Along with the Palestine, the Charles, and the Ruby, all on the Lower East Side, construction of this theatre was announced in November 1925.
The theatre had 1st floor seating of 1068, mezzanine and balcony seating of 630, and boxes seating 90. There was also an open-air roof-top theatre with a capacity of 1000.
According to its original Certificate of Occupancy, the building had seating for 502 on the first floor and 98 in the balcony for a nice, round total of 600.
Announcement of the theatre’s construction, along with those of three other Lower East Side locations, was made in November 1925.
It was one of 12 Manhattan facilities being operated by the Bell Theatre Company in 1937.
By the time of his death in 1946, this, along with the Palestine, was one of two theatres being operated by exhibitor Charles Steiner, who’d begun exhibiting films in 1906 and had earlier run a large circuit of Lower East Side and Harlem locations.
Dan Talbot’s programming of the theatre began in September 1960.
The information in the description is inaccurate. This theatre opened as part of the Century circuit (their first foray into NJ) and was a single screen. It opened shortly before the Route 4 Tenplex (also a single screen upon its debut).
As stated in the description, this theatre opened with six auditoriums, two of which were later twinned. The additional six screens later added were the result of an addition to the back of the original facility. The addition featured an all-new concession stand (with kitchen), a managers' kiosk, and two indoor box offices, as well as an upper level in which three of the new screens reside. The entire facility was reoriented so that the addition, in the back, is now the theatre’s entrance, while the older eight auditoriums are now in the building’s rear. The original concession stand is now an auxilliary stand and the original box offices, with their exterior windows plastered over, have been converted to storage space.
The theatre’s original, six-screen design, can be seen at the Loews Meadow Six theatre in Secaucus, NJ (/theaters/10084/).
The Grant-Lee was a long time adult theatre which later turned to commercial fare as the Sharon Cinema (before closing in the late 1980s). It was located at 815 Abbott Blvd. in the Palisade section of Fort Lee. The theatre building still exists as the home to several local retailers and service providers.
(Function can be changed to “Retail.”)
The entire text below is from HauntedHouses.com:
The spirits who still enjoy the ambiance and atmosphere of the Harvard Exit Theater have been the topic of many newspapers and TV shows, not to mention many psychics and paranormal psychologists who have investigated the building through their equipment, medium contacts and personal experiences. At least three or four female spirits, one or two male spirits and a “Thought Form” have been identified by witnesses and researchers.
Main Theater – First Floor
A) Around the turn of the century, a murder of a man, killed in a brawl, took place in the house that was torn down to make room for this Harvard Exit building.
1). A male manifestation, described as being portly, slightly see-through and wearing an old-fashioned suit has made his appearance known. Calls himself Peter, and described as “a very lighthearted fellow, kind of goofy.”
a) Psychic investigators, Jane Riese and J.R. Benight, producers of TV Talk Show, “Seattle in Vogue,” were watching a film in the main theater auditorium. Jane felt an invisible presence playfully toying with her hair over her neck. Out of the corner of her eye, she spied a flicker of light down front of the auditorium just right of the screen, by the exit door. She then saw a translucent form of a portly gentleman in profile, with a distinguished demeanor, watching the film on screen, enjoying himself.
2) The same psychic investigators, Jane Riese and J.R. Benight through a channeling medium talked to another male spirit with a British-like accent, but no name was gotten. This suggests that perhaps Peter has a fellow male spirit to do some ghostly male bonding within the main theater, perhaps helping themselves to free showings when the place is empty of the living and doing their part of be “helpful.”
a) On other occasions, one or both of these ghostly film enthusiasts have been known to reorganize the film canisters around this projection room, much to the annoyance of the living.
b) On several occasions during the years, Theater Managers have opened the building and found the movie projector showing a film to an unseen audience. In one instance, a projectionist arrived to start his shift and found that a movie had already been playing to an empty, dark house. He made haste to the projection room to catch the guilty party, but found that the door was locked from the inside!!!
I think that not only this spirit Peter and this unknown male spirit enjoy films, but also other unseen guests, perhaps the female apparition spotted in the balcony (mentioned below) also appreciate the cinematic arts.
