Academy of Music

Thomas Lamb was busy in new York as this was another one of his creations pounded to dust in the name of progress

Never managed a movie in this theatre (mostly a Fox or Universal programmed grind house) but a few concerts in its pre Palladium days including Hot Tuna

This theatre was were Aerosmith first got noticed, under the Acamdey Of Music name

Located on East 14th street opposite Irving Place (between Park/4th Ave and Third Ave). It opened as a concert hall, if I'm not mistaken, before turning to movies and then back to concerts by the 1970's (though rock and pop, rather than the classical and chamber pieces for which it was intended). It was re-christened the Palladium in 1976 with a concert by The Band, who were on their last tour and just weeks away from their farewell "Last Waltz" concert in San Francisco. By the mid '80's, the concert hall gave way to a discotheque, with the orchestra seats stripped out and the floor leveled for dancing (similar to how Studio 54 was created out of the Gallo Opera House and The Academy out of the 42nd Street Apollo Theater). Like the old Loews Commodore (later known as the Fillmore East) on 2nd Avenue and East 6th, this building was razed to make way for the expansion of a local university.

The Band played the very first show as "The Palladium" in the fall of 1976 just before their famous "Last Waltz" farewell concert in San Fransisco. Seeing the Grateful Dead here for 4 shows in early May of 1977 was a life-altering experience. Never caught a movie here. Wasn't there a pool hall in the same building up a narrow flight of stairs???

Having never experienced the Fillmore (the former Village Theater and Loew's Commodore on 2nd Ave), this remains my favorite all-time (if now-extinct) place to attend a rock concert. Since it's conversion to a dance club (and ultimate demolition) The Beacon up on Broadway and 74th has been ably filling the void.

Whoa! Am I surprised! I never knew that "The Palladium" (which I visited a couple of times in the mid eighties) was a revamping of the second Academy of Music.

For what it's worth; The Metropolitan Opera was never based in either of the two Academy of Music theatres.

The Met (Metropolitan Opera Company)was born/originated due to the fact that The Academy of Music didn't have enough private boxes to accomodate the newly rich population of New York City.

Those newly rich took their bundles of wealth uptown to West Forty-Something Street, and they commissioned the building of a theatre now known as "The Old Met."

The Old Met was built before anyone had engaged an impresario or a company of singers/orchestral players.
There was a mad scramble to get an opera company together. And the Met suffered through several seasons of financial loss before they finally got their act together.

For a few years, operas were staged at both The Academy of Music and The Met. In the end; the Met won out. The Union Square area (which had been the home for opera and theatre for more than a decade) passed into oblivion. Almost all legit theatre productions were performed mid town (the forty-second street region) by the turn of the last century.

The second Academy of Music was built by William Fox, with Thomas Lamb as architect. It was never intended as a concert hall, and first opened in 1927 as a deluxe "presentation" house with a feature movie and vaudeville. Fox had been shut out of building in the Broadway-Times Square area, so he hoped that crowds would flock to 14th Street to attend this beautifully appointed 3,600-seat theatre, but that didn't happen. With the onset of the Depression, Fox lost his entire theatre empire, including the Academy of Music. In the bankruptcy proceedings that followed, the Academy became part of the Skouras circuit, which operated it for the rest of its four decades as a movie theatre. Skouras was notorious for its housekeeping, and the Academy became increasingly shabby and uncomfortable with the passing of time...Interestingly, simultaneously with the Academy of Music, Fox and Lamb built a slightly smaller version in Brooklyn on Bedford Avenue near Eastern Parkway. The 3,200-seat Savoy Theatre had a similar auditorium, but without a grand lobby connecting it to the entrance. Happily, the Savoy still stands and is used as an evangelical church, with most of the interior decor intact except for whitewashing of some areas. Some of the original "drops" used for vaudeville are still hanging in the stage loft.

'American Picture Palaces' by David Naylor has the Academy's seat capacity at 2600, but I believe Kevin is right in his data (above). Proof is that the (early 70's) film, 'Taxi Driver', was filmed nearby, and on the DVD in chapter 20, time 1:15:28 you can see the rear of the Academy, in the upper right hand corner, the 13th Street side, and it looks quite tall! Later in the film, at 1:17:36 and 1:18:12 (I believe) the camera is one block East on 13th, and you see the rear side of the now defunct Jefferson Theatre. I have searched the net for hours trying to find a photo of the Academy of Music, as it features tall in legend as a early 70's rock hall, many recordings made there, etc. But cannot find any photos of the marquee or the hall prior to it's Palladium conversion.

Pictures/drawings of the Academy of Music as The Palladium can be found at http://www.fda-online.com/projects/palladium.html and the art inside is mentioned at www.marenzi.com/texts/Palladium.pdf

Japanese architect, Arata Isozaki, was responsible for the design.

http://www.worldandi.com/specialreport/1987/december/Sa12020.htm

http://www.protecservices.com/nyu.html

The motion picture trade publication Film Daily has the theatre listed at seating 3515 people over the years. Sometimes depending on which major city market the theatre is located in, the seating totals from opening may vary. Like deluxe first run theatres in the Times Square and Hollywood, Beverly Hills areas. Got remodeled and theatres and seats (newer wider seats) were updated from time to time. Theatres lost seats when new projection formats debuted like Cinerama. (Theatres lost seats, because of new projection booths in the rear of the main floor, unsellable seats in upper balconys). Fox West Coast Theatres were very good when they did a remodel of a theatre.

Saw my first rock concert here in the early 60s! It was still a great double-feature movie-house but for one night they had The Dave Clark 5 with The Kinks opening! Jerry from 42nd Street Memories

It was NYU(!) that demolished this place and Luchow's???!!!
With an intelligensia like that, who needs barbarians.
Oy vey.

I remember watching the Holmes-Cooney fight on close circuit.
This was a huge theatre that was not far from the Jefferson
theatre that showed movies and the White Tower burger shop
on Second ave.

I remember one of my friends who lived in Murray Hill at the time begged his mother into taking him to a double horror bill. The main feature was that snake film SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.

I remember when I first moved to NYC in March of '82, the stretch of 14th Street east of Union Square was seedy. You couldn't even walk in Union Square Park and the hulk of Klein's Department Store stood on the northeast corner of Park Avenue South & 14th Street. The hulk of the Jefferson Theatre still stood, but I don't remember the Palladium before it was the Palladium. I remember Julius Pool Hall, on the second floor of a building near the Palladium. You walked up a steep flight of stairs to get up there.

I don't think you can blame NYU for the demise of Luchow's. Luchow's briefly moved back to the Times Square area before closing for good. This was in the early-to-mid eighties, perhaps even before the Palladium Club opened.

I remember this large movie theater, as i took a date there in 1957 and we sat in the upper Balcony..........Prior to that year, and around it also, Union Square was across from it or near-by-------Luchow's was old fashioned German Resturant with great food s I recall;, but in working in that area, i remember to the east of the Academy of Music, around the corner was a very old theater that had a store-front with round windows for the lobby cards, and you could only read parts of them........I never went inside, but I remmeber driving by in the late 50s & early 60s and it was still there------anyone recall this moldy-oldie movie house around the corner from the Academy?-------also in the 50s, remember large Jewish contingents at Union Square with signs reading--"Spare the Rosenbergs"----For you youngsters out there, Ethel & Julius Rosenberg were convicted of selling Atomic Secrets to the Soviets......I was pretty young and do not know all the details, but it was quite an issue for the time........Joe From Florida---sasheegm

Joe,
The theater is the Variety PhotoPlays and there is an active thread at http://cinematreasures.org/theater/288/

I never went in it (coward) during my time there in the early-mid 60s but I did look at the posters which were all over the place, it seemed like the booking changed 4-5 times a week if not daily. Very unusual programming of films, I recall. Jerry from Florida

Thanks Jerry: My Cousin Rose lived on 13th Street, and I used to pass this place everytime I went to visit.......and as you mentioned, posters and lobby cards all over the place, with round windows possibly on the doors.....and they had photos on them......Like you, I never ventured in......but in my old neighborhood in Brooklyn, I think we had an even older house called the Rogers on Broadway........It showed predominantly b-westerns in the late 40s and early 50s, when I used to go there, and my Cousin Carmine who now lives in Buffalo, NY, used to go there as a kid to see westerns in the 1930s----------and I listed one other old house on the lower east side, The American on 3rd st. which had a painted Brick Wall for a screen------It almost looked like it adjoined the side or back of another building......and in 1957 when I was working in that area, I went there, and told my Dad, who was born on Elizabeth St. In Little Italy in 1911(may God rest his soul)..and he said he went there to see Tom Mix & Joe Bonomo when he was a kid in the 20s!---------It is too bad that a more detailed document cannot be found on these very old Movie Theaters, that were most likely Vaudeville or neighborhood Playhouses before they became Movie Theaters........My Father said there was one place in Little Italy that used to have Italian Plays.....and i believe on 1st Ave or near there, was the Yiddish Playhouse where so many familiar names and faces started like Sylvia Sidney, Marc Lawrence, Molly Picon, Zero Mostel, etc etc.......There were many Ethnic theaters all over NY----After all it was called the "Melting Pot".....and the aromas coming from the Women of the house preparing Supper.....or I remember one aroma so well, I think of it every time I see the film "Naked City"-1948 advertised (of course I have it on dvd) that is the Essex St Market with barrels of Pickles, Herring, White-Fish etc etc----what a place----what a neighborhood----Joe From Florida---sasheegm

The opening paragraph to the introduction is incorrect and sorely needs to be changed. The Academy of Music was built and first operated by William Fox, and was the largest and most sumptuous theatre that he ever built in Manhattan. It was also the nearest he ever got to building in midtown, which he finally entered only by purchasing the already existing Roxy.

Warren, feel free to send us a new description for this theater and we'll be glad to post it. Thanks, Bryan

Academy of Music - 1980's as Palladium
http://www.kilduffs.com/Palladium.jpg

Sorry about that , correct link is
http://www.kilduffs.com/palladium.jpg

Want to hear a strange double bill? In May of 1969 Fox sent out "Planet of the Apes" and "Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines" as a double-bill. The catch phrase was "Perfect Mates Apes and Men". It played here at the Academy along with the UA Riviera.

Through much detective work, I've located a few rare images of the Palladium during its rock venue phase. These were taken in 1980 during AC/DC's "Back in Black" show.

Main page
http://www.repfoto.com/repfoto/acdc/acdc_8007008/index.htm

Exterior
http://www.repfoto.com/repfoto/acdc/acdc_8007008/html/8007008039.jpg.htm

Interior
http://www.repfoto.com/repfoto/acdc/acdc_8007008/html/8007008040.jpg.htm

http://www.repfoto.com/repfoto/acdc/acdc_8007008/html/8007008041.jpg.htm

By adding some light to one of the images cited by D.C., I was able to bring out some of the background detail. When it was taken, much of the original decor was still in place, including a chandelier in the central dome. The auditorium had a separate mezzanine below the balcony:
www.i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/8007008040.jpg

I saw that double bill of Planet of the Apes and The Magnificent Men as well as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and several other Beach Boy and Beatle films there.

