were often able to use this concern to prevail upon the Mayor/LPC not to support landmark designation — or even hold a public hearing — on certain possible landmarks.
What really disturbs me about all of this is that rather than address this issue in a straightforward way, the last two (or three?) Mayors have apparently decided to use secret, behind the scenes maneuvering to decide which buildings get, or do not get, a public hearing for possible designation. So in the end, it seems to me, landmarking in NYC has become more and more a matter of who knows whom, being a political “insider,” and being on the “right” side of the various culture “wars,” etc.
Oh, I thought Benjamin was asking where the fire escapes went for the building, not the theater. The building’s fire escapes are on the outside of the building that faces the auditorium.
The outside of the inside of the building? I’m not quite sure I understand you. To exit the theater, you had to go into the office building?
Benjamin: I can answer you question about the fire escapes. They are on the “inside” of the building. Well, what I mean is they are on the outside of the “inside” of the office building. The building wraps around the Mayfair like an L. The fire escapes (long, long, cool looking stairs…) are inside the L. I can see them clearly from my office. They start from the top floor of the building and run diagonally down toward the back of the part of the building that fronts onto 7th Ave. From there, it looks like some kind of “path” then runs away from the back of the building fronting 7th along the southside of the Mayfair’s auditorium to a small alleyway that exits onto 47th Street right across from the exit doors for the Palace. I saw this clearly yesterday when I checked it out.
I agree with most of your points. Without having seen the inside of the theater, I can say that the outside is nothing much. The only semi interesting aspect is the stonework above the marquee which is not greatly diminished by the billboard.
But the question is: what constitutes a landmark? Is it strictly the architectural value? That seems to be what the current Landmarks council thinks. But there has to be an effort to expand the definition of a landmark.
While certainly no expert on real estate, zoning and landmarks preservation, I may be a little more familiar with them then most posters on this site, and it seems to me (from my still admittedly sketchy knowledge in these areas) that some of the posts in this thread have stated a number of misconceptions. So here are some thoughts that I believe might help.
Judging from the listing for the property (701 Seventh Ave.) on the OASIS NYC website, the lot that the theater / office building is on is a rectangular one (on this site they show a map), with a lot frontage of 160 ft. and a lot depth of 100.42 ft. The OASIS site says the structure on the property was built in 1909. (But I think I’ve noticed inaccuracies in this site in the past.) (I’m not sure how to properly post a link to this site [without messing up the Cinema Treasures website in the process], but the site can be easily found using a search engine. Once on the site you choose what kind of info you want, I chose “Property Data,” and type in the address, or block and lot if you prefer, and the borough.)
From what I can tell from this info and from general knowledge about theaters in New York City, the relationship of the Mayfair (which is what I’ll call the Embassy 2, 3, 4) to the office building that is apparently wrapped around it on two sides is not at all complicated or unusual. Even in the days when these old Times Sq. theaters were built (mostly in the first quarter of the 20th Century), Manhattan land was very expensive and valuable and builders understandably wanted to make the most of their property. So a good many theaters were built with small office buildings over a portion of the “theater.” Since building regulations then didn’t allow builders to actually build over the auditorium itself, the builders usually built over other areas of the theater â€" particularly over the entrance / lobby. (Good examples of this are the New Amsterdam, the Hudson and the original Palace [the building before they built the current hotel]. This is why, by the way, so many New York City theaters “photograph” so poorly â€" sometimes bizarrely so. What you are really seeing is the office building that has been built over the tunnel entrance / lobby.
By the way, as building technologies changed, I believe they changed the rules regarding building above an auditorium, so that some of the new buildings appear to be cantilevered over adjacent auditoriums. (I believe this is what they did, for instance, for the hotel above the Palace, across the street from the Mayfair.)
Given the fascinating post by pscribner on Feb. 25th, it would seem that the Columbia Amusement Company, built the Columbia as their flagship burlesque theater and then built the office building along the properties two street frontages for use as their headquarters, with some of the office space being rented out to others also.
One of the photos I’ve seen of the building in it’s early days (it may be the one that Warren graciously offered to send people) shows that at one time the 47th St. side of the office building was faced with three (?) long fire escapes. This set up of (ugly) exterior fire escapes seems quite common in theaters of the time. I believe a lot of the 42nd St. theaters, for instance, had a “maze” of fire escapes on their 41st St. sides (and may still have them today). Plus, even the very prestigious Ziegfeld Theater on Sixth Ave. had (somewhat stylized) fire escapes on its 54th St. side. So one of the questions I wonder about is what did they do with the fire escapes when they remodeled the Columbia as the Mayfair? My guess is that the office building was less valuable by then, and that they put the fire stairs through unoccupied office space. Another guess is that when they remodeled the theater they didn’t add 950 seats (changing the seating capacity, which I believe Warren mentions in one of his posts, from 1,350 to 2,300) but perhaps reduced the number of seats or, at least reconfigured their arrangement, to reduced the number of fire escapes needed.
