Radio City Music Hall

Yup Rob, you made the cut; it was nice putting a face to the name.
I missed or was not paying attention when Ross was on, I’ll have to watch it again.
RCDTJ,Thanks for the 3-D info, I am glad to hear they are still going with 70mm. It’s too bad much of the rest of the film portion has been cut. I believe REndres told us, they have in the past used all five projectors in that show.
I have got to gt my tired old bones out to the show this year,
it has been years.

It was good to see Cinema Treasures friends like Ross Melnick and Rob Endres on TV!

thanks for the info, vito. Radio City Music Hall is a true Cinema Treasure, and the tallest one in Manhattan.

As a teenager I worked in RCMH as a doorman in the 1970’s.
The underground passage was closed for security reasons.
If the doors were left open for people to exit we would get people
sneaking in without paying. They would sometimes leave just one door open from the RCA building to the Music Hall and a dorrman (sometimes me) would be stationed there for a tour. That was boring !
If we had a large tour group with pre-purchased tickets we would admit them through this entrance, also groups that were doing a tour of Rock Center would come through these doors being RCMH was part of that tour. I watched the show on RCMH this evening and enjoyed it alot. Those of us who worked at RCMH back in the early and mid-seventies saw the decline of this great theater ! Was amazed this evening to see the Treasurer of RCMH Box Office on TV tonight he used to be the Manager of the Ushers back when I worked there.
Hi FB !

Dear HowardBHaas why don’t we have a poll of the current top 20 theatre marquee’s in the nation as well as the top 20 current theatre lobbies.I think it would be intersting what the favorites are as well as helping future theatre restorations with such a poll. I think many times the maruqee is left out when a restoration occurs and some have done fine job like Radio City,Fox Oakland while others such as the Wang in Boston and Fifth Ave in Seattle have done a poor job. I know restoring a marquee can be costly as well as the theatre itself but many times people involved with the project dont realize how important these marquee’s from the 1920’s,1930’s,1940’s and the 1950’s were to these historic movie palaces. Remember the fun starts on the sidewalk.brucec

“Maybe the new opening will be in IMAX, even though RCMH can’t show a format like that (only the Lincoln Square and Naturemax theaters show that format!!!)."
And the Beacon some years ago.

I picked up on that as well Warren.
I had hoped the Music Hall would have had some sort of special presentaion to celebrate the 75th anniversary and not just revamp the Christmas show.
I wonder if REndres has had a chance to look into exactly how the Christmas show has changed this year, the mention of new staging intriged me. In addition I wondered if the 3-D opening is coming back, and more importantly is it going to be presented using 70mm film as usual, ot have they gone (gulp) Digital..

Dear lbnybill,

Thanks for answering my questions about the Music Hall! Very interesting and useful information.

The Bouche murals in the Grand Lounge are stunning. Visitors should take the time to look at them more closely. After doing so, I came to my personal conclusion that Surrealism is one of the overlying styles in the Music Hall’s interior design. That, along with Classical Greek design.

Regards,

Gabe

That photo’s from Ed Solero’s collection, though it has been in other scrapbooks, too.

Gabe – the walls of the Grand lounge were always black, page 63 of “The Art Of Rockefeller Center ” by Christine Roussell" (she had access to all archival records of rock center for the book) – The murals in the Lounge are titled The Phantsmargoria of the Theatre by Louis Bouche. “….specially prepared on black, Pyroxylin-coated walls, they are skillfully rendered.”

I heard – cannot confirm that the furniture in the grand lounge was disposed of (tossed!) in 1972 because the lounge was considered to crowded. there are no plans to recreate the furntiure since this space is rented out for meetings and events, and also for many private cocktail parties prior to christmas show.

The basement exit to the mall level of Rock Center is still there, but unused. It has been uncermoniously covered up on the mall side with generic doors from the mall renovation at 30 rock , they are located right across for the basement box office window that is still there. On the RC side of the passage way, the original doors are still exist, but remain closed.

The Barco LED Screen was replaced last year with a Panasonic screen -it was a huge success. It is being used in tandem with many stage props.

Does anyone have pictures of Radio city when the 6th ave elevated was still there and the marquee was actually part of the exit of the 50th st station ? Would like to see how people exited the marquee and got to street level

There is (or was) an underground passage (below 50th St.) that connected the Grand Lounge and the GE Building.

I know it was there because my 8th grade class used it some 33 years ago. We saw “The Little Prince” and I never got over it. I last recall seeing this passage sometime in the ‘90s.

Given the crowded streets when the Christmas shows let out and admit (at almost the same time), has anyone thought of re-opening this totally logical and efficient pathway to the Subway? I think it’s best use would be as an exit.

How about getting cheered?
I was in th audience at the Coronet one night when after a changeover the sound went dead,after about 3-4 minutes of watching a silent movie the audience began to boo.
I decided to head on up to the booth to see if I could help, when I got there the projectionist was frantically trying to fix the problem to no avail. I knew since he had just made a changeover the problem was probably with the preamp which is located in the lower part of the sound head in that type of projector. Switchimng preamps fixed the problem and the movie resummed. As I came out the booth door, which at the Coronet lead out into the audience,I was greeted with applause.
Speaking of Rob Endres, we have not heasrd from him in a while, anyone know what he is up too, or if he is still involved in the Music Hall at all anymore?