Ziegfeld Theatre
141 West 54th Street,
New York,
NY
10019
141 West 54th Street,
New York,
NY
10019
104 people
favorited this theater
Showing 76 - 100 of 3,892 comments found
Moviebuff82, it has never made much of a profit but the screenings and premieres have always kept it going. I doubt cash cow would be a fitting term with low box office most of the year and high rent all year round.
Vito, I know Cineplex replaced the whole motorized curtain mechanism during one of the remodels only to have it fail a couple of weeks later.
Yes Al of course having worked many a NY theatre I am very aware of the policies regarding stagehands. The fact that no one can fix this problem is just incomprehensible to me.
Why Al?
I doubt that very much.
In terms of profit, this theater is clearviews cash cow.
Vito, the Ziegfeld was a Union stagehand house for over twenty five years and they were not successful. Back then all New York movie theatres had stagehands, even those without a stage.
Does anyone know if anyone has made any serious effort at landmarking the Ziegfeld’s interior?
Al, I understand others have tried and failed but perhaps they could call the stagehands union and ask to borrow the folks responsible for keeping the curtains at RCMH humming along so well. Somehow I think they would be up to the challenge to fix the problem once and for all.
LuisV, I am in favor of Landmarking the Ziegfeld interior and would love to see a multiplex built around the original screen to make it more financially viable.
The only human strong enough to be a curtain operator at the Ziegfeld might be Jean Valjean from the original novel or perhaps Clearview could get one those soon to be unemployed super heroes from the Hollywood crap machine.
Good one Bill I bet you would make a good one. That was actually my first job in the biz, I was curtain puller/reel boy at the Paramount on Staten island.
I’d like to apply for the job of curtain operator :)
Thats good news as the December jobs report was good.
One good thing I noticed: on the front door there were notices for job openings at the Ziegfeld. Guess it won’t be closing anytime soon.
There was no sign of what the next movie might be. The big Les Mis display was still up in the lobby. That’s where the next attraction is usually announced. But it’s drawing good crowds, so long may it play there.
So gald to hear Les Miz is doing so well at the Ziegfeld. Howard this would have been a perfect movie for out Boyd in Phila. Sigh.
What’s the next movie after Les Mis?
I saw Les Miserables here last night at the new ticket price of $14. Seems to go a little higher every year. Anyway, it was quite a show. I even enjoyed Russell Crowe’s singing. I think he’s being unfairly slammed all over the place – he was just fine. In fact the only thing that could’ve improved it any would be the use of the curtains, but after what Al told us, I fear we may never see them get used again. Even without them, the Ziegfeld is the best place in NYC to see a movie. The big crowd in the center section last night (a Thursday) is proof of that.
Happy New Year, Vito! Great to have you back.
In addition to use of the curtain, I’d root for upgrade to 4k projection as mentoned above.
Al, just curious…….are you in favor of the interior landmarking of The Ziegfeld? It is now old enough and it should qualify on many levels. It was the last of the Movie Palaces to be built and is an exquisite example of its late 60’s era. It has played host to probably more premieres than any other Manhattan cinema and is the last of the palaces still showing films regularly; unless one also counts the Paris (which I kind of do). The theater is beautiful and it is a joy to see a film in; regardless of whether the curtains are used or not. And how many movie theaters were built with individual sinks in the bathroom stalls; even in the men’s room??? I don’t know of any other. :–)
p.s. Thanks Vito for your spirited defense of the curtains. As a lay person, I just can’t understand how complicated it could be to operate a simple curtain. Thanks for your input.
My little local theater in downtown Asheville,NC the Fine Arts still uses curtains in bothe theaters. The downstairs theater has curtains that rise up and the upstairs balcony theater has curtains that open across.
Call it a clunker or bad karma but I worked for Cineplex Odeon for almost ten years, much of that time out of the Ziegfeld. In spite of weekly maintenance and a full time Union stagehand, that curtain was always broken and cost more money on lost shows and repairs than it was worth. We loved classic presentations but we all hated the damn thing.
My man Vito just summed it all up with the last sentence. Enough said.
Sorry Al I am not buying into that, maintaining curtains just simply is not all that hard. In all of my years in this biz I have worked many a theatre with just about every size and shape of curtain it is only recently, as Mark pointed out, have the industry lost the art of presenting movies and no one cares anymore about showmanship. In my day curtains rarely broke down and if they did it was repaired immediately because it was considered a sin to have a bare screen exposed in the theatre. And we used the curtains as a part of the show almost always presenting the movie with a Delux presentation opening and closing them between pre feature film and the feature. Heck we would not even allow the audience to see the masking moving between a flat presentation and a scope one the curtains were used to hide that. Perhaps the folks at the Ziegfeld should go over to Radio City Music Hall and find out just how to properly maintain the curtains. During the days of movies at RCMH have you ever gone into and found the curtain not working? That answer would be NO, and the Music Hall curtains are far more elaborate than the ones at the Ziegfeld and yet they manage to keep them working.
So cut the crap Clearview and get this problem resolved you are embarrassing yourself with the excuses that us ole timers aren’t buying
If you look at previous posts here, the curtain has never worked for more than a few weeks at a time regardless of who owned or managed the theatre. It is an albatross that has lead to many canceled performances and a fortune in repair costs over the years. It is too heavy to pull manually and takes weeks sometimes to get repair parts.
Even presentation conscience Walter Reade Theatres used to tie it up before a major screening for fear of it shutting the house down. I suppose a more profitable theatre would have replaced it years ago with the flimsy cheaper horizontal version that many legit theatres now have.
Al, it’s not lost on me. I minored in English Literature. I simply thought it was stupid. I’m allowed to have an opinion. Now, back to the Ziegeld. I want my curtain back!!!!!