Variety Theatre

I used to walk past this theater and see posters advertising cowboy films there.

The Variety Theatre seated 594 people.

The Variety Photoplays was designed in 1914 by Louis Shinart. It was remodeled in 1930 by the firm of Boak & Paris (who also renovated the Yorktown as the New Yorker and also designed the Midtown/Metro Twin Theatre).

There was an arty soft-core-porn movie called "Variety" (late 1980's?) that used this theater as its main character, but some of it was actually shot at a 42nd street hard-core movie house. The plot involved a girl who took a job as an usherette and gradually got drawn into the degenerate eroticism of her workplace.

In 1969-70, I used to go there every couple of weeks with a friend when we finished doing layouts and cartoons at Rat Subterranean News around the corner on 14th street. My friend had a bad habit of bringing a few of bottles of Ripple wine, and tossing our empties against the side wall - the audience barely noticed. Admission prices started at about 25 cents in the morning, and gradually rose to a dollar or two by evening. The shows - always double features - were absolutely random. A typical show would combine a kiddie movie about a pet bear cub and the trashiest low-budget porn available - I think this was before the ratings systems was mandated. The weirdest thing was the rest rooms, both of which were unusable due to always being jam-packed with homosexual orgies; if you opened the door, someone would grab you to try to pull you in to join the party.

Next door was a little underground bar called the Dugout. In early 1970, I made the mistake of taking a girl there. She was a member of W.I.T.C.H., the Women's International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell, which had just seized control of Rat (purging the male staff, myself included) in one of the historic early victories of radical feminism. We didn't realize the Dugout had a male-only policy; it turned out she was the first female to actually get served at the bar, but with a polite warning not to come back. Except for a name change and a female bartender, the Dugout was exactly the same in 2004. The Variety Photoplay didn't look all that different either.

According to this article in today's Playbill, the Variety Arts Theatre has closed. The off-Broadway house's last production was "The Joys of Sex". Recent productions there have included "Reefer Madness", "Omnium Gatherum", and "Necessary Targets". The Variety opened as a legit house in 1991 after being vacant for some years after closing as a movie theater. Producer Ben Sprecher said the lease on the theater was not renewed and its next use will not be as a theater. Sprecher owns the Promenade Theatre on the Upper West Side and manages the Little Shubert Theatre on West 42nd Street.

Wow, another NY theatre going away. This place lasted 100 years and should be saved.

I can't imagine that part of 3rd Avenue without the Variety Theatre; it's an unofficial neighborhood landmark, it's been a familiar sight on many a weekday morning on my way to work and many a Friday and Saturday night, stumbling home after having a BIT too much fun (as usual :-), and most definitely should be saved.

The movie "Variety," mentioned by another poster here, was directed by Bette Gordon, my film teacher at Hofstra U. THe Village Voice panned it, saying that asking Kathy Acker to help on your script was a disaster akin to asking for more helicopters to circle Vic Morrow in the filming of the Twilight Zone movie.

The Variety theatre was for a while a porno theatre, attracting closet cases, much as the Bijou theatre nearby did.

According to the book The Ghastly Ones, this was one of (director) Andy Milligan's favorite hangouts.

I worked at night as a teenager during the summer helping to fix the seats in the Variety .It was a wierd place in 1946.Close to the Bowery and drunks sleeping it off.If I remember they closed it down at 2 AM and threw everyone out. so we could fix the seats. I always remember the tail end of almost every movie when we came in to work- but not one from that place. The marquee is a classic that show up in serious photography all the time and underneath the 3rd Ave EL.
David Robertson

I worked at night as a teenager during the summer helping to fix the seats in the Variety .It was a wierd place in 1946.Close to the Bowery and drunks sleeping it off.If I remember they closed it down at 2 AM and threw everyone out. so we could fix the seats. I always remember the tail end of almost every movie when we came in to work- but not one from that place. The marquee is a classic that show up in serious photography all the time and underneath the 3rd Ave EL.
David Robertson

This is starting to sound like we should produce a picture book about this place! Maybe one of those dark, sordid comic-style graphic novels.

The December 22, 2004 issue of The Villager, a weekly newspaper, reports rumors that New York University plans to buy and demolish the theatre to build a dormitory.

Another NY landmark bites the dust. Will it ever stop?

