Embassy 1,2,3 Theatre
707 7th Avenue,
New York,
NY
10036
707 7th Avenue,
New York,
NY
10036
38 people
favorited this theater
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Porter Faulkner: you confirm what I can clearly see from my office window above the Embassy 2,3,4/Mayfair/DeMille.
REndres. The current Mayfair/DeMille was built in exactly the format it still remains in. The entrance was in 7th Avenue and had a wraparound marquee into 47th Street. The marquee was just a marketing feature that enabled the theatre to advertise big and large to a Times Square audience. They would have paid the owners of the building a hefty price to rent that space and eventually the agreement expired and the marquee was removed.
The auditorium was in the same place now that it was built in. The back of the balcony was at the 7th Avenue end facing east. There was a screen at the eastern end that was placed in a stage house with a flying grid. It was built as a movie house and therefore did not have a deep stage facility. All there would have been in the stage house was several drapes that would be raised horizontally as well as vertically, various screens and the speakers. The street frontage you can see in the 1980’s photo features a blacked out set of arched windows above the marquee. This was the old lounge area on the way to the balcony seats.
The alterations made to the building when it was triplexed into the Embassy 2,3,4 were minimal but consisted of building the two box theatres in the old balcony. They halved the lobby, gaining space for the Donut Shop and then redecorated the lobby. It was only possible to do this because of the much reduced seating capacity of the theatre. They then proceeded to paint out the entire auditorium in black (or maybe it was dark purple) It was possible to sit in the downstairs auditorium and see all the original architectural features beneath the paint. The original seats were still in use.
HOWEVER, what your friend may be right about instating that the plans were all wrong, is that the Mayfair was built within a previous theatres site. The Columbia was gutted in 1930 and the Mayfair built within its walls. Perhaps that’s where the confusion arises?
I’ve always wondered about Ben’s story of the auditorium being reversed as well, but apparently the plans the contractor came up with supported that idea. Perhaps Warren could tell us if the Mayfair did stage presentations, or was strictly a film house. If you look at the front of the building on the 7th Avenue side, the first set of windows above the arches over the marquee are the current booth windows. That’s several floors up, so they could have had a good sized screen at that end, and if they weren’t doing stage shows could have used a travelling title curtain which wouldn’t have required a stage house and fly foor or grid. At some point they may have revised the house to accomodate stage presentations. The stage area as it now exists isn’t very deep. The projectionist’s union office looked down on the building for a time, and seen from there the offices are wrapped around the auditorium. At one point the city wouldn’t allow a structure to be built over an auditorium for safety reasons, so the Mayfair auditorium space is clearly visible from above. Warren, any clues from your material to indicate a significant remodeling at some point under the various management of the theatre?
Regarding the original entrance to the Mayfair, if you look at the amazing picture that Warren offers (and I got) the entrance back in 1932 is pretty much exactly where it exsits today. It appears that the Mayfair had a sweet deal with the landlord in that it allowed them to have one helluva marquee covering the building. I don’t think the entrance was ever on the side street. I could be wrong.
But I don’t get the idea that the theater was originally inverted meaning that the screen was on 7th Ave. My office looks right down onto the Mayfair’s auditorium and it looks like the curtain building (forgive my lack of correct terminology but it’s the taller portion of the structure where, I imagine, the curtain would be stored UP while the movie was playing) is in the rear of the building, not on 7th.
There would have been some problems with constructing a booth downstairs. The balcony is very deep and might have limited the height of the picture on screen. In addition, there was a runway put in the center of the house for the strippers, so additional seating would have been sacrificed. There might also have been a requirement for another projection crew downstairs as the State and the former Strand had. (This was the first house in New York to use Pott’s platters rather than Christie — the concept was still pretty new.) As a practical note: Short of climbing from the orchestra of the Music Hall to the booth (the Hall has an elevator to that level), the booth in the DeMille requires the most arduous cllimb of any booth I’ve worked in. The balcony is very steep, and even when you get to the top lobby level, there are another set of stairs going up to get to the booth (you can see the booth windows from 7th Avenue and get an idea of the climb). At one point the projectionists could go into the office building entrance on the street side of the building and take the office elevator to a level just below the booth, then enter a closet and climb the emergency booth exit ladder up one flight to the booth. Eventually the office building management rescinded that courtesy and the crew had to climb up from the street level entrance. Once you got up there you didn’t want to leave until your shift was over!
Some of the earlier plexing did it this way. It’s much cheaper to do it this way, you use one projection booth. The old Culver Theatre in Culver City, California and the old Fox California Theatre in Huntington Park, California did it that way. The tunnel was also a sound buffer between the two upper theatres.