It was a great place to bring a date and have plenty of room, if you know what I mean.

Rock shows I remember were Traffic, Frank Zappa, Lou Reed, Hot Tuna, Quicksilver, Canned Heat, Grateful Dead, Clash, Patti Smith.

14th Street will never be the same. To see images of the area back in the 70's go to
http://drewcarolan.com

Here's an exterior of the original Academy of Music (north side of 14th Street), which first opened in 1854 and was operated in its final years by William Fox with plays, vaudeville, and movies. This theatre was demolished around 1926, when Fox built a more modern Academy of Music directly opposite on the south side of 14th Street. The original Academy was replaced by a building owned by Consolidated Edison:
www.i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/133-3320_IMG.jpg

I was born on the Lower East Side and lived there until 1959. I went to the Academy of Music theater many times. In fact, I attended my graduation exercises from Stuyvesant HS at the theater one morning in 1953, and saw “Rommel the Desert Fox” that afternoon. I recently accessed this site and found all the movie theaters in my old neighborhood except one. Does anyone remember the Palestine Movie Theater? It was located on Clinton St. near Houston St.

Many thanks to D.C. for posting the photos. Some of the greatest rock shows I ever went to were at the Academy of Music/Palladium from the early '70s through the early '80s.

Many thanks to D.C. for posting the photos. Some of the greatest rock shows I ever went to were at the Academy of Music/Palladium from the early '70s through the early '80s. The shots brought back some long-lost memories of that room.

Unfortunately, the introduction begins with two major errors that should be corrected if possible. The theatre was built by William Fox, and you can't get any more "major" than that. And by the time of its opening, the twentieth century was already 27 years old. It was purpose-built as a showcase for movies supported by stage shows, and had no previous history as a concert hall or so-called "academy of music."

Interesting, then, that it was called the Academy of Music. Could this be only because of the previous Academy of Music that had been located across the street from this theater?

This is the original Academy of Music, which had its main entrance on Irving Place:
www.i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/ao.jpg
The corner with 14th Street is now occupied by a branch of the Apple Savings Bank. In its last years, the AOM was managed by William Fox, until he built the New Academy of Music on the south side of 14th Street.

A postcard showing the mezzanine promenade designed by Thomas Lamb. Some of the furnishings were purchased by Mrs. William Fox during her frequent shopping tours of Europe:
www.i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/aomfoyer.jpg

Another victim of the modern advancements & changes. What a shame Manhattan couldn't save some of these beautiful theatres located in different sections of the city. Of course, that would not be profitable, and that is the major goal in real estate.

I strolled that mezzanine promenade a few times many moons ago when the place was a concert hall and I can tell you that none of those furnishings were in evidence! They were probably removed by management long before the place was re-christened The Palladium with a rock show headlined by the soon-to-be-retiring group The Band in the fall of '76. A few weeks later, on Thanksgiving Day, the original incarnation of The Band would perform its last show ever at San Fransisco's Winterland (a West Coast Roseland), an event captured in Martin Scorcese's terrific concert flick "The Last Waltz."

This was a great theater... and so much of it survived the renovations made to convert it to a disco in the '80's. Basically, all they did was construct a huge cage in the orchestra section. Another one that could've been saved in the last decade or so.

There should either be two listings, one for "FOX Academy of Music" (as it was called and listed on Sanborn maps) and one for "Academy of Music," which was on the Consolidated Edison lot, or this listing should be corrected to be titled, "FOX Academy of Music." Much of the posts here are about the later theatre, anyhow, but a distinct difference remains between the two establishments.

In December, 1961, the radio DJ known as "Murray the K" hosted a "Holiday Stage Spectacular" here that ran for eleven days, with shifting headliners. Johnny Mathis topped the bill on December 22-23, followed by Bobby Vee from December 24-29, and by Dion from December 30 through January 1. Performing throughout the engagement were Joey Dee & The Starliters, U.S. Bonds, Bobby Lewis, Timi Yuro, the Isley Brothers, Jan & Dean, and others. The screen attraction was John Wayne's "The Comancheros."

Here is an ad for what Warren mentions above about Murray the K
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a13/ChmnofBrd/Movie%20Ads/Murray.jpg

East. RIP. It is now a condo. I got a job in the winter of 1972 working as an usher in the Academy of Music for Howard Stien. After a couple of months i was asked to be a part of the back stage crew after they noticed me sitting in the orhastra seats well before i needed to be there I was there till it closed and the Paladium opened after Ron Delsener had problems booking the Beacon. When it did reopen prior to the concert by the band the mighty Wurlitzer pipe organ was sold and removed. Pipes and all. Piece by piece. I still mourn the passing of both the Fillmore and Academy as well as the Jefferson on 14th between 2&3rd.

That was supposed to read Fillmore East. RIP. It is now a condo.

There is a Academy of Music in Northampton, MA too :)

I was not aware of that one but there will never be a place like the NY Academy of Music.

One Saturday afternoon in early- or mid-1980s I was down in Union Square area and went over to look at the Academy. I went around back and noticed that the big loading doors on the rear stage wall were open because a truck was parked there for unloading. I walked up to get a look inside of the stage and auditorium, but was disappointed to find only a brick wall. The loading door at the Academy opened onto a corridor behind the stage and not the stage itself. It was really a huge theatre and its west side-wall really was an impressive bulk.

The last people to put on anything there totaly destroyed the place. THE HUGE chandeleer that was rebuild that hung from the center cieling was taken down and who knows where that is if it is still around. I heard it cost $50k to restore.

Oh the memories! I never attended the Palladium before it became a disco, but I spent many a night there when it did. It was a beautiful space and I don't think there will ever be clubs again like the clubs of that era: The Saint (Fillmore East), Studio 54 and Club USA in Times Square. All old movie palaces that that were adapated to wonderful effect. The clubs of today can't possibly compare. I will always treasure those memories. It's odd. I treasure other theaters because I saw films there, but these I have a different affinity for because I danced there. I wish we still had all of them!

Where exactly was Club USA, Luis? And what former theater did it occupy?

Hi Ed, I don't remember the name of the theater, but I know exactly where it was. I believe the club lasted until about 1996. It stood exactly where the W Times Square Hotel stands now. The entrance to the club was on the side street pretty much where the hotel entrance is now. There were two dance floors, the main one, was where the orchestra section was. The other was two levels higher though it was not part of a balcony. The upper dance floor was known as the Tierry Mugler room and was designed by its namesake. In additon, there was a wonderful roofdeck where you could see and hear the cacophany of Times Square. One of my favorite features of this club though was the winding slide that went from the balcony down to the orchestra level. For $1 you got a potato sack and slid down to the main action below. I miss those days! I guess I should find out the name of the theater so I can post this memory there.

That would have been the old Forum 47th which became B.S. Moss' Movieland in the '80's. Without checking the page, I think it was built and opened as the Central Theater. I believe it is listed here under the Movieland name. It's one of the few Times Square theaters I never got a chance to visit before it was razed. The old storefronts on Broadway between 47th and 46th - where the theater's main entrance was - are still standing, including the former Howard Johnson's (now vacant) and former Horn & Hardart automat (now two level discount retailer). The Roxy Deli (adjacent to the old H&H) occupies Movieland's former entrance and lobby space.

That's the one! Sorry you didn't have a chance to see it, but I think you got to see most of them. There are many that I never got to see which is why I so treasure the memories of the ones I did get to see.

The W Hotel is between 6th & 7th Avenues, while the Forum 47th St. fronted on the west side of Broadway.

Nope, The W is on the southwest corner of 47th and 7th! You must be thinking about the Embassy Suites Hotel that wraps around the Palace Theater.

I did something here and don't know what but it said it took my name off the mailing list for this thread. I hope not.

Anyone know if the Savoy theatre and hotel are still around. it was down the street from where BONDS used to be in the middle of the block.

The Fillmore East was the former RKO Commodore Theatre, and NOT on 14th Street. THAT structure is now a condo, but the former Fox's Academy of Music is now the site of an NYU dormitory.

The Commodore (Fillmore East) was a Loews theater, not RKO.

Hey folks...I'm a ticket stub collector of rock concerts, and so by default a theater maven. In fact more than 50% of my ticket stubs have NO BAND NAME on them, so I must google myself silly until I succeed at matching the band to the date and venue. If anyone is especially knowledgable about concerts that occured at the Academy of Music and other New York City venues, I can throw out a whole bunch of dates and venues, and would welcome any incite as to who performed at those those particular shows. And East Coast Rob, I have a hunch you could be a trememndous resource for me. If you'd like to contact me try me at somo1@aol.com

I'm finding that my old ticketmaster and teletron computer printed stubs are fading away really bad! I have one or two that I can just barely make out the concert information. Pretty soon all that will be left is the boilerplate formatting. The old colored stubs that I purchased directly from the venue box offices are holding up quite well. And those terrifc unique-to-each-show "glitter" tickets that came from the Grateful Dead's ticketing office look as good as they day they arrived in the mail! I remember asking ushers to carefully rip the stubs so as not to ruin the artwork - sometimes vainly, sometimes successfully.

I actually collect pre 1970 ticket stubs, and I call them "theatrical" tickets as opposed to the Ticketron or Telecharge tickets. About 99% of my collection are theatrrical style stubs, as computer generated simply did not exist until 1970. Many of my stubs glow like the day they were printed. One thing is for certain, the theater style stubs have so much more character than the computer ones, so relating to the event is much more tangible. By the way, I was going through a bunch of unidentified stubs yesterday, looking to match venues and dates to bands. I came across one ffrom the 46th St. Theatre in Brooklyn, the date Novemebr 13, 1970. Thanks to the Cinema Treasures message board (for the 46th street theater) I was able to identify the stub, which turned out to be the Grateful Dead. An awesome and rare find.

Funny you should bring up theGrateful Dead. I was in 10th grade at Grady Vocational HS. I called up and said I was doing a review for the HS newspaper and they gave me backstage passes for Nov 11 through the 14th. At that time the Dead had played 2 other venues in Manhattan. One of them was the Fillmore East and another theatre down the block on 2nd ave. It was something I would never forget and i got to meet Allison Steel the Night Bird from WNEW FM 102.7. Man that was a fantasy come true.

Hey East Coast Rob...the other venue on 2nd Ave you are referring to is the Anderson Theater. Many great great shows there, although the venue always flew under the radar. Fillmore patrons remember the Anderson. I saw the Dead at the Anderson..the show was a Hell's Angels benefit, and they supplied the security AND an incredible amount of acid (dare I say it on this site). Overtly handing it out to willing takers. As for Allison Steele, she was not a natural beauty, but from where I sat in Wollman Rink Central Park (The Byrds concert) she was the most beautiful thing I'd ever heard.