Is this the Variety Arts Theatre? If so, I believe the sequel to "Annie", orginally to open on Broadway as "Annie 2", was pulled and re-worked with another "Annie" title and played at this theatre.

This is another theatre could be built over and incorporated into the new structure.

To answer Don Rosen...Yes, this is the Variety Arts Theater. The sequel to the Broadway show "Annie", being referred to, was called "Annie Warbucks", which starred Harve Presnell and Donna McKechnie. The show was mildly successful having played 200 performances between 10/9/93 and 1/31/94.

To our webmaster...Shouldn't this theater be listed as "Variety Photoplays" and then aka "Variety Theater"? After all, it was known as "Variety Photoplays" for a good 75 years !

The usual rule here is to list the theatre under the last name it had while open for any entertainment purpose (live or movie). But someone should add "Variety Arts Theatre" to the "Also known as" list.

Ron...If that is the case, then it should be listed as "Variety Arts", which was the last name used when it was used as an off-Broadway theater. I am 100% sure of this fact because the company I work for was one of the producers of "Return to the Forbidden Planet", which was the first off-Broadway production to play the theater after it was completely renovated after closing as "Variety Photoplays".

the marquee is being demolished as I type this. the signage at the top of the building and its decorative details have been removed. This is just too sad for words.

This is indeed very sad news. It is one of the oldest, most historic movie theatres in Manhatten. I have taken the opportunity to photograph it on several of my visits to NYC as it is a very photogenic building.

Just around the corner a couple of blocks away on E 14th St is the still empty site of the former RKO Jefferson Theatre http://www.cinematreasures.org/theater/1357/ another historic theatre destroyed for no reason at all only just a couple of years ago or so. Why can't they build a student dormitory there!

apparently whoever has done the damage is now content to let it sit there, minus marquee and and decorative cornice.

Nihilism marches on.

Most likely yet another example of a property owner fending off attempts at landmarking.

Walked past the Variety within the hour and the building gives that distinct chill of being doomed. Of course, one of the posted working permits notes that the construction work won't involve interior alterations, but that seems like only a matter of time. (Interesting sidenote: the two permits note the building is not a landmark, which an alert contradictory sort contradicted by writing in black marker by each permit, 'YES, THIS IS A LANDMARK!' Right on, brother - or sister... )

Okay, I'll confess, I was Van's friend from RAT newspaper that threw the bottle of Ripple against the wall. I have the VHS of the movie mentioned, worth it for the cover alone. I actually don't remember hardcore films there, but many that were, oddly enough, in the hard-core era but more SOFT core, probably because they were so cheap, or just fell off the truck. And by this time, many of these were TRIPLE features. Lotsa Spaghetti Westerns with Lee Van Cleef which at the same time, were on television in the afternoon.There was a weird graphic novel aspect with roaming weirdos, as well as drunks and bums in the back that snored, often loudly. Ocassionally, mgt would come down the aisle yelling "EYES GLEAM" (ICE GLEAM) which they sold, contributing to the slick and sticky veneer which hung about. When he got to the front, where the mens room was, he'd holler and clear the place.

The current demolition of the Variety has me more pissed-off than I usually am about stuff like this although it always bothers me regardless. As a long-time resident of Manhattan I feel like I should be playing the Pretenders song 'My City Was Gone' everytime I walk outside. These things are happening at a frightening pace all around. It almost seems like I'm a visitor in my own city. You'll be away from a certain block or neighborhood for a month and the next time you go there WHAM-O: the Sutton is leveled, the Astor Plaza closes, the Baronet and Coronet are gone, and now The Variety. I mean the place was there for over 70 years and they can't preserve it somehow? I walked past the other day and noticed the cornices gone, and last night I sailed by in a cab and the marquee is gone!! What is happening to this city, and why doesn't anybody care? They are sucking the life out of this town. It seems to me that the new generation of MTV kids coming ionto this town have no regard for the past and just want to go to some jerk-off club, pay $12 for a Stoli & Cranberry and try to get a seat in the VIP booth.

Unfortunately I never got to go into the Variety, but back int he 80s when it was still a porn theater I remember my roomate who had gone there had some pretty wierd stories about the place. I remember him telling me that they played those old 'medical' films from the 60s that had people having sex but couldn't be considered porn because they were 'educational'.

The scaffolding has come down, and just this week, the theatre was gutted down to the bare brick walls, even though the construction permit states that there is no change in usage. There is a raw, rusted I-beam where the marquee once was. Tragic. Again.