B) In the 1940’s, a woman was suffocated somewhere in the building. She could be the entity in the balcony mentioned in #3, and perhaps the same entity getting her kicks scaring the administration personnel on the 2nd floor.(See below – Second Floor Experiences)
3) In the balcony of the first floor theater, a female entity has been felt and seen there.
a) A janitor who was vacuuming the rugs suddenly got the sense that she wasn’t alone in the auditorium. After turning off the vacuum cleaner, she glanced up to the balcony and saw a figure wearing an old fashioned dress (perhaps Victorian), standing there, though she couldn’t make out the face or hands. Another young woman at a different time saw this same apparition, in a more complete form also standing in the balcony.
C) For many years, The Harvard Exit building was the headquarters of the beloved The Women’s Century Club, which many women called a home away from home..
Entities found in the First Floor Lobby – Two different female entities and their friends have been seen here, in person and in photos taken of a supposedly empty room. Theater Manager, Janet Wainwright, who was the Theater Manager for 10 years, in charge of opening up the theater, met these spirits and felt they were positive and helpful.
4) On one of her first days on the job, Janet Wainwright walked into the lobby and was startled to see a woman, sitting in a chair near the fireplace, reading a book. The woman was described as having her hair in a bun on top of her head, wearing a long, floral dress and was just slightly see-through. Much to her fascination and horror, the woman slowly melted into thin air. At other meetings in the lobby, this ghostly female entity would look up at Janet or any human being standing there, smile pleasantly, turn off the lamp and walk out of the room.
a) It is traditional to have a fire burning in the first floor fireplace for the enjoyment of the film patrons waiting to go into the auditorium for the evening’s film presentation. This responsibility was the duty of the evening Theater Manager. This was the first job Janet W. did upon arriving. Every once and awhile, the fire was already burning brightly before Janet had arrived; a spirit had helped with the chores!! On these occasions, the chairs had been moved around the fire as if people had been chatting, enjoying the company. The chairs had always been moved back to their places before closing the Theater doors the night before.
5) Sometimes, Janet didn’t have to enter the darkened lobby to light the fire, because she would see a tall female entity leave the lobby, switching on the lights as she left the room, on both the first floor and the third floor.
a) It is thought that this tall entity could be the spirit of Bertha K. Landis, a strong president of the Women’s Century Club and the City Federation of Women’s Clubs, who also was Seattle’s first mayor. She seems to like to help out the Theater Managers, and keep an eye on the place, while hanging out in a place she loved.
Psychic Research – Through a channeling medium, Jane Riese and J.R. Benight were able to talk to a stern, older woman,(describes Bertha Landis) who wanted to know in no uncertain terms what the Janet and J.R. were up to in her place. After acknowledging that she and the other ghosts knew that they were dead, she had a hissy fit when it was suggested that she needed to move on because she no longer belonged there. “We like it here, this is our home. You wouldn’t want to leave your home in the middle of the night and neither do we.”
2nd Floor Experiences:
6) As mentioned above in the First Floor Theater section, a woman was murdered in the Harvard Exit during the 1940’s. Medium Sylvia Brown describes this apparition as being a short woman, an actress dressed in a Victorian period long dress, who was suffocated, meeting a violent end, which often creates a restless, unhappy spirit.
a) Although the hauntings mainly occur on the first and third floor, a female apparition, a sad, forlorn soul, has appeared several times to various people working in the administrative offices, scaring the socks off the living. When she isn’t getting her kicks upsetting the living on the 2nd floor, an apparition of her description has been seen in the balcony of the first floor. (See above – First Floor Theater Hauntings)
b) On one occasion, a man working in second floor administration office suddenly heard a woman crying as if her heart was breaking. Going out in the hall, he saw a female in emotional distress. Thinking she was a real human being, he approaches her to offer comfort, but she vanishes into the air!
c) Several other women working in these offices throughout the years have also seen this full formed female apparition floating down the hall way, inspiring them to flee as fast as possible down to the main floor.
The Third Floor Hauntings:
The Spirit of Bertha Landis enjoys appearing briefly to the living in the third floor lobby as well as the first floor lobby it seems. She is the most common apparition spotted by the living, and doesn’t plan to leave anytime soon, as discussed under the First Floor Lobby Section, found above.
7) The third floor is the favorite place where what they call a “Thought Form” is strongly felt and makes its home, with the purpose of watching out over the building. It is described by Jane Riese and J.R. Benight as a entity formed by mass energy, often from negative sources, which has no personality, just a collective will, that is often arrogant, dictatorial in nature.