Wouldnt it have been easier to build a small projection booth in the back of the house downstairs?
The Mayfair/DeMille/Embassy 2-3-4 entrance may well have changed from the side street to 7th Avenue. A friend of mine did the projection installation when they triplexed the theatre, and I worked a number of relief shifts there when Peter Elson had it. Ben Olevsky at the Music Hall told me once that at one time the auditorium was exactly reversed from the way it is now, with the stage and screen at the 7th Avenue end. I mentioned this to the contractor when it was being triplexed and he said, “That explains it.” Apparently none of the architctural drawings they could find made any sense because they were from the earlier (Mayfair?) era. A couple of other notes: Originally the triplex was to be a porno/strip tease house, and at one point construction had gotten far enough that there was a runway down the center of the orchestra and dressing rooms for the girls had been constructed backstage. Then the city said “no more porno houses in Times Square”, and the theatres went to conventional fare. The balcony actually has two walls added for the triplex, with a “light tunnel” in between them so the #2 projector continued to shoot down to the screen as it had in the DeMille. The other two machines were moved left and right to former spot/lighting ports for the upstairs houses. Unfortunately the tunnel limited the width of the downstairs screen, but no one saw this as a problem since porno is not usually wider than 1.85 or 1.37. When they started running regular fare, Peter wanted to run 70mm since all of the projectors could. What they couldn’t do was run it wider than the l.85 image because of the narrownes of the tunnel between the upstairs houses. Had the upstairs walls been put a little farther apart or the screen moved back toward the rear of the house a little more the image in the orchestra could have been the same as in the DeMille roadshow days.
On the listing for the Embassy, RobertR posted a very nice picture of the Embassy during it’s newsreel days but you can clearly see the marquee for the Mayfair as well. What intrigues me is where was the actual entrance lobby to the Mayfair itselft. Is it where it is (kind of…) today, in the middle of the block? Also, that great wraparound marquee I would say is where the Sbarro’s is today. Is this correct? Or was the original entrance to Mayfair different?
Yes Don, the lobby was cut in half all the way back to the doors into the orchestra. The Donut Shop occupied half the lobby for about 12 feet in and then after that it was the box office. It was redecorated so you really weren’t aware of it, cream and gold with big mirrors and wall brackets down the sides to open the narrow space up a little.
If I had to see a film here I would always sit at the front of the downstairs auditorium. You could see the old dome way high above and the architectural features of the proscenium and sidewalls were just painted out black or maroon when they triplexed it. Even a chandelier hanging there but unlit. The old seats remained and it was only carpetted down the aisles. I quite often killed time here wondering how I would restore the place. It had a unusual quirky decorative theme underneath all that paint. Kind of like an art deco/moorish feel to it. The upstairs theatres were in the balcony and they had just put a wall up and it was pretty basic inside those boxes. Love to see more pics of it in its heydey.
You know, I never noticed that the donut shop took up half the DeMille front. Did they transform half the lobby into the donut shop?
Circa 1980’s, a look at the Embassy 2,3,4 Theatre
View link
After a fire in the DeMille, it was triplexed and renamed the Mark 1, 2, 3.
Look at the incredible display for “The Day the Earth Stood Still” on the DemIlle.
View link
If my memory is correct there was the Agee Twin Theatres on that same block some time in the mid 70"s which was also north of the Demille but I’m not sure if that became the Westside Cinema or not. I also believe the Agee Twin might have become the Mark 1 and 2 also not 100% psitive but relying on my memory…
The marquee to the north of the Embassy 2,3,4 (DeMille) was the Westside Cinema. Before and after that it was a porn house.
Just one more thing to add: from my office, I can look directly down onto the old Mayfair and see the roof of the auditorium. It looks pretty big. For some reason, this site makes me feel sad. Such a place that was once filled with people. Now a relic. People walking up and down 7th Avenue probably never give a thought on what lies beyond.
Just curious, and I apologize if this has been asked before, but I know where the present marquee is for the Embassy 2,3,4 (aka Mayfair) but what is the marquee just north of it for? Right now it has the ad for the American Girl store and underneath it says “Sage Theater”. Was this ever a movie house?
Also, I’ve read a lot about The Mayfair. It sounds like at one time it was a fairly important theater. From the looks of it on the street now, you’d have a really hard time believing that it ever mattered. When did the present marquee go up? The 60’s or so?