No change in usage? Does that mean they are going to use it as a theater after all? Wishful thinking is that they return the marquee after the construction is over and we all live happily ever after, but the way things have been lately and if they do keep this as a theater, I predict that it will be turned into yet another generic looking NYU structure used for students and faculty only. And they'll probably call it the NYU 'Variety' Assembly Hall in lame tribute, just as they re-named the mega-dorm where the Palladium once was "Palladium Hall" Weak, man...really weak!

Click this link for a photo of the Variety and some history if the theatre.
http://www.bijou-dream.com/

Here's a 1980's circa photo of the Variety I took.
http://www.kilduffs.com/theatres_NYC_Variety.jpg

the roof has been torn off, and there's basically nothing left of this theatre with the exception of a partial facade.

I hate to say it, but why didn't the owner just tear down the entire building in one shot and get it over with? What the hell is he trying to prove, anyway?

Peeked through the tarp covering part of the former exterior and saw nothing much remaining, save for some of the (now) non-descript interior walls and an 'Exit' sign partially dangling above a doorway. A perfectly viable theatre, reduced to rubble for absolutely no reason whatsoever. This is one of the darkest period for the preservation of NYC movie theatres, both recent and long past; too bad more people just don't seem to care as this city I'm still somehow proud to call home is quickly having its character sucked away...

...and, pardon me for writing this, but f*** NYU. Growing up in Boston, I thought Harvard was as tyrannical and land-hungry as a large academic institution could possibly be, but NYU has the vaunted halls of crimson beat by a country mile...

br91975 I'm with you.

Fuck NYU and all the rich kids that go there that have no clue, nor care about preserving anything in NYC, or preserving anything for that matter. I know that may sound belligerent and sub-mental, but I'm sick of these kids born in the 80s that grew up on Nickleodeon TV that seem interested in nothing but turning their lives into some lame Indie-Yuppie fashion show. They are a major force in the watering-down of New York City, and it seems that their kind is being catered to at every turn these days. Granted, having a safe, less dangerous place to live is a good thing, but in New York City fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your point if view, you take the danger away and clean things up a bit, and it's not New York City anymore, it's a shell of it's former self. Yeah...it's still the 'big apple' and all that, but it is now a suburbanized apple. The kids moving into these dorms think they are getting the real NYC, and probably feel all cool living here in their clean, comfy dorm listening to The Killers or The Strokes, but they are getting the FAKE New York!! Screw them, their reality shows, their money, their arrogance, and their school that could give a rat's ass about maintianing the character of the town they have the gall to plant their school in.

Its totally over. This theatre has been completely demolished and carted away. Its a small empty lot now.

Samuel R. Delany writes about "Variety Photoplays" (and others... "Eros", "Venus", "Adonis"...etc) in his book: "Times Square Red, Times Square Blue".

In case any of you are interested, I was wandering the city yesterday and came across an antique dealer in Chelsea that is selling seats they saved from the Variety. They're in incredible condition and surprisingly comfortable...I picked up two of them. Not nearly as good as the theatre itself being preserved, but it's something.

no it's not. its no consolation that you got a souvenir, at all. They're in incredible condition because they're basically under 10 years old. They're not original to the theatre.

I can't believe all we have lost this year. Will it stop? The city is becoming nothing but steel and glass.

Thank God for photographs!

http://drewcarolan.com

I just discovered that this theater has come down and I can't fucking believe it. It is impossible that a perfectly fine theater, especially one this old, can just be destroyed for student housing. I know I'm preaching to the converted here but it is truly monstrous. I've been to this theater several times, both as a movie house and as a play house, and I am in shock.

A September 2003 photograph of the Variety Theatre. Twenty months later it would be gone!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gracey/11551402/

Another photo of the former Variety Theater can be seen here.

It just kills me to hear that the VP is no longer.I always thought it was a city designated landmark. I worked around the corner at the now destroyed Academy of Music. I know for a fact that the Academy was a designated landmark at the time it became the Palladium.At one point the new owners wanted to install a new AC unit in the building and started doing it before they asked for permission to break some walls down. I don't understand how a landmark could be torn down unless the building collapsed or something. That whole block sounds like it is gone. Way back in the 70's Luchows was a major fixture on 14st. They closed and relocated in the mid 70's and that building is gone. Is NYU that powerful that they can tear down a landmark? Sounds like my memories of growing up in NYC are nothing but that now. All the reality is going away.