D) Jane Riese and J.R. Benight contacted this Thought Form through a medium and came to the following conclusion. This Thought Form was molded over many years from several sources.
1) A group of strong, intense, passionate suffragettes called the Harvard Exit building their home base for many years.
2) In the late ‘60’s / early 1970’s, drug parties took place in the Harvard Exit building.
3) Two other activities really stirred up this entity; Seances & Spirit Communication Classes and the Renovation of the Third Floor.
a) On the third floor during the ‘70’s decade, a woman would hold classes in contacting the spirits, and would lead seances.
b) When the theater changed hands, being bought by Landmark in 1979, a new auditorium was added to the third floor. Building renovation projects often stir up the unseen entities and forces to new levels of awareness to the living.
Experiences With this Thought Form –
a) Alan Blangy, a man not easily scared and a bit of a skeptic concerning ghosts, became the Theater Manager after Janet Wainwright’s tenure, had an uneasy sense that something in the building was hostile to him. This something made itself known one evening when Blangy and his assistant manager were in the process of locking up the theater for the night. Suddenly he heard a loud bang, so he quickly went back inside. He heard people talking in the third floor lobby, so he went up to investigate. While no one was there, he did hear the side exit door open and close. He went over to be sure that the door had closed tightly; it hadn’t. Someone or thing on the other side was pulling against him, stopping him from shutting the door.
He finally did so, but opened the door again with his assistant by his side, so he had support in confronting these “strange people.” Both men opened the door 5 seconds later, but found that no one was there. The third floor metal fire escape would’ve made a lot of noise if anyone had gone down it. After this experience, Blangy no longer felt this hostility, but instead felt welcomed – He had passed the test!
One could conclude that while this Thought Form may be bossy and dictatorial in nature, it can change its opinion, which sounds like the main energy of this Thought Form may be controlled by the passionate suffragette energy mass, whose main purpose is to watch over the building.
b) A group of psychics and parapsychologists spent some time at night hanging out at the theater. Some put a magnet by the exit door mentioned above in the third floor auditorium. They witnessed over a period of weeks a large ball of energy which would appear and move across the auditorium and out the exit door, causing the magnet to revolve wildly.
Still Haunted? Yes indeed. Sharing the building with the living is agreeable to all the unseen spirits and forces residing there, and the living simply accept the manifestations as part of the Harvard Exit Theater.
Blue laws did indeed prevent theatres from operating legally on Sundays, both in NY and many other jurisdictions. Religious ‘crusaders’ often forced local police and prosecutors, who were usually content to turn a blind eye to infractions, to enforce such laws by swearing out complaints against offenders.
(Such laws also prevented Sunday baseball games in many cities in the early part of the twentieth century. Christy Mathewson and John McGraw of the New York Giants were arrested for participating in a benefit game on Sunday, August 19, 1917.)
The reserved seating concept was actually introduced to the Loews circuit with the opening of the Loews Waterfront Theatre in 1998.
A few other notes on the 34th Street:
Shortly after its opening in the autumn of 2001, the theatre served as the testing ground for the company’s Reel Moms program, which caters to caregivers with infants. The program, brainchild of LCE VP of Marketing John McCauley, proved such a success that it was expanded to twenty cities within two years and spawned imitators throughout the industry.
Within just a year of opening (and presumably because of disappointing attendance), the theatre’s ticket price was reduced to $8.99, a relative bargain in Manhattan.
RobertR: note my comment of 1/18 to see why the price has been reduced. As a side note, I attended a 5:15 show at the Eight’s sister theatre, the Meadow Six, on Wednesday 1/19 and my family had the auditorium to ourselves.
As per Dave-Bronx’s entry earlier today, this location’s Seat count needs to be updated.
One of the theatre’s earlier incarnations, the Houston Hippodrome, was designed by Thomas W. Lamb in 1909 (as a conversion from the Reformed German Evangelical Church, built in 1846).
The Loews Wayne Theatre, in Wayne, NJ, originally shared the same design layout as this theatre. Eventually, the two large houses at the Wayne were twinned, causing that location to be known as the Wayne 8 for many years. Later, an addition was added to that facility growing the total count to 14 auditoriums. The original front of the Wayne, nearly identical to the Six, is now the rear of the building.