The Ziegfeld Theatre would make a greater impact if it was Cinerama equipped. In a few of the above posts people have talked about the wrap around sign of the building. In the last few months they have added another sign covering more of the front of the building. One problem with using that signage is that the Broadway shows pay a lot of money now on the signage. And no one has been wanting to pay the rent for the theatre that the landloads want. (about two years ago or so it was one million a year for the theatre) Once that old lease ran out it went UP.
On second thoght, why not a letter writing campaign on saving the DeMille to the mayor, the tourism office and anyone else you can think off? It might work. Andres.
Reading all the above comments about restoring the DeMille/Embassy as a cinematheque and/or Cinerama venue, FYI, I have sent the following letter on bringing Cinerama back to NY — with some changes, depending on the recipient — to the Mayor’s Office, to the NY Tourism Company, Loew’s, Clearview Cinemas and all the papers. But no one seems to be interested, specially Mayor Mike. All he cares about is forcing people to smoke outside buildings and build the West Side Stadium, which will create traffic chaos in the area. Here is the letter — the version sent to Loew’s — and I am sorry I forgot to mention the DeMille:
“I am sorry the Astor Plaza in Times Square closed. The Astor Plaza was one of my favorite theaters where I always tried to see a movie that interested me. I always sought that space could have been converted to a Cinerama theatre, but it did not come to pass. My interest in Cinerama comes from having been MGM’s publicity and theater manager in Puerto Rico in the 1960’s, and helped launch Cinerama in Puerto Rico with “How The West Was Won.â€
As both Loews and Times Square are celebrating 100 years, have you considered constructing a Cinerama Theater with both triple projection and 70mm capability; or installing Cinerama at one of the bigger auditoriums on the E-Walk as your big centenary celebration?
Cinerama debuted right here in New York City at the Broadway Theatre on September 1952. Yet, while Seattle and Los Angeles have Cinerama theatres, New York, “The Capital of the World,†does not. I am sure a Cinerama theater in Times Square, “the crossroads of the world,†would be a terrific tourist attraction bringing movie loving visitors from around the country — and the world — to the city.
Besides Cinerama, the theater could show 70mm spectaculars like “Lawrence of Arabia†“as they were intended to be seen,†as Loews says in the promotion of its film classic series. Also, the venue could be used for other movie attraction such as a 3D festival like they had at the Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles in the summer. Except for the occasional double projection 3D film at the Film Forum, most contemporary New Yorkers have not seen double projection 3D, just as they have not seen Cinerama.
Last summer both the American Museum of the Moving Image and the Walter Reade Theater celebrated 50 years of wide screen movies. It’s ironic that it was Cinerama that started it all right here in New York City, and we don’t have a Cinerama theater. Let’s bring back Cinerama to its birthplace, New York City.“
Andres Roura
Yeah, that is a shame that the Mark Hellinger Theatre was turned into a church. I remember seeing “Legz Diamond” there and then remember how it was pilloried by the critics and quickly closed. The Hellinger was a beautiful theatre.
I used to work in the Times Square area and attended the Embassy Theatres many times, sneaking out on my lunch hour. The Embassies were pits, though.
The Columbia Theater was opened as the main theater of the Columbia Amusement Company, aka the Columbia Wheel or the Eastern Wheel. My Grandfather, Samuel A. Scribner, was the General manager and co-founder of the company. The Columbia Wheel operated 42 burlesque houses throughout the North-East from Chicago to Boston (Canada, too.) In its hayday the circuit would have something like 42 separate shows performing. Each week each show would rotate from one theater to another along the wheel. Three of the theaters in the wheel were in New York and Brooklyn, and the Columbia was the centerpiece. If you look closely at the Seventh Avenue exterior wall of the building, you will see, running up the wall, a small relief image of the head of a woman at each story — I believe that is the image of “Columbia”. The Company offices were in the building, around the 7th or 8th floor, according to my (late) father. Thge entrance to the office was on 47th Street. Other big-wigs in the business were John Herbert Mack and Rudolph Hynicka (Hynicka was the “boss” of the Cincinatti political machine, which he ran from his office at 47th and 7th.) The Columbia Circuit made zillions of dollars in the decade before 1919 and then lost zillions of dollars in the years thereafter. The Bronxville, NY Historical Conservancy ran a long article on Sam Scribner, including the Columbia Theater, in its 2004 publication.
Don, I would love to receive the photo you have. Please send it to Thanks in advance.
I have a photo of the Embassy 2-3-4 with marquee loaded with titles and lit up. I’ll e-mail it to someone if they want to post it.