Loew's State Theatre
1540 Broadway,
New York,
NY
10036
1540 Broadway,
New York,
NY
10036
39 people
favorited this theater
Showing 76 - 100 of 535 comments
I just did the same search and it’s there. The site gives “open” theaters first, but click the tab “all theaters” and voila!
Is there some reason this theater isn’t in the Search database? (I tried “Loew’s State” and nothing came up.) I saw several movies in this great theater, including Fox’s “How to Marry a Millionaire” with Marilyn Monroe. It was the second film in CinemaScope and the wide image – projected on a lightly curved screen – was incredible. The film began with a musical overture, played in multi-channel magnetic stereophonic sound. Once the action began, I remember vividly how the sound followed the actors as they moved around the screen.
I was just talking about this place with someone today. I was in here twice in my life, both on school trips. The first time to see “Doctor Doolittle” when it was a single. Then a while later “Oliver” after it was twinned.
If time travel is ever invented, which is highly unlikely, LOL, this and the old Loews Orpheum, when it was a twin, are two Manhattan movie houses I’d love to visit. I know it’ll never happen but a guy can dream, can’t he?
Art Carney 1954 photo added courtesy of Edward Eckert. Martin & Lewis film “3 Ring Circus” on the Loew’s marquee.
More photos added.
Three 1960 images added courtesy of Monique Carboni. Her mother is pictured in the exterior photo.
It seems hdtv267 means that Times Square was more fun in the 70s and 80s than in its current incarnation as “an appealing place to go to have fun.”
hdtv267 Bit confused. Do you mean Times Square was MORE or LESS fun in the 70’s and 80’s? Must say I found it quite bland in 2007 compared to the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s images that fired my imagination to visit NY. Admittedly I didn’t experience the sleazy side, but the proliferation of Cinema and Theatre palaces, now sadly gone, made for a very sterile and disappointing area.
Saw “The Terminator” and “Poltergeist” at this theatre, was very unique with the size and layout, remember when it closed that it was abruptly with no advanced announcement from what I remember, Critical Condition was the last film playing there, When the Marriott Marquis hotel opened across the street in 1985 and this theatre closing in 1987, it was the start of cleaning up the seediness of Times Square from 1970’s and ‘80’s to where it is now as an appealing place to go have fun.
I trucked in from Staten Island back on December 7, 1979, to see “Star Trek – The Motion Picture” at the State. Mostly because it was supposed to be playing there in 70mm Dolby. I only recently discovered that there were no 70mm prints of “ST-TMP” made; the movie itself was finished so close to the release date, there wasn’t any time to make any 70mm prints.
Additional marquee photo uploaded.
Auditorium #3 in the Sony/Loews Theatres Lincoln Square complex on New York’s Upper West Side is named in honor of this former Loew’s Motion Picture Palace.
I was there that night (August 7, 1978) and somewhere in my collection is her autographed photo. She was one of a kind and I feel like I’ve lost a friend.
new photo- Loews State 1&2 during engagement of OLIVER! and CASTLE KEEP. 1969
Before and after pictures from the 1959 renovation.
http://www.boxoffice.com/the_vault/issue_page?issue_id=1959-5-4&page_no=74#page_start
Tinseltoes, your Boxoffice magazine is such a joy to read. Thanks.
Reserved seat engagements were so common in 1968 that here’s an advance order form for a movie before its theater had even been booked. It wound up being the opening attraction at Loew’s State 2.
The original Loew’s State became nothing but rubble and dust in 1987. The newly built, subterranean State, to which you refer, has its own page right here. That latter theater opened nearly 10 years after the original’s demolition – and bore absolutely no resemblance to its earlier, more famous incarnation.
I actually began to return to State when it became a second-run house under Virgin Mega Store. That was the opposite experience, always spookily quiet. I caught quite a few discount shows there though the price kept increasing. The Weather Man was probably my last visit.
With that beautiful shot of the revamped auditorium, I try to picture myself in there watching the premiere attraction of Some Like it Hot.
Must have been an unforgettable experiencce..
I didn’t care what the audience did or did not do. There is nothing like seeing a major motion picture in a major movie palace. A first-run movie at Radio City Music Hall with a stage show/organ and all the hoopla can never be equaled, ever……
SeaBassTian… audience participation is precisely what brought me back to the theaters of Times Square time and again – that and the cheap admissions. Of course, I was a teen at the time. I’ve grown much more conservative in my expectations for movie-going etiquette as the years have passed.
You always send the most interesting items..Thanks. Just before being sold, Loews always ran an ad in the NYTimes telling the features playing in their theaters.
By the time, I had the displeasure of finding about this theater in ‘87, it was already in decline. Granted, the film was The Blob but the audience was under impression that participation was required with hisses, boos, etc. I think I avoided all Times Square theaters after that.