Another question I have, which others have raised, is what did they do with all the space behind the billboards. (I wonder the same about the office spaces above the tunnel entrance lobbies for the Astor and the Victoria.) This question may have been partially answer by the real estate link posted by CConnelly, it seems as though this space was rented out for recording studios — which are just right for windowless spaces.
In the late 1960s / early 1970s, the City created a special theater zoning district which allowed builders to build an extra amount of office space in their buildings if they also built a theater (or similar facility) on their zoning lot. The first theater to be built under this program was the Minskoff in the W.T. Grant, now One Astor Plaza (?) Building (which replaced the Astor Hotel). The Gershwin in the Uris (which replaced the Capitol) was also built under this zoning, and I believe the Ziegfeld (movie) theater and its adjacent office building (which replaced the original Ziegfeld among other buildings) may have also been built under this zoning.
If I recall correctly, the reason the City did this (under Mayor John Lindsay) was that they were afraid that new office buildings would more and more replace the old Broadway theaters and that no new theaters would ever be built to replace the old ones â€" leaving the Times Sq. area as just another Manhattan office district. (The story of the creation of the Special Times Square Zoning District is covered in Jonathan Barnett’s book, “Urban Design as Public Policy.” Barnett was part of the team that came up with the idea.)
This is the underlying economics that they probably had in mind: theaters, especially legitimate theaters, are very “inefficient” users of space. They take up a lot of land (you can have just so many mezzanines and balconies) and are only using the land eight times a week at most. And they can be empty for many, many months between hit shows â€" all the while the theater owner has to pay taxes, etc. (And while now quite as bad, movie theaters have similar economics â€" the one big difference these days being that you can indeed have a “skyscraper” multiplex â€" like the Loew’s on lower Third Ave., for instance.) So basically there seems to be an incentive for builders to buy old Manhattan theaters for future development as a modern office building or apartment house, and a disincentive to build modern legitimate theaters (and modern single screen movie theaters).
Looking at my Hagstom’s map, which gives a rough idea of the size of the lots of various theaters, it seems to me that the Mayfair property — by itself — is actually a bit on the small side, especially when you consider that modern day zoning would not allow a builder to build straight up from the street the way they did on this site in 1909. My guess is that a modern day developer would probably want to assemble all the properties along Seventh Ave. on that block before deciding to build something. (The Mayfair footprint seems to be the same size as that of the old Earl Carroll Theater on the southeast corner of 50th and Sixth, and this building was allowed to stand until all the properties along Seventh Ave. on that block were assembled and the market was right for a new office building.)
I tried to find on the Landmark’s Preservation Commission website a list of all the theaters that have been designated landmarks, but I wasn’t able to find one. But judging from those that I do know to be landmarks, and judging from the current controversies regarding the LPC, it seems to me that the chances of the Mayfair ever being designated a landmark are very, very slim. There doesn’t seem to be anything really special about the Mayfair from an architectural or historical perspective. And remember, even the Beekman and Cinema 1, 2 and 3 which both seem, at least to me, to have more credentials can’t seem to get, apparently, even a hearing about possible designation.
The company was run by Sheldon Gunsberg after Reade Jr.’s death until it was taken over by Cineplex. Gunsberg had brought it out of bankruptcy and to (he thought) to protect it made a deal with Columbia and possibly Coca Cola. They in turn made a deal with Cineplex which took over the company. Gunsberg was quoted as saying of the deal, “I made a deal where I thought I could sleep at night, and then one night I didn’t sleep so good!” That was too bad, since he did care about the theatres and presentation, and was a real gentleman to boot.
Maybe this is a stupid question, but is this Walter Reade group still around managing theaters? Or are they (he?) long gone?
um…heartbreaking
Hearkbreaking.
Walter Reade operated the DeMille until the fire. They were set to move the 70mm print of “That’s Entertainment” over from the Ziegfeld the next day, and I think they may have ads listing it as being at the DeMille in 70mm. The fire resulted in the theatre closing, and Walter Reade never reopened it. The circuit was having financial difficulties at the time. At the time I started working as a relief projectionist at the Ziegfeld during the “Close Encounters” run they were in bankruptcy, so that may have been a factor in pulling out of a theatre that would have been costly to heat and cool and maintain like the DeMille.