Yes NYU is clearly that powerful.

Apparently, NYU has leased out the ground floor of the Palladium dormitory to Trader Joe's, which will be opening in a couple of months.

I have a feeling the Variety was torn down to allow the new tenants to receive loading dock deliveries off the street.

Or am I too cynical?

I had passed by a couple of weeks ago and was shocked to see this grand old theater missing. I double checked becuase I thought I was on the wronng street or avenue, and then realized The Variety is gone. I was never inside, but it was always a bit of a step back in time just walking past. NYU is taking over the whole downtown area, and getting local officials to change zoning laws to build more large student housing. I miss the grand old Palladium on 14th Street, saw lots of great concerts there. NYU is also respomsible for kicking out The Bottom Line Cabaret Theater on 4th Street after 30 years. Upstairs are also student housing and offices for NYU. The Bottom Line only took up the first floor of the building, there was alot of support from the comunity to keep them there, even a radio network was willing to broadcast shows from there in return for rent support, but they kicked them out anyway. Today in it's place is the Yalincak Family Foundation Lecture Hall. Out with the old, in with the new I guess.

NYU needs to be stopped. Where is the Landmark's Commission? First Luchow's then the Academy of Music and now this little gem of architecture. I'd love to know what city officials have made these dirty deals with the Philistine builders; who changed our zoning?

NYU, the most over-priced of all NYC's universities and it's not even Ivy League. The dumbest science grads come from NYU. Baby Bush would have done well there as NYU's major function is to serve the blockhead progeny of the very rich.

Here's an intersting article I stubled across yesterday. Does anyone have any more information on the theater's history? It seems my grandfather built and leased it and the gentleman cited in the article who did the research has passed away.

I am interested in learning if this is indeed my grandfather's place as i've walked by many many times and now its gone.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DEFDA1238F930A3575AC0A96F948260

Here is the text of J.P. Valensi's excellent post:

STREETSCAPES: Variety Photo Plays Theater; Marquee's Lights Are Dark on 1914 'Nickelodeon'


By CHRISTOPHER GRAY
Published: September 3, 1989


IT'S hard to put your finger on what was special about it. Perhaps it was the aura of the early days of the movies, but the 1914 Variety Photo Plays Theater at 110 Third Avenue was unforgettable when it was in operation.

Now the theater's distinctive lightbulb marquee is dark, the property is vacant and being shown to potential buyers and, according to Michael Lerner, the leasing agent, a final decision - to sell, net lease or demolish the building - will come on Sept. 12.

The earliest movie theaters were just ad hoc alterations of spaces of opportunity, like a saloon or a storefront. According to the theater historian Michael R. Miller, these turn-of-the-century nickelodeons, where admission was usually nickel, were not superseded by specifically built movie theaters until 1908, when the Nicholand and Prospect Pleasure Palace went up in the Bronx.

By the early 1910's, perhaps 100 theaters built for movies had gone up in New York City. They were good businesses and clustered near high-traffic sites. In 1914, one promoter, Jacob Valensi, secured a 15-year lease on a plot on the west side of Third Avenue, just south of the 14th Street stop of the elevated. There he built a two-story theater, according to Mr. Miller's research, on a site previously occupied by a theater operation. Although filed as a new building, the theater actually used some of the perimeter walls of an older structure; the theater could in some ways be considered to pre-date 1914.

In its name - Valensi's Variety Photo Plays - it sought an association with legitimate theater endeavors, of which 14th Street had been a center since the 1850's.

Designed by Louis Sheinart, the exterior of Variety Photo Plays was in plain brick, generally unornamented except for arcaded piers projecting above a sloping tiled false roof. Mr. Miller called Sheinart ''a minor, minor architect of many, many theaters'' in this period.

Inside, the auditorium was fairly plain, but did have a slightly pitched floor and fixed seats, still novel touches in an industry that had started only recently with plain benches and sheets hung on a wall.

It is not clear if the walls have lost some architectural effect - they are now mostly patched plaster - but the ceiling is covered with modestly patterned pressed tin. Four large Tiffany-type half-globe lighting fixtures have somehow survived, and the simple fixed seats bear a ''V'' on the end panels.

There are rooftop louvered vents, still remote-controlled with chains that hang down in the middle of the theater, and a great square panel in the center, perhaps 30 feet across, is what remains of a sliding roof used in the days before air-conditioning.

