Loew's State Theatre
1540 Broadway,
New York,
NY
10036
1540 Broadway,
New York,
NY
10036
39 people
favorited this theater
Additional Info
Previously operated by: Loew's Inc.
Architects: Thomas White Lamb
Styles: Adam
Nearby Theaters
News About This Theater
- Jul 3, 2010 — "Back To The Future"...Happy 25th!
- Nov 18, 2009 — Happy 50th, "Ben-Hur"
- Oct 15, 2007 — 70mm World Premieres now listed in introductions of New York City movie palaces
- Jul 9, 2007 — TRON...Happy 25th!
Loew’s State Theatre opened on August 9th 1921, with vaudeville and movies, and the adjoining office building that became Loew’s headquarters.
Many World Premieres were hosted here including “The Three Musketeers” on October 20, 1948. Loew’s State Theatre was closed in 1958 for modernisation. The theatre reopened on March 28, 1959, with the World Premiere engagement of “Some Like It Hot”. The theatre was very successful in the 1960’s with reserved-seat road shows such as “Ben Hur”.
World Premiere’s of 70mm movies at the Loew’s State Theatre included “Ben Hur”(November 18, 1959 and played for 74 weeks), “King of Kings”(October 11, 1961), “Mutiny on the Bounty”(November 8, 1962), “Becket”(March 3, 1964), “The Agony and the Ecstasy”(October 7, 1965), “The Bible in the Beginning….”(September 28, 1966) and “Paint Your Wagon”(October 16, 1969 in Loew’s State 2). In 1972, “The Godfather” had its World Premiere here.
Partly due to the loss of Loew’s Capitol Theatre, Loew’s twinned the State Theatre. The balcony overhang was extended to create State 1 (1,172 seats) in the downstairs auditorium, State 2 (1,214 seats) used the upper portion of the original proscenium arch, was designed in a more ornate fashion, and had some original side wall and ceiling decoration visible. The theatre reopened December 1968, with “Oliver” in State 1 and “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” in State 2.
The Loew’s State Theatre closed February 19,1987.
In the 1990’s the State Theatre and the adjoining office building which had been Loew’s headquarters were demolished and replaced by a Virgin Megastore. A replacement four-screen multiplex, the Loew’s State 4, opened in the basement in 1996, but closed in 2006 after the opening nearby in W. 42nd Street of two stadium seated megaplexes; the AMC Empire 25 and the 42nd Street E-Walk(13-screens opened by Loew’s in 1999 and operated by Regal since the AMC-Loew’s merger)
Contributed by
William Gabel, Howard B. Haas
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Recent comments (view all 537 comments)
Hello-
to vindanpar- I saw Oliver twice during its roadshow engagement here. once the week before Christmas and then in February. after the second time i wrote a letter to Columbia Pictures whose New York offices at the time were at 715? Fifth Avenue. about a week one day when I got home from school my mother said a big package had come for me. it was from Columbia Pictures. i don’t think a studio would send out a similar package today. inside were a set of all full size posters for the film, a packet with all the b&w stills they had released, all color lobby cards both legal size and twice as large. nice hey?
I saw Oliver! there in 1969. We had to buy tickets in advance. I think they came in the mail, packed in a small envelope. I posted a picture of the marquee that my dad took on Good Friday, 1969.
Guodone, I recently posted this to the Odeon Sheffield CT page in Great Britain. It is the order form they used there for tickets by mail for “Oliver!”.
http://cinematreasures.org/members/davidzornig/photos/318168
Fifty years ago today, George Lucas’s directorial debut, “THX 1138,” opened here (and Loews Cine).
Hello-
recently I bought the 4K Columbia Classics Vol. 2 set primarily for Oliver since I was dissatisfied with the Twilight Time blu-ray disc released a few years back.
two thoughts-
*the richness of the colors and the clarity of the picture is A+ but there’s a defect so to speak on the audio tracks. thru out the film every often you hear a rather audible sound as if someone was lightly blowing on a tuba. I haven’t watched the blu-ray to hear if the audio defect is repeated.
*when the main menu comes up with play, settings. scenes extras etc… the music playing is always from the film. but the music playing on main menu of the 4K of Oliver is not from the film and I have no idea what ‘ music it is.
I was not in this theater when it was a single screen however I was not impressed by the size of the wide screen in Loew’s State 1. Canby in his review of Oliver! remarks that the screen size is the same as in the old theater. For such a large roadshow theater it was a disappointment. And going through the photo section I see a trade paper saying in ‘59 that the 70mm screen was 50’. Small to my way of thinking.
perhaps you mis-interpreted the term ‘screen entertainment’ in the adverisement?
bigjoe as I have no interest in most of the box I bought the Oliver 4k on ebay. I’ve read no complaints from others about the tuba sound(I’ll have to watch it. Was saving it for Christmas. It opened at Christmas in ‘68 and I saw it a year later at Christmas when it came to the suburbs. So it’s a Christmas movie to me.) and I wonder why they couldn’t have used music from the overture or entr'acte as all films do for their menu.
Actually the screen upstairs in 2 was much larger than the downstairs. The old Orpheum was almost identical
Fifty years ago today, CHINATOWN opened a world premiere engagement here (and at the Coronet).