I don’t remember exact counts (and installation of wider seats in the late 1990s cut into them anyway) but the auditoriums here used to seat something on the order of #1=400, #2=400, #3=600, #4=600, #5=800, #6=800. Thanks to these numbers and the wonder of interlocks, this theatre used to put up some monstrous grosses – I’m thinking “Terminator 2” era.
Traditionally, the Six hosted action films while the Eight, located just across the Plaza at the Meadows mall, featured family-oriented films.
Why did they lower the prices (here and at the Six)?
The Columbia Park 12, featuring stadium seating and $2 admission, is located at 3125 Kennedy Blvd. in North Bergen.
Compared to that price, the Eight and the Six, each located less than two miles and 5 minutes away, aren’t really much of a bargain at $6.50.
In addition, Loews Cineplex’s own Ridgefield Park location, just 7 miles away, went bargain several years ago. The circuit’s been cannibalizing itself.
Why did they lower the prices (here and at the Eight)?
The Columbia Park 12, featuring stadium seating and $2 admission, is located at 3125 Kennedy Blvd. in North Bergen.
Compared to that price, the Six and the Eight, each located less than two miles and 5 minutes away, aren’t really much of a bargain at $6.50. (And remember that both 1980s theatres fail to provide stadium seating.)
In addition, Loews Cineplex’s own Ridgefield Park location, just 7 miles away, went bargain several years ago. The circuit’s been cannibalizing itself.
No. The Grant-Lee, a long time adult theatre which later turned to commercial fare as the Sharon Cinema (before closing in the late 1980s), was located at 815 Abbott Blvd. in the Palisade section of Fort Lee. The theatre building still exists as the home to several local retailers and service providers.
Along with the Palestine, the Charles, and the Ruby, all on the Lower East Side, construction of this theatre was announced in November 1925.
The theatre had 1st floor seating of 1068, mezzanine and balcony seating of 630, and boxes seating 90. There was also an open-air roof-top theatre with a capacity of 1000.
Also, the theatre was still known as the Bijou as of June, 1946.
According to its original Certificate of Occupancy, the building had seating for 502 on the first floor and 98 in the balcony for a nice, round total of 600.
Announcement of the theatre’s construction, along with those of three other Lower East Side locations, was made in November 1925.
It was one of 12 Manhattan facilities being operated by the Bell Theatre Company in 1937.
By the time of his death in 1946, this, along with the Palestine, was one of two theatres being operated by exhibitor Charles Steiner, who’d begun exhibiting films in 1906 and had earlier run a large circuit of Lower East Side and Harlem locations.
Dan Talbot’s programming of the theatre began in September 1960.
The information in the description is inaccurate. This theatre opened as part of the Century circuit (their first foray into NJ) and was a single screen. It opened shortly before the Route 4 Tenplex (also a single screen upon its debut).
Architect needs to be updated to “David Rockwell/Rockwell Group.”
Architect needs to be updated to “David Rockwell/Rockwell Group.”
A film ignited in the Comet’s projection booth on June 21, 1933, burning the operator, Joesph Faccini, who died of his injuries the following evening.
This theatre was know as the Comet no later than October 1935 (there was slight fire damage reported in the New York Times).
The theatre opened on August 24, 2001.
As stated in the description, this theatre opened with six auditoriums, two of which were later twinned. The additional six screens later added were the result of an addition to the back of the original facility. The addition featured an all-new concession stand (with kitchen), a managers' kiosk, and two indoor box offices, as well as an upper level in which three of the new screens reside. The entire facility was reoriented so that the addition, in the back, is now the theatre’s entrance, while the older eight auditoriums are now in the building’s rear. The original concession stand is now an auxilliary stand and the original box offices, with their exterior windows plastered over, have been converted to storage space.
The theatre’s original, six-screen design, can be seen at the Loews Meadow Six theatre in Secaucus, NJ (/theaters/10084/).
The Grant-Lee was a long time adult theatre which later turned to commercial fare as the Sharon Cinema (before closing in the late 1980s). It was located at 815 Abbott Blvd. in the Palisade section of Fort Lee. The theatre building still exists as the home to several local retailers and service providers.
(Function can be changed to “Retail.”)