PS. Control Data Corperation introduced computerized ticketing in 1969 under the name of "Ticketron" Years later another company took them to court because they claimed Ticketron had a monoply on venues in the U.S. and they lost. Here is the irony about that. The company that took them to court was none other then Ticketmaster. Now who is the monopoly? A few years back Pearl Jam wanted to tour and sell their own tickets for the venues they were planning to play. They did it for the fans who were tired of paying high prices for concert venues where Ticketmaster was at. Ticket master refused to let them do it. Later on a deal had been cut where as the ticket prices would be lower. TMaster has a good racket going. They get you for the price of the tickets and a surcharge for each one. They toss in what they call a facility charge plus they get a percentage from the promoter and the act. Makes you wonder why the cost of going to a concert is astronomical.

Hey Sonoman that's Rocker not Rob. Yes it was the Anderson. I just could not recall the name cuae there were 2 other theatres on Second Ave back then that and the Orphium. I was just looking on another window and found nothing here on CT for the Anderson which is/was located at 66 Second Ave http://www.noehill.com/cockettes/newyork.asp this is the only thing I have found so far on the Anderson. I was at that particular show in Nov 71.

Here is more info:
Anderson Theatre - was located at 66 2nd Ave. in the lower east side of NYC - 5,000 seats - theater entrance structure is still there with that same address but it is now a pharmacy business. The theater wrapped around a corner building and part of the theater was also on the south side of 4th Street. The 4th St. side of the theater is long gone replaced by some modern housing - began as Yiddish Playhouse circa late 1800s or early 1900s, then used as a music venue in the late 1960s - Rock n'Roll Hall of Fame Group, the Yardbirds (1968); Cockettes - early 1970s

http://www.world-theatres.com/#BROADWAY_THEATRES

Hey East Coast Rocker, did you work at the Palladium after Ron Delsner reopened it? My father was the manager there until Delsner left... the last show was Zebra, I remember that night well. My father stayed on for a bit when Robell and Scrager (sp?) took over but he could not take it anymore. The chandelier that was there was dropped to the ground and destroyed. I still have a few pieces of the crystals. My father used to take me all the way to the top where the circle was around the chandelier... there was this narrow, spiral staircase that seemed to go up forever... it was freakin dangerous, a few of the steps were actually missing. When you got up there you could look down over the whole orchestra, it was an awesome view.
I miss that place and can not believe what it became after Ron Delsner left it, and that it was just demolished like it never existed. On the 3rd floor behind the concession stands there was a HUGE storage room that no one used. We used to talk about turning it into a large loft type apartment. Back there were tons of old papers and artifacts. I have some stuff from that back room, but I am sure they demo'd all of the stuff that was in there along with the building. I can not even imagine the history that was in that area that I never saw and no one will ever see now.
I am trying to get together some info on the Palladium and put it up on my webpage... www.noelgypsy.netfirms.com ... I have a pic or two up there now, if anyone has anything (photos, stories, etc) they would like to offer for me to post, that would be greatly appreciated. I have alot of old pictures that I will start scanning to post on the site. I have some pictures of the control backstage that are awesome, and many pictures of the chandelier.

Great shots of the Anderson Theater and the Palladium guys!!! The rock photographer Elliot Landy also has some great shots of The Who and Janis Joplin performing there back in the 60s. Somehwere in the early 90s when i started to get really interested in East Village history, I discovered that the building at 66 2nd Ave. was the Anderson Theater. I never did get to go in before they demolished it and turned it into an apartment building, but I used to walk by constantly. I can see the catwalks on the side of the theater in my head right now. A friend of mine snuck in their during demolition and told me it was incredible. That's OK, I got to go into the Fillmore East/Saint about a year before they took that down, so I don't feel so bad about missing the Anderson. Going in the former Fillmore was amazing and heartbreaking all at the same time. The shots of The Palladium bring back some cool memories. I wish it still looked like that around here. I hate to say it, but I never actually went to a show there and hence never went inside. From the time I started living in New York City in 1986 until about 10 years later I never thought for a moment that they would be doing what they've done and continue to do to this town. It's not just theaters and old buildings either. Businesses that have been in my neighborhood in the E. Village for years are all getting priced out. There was a great family run Mexican restaurant on Ave A and 11th that I just discovered has close along with a Chinese place up the street on Ave. A and 13th that has also just closed. I don't get it. This town is getting frightfully generic by the minute. It's sad.

I worked there for about a year after Ron D opened it back up. Who is/was your dad? Prior to the change over the manager of the Academy was from the UA chain. His wife and daughter were his assistant managers. Yeah I know all about the archive room. I wish I had the time to snoop around in there but they usually had the consession stand locked. The spiral stair case you talk about was above the dressing rooms. Before you got to it there was a big a$$ blower motor with a 12" wide belt. That was part of the old air conditioning system. I left there shortly before Elton John played there and one of the things he asked for was to have the chandileer working.. They had to lower it with extra lines to make sure that the cable it was held up with did not snap. On a few occasions I had to climb the ladder on the back wall stage right side to get up to the fly level. Man that was a scary feeling knowing therer was nothing between you and the ground.

Hey Noel if your dad is Ron Poole yes I knew him. He worked for UA as a district manager. So I take it you were not related to Gus Boviani and his family.

I don't know the seating capacity of the Anderson Theatre, but I would bet that it was nowhere near 5,000. My guess is in the vicinity of 1,000 to 1,500.

Hey East Coast Rocker, yes Ron Poole is my dad. Me and my sister used to work backstage with Marsha, and my mom worked the bar downsairs by the ladies room. Do I know you? Or will I remember you?? or do you remember me? If you want to you can Email me privately :0) NoelGypsy@Yahoo.com

Let's not forget that Hilly Kristal briefly opened CBGB 2nd Avenue Theater at the old Anderson on E. 4th Street at the end of 1977. Patti Smith, Talking Heads and other bands from the early CB's days played there.

As you walked in the funky lobby the interior was done up like a subway stop with tiles that said cbgb 2nd Avenue.

The Anderson was a great theater and I'm glad to hear that some remember the Angels sponsored Dead shows as well as Joplin and the Yardbirds shows, for it was folklore legend for kids like me that grew up down there!

Hey Warren it may not have been 5000 seats but it was HUGE. It had to be to be able to compete with the likes of the Fillmore. I saw Slyvester and the DCockettes there in 71 and it had a large orchastra section. I sat in the balcony. I have been searching and searching for any kind of specs on the place but it is hard to come by.

after a little more digging i came upon this about the Anderson
Owner: CORPORATION Non-Profit Flag: N
SCHWARTZ ED PRESIDENT
ANDERSON THEATER REALTY CORP. 152 WEST 57TH STREET, 212 956 - 7070
NEW YORK NY 10019
OCCUPANCY CERTIFICATION: N
OCCUPANCY NOTIFICATION: N
REL TO BLDG OWNER: PRESIDENT
CORPORATION:
SCHWARTZ IRVING SEC'Y
152 WEST 57TH STREET, NEW YORK NY 10019 212 956 - 7070
I may try and call them to see if there is any public info available and add it to the data base

If my memory serves me well, the Fillmore east sat approximately 3000. Perhaps that puts a perspective on the Anderson Theater. And while we are at it regarding the Anderson, I got hold of a ticket stub from the Anderson dated Feb but there is no year on the stub. The name of the event that appears on the stub is "The Evolution of R........and the stub is torn right after the letter "R". Does this mean anything to any of you concert goers?

This was originally the Yiddish Art Theatre. From 1953-83, it was home for the now legendary repertory group known as the Phoenix Theatre. After the Phoenix went bust, it became known as the Phyllis Anderson Theatre. I don't think that it deserves to be listed as a "cinema trasure." It was always a playhouse, and never "huge." I will still stick to my estimate of 1,000 to 1,500 seats.

The Fillmore East was a theatre with a seating capacity of 3664 according to records researched.

The Fillmore East was formerly Loew's Commodore, which has a listing here. As Loew's Commodore, it had 2,814 seats, according to the 1954 Film Daily Year Book. It's possible that seats were added for the conversion to concert hall. They may have also included standing room in the body count.

Waren the Fillmore was only 2700 seats. I used to work with some of the same people who worked for Bill Graham who left when he closed the place in June of 1971. In Sept of 1971 Howard Stien booked a deal with United Artists for the unlimited use of the Academy and when Howard did not have a live show UA ran movies. One of the things i used to do for a few extra $$$ Was come in and change the marquee. What a pain it was in the winter because the letters were all cast iron and they got cold. And no I did not take all the letters down. I would inventory what was already up there and then pull what I needed from the back room. Saved me a good deal of time and grief.

1970
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a13/ChmnofBrd/Movie%20Ads/HouseofDarkShadows.jpg

The pool hall located above the Palladium was called Julian's. Great old retro place that held up well despite numerous nouveau pool halls nearby. There's some great video during the Academy's Concert days in the dvd "All Dolled Up", a documentary on the NY Dolls. The band actually shot a promo w/ them beginning in the Meatpacking District(or area fka Mtpkg District), then going down 14th Street and ending at the entrance to the Academy. I saw two concerts at the Palladium. The first, The Outlaws, was the loudest I've ever attended. The second show, on a cold wet spring night in 1983, we picked up tickets on what was a very seedy 14th Street and ended up in the 9th row for U2. Finally, long after the celebs abandoned the nightclub, it attracted a rough, mostly black crowd. I believe a bouncer was shot to death in front of the place. Ironically, Japanese guide books still had it listed as a "hot spot" and it was a funny juxtaposition of them lined up outside w/ the locals all waiting to get thru the metal detectors.

Julians! Thanks Willis69. You just answered a question I posed way back in October of 2003 at the top of this page and had completely forgotten about. I attended a number of shows here in the early '80's. Seedy the street most certainly was at the time.

I only saw one show at the Palladium during the 70's, but it was a double bill of Parliament Funkadelic with Bootsy Collins opening for them. I had a friend who was a roadie for Bootsy's Rubber Band.

Man. That was cool

Hi all;
I was a followspot operator for rock concerts at the Academy in the early 70's. I alternated between there and the Capitol Theatre in Passaic, and as the Capitol booked more and more shows, I spent more time in New Jersey. But I did enough Oldies, Foghat, NRPS, Grateful Dead on and on shows at 14th Street to last a lifetime. I remember when the Climax Blues Band recorded FM live, there was a mic hanging from the ceiling about 8 feet from my Super Trouper. I was afraid to make a lot of noise operating the light, because the sound might get into the recording. I guess the music was loud enough I didn't have to worry. :-)

MOst nights we only had 2 Carbon Arc spots at the Academy, and I was house left, stage right -perched on a shaky plywood platform hanging over the railing of the second balcony. When the act required more than two spots, we used a third in the projection booth. It was an amazing angle to run a spotlight from, and as the back wall of the booth was the wall of the theatre on 14th street, and the stage itself was near the opposite wall (13th street) you would be lighting up a target one city block away at an angle of something like 60 degrees. Thankfully that was the exception not the rule. Anyway, nice to find folks who also remember places like The Academy, the Capitol and other great old theatres. For my money, I wish I had done more shows at the Beacon. Gorgeous place.