Variety Photo Plays originally seated 450 and, according to Mr. Miller, probably first presented groups of two-reelers, collections of individual features, each 15 or 20 minutes long. This was at a period when the feature-length film was still uncommon and films in general were generally considered low-culture - ''photo plays'' or not.

By the early 1920's, nickelodeons like the Variety Photo Plays were being supplanted by larger houses seating one or two thousand, and if the Variety was ever a first-rank theater, it surely must have begun a downward slide at that time.

In 1923, a marquee was added, designed by Julius Eckman. In 1930, a balcony seating 150 and a new lobby were installed by the architects Boak & Paris, who also made over the 1923 marquee. The lobby is nondescript neo-Renaissance and it is the marquee that has made the theater special, at least to modern eyes. Boak & Paris did not change the Eckman marquee's underside, a coffered field with regularly spaced bulbs, but did add a zigzag Art Deco fascia in enameled metal and neon lighting. The fascia gives the theater's, rather than the show's, name and recalls the period when movies were more of a generic product. The lights buzzing on the underside of the marquee, when they were on, enveloped the passerby in a warm, glowing field. People going past the theater, even in the daytime, got a whiff of vintage celluloid, and at night it was intoxicating.

HE film fare over the last 30 years gradually shifted from B-grade to raunchy to naughty to pornographic, and added a slightly forbidden, Coney Island spice to the building. A 10-year-old schoolboy who somehow found himself on lower Third Avenue would walk straight by but keep his eyes glued to the pictures on the billboards outside the ticket booth.

Earlier this year the Department of Health closed the Variety Photo Plays, which was operating as a gay movie theater. Now it is still and musty inside, its 1940's candy machine empty, its projection booth a small museum of antique apparatus - carbon arc projection lighting was discontinued only a few years ago. The owner, the 110-112 Third Avenue Realty Corporation, includes members of the same families who owned it since the 1920's. In their hands lies the fate of a institution that will live on at least in the memories of many New Yorkers.

Hi--I'm doing research on Rat Subterranean News for an article I'm writing on underground press. I noticed that a couple of you mentioned it in your comments (Chelydra and Skank Dude)--I was wondering if you'd be willing to answer a few questions about the paper. Please contact me if so. Thank you.

To finalize this, the building next door (home to John Belushi, when he first arrived in NYC)was torn down as well.

A 21 story condominium is in the process of being built on the site. One bedroom condos start at $850,000.00.

The neighborhood is not changing, it's over.

You know I had the same reaction yesterday as I was walking to Loew's Village East to catch a film in the Tribeca Film Festival and noticed a hole in the ground where the Variety Arts Theatre used to be. I said to myself "was the VAT here or was it on Second Avenue?" Right next door is a Mission and there is a "Jesus Saves" sign on the facade. I guess he couldn't save the VAT.

Now, here is a question for our mavens. Right before I went to the LVE I caught a documentary that the Tribeca FF screened at the Jewish Heritage Museum in Tribeca called ON THE BOWERY that has recently been restored in Italy. The doc was riveting and there was all this on-location photography of the bars, flop houses and general seediness under the old Third Avenue El. It is beyond belief to watch this and compare it to what the area looks like today with luxury condos built on site of flophouses.

The date of the doc was 1957, but it had to have been shot well before that because I thought the Third Avenue El came down earlier than 1957 but there is a shot of what looked like a theatre on the Bowery, under the El. The front, what looked like a marquee, said "Universal Photoplay." I didn't see it listed here under that name so it is possible it is listed, but under another name. It looked like the Variety Arts Theatre, but I didn't know skid row went all the way up to 14th St. The El must have gone right by Variety Arts so who knows? But there was a theatre or something that looked like a theatre on the Bowery under the El called "Universal Photoplay."

Hardbop, the Universal is listed here as MUSIC PALACE.

Just an update, they are building a huge monstrosity on the old Variety Theatre site, 20 stories high, probably another NYU dorm building. Last week there was a huge crane accident, they closed off the surrounding streets around 13 Street & 3rd Avenue, took a couple of days until they removed the all the dangers. I don't believe anybody was seriously hurt though. What a drastic change to the neighborhood, so sad.

After a long delay, construction on the ghastly apartment tower (ghastly for those who consider what happened to the Variety Theatre, in the name of creating space for yet another 'whatever' luxury living monolith) resumed about 2-3 weeks ago.

