Palace Theatre
1564 Broadway,
New York,
NY
10036
1564 Broadway,
New York,
NY
10036
16 people
favorited this theater
Showing 151 - 175 of 253 comments found
I passed by the shuttered Palace Theatre on Tuesday afternoon, and the entrance was in a shockingly unkempt condition. I hadn’t seen anything as tawdry since the closed and decaying 42nd Street grind houses. I hope that the Palace doesn’t stay that way until it finds another tenant, which could be a long time from now.
Bway you must be very very young. Lucky you!
I remember seeing Beauty and the Beast at the Palace. I had no idea it used to show movies there at one time, I thought it was always a live theater. The theater was beautiful inside, I had balcony seats for Beauty and the Beast.
This unusual 1943 ad shows the Palace running day-and-date with RKO neighborhood theatres in Manhattan. “Tarazan Triumphs” was released by RKO Radio, and the first “Tarzan” to be produced since MGM dropped the series:
www.i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/rko243.jpg
Now forbidden Disney at the Palace:
www.i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/dispal.jpg
For a news article about one of the movie’s “live” actors, check out:
www.nydailynews.com/news/crime_file/story/415496p-351107c.html
Topping an RKO circuit ad in 1953:
www.i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/rko1953.jpg
RKO’s first Broadway cinema was the brand-new Mayfair, which it leased from its owner-builder, Walter Reade. By that time, RKO also had inherited the Palace, which was struggling to exist as a vaudeville house due to the simultaneous arrivals of talkies and the Depression. RKO finally decided to drop the Mayfair and turn the Palace into a cinema, though the bookings were usually second-run due to RKO’s affiliation with Radio City Music Hall and the Center Theatre. It wasn’t until the early 1940s that the RKO Palace became a first-run house, usually for the major RKO releases that, for one reason or another, didn’t get shown at RCMH. By 1949, the decline of RKO Radio Pictures caused a product shortage for the Palace, so the RKO circuit tried reviving vaudeville with a first-run but usually second-grade movie. That worked for a couple of years, but then the Palace switched to two-a-day vaudeville only, with big names like Judy Garland and Danny Kaye. With the advent of reserved-seat road show movies, the Palace returned to a cinema again until transformation into a “legit” theatre.
Warren,did RKO have a Broadway Movie House for first run films?
In Dean and Me written by Jerry Lewis the Palace is mentioned as being one of the many theatres that Martin & Lewis performed over their 10 years together. Is this the theatre?
1962 Judgement at Nuremberg
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The first souvenir programs I purchased for “Ben Hur”, “Spartacus,” “How The West Was Won”, and a few others, were hard bound programs. I think they cost $1 or $5! Then later they changed to glossy paper covers. I have about 20-25 in my collection from various roadshow films back in the 50’s and 60’s.
EdSolero: It’s been a couple of months since you asked about roadshow souvenir programs, but here’s what I know about them:
They were usually about nine by twelve inches or larger, contained 32 pages or more, were printed on heavy, glossy paper, with a slightly heavier paper cover. They contained pictures of the stars, stills from the movie, behind-the-scenes photos, text about the movie, the actors, the director and producer, the composer of the score, etc. There was no advertising in them, unlike the free playbills given out at legitimate theatres. The roadshow programs were not free. I only ever bought one of them, myself, at the roadshow of the original release of Lawrence of Arabia, at the Warner Theatre in Beverly Hills. I think it cost a dollar. (My balcony ticket for a Wednesday matinee was only a dollar fifty, if I recall correctly. The booklets would have been too costly to give away, with some ticket prices being that low.)
These souvenir programs are sometimes available in the movie memorabilia section of eBay, though the sellers' photographs of them don’t give a very good idea of what they are really like. I would suppose that retail shops specializing in movie memorabilia would also sometimes have them for sale, so if there is such a shop in your area, you might be able to get a close look at an example.
>>>>ALSO!
Not sure if this is the right theater, but from old photos compard to what I saw, the Palace Theater, Staten Island, New York, is in ruins, closed.
It’s located on Richmond Terrace, which is a long street that runs along the north shore of the island.
Some GREAT old postcard renderings of many New York theaters and other landmarks can be found at this website:
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I am looking for info on Percival “Patty” Roberts, my great-grandfather, stage manager of Palace Theater in New York (not sure if Staten Island or Manhattan). I have old turn-of-century photos of him standing next to switchboard backstage which is about six feet wide by eight feet tall…, lots of “Frankenstein” switches.
He knew vaudeville stars Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor, etc. My grandmather would fill in between acts singing opera onstage as a little girl. Can you help me?
Thanks, Rennie Miller
One Sunday afternoon in the mid-1980s I was walking west on 47th St and noticed that the scene door of the Palace was open— they were loading in a TV awards show. The scene door was on the rear stage wall, near its north end. The stage door for performers was located under some fire escapes at stage-right on W. 47th St. As I stood in the alley by the scene door, I noticed a sign in large white letters painted on the wall of a building at the south end of the alley which said “Stage Door” with an arrow pointing to the right. This implies that the stage door of the Palace was originally at stage-left, not at stage-right on 47th St. as it is today. Does anyone know anything about this ??
Joan Crawford at the Palace:
www.i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/crawford.jpg
Please hang up immediately!:
www.i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/rkpal.jpg
Check out this anti-Japanese ad from 1943
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New Years 1960 “Can Can” day and dated with the Brooklyn RKO Albee
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1961 another Rock Hudson movie at the Palace, day and dating with Trans-Lux 85th Street.
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1961 another Rock Hudson movie at the Palace, day and dating with Trans-Lux 85th Street.
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In 1960 the Palace went legit for a few months for this engagement of Belafonte.
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Talking about the trashing of original exteriors, didn’t the Broadway Theater get the same treatment? I remember seeing Les Miserables there in 1988 and the exterior was under scaffolding. I believe the facade was completely modernized (removing all traces of character, taste and architectural merit) to fit in with the new hi-rise that was constructed above and around the theater’s shell. I just took a peak at the Broadway’s page and there is very little information about its architectural style. If anyone has any recollections, please add to the page: /theaters/2250/
I might be attending a performance of the new musical The Color Purple at the Broadway in the coming months so I’ll try to make some mental notes (and see if I can’t grab some photos).
Don’t get me wrong, Vincent… I take issue with it as well. We all probably would have been very sad had the developers kept the Rivoli’s interior but obliterated it’s colonaded facade, but better to have the theater preserved to such a large degree than to have it permanently eradicated from existence as it was. Since most Times Square facades were (or would have been by now) completely obscured by billboards, electronic signage and other forms of over-the-top advertising, I’m quite satisfied to trade off the loss of the original neo-classical limestone facade for the preservation of the Palace’s gorgeously opulent interior appointments.
As for those free programs… were they like the Playbills you get at a Broadway theatrical show? Or like the programs at RCMH? Perhaps towards the end of the roadshow era, not every theater had them. Maybe only the Roxy and RCMH. Perhaps others can elaborate here?
Good post however I do take issue with the developer completely obliterating the wonderful New York facade and marquee of the Palace. It had all the glamour and brilliance of a New York jewel. Now it is just another generic attempting to be snazzy might as well be a theme restaurant front.
Even though I came at the depressing tail end of the roadshow era(Fiddler and Nicky and Alex) I don’t remember any free programs or leaflets being handed out. Only programs for sale. Anybody out there who went often in the 50’s and 60’s remember free programs in the NY theaters for hardticket engagements?