The theatre has a reputation for being haunted.
The entire text below is from HauntedHouses.com:
The spirits who still enjoy the ambiance and atmosphere of the Harvard Exit Theater have been the topic of many newspapers and TV shows, not to mention many psychics and paranormal psychologists who have investigated the building through their equipment, medium contacts and personal experiences. At least three or four female spirits, one or two male spirits and a “Thought Form” have been identified by witnesses and researchers.
Main Theater – First Floor
A) Around the turn of the century, a murder of a man, killed in a brawl, took place in the house that was torn down to make room for this Harvard Exit building.
1). A male manifestation, described as being portly, slightly see-through and wearing an old-fashioned suit has made his appearance known. Calls himself Peter, and described as “a very lighthearted fellow, kind of goofy.”
a) Psychic investigators, Jane Riese and J.R. Benight, producers of TV Talk Show, “Seattle in Vogue,” were watching a film in the main theater auditorium. Jane felt an invisible presence playfully toying with her hair over her neck. Out of the corner of her eye, she spied a flicker of light down front of the auditorium just right of the screen, by the exit door. She then saw a translucent form of a portly gentleman in profile, with a distinguished demeanor, watching the film on screen, enjoying himself.
2) The same psychic investigators, Jane Riese and J.R. Benight through a channeling medium talked to another male spirit with a British-like accent, but no name was gotten. This suggests that perhaps Peter has a fellow male spirit to do some ghostly male bonding within the main theater, perhaps helping themselves to free showings when the place is empty of the living and doing their part of be “helpful.”
a) On other occasions, one or both of these ghostly film enthusiasts have been known to reorganize the film canisters around this projection room, much to the annoyance of the living.
b) On several occasions during the years, Theater Managers have opened the building and found the movie projector showing a film to an unseen audience. In one instance, a projectionist arrived to start his shift and found that a movie had already been playing to an empty, dark house. He made haste to the projection room to catch the guilty party, but found that the door was locked from the inside!!!
I think that not only this spirit Peter and this unknown male spirit enjoy films, but also other unseen guests, perhaps the female apparition spotted in the balcony (mentioned below) also appreciate the cinematic arts.
B) In the 1940’s, a woman was suffocated somewhere in the building. She could be the entity in the balcony mentioned in #3, and perhaps the same entity getting her kicks scaring the administration personnel on the 2nd floor.(See below – Second Floor Experiences)
3) In the balcony of the first floor theater, a female entity has been felt and seen there.
a) A janitor who was vacuuming the rugs suddenly got the sense that she wasn’t alone in the auditorium. After turning off the vacuum cleaner, she glanced up to the balcony and saw a figure wearing an old fashioned dress (perhaps Victorian), standing there, though she couldn’t make out the face or hands. Another young woman at a different time saw this same apparition, in a more complete form also standing in the balcony.
C) For many years, The Harvard Exit building was the headquarters of the beloved The Women’s Century Club, which many women called a home away from home..
Entities found in the First Floor Lobby – Two different female entities and their friends have been seen here, in person and in photos taken of a supposedly empty room. Theater Manager, Janet Wainwright, who was the Theater Manager for 10 years, in charge of opening up the theater, met these spirits and felt they were positive and helpful.
4) On one of her first days on the job, Janet Wainwright walked into the lobby and was startled to see a woman, sitting in a chair near the fireplace, reading a book. The woman was described as having her hair in a bun on top of her head, wearing a long, floral dress and was just slightly see-through. Much to her fascination and horror, the woman slowly melted into thin air. At other meetings in the lobby, this ghostly female entity would look up at Janet or any human being standing there, smile pleasantly, turn off the lamp and walk out of the room.
a) It is traditional to have a fire burning in the first floor fireplace for the enjoyment of the film patrons waiting to go into the auditorium for the evening’s film presentation. This responsibility was the duty of the evening Theater Manager. This was the first job Janet W. did upon arriving. Every once and awhile, the fire was already burning brightly before Janet had arrived; a spirit had helped with the chores!! On these occasions, the chairs had been moved around the fire as if people had been chatting, enjoying the company. The chairs had always been moved back to their places before closing the Theater doors the night before.