Warren, regarding the Hollywood Theater (aka Mark Hellinger Theater), I didn’t know that this was designed by Lamb. Even from the outside, you can tell this baby’s beautiful. And HUGE. But I’ll argue that it doesn’t totally qualify as a total movie palace because it operated as a legit stage theater for years. So, if one uses the criteria of the last remaining movie “palace” that was strictly used for movies, would it be The Mayfair?
One other note about the Mark Hellinger theater…not sure if I read this here (and I apologize if I’m copying from someone else’s notes…) but I read that for years, producers thought this place was bad luck. It did not have any big hits, musical or straight for years and years. But when it finally did, it had one of the biggest of all time, “My Fair Lady”.
I see the Mark Hellinger every day and I have to say it looks very, very well maintained.
Re: Dennis' comment about the usherettes at “War and Peace”. I read somewhere that when the DeMille played “Spartacus” in 1960, the usherettes wore Roman-style outfits. It was all about showmanship, and boy do I miss it.
I think the first time I was in the DeMille theatre was to see the two part “War and Peace” presentation. I remember thinking it was a large theatre, but nothing out of the ordinary. It was certainly no Rivoli or Capital. I also remember that the usherettes wore Russian style outfits. However, being the last standing “movie palace” in the Times Square area qualifies it for restoration. In one of my comments on the Capitol Theatre page, I opinioned that the developer and architect should loose their licenses for replacing the Capitol Theatre with the boring non descript Uris/Gershwin Theatre. It would certainly been a better idea to redo the Capitol as a Broadway stage theatre than what “we” ended up with! I think Reade operated the Ziegfeld and DeMille theatres for many years before moving out of the Demille. Seeing that ad for “War and Peace” the remarkable thing to realize is how many of those Walter Reade Theatres have faded into history that are listed in their directory ad. May the DeMille be reborn!
Chris,
Is there any way you could get inside to take a look around? Maybe as a prospective buyer? (Lol) Worth a try!
Another interesting item in the same column: before the part about the theaters there’s a piece about a play called “The Memorandum” by Vaclav Havel, “a Czech playwright, poet and essayist.” Many years later he was elected president of Czechoslovakia.
Yes, CConnolly, reading that news item sure does give off an eerie feeling. What’s really strange about it for me: I’ve had that old Arts and Leisure section for 37 years now and I’d never read that column before last night! It’s the only one I’ve kept, probably because of the “2001” ad and related articles. If I’d read it back then I would’ve known the Capitol would soon be closing, and I wouldn’t have worried that it was somehow “2001”’s fault. Being only 13 and not knowing about New York real estate and movie business economics, I somehow got it into my head at the time that the Capitol was closing because “2001” wasn’t a hit (which of course it was).
I think I have an old “Close Encounters” ad from the Daily News somewhere in the house with the Ziegfeld Walter Reade logo. I’ll look for it tonight and post it – after I get back from the actual Ziegfeld!
Apologies for the redundancy between my posting and yours, Warren. I was typing away as you wrote and posted your message.
On occasion, when the Ziegfeld opens with an exclusive, the old Walter Reade logo (the Ziegfeld belonged to that chain until the Cineplex Odeon buyout in ‘87) is still used, albeit with a 'Clearview Cinemas’ banner posted above. Also, up until the time when it was triplexed in ‘88 (and perhaps for a short time after – I can’t quite recall), when the Cinemas 1-2-3 had a solo run, the Cinema 5/Rugoff logo was utilized.
Yes, I remember those logos. All the Walter Reade theaters had them. I think the Ziegfeld as well.
TJ: the Palace is directly south of the Mayfair/DeMille. It sits on the southeast corner of 47th and 7th whereas the building that the Mayfair sits in is on the northeast side.
Bill Huelbig: Thanks for the very interesting ad you posted. Now I seem to remember that the neat-o logo for The DeMille was used for other Walter Reade theaters like the Baronet and the Coronet. Anyone else know what I’m talking about? I remember reading the New York Post as a kid and seeing the adds with the same kind of lettering used for other theaters, even The Ziegfeld. Was that theater owned at one time by Walter Reade?
BUT…please note that your posting contains something EVEN more interesting. To the left of the ad, there is the last parts of some kind of article about a play and such. The last part has a heading called ROUNDUP. I had to print it out to read it and here is what is says:
“West Side Story” will be revived at the New York State Theater starting June 24…The City Planning Commission cleared the way for the construction of theaters in the office buildings planned for the site of the former Astor Hotel and the site where the Capitol Theater now stands. The commission’s action will be final unless the Board of Estimate disapproves whithin 60 days."
I’m sorry but that’s really eerie. So, the city got the go ahead to knock down the majestic Capitol because someone who designed the building that would replace it agreed that they would put in a theater which would become the Uris and now is called The Gershwin.