BOYS' PRANK STARTS PANIC IN A THEATRE; Cry to "Fire" to Stone Throwers, Followed by Missiles, Causes Stampede of Crowd.

NY Times May 20, 1915

The Variety Theatre, a moving picture house which seats more than 700, in Third Avenue between Thirteenth and Fourteenth Streets, was well filled at 10 o'clock last night when a gang of boys and young men appeared in front of the place and, at a cry to "fire" from a leader, let fly a hail of rocks and stones which smashed through the glass doors and caused a panic inside.

To agreed with a former post above, read Times Square Red Times Square Blue. A true account of what and why: GREED.

I agree 100% with the above poster "Irv"
NYC now feels like Aaron Spelling had just dumped off thousands of his kids that just came into their trust funds...and the money is burning a hole in their pockets.... totally creepy!

I was looking through the collection of "New York" periodicals from 1979 in my college library. At that time their was a column called "Page of Lists" and in one issue it was devoted to the longest running movie theaters. This theater was 1st on the list!

NYU is NOT a University. It is a real estate investment firm, of some sort. This has been true since the sixties.

As a former student then adjunct lecturer I can tell you for a fact that there is no amount of money on the planet that would let me permit any child of mine to attend it.

Furthermore, since the real estate industry is in bed with the press there is little hope of even hearing about such atrocities as the tearing down of the old Academy, Luchow's, or the Variety.

Unless you are all willing to "take it to the streets" and fight what's happening, it will get worse. Although I don't know what's left for them to destroy.

Louis Sheinart, the architect of the Variety, was my great, great (maybe one more great?) uncle. I used to pass by the Variety many times when I attended the OLD Stuyvesant High School at 16th Street and 1st Avenue in the mid 1980s. Little did I know until many years later, that there was a family connection! Louis also designed several other theaters listed on this site. Unfortunately my family knows little about him, such as where he studied architecture, etc. If anyone has more information, it would be greatly appreciated! Thank you for the nice photographs and comments. I know Louis would have been proud! esheinart

A photo of the Variety Theatre and the building that replaced it can be seen here:
http://nymag.com/arts/architecture/features/49959/

I remember seeing the first off-broadway play that came to Variety in late 80s/90s. Also saw another play and saw Mike Nichols/Diane Sawyer sitting in front of me. This was a theater with charm and personality. Charm and personality are foreign concepts in today's NYC.

The year given for this photo is 1979.

Here is a 1991 photo.

A vintage Library of Congress photo can be found here: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/I?fsaall,brum,detr,swann,look,gottscho,pan,horyd,genthe,var,cai,cd,hh,yan,lomax,ils,prok,brhc,nclc,matpc,iucpub,tgmi,lamb,hec,krb,:1:./temp/~pp_7Y2Y::displayType=1:m856sd=fsa:m856sf=8d08140:@@@mdb=fsaall,brum,detr,swann,look,gottscho,pan,horyd,genthe,var,cai,cd,hh,yan,lomax,ils,prok,brhc,nclc,matpc,iucpub,tgmi,lamb,hec,krb,

Warren, I can't open this photo, is the problem at my end? I used to work in the Gramercy Park area and often took a lunchtime stroll past the Variety. It was certainly vintage. The only time I was actually inside was for an off-Broadway performance of, I think, Annie Warbucks. No real memory of the interior - not as impressive as the exterior.

Sorry. If you contact me privately, I can send you a copy of the photo as an attachment:
Warrengwhiz@nyc.rr.com

Here's a new link to the vintage photo, whixh was snapped when the Third Avenue El was still operating. The Variety's marquee can be seen to the left of the supporting pillars: http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/3rdvariety.jpg

The year given for this photo is 2004.

There was a STAR THEATRE at 136 Third Avenue in the mid thirties, early forties. Does anyone have any info on that one?

In the early 80s this theatre would alternate between XXX and bizarre regular movies (mostly horror or westerns that you never ever heard of).

I remember watching one horror flic and 45 minutes in, it suddenly turned into another movie! The producers just edited a different film onto the ending!

The place stunk of cigars and the guy who took your tickets had a giant motorcycle chain across his chest!

The oddest thing I remember was just before the movie started women would walk down the aisles saying "last chance" and old codgers would get up and go out with them through one of two exit doors on either side of the screen!