5) Sometimes, Janet didn’t have to enter the darkened lobby to light the fire, because she would see a tall female entity leave the lobby, switching on the lights as she left the room, on both the first floor and the third floor.
a) It is thought that this tall entity could be the spirit of Bertha K. Landis, a strong president of the Women’s Century Club and the City Federation of Women’s Clubs, who also was Seattle’s first mayor. She seems to like to help out the Theater Managers, and keep an eye on the place, while hanging out in a place she loved.
Psychic Research – Through a channeling medium, Jane Riese and J.R. Benight were able to talk to a stern, older woman,(describes Bertha Landis) who wanted to know in no uncertain terms what the Janet and J.R. were up to in her place. After acknowledging that she and the other ghosts knew that they were dead, she had a hissy fit when it was suggested that she needed to move on because she no longer belonged there. “We like it here, this is our home. You wouldn’t want to leave your home in the middle of the night and neither do we.”
2nd Floor Experiences:
6) As mentioned above in the First Floor Theater section, a woman was murdered in the Harvard Exit during the 1940’s. Medium Sylvia Brown describes this apparition as being a short woman, an actress dressed in a Victorian period long dress, who was suffocated, meeting a violent end, which often creates a restless, unhappy spirit.
a) Although the hauntings mainly occur on the first and third floor, a female apparition, a sad, forlorn soul, has appeared several times to various people working in the administrative offices, scaring the socks off the living. When she isn’t getting her kicks upsetting the living on the 2nd floor, an apparition of her description has been seen in the balcony of the first floor. (See above – First Floor Theater Hauntings)
b) On one occasion, a man working in second floor administration office suddenly heard a woman crying as if her heart was breaking. Going out in the hall, he saw a female in emotional distress. Thinking she was a real human being, he approaches her to offer comfort, but she vanishes into the air!
c) Several other women working in these offices throughout the years have also seen this full formed female apparition floating down the hall way, inspiring them to flee as fast as possible down to the main floor.
The Third Floor Hauntings:
The Spirit of Bertha Landis enjoys appearing briefly to the living in the third floor lobby as well as the first floor lobby it seems. She is the most common apparition spotted by the living, and doesn’t plan to leave anytime soon, as discussed under the First Floor Lobby Section, found above.
7) The third floor is the favorite place where what they call a “Thought Form” is strongly felt and makes its home, with the purpose of watching out over the building. It is described by Jane Riese and J.R. Benight as a entity formed by mass energy, often from negative sources, which has no personality, just a collective will, that is often arrogant, dictatorial in nature.
D) Jane Riese and J.R. Benight contacted this Thought Form through a medium and came to the following conclusion. This Thought Form was molded over many years from several sources.
1) A group of strong, intense, passionate suffragettes called the Harvard Exit building their home base for many years.
2) In the late ‘60’s / early 1970’s, drug parties took place in the Harvard Exit building.
3) Two other activities really stirred up this entity; Seances & Spirit Communication Classes and the Renovation of the Third Floor.
a) On the third floor during the ‘70’s decade, a woman would hold classes in contacting the spirits, and would lead seances.
b) When the theater changed hands, being bought by Landmark in 1979, a new auditorium was added to the third floor. Building renovation projects often stir up the unseen entities and forces to new levels of awareness to the living.
Experiences With this Thought Form –
a) Alan Blangy, a man not easily scared and a bit of a skeptic concerning ghosts, became the Theater Manager after Janet Wainwright’s tenure, had an uneasy sense that something in the building was hostile to him. This something made itself known one evening when Blangy and his assistant manager were in the process of locking up the theater for the night. Suddenly he heard a loud bang, so he quickly went back inside. He heard people talking in the third floor lobby, so he went up to investigate. While no one was there, he did hear the side exit door open and close. He went over to be sure that the door had closed tightly; it hadn’t. Someone or thing on the other side was pulling against him, stopping him from shutting the door.
He finally did so, but opened the door again with his assistant by his side, so he had support in confronting these “strange people.” Both men opened the door 5 seconds later, but found that no one was there. The third floor metal fire escape would’ve made a lot of noise if anyone had gone down it. After this experience, Blangy no longer felt this hostility, but instead felt welcomed – He had passed the test!