John

For $5.50 a seat, I attended the following 6 concerts between 1972 and 1974. I still maintain the "Ticketron" tickets.
*Allman Bros Band, Commander Cody and Hus Lost Planet Airman and
New York Rock Ensemble.
*Savoy Brown, Electric Light Orchestra and Manfred Mann.
*Traffic and Lindisfarne.
*Dave Mason, Livingston Taylor and James Montgomery Band.
*Savoy Brown, Fleetwood Mac(before Nicks & Buckingham joined) and Long John Baldry.
*Procul Harem.
Way back then you could smoke or "burn one" on the restroom
DUDE, THEM WAS THE DAYS.
-Dan Halifko, Orlando, FL.

The opening sentence of the introduction is laughable and needs to be corrected. The Academy of Music was "created" by William Fox, who was in the midst of creating one of the nation's largest theatre circuits at the time...Here are two views of the auditorium that I copied from the January 1927 issue of Architecture & Building Magazine:
www.i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/foxamc01.jpg
www.i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/foxamc02.jpg

I attended a show at the NY Academy of Music on 12/31/73 with headliners Blue Oyster Cult and openers Teenage Lust, Iggy & the Stooges (Raw Power-era band) and Kiss. This was Kiss's first major NYC show and no one knew who they were yet. They were the first band out that night and even at that early hour me & my buddy who I went with were already half out of it (it was New Years Eve, after all...) and we were shocked by their show. No one had seen anything that crazy before. The other band's added to the nuttiness of the night and Blue Oyster Cult brought the oom-pah band over from Luchow's next door to play before their set. It is a show that is still in my memory after all these years and is one of those shows that when you tell people about it they go "wow, you were there?". I saw many other shows at the Academy after this and always had a great time. I miss that theatre being a part of New York and it's a damn shame that NYU saw fit to tear it down along with Luchow's only to build more friggin' condos. The academy rocked and will live on in my mind and others who attended shows there.

Lou Reed's "Rock n Roll Animal"/"Live" recorded at the Academy of Music in 1973 or 1974. One of the great live records.

I saw Divine perform at the Palladium in 1986; I catcalled him/her and she let go with a tongue-lashing the likes I've rarely had since! I believe I asked him whether he had a dick, and the reply went something like: "Motherfucka, why don't you come up here and I'll show you whether I have a dick!" All in good fun, though!

I never went to the Academy of Music Theatre, but I'm glad to read the comment left by "RobertR" back in 2005: "Want to hear a strange double bill? In May of 1969 Fox sent out "Planet of the Apes" and "Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines" as a double-bill. The catch phrase was "Perfect Mates Apes and Men". It played here at the Academy along with the UA Riviera. posted by RobertR on Jun 10, 2005 at 4:35pm" I thought I was the only person in the world that remembered this double feature, which I saw when I was nine years old out on Long Island at the Lynbrook Theatre. It ran for a week starting on May 28, 1969. Since "Planet of the Apes" is my favorite film, I still celebrate the anniversary of this "strange double bill."

Every time that I receive a post about this theatre, I feel like vomiting after reading the opening remarks in the introduction. Isn't it about time that they were corrected? The Academy of Music was built by none less than William Fox, and first opened in 1926, by which time the twentieth century was already one-fourth over.

Looks like that last comment did the trick, Warren. I can only imagine how difficult it must be for Bryan to keep track of all the useful updates buried in the avalanche of comments that hit this site on a daily basis. I'm sure that the best way to ensure information on CT is updated where necessary is to email Bryan directly with the pertinent changes.

I wonder does anyone remember a live broadcast by WNEW hosted by DJ Allison Steele "The Nightbird"? Featured was British born Germany residing "Nektar". They were touring a just rleased album titled "Remember The Future". I set my Sony reel to reel up to record the show, and went to it as well. In the first minutes of the opening number "Remember The Future" the power wnet out, and I have it all on tape. (Love live shows!)Fortunately power was restored quickly and the band was up and running, and gave a memorable show. I wasn't sure if the show was at the Fillmore or Academy, but I looked at a list of shows at the Fillmore, and it didn't show Nektar ever played there. Does anyone know of a list of shows at the Academy in the 70's?

This B&W sketch of Lamb's auditorium was published in The New York Times on August 29, 1926, about a month before the new theatre opened: www.i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/lamb26.jpg

The second paragraph of the introduction is claptrap. Fox's 1926 Academy of Music had no role in the Jewish/Yiddish entertainment industry of the Lower East Side, which extended no further west than Second Avenue. The AOM was a mainstream movie/vaudeville theatre in the heart of the 14th Street/Union Square area, which even by 1926 was still one of the busiest shopping and entertainment districts in the city. People went there from all over Manhattan and other boroughs. The AOM did not fall into disrepair because people who supported Yiddish theatre migrated northward. What total rubbish!

The Academy of Music closed in the autumn of 1975 and re-opened a year later as a concert hall called the Palladium, according to newspaper reports of the time. The Palladium's first booking was for the rock group, The Band, on September 18th and 19th, 1976...In 1984-85, the Palladium was transformed into a discotheque by the famed Japanese architect Arata Isozaki, who retained some of the decaying decor of Thomas Lamb's original theatre. A long article by critic Paul Goldberger about the renovation can be found in the May 20th, 1985 issue of The New York Times...The demolition of the Palladium was first announced in December, 1996. I don't know the date of the actual start of the process, but it took months due to the massiveness of the building.

I think most of you folks will appreciate this. I'm running a list of every rock show that happened at the Academy of Music from 1964 to 1979.

A few thoughts about this project. First I have to say that the Academy Of Music was one of the most repulsive theaters ever to host concerts. I had the good fortune of attending the Fillmore East in 1970 and 1971. If Bill Graham was anything he was obsessive. The Fillmore was no treat when Bill Graham acquired it. However when he was done with it, he turned it into a palacce, a neat and clean environment that was perfectly appropariate for the audience who patronized it.

The Academy was a disgusting pig sty on a good day. The sound was generally awful. The shows offered no production value of any consequence. The back of the orchesta was a holding area for the lost and wandering acid heads, beer guzzlers and sick people who often couldnt make it to the bathroom. And the floors, wherever you sat, were like Elmers glue. To its credit, you could always wander the orchestra after the show, sift through the garbage on the floor and put together a nice little stash.

Bill Graham' Fillmore East defined the wonderous and magical experience of concert going. Howard Stein reduced it to its crudest level of acceptability. Greg Allman said in an interview (and I paraphrase) "we tried the Academy, we tried Radio City, but when we went into the Beacon we felt like we were home. It smelled like the Fillmore".

And despite the indigestion I get thinking about the Academy, I still feel the need to document the succesful run of shows tha went down there. There were Alan Freed shows that took place in the 50s, but they were not concerts as we know them. Sid Bernstein promoted the first true Rock N Roll shows at the Academy starting with the Beach Boys and Rolling Stones in 1964 and Hermans Hermits, the Dave Clark 5, The Kinks, Moody Blues and the Stones again in 1966. But the theater did few more concerts till 1970 and 1971, when it competed (poorly) with The Fillmore. The Academy replaced the Fillmore in earnest starting in 1972.

So for the purpose of putting together a respectable and often intriguing list of shows, I'm starting with the Academy at 1964 and ending with the renamed Palladium in 1979. Many of you have rough memories of shows and ballpark ideas of when they occurred. I however needs dates, exact dates. I've documented about 200 shows so far but there are hundreds more that are yet to surface.....your help please. For those of you who would prefer to write to me directly I can be emailed at somo1@aol.com I will however continue to report my progress and post the master list right here.
Thanks all
Somoman

I think most of you folks will appreciate this. I'm running a list of every rock show that happened at the Academy of Music from 1964 to 1979.

A few thoughts about this project. First I have to say that the Academy Of Music was one of the most repulsive theaters ever to host concerts. I had the good fortune of attending the Fillmore East in 1970 and 1971. If Bill Graham was anything he was obsessive. The Fillmore was no treat when Bill Graham acquired it. However when he was done with it, he turned it into a palacce, a neat and clean environment that was perfectly appropariate for the audience who patronized it.

The Academy was a disgusting pig sty on a good day. The sound was generally awful. The shows offered no production value of any consequence. The back of the orchesta was a holding area for the lost and wandering acid heads, beer guzzlers and sick people who often couldnt make it to the bathroom. And the floors, wherever you sat, were like Elmers glue. To its credit, you could always wander the orchestra after the show, sift through the garbage on the floor and put together a nice little stash.

Bill Graham' Fillmore East defined the wonderous and magical experience of concert going. Howard Stein reduced it to its crudest level of acceptability. Greg Allman said in an interview (and I paraphrase) "we tried the Academy, we tried Radio City, but when we went into the Beacon we felt like we were home. It smelled like the Fillmore".

And despite the indigestion I get thinking about the Academy, I still feel the need to document the succesful run of shows tha went down there. There were Alan Freed shows that took place in the 50s, but they were not concerts as we know them. Sid Bernstein promoted the first true Rock N Roll shows at the Academy starting with the Beach Boys and Rolling Stones in 1964 and Hermans Hermits, the Dave Clark 5, The Kinks, Moody Blues and the Stones again in 1966. But the theater did few more concerts till 1970 and 1971, when it competed (poorly) with The Fillmore. The Academy replaced the Fillmore in earnest starting in 1972.

So for the purpose of putting together a respectable and often intriguing list of shows, I'm starting with the Academy at 1964 and ending with the renamed Palladium in 1979. Many of you have rough memories of shows and ballpark ideas of when they occurred. I however needs dates, exact dates. I've documented about 200 shows so far but there are hundreds more that are yet to surface.....your help please. For those of you who would prefer to write to me directly I can be emailed at somo1@aol.com I will however continue to report my progress and post the master list right here.
Thanks all
Somoman

I saw the B-52s there after the Academy had become the Palladium nightclub. Must have been around 87 or 88. Place was packed to the rafters.

I saw a few shows here myself in the '80's and really loved it. The place was poorly kept, however, as somoman suggests. The place was definitely decrepit - and that ancient dirt black hulk of a marquee was frightening - but I always thought the sound was great. I remember sitting up in the balcony and feeling like Jerry Garcia's guitar notes where slicing straight through me all the way to the back wall!

I can recall seeing "The Time Machine," "My Fair Lady," and later on, "Planet of the Apes," and I think the last film I saw at the glorious Academy (as we used to call it) was "2001: A Space Odyssey."

The government of NYC has virtually sold itself to the real estate intdustry. You not only can't get anything landmarked, you can't even talk about it. Why? The newspapers and media are all part of it as they own large parcels of land in the city.

Consider in recent years we have lost (just in my neighborhood) Poe Townhouse (NYU, of course) the site of McGurk's Saloon, Hadley Hall, The Church of All Nations, the Anderson Theater, the Commodore, and, of course, the Academy of Music, (which housed the famed and infamous "Julian's Billiard Academy").

PS.

My dad recalled seeing "Clayton, Jackson, and Durante" Jimmy Durante at the Academy. He was born in 1923 so for him to remember that they had to have still been doing vaudeville there in the 1930's.

I can recall reading the faded sign on the facade of the building. It read, in part, "Best in Vaudeville and Screen Shows."

If anyonone has any photos of the interiors I'd love to see them.

What a loss.

I saw a bunch of show's there in the early 70's including my first ever concert. I remember Chris Rea was the 3rd bill and Traffic doing John Barleycorn was the headliner. Santana showed up for the encore.
My favorite show there was headliner Procol Harum doing Broken Barricades. 2nd on bill was King Crimson doing In the Court of the Crimson King and 3rd on the bill was a little known band, Yes doing the Yes album. I think it was 1971. Good times.

Thought I would post on the theater homesites that match up for some movie ads I have in a May 10, 1946 NYC edition of the (Communist) Daily Worker. Evidently this theater supported that paper, in its way.

Starts:
ACADEMY of Music 126 E. 14
Now through Wednesday
Claudette Colbert, Orson Welles, George Brent
"TOMORROW IS FOREVER"

Sidney Toler as Charlie Chan
'DARK ALIBI'"

Under that is a general blurb:
"Patronize the Daily Worker Advertisers"

In 1946, the Academy of Music was operated by Skouras Theatres, which probably placed the ad...I confess to never actually seeing editions of the Daily Worker. It's not a primary source for anyone doing theatre research. Are these real ads, with art work and such, or are they merely lines of type listing what was playing at those theatres?

The Daily Worker was a proper newspaper publication, and actually covered a pretty full cross section of news, movies, plays, book reviews, and radio station listings (but not social news). I am not sure if it was a daily or something else. It is listed as Friday's edition, Vol. XXIII, No. 112. However, far and away the hard news in this newspaper related to organized Labor and potential strikes (including by movie theater personnel) and government news, politics and Veterans; I think that was what the Daily Worker really was about.

Whatever any individual's politics may have been, IMO - organized Labor's membership probably picked up this newspaper and read it (5 cents).

There are some large ads for a Madison Square Garden Rally, featuring Frank Sinatra, Gene Kelly and many others, for example, plus another big rally. That was the flavor of the times. (By today's standards this little edition is chock o' block with news.)

To reply to one of your comments, I vaguely remember seeing or hearing that a witch hunt had been initiated around the time of the beginning of WWII in the U.S., but was quickly ended because the U.S. became allies with the Soviets. There is an article headlined: "Movie Unions Hit Witchhunt" and a participant is George Marshall; having to do with acting on abolition of the Wood Rankin Comm. on Un-American Activities. So witchhunting was in the air. And much more.

The movie and theater ads were proper for their time, sometimes 2 cols, sometimes 1 col.

Some clearly appear as if they came out of the studio package, or were professionally developed, with critics comments scattered across them. Some had graphics that would have been interchangeable perhaps with what one would see in movie posters.

I look at every detail to see what can be culled to flesh out my understanding of the culture of the setting at the time. One thing I noted, for example, was the ad for the Paramount - the film was "The Blue Dahlia" directed by George Marshall (mentioned above)(I also vaguely think I have come across an exacting review of this film as to hidden political meanings, real or imagined, but don't remember the details.) On the bill with it is the Duke Ellington stage show. I also know that at this time the Black or "Negro" Labor Workers were in the process of starting their own "Black" or "Negro" Labor Union. So, there is background to be studied, I would think, for the history of the Paramount Theater or whomever scheduling this combined product and/or marketing it in the Daily Worker. What might be interesting for a graduate student one day might be to compare the ads on any given day between a daily NYC newspaper of the time, and, say, the Daily Worker, or a Harlem newspaper...something like that. Maybe they can do that easily online at NYPL.

Though I am not qualified to discuss these NYC movie houses in depth, from what I have heard in my life (coming from attending movie theaters during some of their heyday and noting at the time I was in the presence of unseen minds that had committed to treating me as a patron very beautifully and with generosity), and subsequently visiting, and studying some the theaters and the basis of their development and design, I fully expected to find the Roxy at 7th & 50th Streets in the CT index, but didn't, and don't know why. Incidentally, it was showing "The Dark Corner" plus on stage George Jessel, Merry Macs, and (extra) Rosario & Antonio.

At some time in the late 1930's this theater received a new moderne facade, vertical and marquee. It may have been leased by another entity prior to this make over, perhaps Warner (after theater was black for a while, something that happened in other periods with this theater... I recall it being closed for a period in 1950 )but this will take more research to establish. It was called the City Theater. In 1938 it was playing a double feature, " Port of Seven Seas" with Wallace Beery and Frank Morgan and "Richman Poor Girl" with Lew Ayres, Maureen O'Sullivan and Robert Young. This was an all MGM bill. I have seen a copy of a photo showing this, with Luchow's restaurant next door to it confirming it is indeed the Academy of Music building.

Here's the 1938 pic....

http://s9.photobucket.com/albums/a56/42ndStreetMemories/?action=view¤t=AcademyofMusic1938Portof7Seas-1.jpg

Jerry K

Jerry, Thanks for posting the photo of the City Theatre, it is not the Academy of Music though. It is the City Theatre, located just along the street at number 114 E. 14th Street. The City Theatre has its own page http://cinematreasures.org/theater/1326/

Hi, I’m Thom Drewke. I was the second “Technical Director” (read: non-Union rock ‘n roll house electrician and resident techie) in the 1970s for Howard Stein, at the Academy of Music. My predecessor was Mike Zasuly. Howard had made a deal with (I think) United Artists, a deal with the Teamsters, and a deal with the IATSE stagehand’s union, in order to be able to produce rock shows there, but for some reason no one from any of those unions really wanted to work with the long-haired hippy freaks who arrived with sound systems, lighting systems (both small by today’s standards) and bizarre special effects like confetti canons. So it was pretty much my problem, to get these visiting crazies hooked up to whatever power we could. Some bands required a rental generator to be parked outside backstage on 13th street.

We had one hell of a time the night they recorded Lou Reed's "Rock'n Roll Animal."

I ultimately left for greener pastures at John Scher’s Capitol Theatre in “beautiful downtown Passaic New Jersey.” But I remember my time at the Academy fondly.

How is that list coming along, of all the bands that played there at the Academy in the 70s?

Thom Drewke
NBC Universal

The second paragraph of the introduction is inaccurate and ludicrous. The 14th Street/Union Square entertainment district was mainstream, and not part of the Jewish/Yiddish showbiz of the Lower East Side.

Well, the first paragraph is wrong also. The original "Academy of Music" was not the first home for the Metropolitan Opera. The Metropolitan Opera company was actually started by wealthy people who were unable to get boxes at the Academy, so they started their own rival opera house.

1964
Beach Boys 2/13/64
Rolling Stones 10/24/64

1965
Hermans Hermits 6/12/65
Dave Clark 5 6/18/65
Kinks Moody Blues 6/19/65
Rolling Stones 11/6/65
1970
Rhinorcerus 10/31/70
Big Mama Thorton 11/16/70
1971
Allman Brothers 8/15/71
Black Sabbath 10/22/71
King Crimson 11/23 11/24/71
*Alice Cooper 12/1/71 Wet Willie
Mountain 12/13 12/15/71
The Band 12/28 12/29 12/30 12/31/71
1972
J.Geils Band 2/18/72 Billy Joel
Yes Sabbath 2/19 2/21 2/23/72
Grateful Dead 3/22, 3/23, 3/25, 3/26, 3/27, 3/28
Allman 4/16/72
Lindisfarne 8/5/72
Ten Years After 10/1/72 Ramatam
Byrds 10/6/72 Commander Cody Henry Gross
Quicksilver 10/13/72 Wishbone Ash Boz Scaggs
John Mayall 10/20/72
Steve Miller Band 10/21/72 Malo
Hot Tuna 10/27 10/28/72
Santana 10/30/72
Procol Harum 11/8/72 Steeleye Span
Buddy Miles 11/11/72 Rory Gallagher
West Bruce & Lange 11/17/72
New Riders 11/22, 11/23, 11/24
Savoy Brown 11/24 11/25/72 Atomic Rooster
Canned Heat 12/2/72 Spirit
Uriah Heep 12/15 12/16/72 White Trash
Fleetwood Mac 12/23/72 McKendree Spring

1973
Yes 2/23/72
King Crimson 4/28/73
Black Oak 1/31/74
Fleetwood Mac 3/30/73
New Riders 11/23 & 11/24 /73
*Hawkwind 11/?/73
King Crimson 9/22/07
Quicksilver 10/19/73
Hot Tuna 11/10/73
*Lou Reed 11/21/73
Iggy & Stooges 12/31/73 Kiss, BOC
1974
*Fleetwood Mac 1/26/74 Kiss Argent Redbone
Black Oak 1/31/74 Jo Jo Gunne
New York Dolls 2/15/74 Kiss Elliot Murphy
John Mayall 2/16/74 Brownsville Station
Soft Machine 3/23/74 Renaissance / Coryell
Jefferson Starship 4/2 4/3/74
Poco 4/5/74 James Cotton
Genesis 4/4 4/6 4/8/74
New Riders 4/13 & 4/14
*Quicksilver Messenger 5/4/74
Jefferson Starship 7/7/76
Nektar 9/28/74
Fleetwood Mac 10/5/74
Golden Earring 10/26/74
Gentle Giant 11/1 & 11/3/74 Focus
Wishbone Ash 11/22/74
New Riders 11/27 11/29/ 11/30/74
Genesis 12/6, 12/7/75

1975
Alvin Lee 1/18/75 Gentle Giant
Joe Walsh 2/1/75
Entwhistle's Ox 3/8/75
Robin Trower 4/18/75
Jefferson Starship 5/12/75
Eagles 5/16/75 Dan Fogelberg
Gentle Giant 9/28/75
Gentle Giant 10/11/75
Hot Tuna 11/22/75

1976
*the Band 3/17/76
Jeff Beck 10/18/76
Springsteen 10/28-11/4/76
Neil Young Crazy Horse 11/18 11/19 11/20/76
Lou Reed 11/13/76
Zappa 12/27 12/28
Foghat 12/11/76 Rush
Hot Tuna 11/26, 11/27/76
Patti Smith 12/31/76 John Cale Television
Dave Mason 10/17 10/18/76
Charlie Danials Band 10/31/76 Earl Scruggs Revue