One could conclude that while this Thought Form may be bossy and dictatorial in nature, it can change its opinion, which sounds like the main energy of this Thought Form may be controlled by the passionate suffragette energy mass, whose main purpose is to watch over the building.
b) A group of psychics and parapsychologists spent some time at night hanging out at the theater. Some put a magnet by the exit door mentioned above in the third floor auditorium. They witnessed over a period of weeks a large ball of energy which would appear and move across the auditorium and out the exit door, causing the magnet to revolve wildly.
Still Haunted? Yes indeed. Sharing the building with the living is agreeable to all the unseen spirits and forces residing there, and the living simply accept the manifestations as part of the Harvard Exit Theater.
Blue laws did indeed prevent theatres from operating legally on Sundays, both in NY and many other jurisdictions. Religious ‘crusaders’ often forced local police and prosecutors, who were usually content to turn a blind eye to infractions, to enforce such laws by swearing out complaints against offenders.
(Such laws also prevented Sunday baseball games in many cities in the early part of the twentieth century. Christy Mathewson and John McGraw of the New York Giants were arrested for participating in a benefit game on Sunday, August 19, 1917.)
The reserved seating concept was actually introduced to the Loews circuit with the opening of the Loews Waterfront Theatre in 1998.
A few other notes on the 34th Street:
Shortly after its opening in the autumn of 2001, the theatre served as the testing ground for the company’s Reel Moms program, which caters to caregivers with infants. The program, brainchild of LCE VP of Marketing John McCauley, proved such a success that it was expanded to twenty cities within two years and spawned imitators throughout the industry.
Within just a year of opening (and presumably because of disappointing attendance), the theatre’s ticket price was reduced to $8.99, a relative bargain in Manhattan.
The theatre’s web address is View link
Status needs to be updated to closed.
The theater closed, with a concert benefiting World Hunger Year, on December 12, 2004.
RobertR: note my comment of 1/18 to see why the price has been reduced. As a side note, I attended a 5:15 show at the Eight’s sister theatre, the Meadow Six, on Wednesday 1/19 and my family had the auditorium to ourselves.
As per Dave-Bronx’s entry earlier today, this location’s Seat count needs to be updated.
One of the theatre’s earlier incarnations, the Houston Hippodrome, was designed by Thomas W. Lamb in 1909 (as a conversion from the Reformed German Evangelical Church, built in 1846).
The Loews Wayne Theatre, in Wayne, NJ, originally shared the same design layout as this theatre. Eventually, the two large houses at the Wayne were twinned, causing that location to be known as the Wayne 8 for many years. Later, an addition was added to that facility growing the total count to 14 auditoriums. The original front of the Wayne, nearly identical to the Six, is now the rear of the building.
I don’t remember exact counts (and installation of wider seats in the late 1990s cut into them anyway) but the auditoriums here used to seat something on the order of #1=400, #2=400, #3=600, #4=600, #5=800, #6=800. Thanks to these numbers and the wonder of interlocks, this theatre used to put up some monstrous grosses – I’m thinking “Terminator 2” era.
Traditionally, the Six hosted action films while the Eight, located just across the Plaza at the Meadows mall, featured family-oriented films.
Why did they lower the prices (here and at the Six)?
The Columbia Park 12, featuring stadium seating and $2 admission, is located at 3125 Kennedy Blvd. in North Bergen.
Compared to that price, the Eight and the Six, each located less than two miles and 5 minutes away, aren’t really much of a bargain at $6.50.
In addition, Loews Cineplex’s own Ridgefield Park location, just 7 miles away, went bargain several years ago. The circuit’s been cannibalizing itself.
Why did they lower the prices (here and at the Eight)?
The Columbia Park 12, featuring stadium seating and $2 admission, is located at 3125 Kennedy Blvd. in North Bergen.
Compared to that price, the Six and the Eight, each located less than two miles and 5 minutes away, aren’t really much of a bargain at $6.50. (And remember that both 1980s theatres fail to provide stadium seating.)
In addition, Loews Cineplex’s own Ridgefield Park location, just 7 miles away, went bargain several years ago. The circuit’s been cannibalizing itself.
Ian rules. The seat count listing should be changed to 1535.
No. The Grant-Lee, a long time adult theatre which later turned to commercial fare as the Sharon Cinema (before closing in the late 1980s), was located at 815 Abbott Blvd. in the Palisade section of Fort Lee. The theatre building still exists as the home to several local retailers and service providers.