1977
Bob Seger 3/6/77 Rush
Grateful Dead 4/29 4/30 5/1 5/3 5/4/77
Angel 4/16/77
Dictators 8/24/77 AC/DC
Todd Rundren 5/7 5/8/77
Foghat 10/30/77
Thin Lizzy 10/22/77
Gary Wright 4/1/77 Manfred Mann
Ramones 10/6/77 Iggy Pop
Be Bop Deluxe 10/26/77 Styx
David Bowie 3/18/77 Blondie Iggy Pop
Journey 4/9/77 Starcsstle
Santana 3/5/77 Al Dimiola
Foghat 10/30/77
Rush 11/12/77 UFO Cheap Trick
Zappa 10/28 10/29 10/30 10/31/77
Jerry Garcia Band 11/27/77
Hot Tuna 11/26/77
Procol Harem 5/15/77
Poco 5/14/77
1978
Todd Rundgren 3/18/78
Dicky Betts 3/17/78
*Springsteen 9/15 9/16 /17/78
Rush 11/12/77 UFO Cheap Trick
Van Halen 3/25/1978 & 3/28/78 & 4/28/78 Journey Montrose
Rainbow 8/24/78 AC/DC
Patti Smith 5/20 5/21/78
Thin Lizzy 9/29, 10/1/78 BOC
Ramones 1/7/78 Runaways
Cheap Trick 9/22/78 Cars
Angel 3/10/78 Judas Priest
Elvis Costello 5/6/78
Rolling Stones 6/19/78 Peter Tosh
*Blondie 11/12/78 Fripp Mitch Ryder
Santana 2/9 2/10/1978
*Blondie 3/11/78 Robert Gordon Link Wrey
Zappa 10/27 10/28 10/29 10/30 10/31/78
Parliament Funkadelic 11/5/78
REO, UFO, Molly Hatchet 9/28/78
Kinks 6/2/78


So here's a first look at my list. As you can see there are significant gaps in the schedule, particularly in certian years. There are also a lot of "negotiable dates" with regard to shows that did or didn't happen. I was told by a gentleman that placed the print advertising for Academy, that there was a significant discrepancy between the print ads and the actual dates of the shows. No one's fault just the rescheduling nature of the business.

All input welcome.

Emails to me directly as somo1@aol.com

Peace out

Stephen

My only memory of the Academy of Music as a rock palace is an unpleasant one. During the 1980 NYC conclave of Theatre Historical Society of America, we were granted permission to view the interior. When the THS group arrived, the band known as Judas Priest was starting to rehearse on stage, playing at a sound level that promised to blast off the roof. We persevered, but after a few minutes, the band's manager came over and ordered us to leave, claiming that we were distracting the musicians. He also threatened to sue anyone who'd taken photos that included Judas Priest. Those were the days before digital cameras, so he wanted people to turn over their rolls of film so that he could destroy them. Nobody did. We just left, many of us vowing to boycott Judas Priest for the rest of our lives and beyond.

Attached below is a review of The Palladium discoteque which opened in the academy of Music in 1985. It's an amazing article that describes the state of the theater before the conversion and a proper critique.

AN APPRAISAL; THE PALLADIUM: AN ARCHITECTURALLY DRAMATIC NEW DISCOTHEQUE

By PAUL GOLDBERGER
Published: May 20, 1985
Arata Isozaki is at once a great eminence of Japanese architecture and a source of some of its freshest thinking. And all sides of Mr. Isozaki are visible in the Palladium, the expansive new discotheque on East 14th Street that opened last week.

It is Mr. Isozaki's first

American design to reach completion, and one of the most remarkable pieces of interior architecture in New York.

It is rare that a celebrated architect designs a discotheque at all, let alone decides to let this kind of project serve as his debut in a country in which he is beginning to achieve a major reputation. It is rather as if Philip Johnson were to go to Japan to design not a skyscraper, but a geisha house.

But if the match of architect and building project seems strange at first, the results at the Palladium bear out the wisdom of this unusual marriage. This is a spectacular interior, full of light and movement and genuine spatial drama.

Contrast With Studio 54

Yet it could not be further from the flashing lights and glitter of a place like Studio 54, the discotheque created by Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager, the impresarios who are also behind the conception of the Palladium, at 126 East 14th Street. This is actually a discotheque deserving to be considered in serious architectural terms.

Mr. Rubell and Mr. Schrager are nothing if not pulse-takers of the moment, and they have correctly divined that architecture has a chic in the 1980's that it did not have in the 70's.

They also knew that Mr. Isozaki's architecture, which imbues simple geometric forms with a kind of primal energy, has been getting more and more attention in architectural circles, and that he had been chosen to design the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art. This is certain to be one of the most talked-about museums in the country when it is finished next year.

Structure Within a Shell

What more natural match, then, than themselves and Mr. Isozaki to create the discotheque that would be for this decade what Studio 54 was for the last? It could almost be dismissed as a cynical exploitation of architecture's current trendiness - if the results were not so truly excellent.

The Palladium has been built within the shell of the old Academy of Music, a movie palace of faded grandeur that has presided, like a glum but self-assured dowager, since 1926 over the block of 14th Street east of Union Square.

The old theater had never been sliced into smaller parts, like so many great movie houses of its era, but neither had it been well cared for. By the time the owners of the Palladium took it over, it had fallen into a state of deep, almost sordid, dinginess.

But the theater's ornate architecture was essentially intact, and that set the theme for the design. The Academy of Music's original architecture was not gutted, and neither was it cleaned up to any substantial degree. Instead, it was allowed to remain, rich and crumbling, as a background for a structure Mr. Isozaki designed to be set within it.

Mr. Isozaki's new structure is set at what was the loge level of the old theater; the orchestra level and the old stage have been entirely covered up with new construction.

The new structure is a great grid of horizontal and vertical pieces mounting up for several stories, with a proscenium-like arch leaping across their middle. Within it is the main dance floor; behind it, most of the original mezzanine and balcony remain, permitting visitors to climb up and look down on the activity within the Isozaki structure.

The old auditorium is so vast that it can contain this foreign object, as big as a building, without seeming to blink an eye. Indeed, making this unusual juxtaposition work is the central point of Mr. Isozaki's design - he is setting up an architectural dialogue in which an old container and a new thing contained within it are completely different, yet each maintains its integrity.

The Romance of Decay

The old movie palace is mysterious and ornate, seeming to hold within it the romance of generations; it has been left in its crumbling state to enhance this romantic, slightly eerie quality.

Mr. Isozaki's insertion is crisp, hard and direct, revealing all. It is not hard to see that Mr. Isozaki is not merely juxtaposing two kinds of architecture, or old objects and new - he is really using each portion of this building as part of a much broader metaphor, exploring softness and hardness, decay and renewal, warmth and coolness, even mystery and revelation.

If all of this suggests that the Palladium is as solemn as a church, it is not so at all - it is in fact quite exuberant, with spectacular lighting effects, a fine palette of colors and altogether remarkable works of art.

The consortium of artists enlisted to participate in this venture is as much of the moment as the architect. It includes Francesco Clemente, who has painted a set of somewhat melancholy, but nicely colored, frescoes over a portion of the vaulted ceiling in one of the old theater's vestibules; Kenny Scharf, who has turned the lower lounge into an almost magical arrray of decorations, comic-book icons, fake fur and mirrors and toys that suggest a perverse version of a Warner LeRoy restaurant, and Keith Haring, who has designed a huge graffiti mural for the rear wall of the stage.

But most startling of all may be the use of video screens as part of the art and architecture.

This is not the first time video has become part of a discotheque, of course, but it is surely the first time two huge banks of 25 television monitors each have been set within huge frames that are raised and lowered, like pieces of a stage set. The frames are designed in the shape of a Rolls-Royce grille, which may or may not be a comment on the leanings of the discotheque crowd in the 1980's.

But whatever it means, the visual power of this array of television sets is undeniable - particularly given the use of advanced video technology that permits an image either to be seen in small size on each screen or in vast size, with all the monitors joined together to make an immense image that is as large as the one seen on a movie screen.

All of this goes on within Mr. Iso-zaki's gridded structure, the inside of which is filled with softly glowing lights and is, in effect, the focus of all activity. But there are subsidiary spaces as well in the Palladium, including a ''back room'' that carries the metaphor of the building one step farther.

The back room has been made even dingier than it was when Mr. Rubell and Mr. Schrager found it, and instead of the ornament of the main theater, there is an exposed steel girder cutting across it; inside, in deliberate contrast, is elegant furniture and tuxedoed waiters.

A Single Classical Column

That is a bit coy. But the architectural sequence Mr. Isozaki devised for the entrance to the whole place is anything but. The exterior and the outer vestibule have been left in their raw state, making a startling contrast within the doors to a white lobby, in which a single classical column, enclosed by new walls, stands high up straight ahead.

Beyond this stark entrance, deliberately neutral, the space opens up to a vast lobby, 120 feet long with undulating green walls and green columns on a purple and turquoise carpet, with a low ceiling to create a sense of compression. The colors here, as elsewhere, were selected with the help of Andree Putman, the gifted Parisian interior designer who collaborated with Mr. Isozaki on numerous details of the Palladium design.

A grand double staircase, the sleekest, most high-tech element in the place, climbs upward from here to the level of the discotheque itself.

Its floor, and the floor of a huge landing, are made up of 2,400 round lights set in round glass block. To walk up it is to walk on light, and it is a magical feeling - the stair contains within it both the hardness of the new Isozaki structure and, thanks to the light, the softness of the old theater, merging them all into a unified whole.

the academy was where i was introduced to live shows....electric hot tuna in '73...loud...the bathroom was like an opium den...i remember grabbing some dealers stash out front at a lou reed show and fighting with him...a car burning in the street after the late show....remember when hot tuna broke up---it was jorma and bob steeler---nobody else...awesome....went out for breakfast and came back in. jeff beck...johnny winter....kinks...muddy waters...great place !!!!

Hey Steven (sonoman)... What do the asterisks indicate on your list? At first I thought the one next to The Band's 1976 appearance might have been to indicate the premier show under the newly christened Palladium moniker (which it was), but then I saw other shows asterisked further down the list.

Also... My memory may be faulty, but I thought that the gig by The Bank in '76 might have been much later in the year than March. I seem to recall that the show at their Palladium was a part of a farewell run leading up to the famous Last Waltz concert out at Winterland in San Francisco that Thanksgiving. When The Band appeared on Saturday Night Live that same week, the upcoming farewell concert was mentioned by the show's guest host. Perhaps I've just mistakenly assumed that the SNL appearance was the same week of the Palladium gig. You sure that didn't happen more like September or October of '76?

Apologies to StePHen for mispelling not only his real name, but his CT handle of Somoman! D'oh!

Hey Ed

No, the asterisks were nothing more than reminders to myself that I had to return to those listings for one reason or another. I have a slightly more thorough and accurate list that I failed to post, and I will post it within the week.

As for the Band, it didn't occur to me during the making of the list that this was the Band's final tour (which of course it was). So I never questioned the dates. The dates are far earlier than the Thanksiving show at Winterland, but then again, a year long tour for the Band was hardly beyond their scope of capability. Looks like a little research is in order. As for the Band playing at the Palladium, I saw the 1971 New Year's eve show with Bob Dylan. That was fun.

By the way, I picked up Last Waltz about a year ago on Ebay. It was as good as the first time I saw it, and it gave me chills all over again. The back story of how the last show became an event is briliantly told by Scorcese as part of the DVD extras. As an aside I've got to say that Van Morrison, who could be aweful (moody) on any given night, gave the performance of a lifetime.

Thanks somoman for putting a date to my Nekktar concert. I still have the recording of the show from the radio simulcast, including the power outage during the first song!

i remember the nektar show....i saw an empty seat in the front row, so i grabbed it....lotsa dry ice/fog....cool show.....there is good palladium footage on the bootleg zappa holloween mtv broadcast...interior/exterior marquee with jerry garcia on the upcomming shows....

Ed, I did in fact research The Band and how their appearance at the Palladium aligned with the Thanksgiving 1976 final performance "The Last Waltz". You are right indeed. The correct date of their performance at the Palladium appears to be 9/18/76. I have not yet been able to confirm additional dates at the Palladium on that particular run in NY. But your thinking was correct.

Input always welcome.

Stephen

Thanks, Stephen. I'm glad to learn that my memory may not be quite as rusty as I first thought! Well... at least not in this instance!

Right around the time of the "No Nukes" concert at MSG (September 1979) the Palladium hosted a benefit concert for "Karen Silkwood Defense Fund". Two guests that appeared were Jackson Browne and Bonnie Raitt, and both of them were also sponsors of the No Nukes concert. There is one item on a Bonnie Raiit site that confirms the Silkwood show, but that listing indicates to have happened on 5/9/78, and also claims another show for Silkwood at Avery Fisher Hall on 5/1/78. Since No Nukes went down in 1979, it would seem that the Silkwood concert would have happened within a day or two of the No Nukes show, and surely in 1979. Does anyone know anything about this show? Can anyone support either Silkwood show with a date.

I worked at the Palladium as an usher in the balcony from around 1978 until Delsener closed the place down.As far as the Silkwood show I remember James Taylor was also on the bill. When he sang Mockingbird he bought out the then Mrs Taylor(Carly Simon) to sing with him. Sorry but I'm a little fuzzy on the date. I worked so many shows there, and while I remember the music the dates all run togeher.

http://concerts.wolfgangsvault.com/dt/al-dimeola-concert/20050087-180.html?utm_source=NL&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=080220

that is al dimeola 5-5-78 courtesy of wolfgang's vault great show...

The Academy of Music opened in 1926, not 1927. I don't know the exact date, but it was advertised in The New York Times on October 21, 1926, with "Marriage License" on screen and a stage show featuring Leo Carrillo, Nonette, Art Landry & His Band, and the 60-piece Academy Symphony Orchestra. This could have been the premiere presentation. The AOM was built smultaneously with Fox's Savoy in Brooklyn, which opened in September. When the Savoy opened, press reports said that the AOM would debut the following month, but no specific date was given.

The earliest certificate of occupancy that I have found for 126-138 E. 14th Street is dated October 11, 1926. A 3515 seat theater is located here. The architect as you already know was Thomas W. Lamb of 644 Eighth Avenue.

The NYU dormitory that replaced the theatre is called Palladium. I would have selected Academy, in honor of this Academy of Music and the orginal AOM, which was just across the street. But I guess Palladium means more to college students who might be old enough to remember the Palladium, but not the previous enterprises.

thanks iatse311

keep em coming.

Yeah, Palladium is just a cooler name. Alas, none of the college students at NYU would remember Palladium's days as New York's premier disco in the late 80's/early 90's, let alone its prior days as a concert venue. You would probably get a blank stare if you mention The Academy of Music.

The Palladium on March 10, 1982

Here are new direct links to views of the original auditorium:
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/foxamc02.jpg
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/foxamc01.jpg

I once bought a ticket to a Grade Z movie here in the early 1970s just because I was so curious to see the interior. Its glory days were gone, but I sat in there for a couple of years soaking up the atmosphere and never regretted the investment of time and a couple of bucks. We had moviehouses then.

http://concerts.wolfgangsvault.com/ve/palladium/PDM.html all of the palladium shows on wolfgangs vault...

"Wolfgang's Vault" seems to have a listing of "pirate" recordings made at the Palladium.
I don't think that every show presented at the Palladium is listed there. Just the ones that have recordings for sale.

Is everyone aware that Wolfgang (of Wolfgang's Vault) in none other than Wolfgang Grajonca, aka Bill Graham?

Bill Graham was a licensing junkie. Not only did hel ive by the rules of licensing, he helped create them. Posthumously, the various Bill Graham organizations have ALWAYS been heavy handed with people using BG images without paying a licensing fee. In fact his organizations were SO HEAVY HANDED, that for a period of time, legal action was taken against Ebay sellers who were showing his posters in order to sell them.

Legal logic prevailed, and eventually the laws were rewritten so that a collector could sell his own property without being guilty of copyright infringement.

So the notion that Wolfgang's Vault would own and sell pirated performances couldnt be farther from the truth. You can bet your last dollar that these Academy / Palladium tapes were both recorded legally, and legally acquired by Wolfgangs vault.

A good rule of thumb is this. If the quality of concert recording was excellent, than you can be sure that a multitrack mixing board was tapped into in order to gain capture that recording. And as a rule, it was the band's audio engineers that controlled the tap. Audience tapes are generally muddy and there is no true stereo. In this case, the audio tapes from Wolfganags Vault are excellent quality, suggesting that they were all recorded with the permission (and assistance) of the band's crack audio team.

The AOM was located near Union Square in Manhattan. A subject related to the movie business on Union Square, with a large photograph taken in 1917 of a WW1 recruiting center in the form of a mock "Battleship", shows the "Automatic Vaudeville" Nickelodeon. Caption quote is "Sailors doing their laundry on the Navy's pretend battleship moored at Union Square, used for recruiting during World War I. In back is the Automatic Vaudeville penny arcade, two of whose backers -- Marcus Loew and Adolph Zukor -- went on to found Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Paramount Pictures after a few years in the nickelodeon "

Photo link: http://www.shorpy.com/node/3656?size=_original

Automatic Vaudeville is represented here in the listing for Crystal Hall: http://cinematreasures.org/theater/17576/

The concerts on Wolfgang's Vault are all soundboard recordings from the collection of Bill Graham.

This comparison photo of the Palladium and its replacement building appears in the current issue of New York Magazine:
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/14thpal.jpg

Could the replacement be any uglier?

Thanks Warren for the photo. I had forgotten about the huge fresco above the marquee. Very few theaters had that. I can't believe that theater was never landmarked! I thought it was very beautiful and I miss it very much.

Hi Luis, if all the beautiful theatres that were lost to demolishon in the city would have been landmarked, they would still be here. Thats the greatest sin of all, is that the Roxy and Capitol, and even the Rivoli are gone. Nobody cared back then.

and the Commodore and The Forum and Proctor's 58th Street and The Center and the list goes on and on and on.

I know full well that not all theaters can be saved. New York, which arguably, had the greatest collection of quality movie palaces ever built had so many that they just couldn't all be saved.

I agree that landmarking would have saved some but not all. Owners can can claim financial hardship and override landmarking. Nonetheless, I am happy that we have as many left as we do: Loews's 175th Street, Radio City, The Hollywood, The New Amsterdam, The Beacon, The Palace, The Ziegfeld, The Paris and that's just in Manhattan.

The sad reality is that there is no way all of those theaters that we lost could have been adaptively resused. It's sad but true, so we have to try to save the best of them and we have had some success and many failures. I mourn the loss of Roxy, Capitol, Rivoli and Center most of all. Those should have been saved. I feel that The Ziegfeld should be landmarked as soon as it is eligible.

Been a while since I set foot in here and I am still in agony anytime I see the NYU dorm.


Tom Drewke and Spotone please contact me ecrocker1@yahoo.com or
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NY_Academy_of_Music

Thanks, Michael

Hello again.

Again, I am asking if anyone knows of any photos of the front facade of the Academy of Music. As I remember it (from the 60's) there was a huge painted sign reading:

"ACADEMY OF MUSIC"
and in smaller letters (perhaps on a banner)
"BEST IN VAUDEVILLE AND SCREEN SHOWS"

Anyone else remember this?

Hello again.

Again, I am asking if anyone knows of any photos of the front facade of the Academy of Music. As I remember it (from the 60's) there was a huge painted sign reading:

"ACADEMY OF MUSIC"
and in smaller letters (perhaps on a banner)
"BEST IN VAUDEVILLE AND SCREEN SHOWS"

Anyone else remember this?

I remember seeing something that looked like a ticket but I can't recall what it said and when Ron Delsener took over the building he had it painted over with a mural.

Eighteen years later, this Palladium murder still haunts the victim's family: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2008/11/29/2008-11-29_palladium_murder_in_1990_still_haunts_fa.html

Here's more on the 1990 slaying at the Palladium: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2008/12/06/2008-12-06_first_account_by_confessed_killer_in_199.html

Around 1970, Ticketron or Ticket Master rolled out the first nationwide electronic ticket service. Each venue took it upon themselves to decide if they would use Ticketron style tickets, or continue to have their tickets custom printed. Bill Graham used custom tickets up to and including the final show at the Fillmore East. However In all my years going to the Academy of Music (starting in 1971), I only recall the electronic ticket. Does anyone know if Howard Stein ever used custom tickets for the Academy?

By the way, I have a custom tickets from Howard Stein's Capitol Theater in Portchester (perforated) as well as a custom perforated one from Gaelic Park. I also have the unperforated ticket from Gaelic Park.

From the time I was attending shows at the Academy starting in the winter of 1971 they were all Ticketron issued tickets. Ticketbastard started out years later and eventually took over Ticketron.

As I was going through some of the older postings and came across a reference to the NY Dolls. I went to youtube and found this video clip. It's about 10 minutes long but mid way there is a scene where the band is rolling down 14th street on a VW Bug and stops in front of the Academy. The clip is in B&W and grainy so it was hard to read what was on the marguee.

Memories is all thats left


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYv433L5wI4

Does anyone have some pictures of the Academy inside or out other then the 2 that Warren has up from way back when. More like from the mid to late 60's prior to the Palladium changeover

I would also love to see a picture of the Academy, especially late sixties, early seventies. I grew up in the East Village and had the chance to patronize both the Academy and the Fillmore East when they were still movie theatres. My first rock concert was at the Academy in 1974(Average White Band opening for Wishbone Ash). Ironically, I spend all my days in the building now as I work for Trader Joes.

I truly wish that you worked in the building. That would mean it was still there. Trader Joe's has adaptively resused an old Banking Hall in Brooklyn keeping the overall architectural integrity of the building. Alas, the Academy of Music was demolished by NYU and the retail space leased, in turn, by Trader Joe's.

I was working the AWB/Wishbone Ash concert back then. Altough some people considered the Academy a dump it was far from it. I must have made a couple of hundred dollars and a few doobies just by looking on the floor between the seats. Just like any other theather people would dump their drinks and whatver other stuff on the floor. The major difference between a normal movie screening and a live concert is that most if not all the concerts were sold out and with 3500 seats thats a good deal of trash generated. The cleaning crews for the Academy were hired by the local manager Gus Bavianni. He knew he needed more help but didn't want to spend the money. However if there was a show on Friday the dumpsters in the alley on Saturday were overflowing. During the week when they used to show movies. On those days Sundays-Thursdays I don't think there were more then a couple of hundred people who attended and the balconies were closed. During that time there was only one guy there to clean up the theatre and he would mops up different sections of the orchestra section so come Friday morings the flors were clean and not sticky.
When Ron Delsener took over the building and named it the palladium United Artists TC had nothing to do with the building any more and Ron had to hire his own cleaning crews. 3500 people can make a mess of any place.

As to Trader Joes. I wish they would open one near me. The closest TJ's to me is over 30 miles from me.

I never attended the Academy of Music when it was a concert hall. I only saw it a the disco: Palladium. I remember it as a very well run operation that was very clean and quite beautiful after the renovations were made which kept some of the decayed beauty of the Academy while infusing it with the perfunctory neon, video screens and giant Disco ball. I'll also never forget my first visit. A friend of mine was visiting from Chicago and she insisted on going to the Palladium. I didn't want to go because they picked people to go in. There was a notorious Asian woman who stood on a box who "picked" people to go in. I remember being terrified; afraid that I wouldn't be chosen. There were hundreds of people waiting and I showed up in my raw silk jacket, faux leather pants and red leather tie (this was the 80's!) and she pointed right at me and said "You! How many in your party?" I looked around and realized she was talking to me! I said "2" and she said "walk this way" and the crowd parted. I really hate saying this but it was an amazing feeling. I never went to another club again where they "picked you" Instead I made sure I had low friends in high places so I was just able to go in. Oh, I miss those days! and I really miss the Palladium! :-)

What happened to that building after Ron Delsener stopped doing shows there was a crime. What was done to the inside would have made Thomas Lamb roll over in his grave. That is like comparing Mona Lisa to a finger painting done by Mrs. Jones per schoolers. They got to do something in that buliding that they din't do to Studio 54 and that was to destroy it from the inside. I was at Studio 54 in 1989 when it had then become The RITZ after John Scher left the other Ritz AKA Webster Hall. With the exception of having a level floor with no seats the Ritz/54 interior was still in tact. The Academy/Palladium was destroyed. The original stage was made a storage area anda deck was built pver it. When I came down there back in the mid 80's I looked through what used to be the load in door and I could not see any of the audiance area. Yes Thomas Lamb who built this theatre is the one and the same that built the Ridgewood that we all talk about so much and is on it's way to possible landmark status. To me what Steve Rubell and his Studio 54 flunkies did to the Academy is like taking a thing of beauty and desicrating it. Although there is some present cotriversy going on with the Loews Paradise in the Bronx lots of care and $25 million restored it to it's former beautey minus the Robert-Morgan "Wonder Organ" which now sits in the Loew's Jersey Theatre in Journal Square in Jersey City New Jersy. Thankfully the Mighty Wurlitzer that was in the Academy was removed in 1976 and is still operating at a privat residence.

Hi ECR, the success of the "renovation" of the Academy of Music into the Palladium is obviously open to interpretation, but I and, I believe, most others felt it was beautiful. So did a review by the esteemed New York Times architecture critic Paul Goldberger who said "It could almost be dismissed as a cynical exploitation of architecture's current trendiness - if the results were not so truly excellent!" I have pasted the entire review in a prior post above.

The Academy of Music was decayed and in terrible shape when the Palladium conversion occurred and the architect wisely made the decay part of the new design. This theater was adaptively reused and lasted for almost a decade more than it otherwise might have. I have many wonderful memories at the Palladium and I will never forgive NYU for tearing down this beauty.

I know that is something we can both agree on! :-)

I can find hundreds of articles from the "free" press that will extol ANYTHING done for the sake of increased real estate values or apologizing for the destruction of true landmarks. (I think of the virtual cheers of "bravo" when the a house that E.A. Poe once lived in was torn down by the great-and-all-powerful-all-seeing NYU, as an example. You would think the site was a toxic waste dump and had to be destroyed or cleaned up.)

The "success" of the renovation is irrelevant. What was LOST is what at issue here and what many of us mourn.

I stand by my comments that the Palladium was a fantastic and creative re-use of a faded movie palace. It allowed it to exist for a decade longer before finally succumbing to NYU. Had it not been for the Palladium, I and tens of thousands of others would not have had the opportunity to have seen this spectacular theater at all. So, yes, the success of the renovation is extremely relevant.

p.s. the Academy of Music did need to be cleaned up. It was a mess from its decades of neglect as it turned from an movie palace to a faded concert hall with minimal maintenance and cleaning. As The Palladium, it once again became a first class venue; one that the entire country saw weekly as the setting for one of MTV's popular Video shows back in the 80's.

Yes, you may stand by your comments all you like and I value your opinion and your passion to do so.

But NOTHING, I repeat, NOTHING can be seen with total objectivity by people such as me, who recall a glorious place like the Academy.

You seem to wish to "justify" the renovation. There's no need to. It's just what happened. Don't be so defensive. Yes, the Academy was crumbling, yes, it was poorly maintained, and yes, it was a mess. Bravo! Hoo-ray for your insights and observations!

They mean nothing.

But you don't seem to get that.

Nor does it seem to matter to you that this website is called, "CINEMA TREASURES: DISCOVER, PRESERVE, PROTECT," not, "GREAT RENOVATIONS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY." Maybe there's a website out there where you can share your views of the Palladium with like-minded people! I don't think this is the place. The Academy was, and will remain forever in many minds, a CINEMA TREASURE (now, a LOST Cinema Treasure).

It's about more than just the destruction of a place of beauty, however. It is about a perceived shift in culture, one that is uglier, childish, and at the same time vulgar. And this new, youth-oriented, peurile culture has virtually completely usurped all that has come before. So the memory of the Academy is not simply that of a revered and much loved building shared by BOTH adults and the young, but a symbol of a society that no longer exists--one I found more civilized and far more adult.

I do appreciate your passion and love for this theater, but I would love to still have the Academy of Music with us today as a disco than as a memory. I'm happy that the Henry Hudson theater is with us today as a conference center, the Brooklyn Paramount as a gym, etc.....

Were it not for Studio 54's turn as a club for those many years, we probably would not have it today as a restored Broadway theater. Today we can hope that the Brooklyn Paramount can be restored into a theater. Without LIU it would have been demolished years ago. Today we have hope.

Had the Palladium been able to hang on just a few more years, we may have been able to save it and, perhaps, restore it as a performing arts center.

The sad reality, and it is a reality, is that it was just impossible to save all or even most of the beautiful palaces of the past. Yes, the Academy was a beautiful theater, but we lost even more beautiful ones: The Roxy, Center, the original Ziegfeld, Proctor's E. 58th St, Loews East 72nd, The Capitol, the Paramount, The Rivoli, and on and on. That is why we have to work hard to preserve the few that remain, and sometimes, that means it has to be used in a creative way.

It is a difficult process. The Loew's Kings has been decaying for three decades. The city has been trying to come up with investors for years with little success. It is not enough to say that all of these theaters must be saved. They must also be able to pay for themselves on an operating basis; especially in these tough times.

I also disagree that Cinema Treasures doesn't stand for "Great Renovations of the 20th Century" It most certainly does. The vast majority of CT members would back any restoration that brought back the beauty of the original theater whether it was used anew as a theater or not.

My question remains, I can not believe that no one has a picture of the building (and I mean a good one)

Jerry

ProfJoe maybe we can not bring back the Academy from the ashes we can can use this forum to talk about our memories.
I still stand by my comments about the conversion of a 3500 seat movie/concert palace in to a disco was a crime. Consider the fact that Steve Rubell who went to jail for his shifty business dealings and tax evasion. What NYU also was a crime but then again maybe they looked at what was done to the fromer palace turned disco and didn't think it was worth saving.

I was told by some people who brought in lighting and sound gear I know who was there for some of the live shows. They told me that the place was dangerous not only for setting up sound and lighting rigs but the parts of the original walls and ceiling were severly damaged. These people also did shows in the 70's when it was still the Academy so they knew what the original interior looked like. I am one of a very few who knew what the builings interior was like behind the plaster walls and the ceiling.


For those of you that are interested in a NY Academy of Music group here you go.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NY_Academy_of_Music/?yguid=150556898

For any of you who were a part of the goings on at the NY Academy of Music from 1971-1975 when Howard Stein was producing concerts we recently lost a dear member of the crew.
Feb 14 2009 Harold Klein

Harold Klein was one of the theatres lighting directors from 1971-1973. He was also one of the lighting directors and videographers at the Capitol Theatre in Passaic NJ as well as the Bottom Line Caberet in NYC.

RIP my old long lost friend.

Renewing link.

Settlement in Palladium killing reported here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/31/nyregion/31palladium.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=Palladium&st=cse

Exterior photo as Palladium: http://americanclassicimages.com/Default.aspx?tabid=141&txtSearch=palladium&catpagesize=25&ProductID=31110

http://www1.dailynewspix.com/sales/largeview.php?name=N1990443.jpg&id=22785&lbx=-1&return_page=searchResults.php&searchDisplay=A&numFields=1&Button=<SPAN>Search</SPAN>&start=-2713888800&end=-299361601&dayFrom=1&monthFrom=1&yearFrom=1884&dayTo=6&monthTo=7&yearTo=1960&location_0=allmeta&bool_0=AND&Button=<SPAN>Search</SPAN>&page=0

"Fire at Fox Academy of Music in 1930 3/20/1930", Courtesy of Warren

I grew up on the Lower East Side and if you went to the Academy of Music to see a movie, you were really "moving on up". My mom took me to see "The King & I" w/Yul Brynner (it was just on TCM). We never went to Luchow's, as she shied away from German food, but the Automat was right down the block at 14th & Union Square, near Klein's.

Many of the older links no longer work above. This site has numerous photos of the interior during its heyday as the Palladium nightclub. The interiors were designed by architect Arata Isozaki.

http://tinyurl.com/2o5wg8

A great video chronicling the theatre's days as the Palladium nightclub, a couple of year's before its demolition:

http://tinyurl.com/yaf5bz8