Charles Theatre

I suspect that this was originally the 595-seat Bijou Theatre, which was situated at 193 Avenue B, according to many editions of the Film Daily Year Book. The owners may never have bothered to report a name change because there is no listing for the Charles in any FDYB. But the name was being used at least by 1949, as evidenced by a photo of the Charles marquee at the New York City Housing Authority website. The theatre was a late-run "nabe" and may have even closed before it became an avant-garde showcase in the 1960s. About five years ago, I found the building still standing, but converted to non-theatrical use (partially as an Hispanic church, if I recall correctly).

In research yesterday at the Library of the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center, NYC, I discovered that this was definitely the Bijou Theatre before being re-named the Charles. In 1961, Daniel Talbot, who ran The New Yorker Theatre, took over the Charles, which was then showing Spanish movies, and converted it to a policy similar to that at The New Yorker, but with more emphasis on "new" filmmakers, who were given one night a week to show their latest works to the public at a reduced admision price. In 1969, the Charles was taken over by Radley Metzger, who also owned Audubon Films. He might have been the last person to operate the theatre before it closed.

Theatres like this are what made NY great. The village has nothing that will ever replace the Bleecker, Theatre 80 St Marks or the 8th Street Playhouse.

During the 60's when the neighborhood was hispanic/puerto-rican
and hippies, my loving, now deceased aunt and her frisky handed
boyfriend took me to the Charles theatre to see " the Killing of
Sister George".
I guess I was about 6 or 7, strange movie, I do remember breasts
and murder, but mostly what I remembered was that my aunt and boyfriend only watched a quarter of the movie (lol).
It was a small theatre, sat about 500, and a big " CHARLES"
on the marquee.
Thanks Aunt Dolores.

I also believe the Charles Theatre opened as the Bijou Theatre with the name change occuring around 1945.

In June of 1968 the Charles had a double bill of "Guess Whos Coming to Dinner" & "Luv".

I believe Radley Metzger's steamy "Camille 2000" got audiences hot and bothered there for a while in 1969.

I re-call seeing "Claire's Knee", "2001", and perhaps "Satyricon" there circa 1970. I can't rememberwhen it actually closed but must have been shortly afterwards, perhaps 1972-73

Look at this trashy film "Cool Breeze" MGM released in 1972. This was in the waning days of the once great studio.
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a13/ChmnofBrd/EroticonX.jpg

Hey thanks! There it is, the Charles still open in 1972.
Amazing MGM released something like this.

"Cool Breeze" was one of several crime thrillers with all-black casts that MGM produced to capitalize on its huge success with "Shaft." "Breeze" was a remake of the studio's "The Asphalt Jungle."

Boys in the Band played there in '69. There was talk of it having folding chairs in some part of the theater. I grew up down there but never went in.

I re-call it being rather small, hard to beleive it once had 600 seats - perhaps some areas were closed; don't re-call folding chairs but suppose its possible.
I do remember "Boys in the Band" playing there and some of my more conservative Stuyvesant Town neighbors not too happy about it!
I was talking to some folks who work in a restaurant right across the street from the building last month and they never see anyone coming in or out, so who knows what it looks like today.

Announcement of the theatre’s construction, along with those of three other Lower East Side locations, was made in November 1925.
It was one of 12 Manhattan facilities being operated by the Bell Theatre Company in 1937.
By the time of his death in 1946, this, along with the Palestine, was one of two theatres being operated by exhibitor Charles Steiner, who’d begun exhibiting films in 1906 and had earlier run a large circuit of Lower East Side and Harlem locations.
Dan Talbot’s programming of the theatre began in September 1960.

According to its original Certificate of Occupancy, the building had seating for 502 on the first floor and 98 in the balcony for a nice, round total of 600.

Also, the theatre was still known as the Bijou as of June, 1946.

The site today

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a50/rollingrck/Picture013.jpg

I'd love to get inside sometime - I imagine its been divided a few times, but I would be curious to see if anything survives of the movie setup. If that church is still in there perhaps I'll tryto get in on a Sunday morning!

This was a plain, no-frills theatre from the start. Even if there are portions of it still intact, I doubt that you will find anything worth getting up early on a Sunday (or any other) morning.

A June 2006 photograph that I took of the Charles Theatre on a Sunday morning (church was open through the small doorway) although I didn't venture inside as there was quite a bit of screaming and wailing going on! Peeking through the door into the foyer, I think the auditorium space is still intact as one room and not subdivided:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kencta/198003482/

The New York Times of November 1, 1925, reported that Delancey-Clinton Realty Company was building four theatres on the Lower East Side, all with Eugene DeRosa as architect. One of the theatres was supposed to be on the SE corner of Avenue B and 12th Street. I don't know if that became the Bijou or not. The 1928 FDYB lists two theatres for Avenue B and 12th Street, the 500-seat Bijou and the 1,000-seat Shirley. The Shirley is unknown to me, and I can't find it listed at CT under that or any other name.

Charles Steiner who ran the Bijou Theater died in June 1946 (Obituary New York Times, 29 June 1946). The theater was probably renamed just after his death. One of his son-in-laws managed the theater for a few years.

In 1952 Brandt sold the Palestine and Charles to Samuel Friedman who then sold them in 1956 to an unnamed company willing to install wide screens and air conditioning.

The Charles Theater is visible in this 1949 photo of Avenue B.

This is a photo I took off of Google maps. It's possible that the building is still being used as a church, but at the time this picture was taken the building looked closed and in poor shape:
http://tinyurl.com/642ody

Judging from the size of the tree near the street, that photo is probably older than the one that was posted on Jul 25, 2006.

I looked in a few years ago between services. The interior appears largely unchanged except that it has been completely painted glossy white.

Locals expect it will be demolished since the Hispanic evangelical church ceased services a couple of years ago, perhaps in response to a violation citation from the Department of Buildings for wrongful use. But Dept. of City Planning records show that the church has not sold the property. So maybe there's still hope for this unique landmark of New York countercultural theater history.

Here is an item from Boxoffice magazine, January 1963:

NEW YORK-Audubon Films has expanded its activities to include exhibition. The company has taken over the Charles Theater in Greenwich Village and will reopen it on January 16, following redecoration and installation of new seats.

Radley H. Metzger, director of Audubon, said the theater would operate on a policy of selected foreign and American films. Opening program will consist of "The Manchurian Candidate" and "A Coming-Out Party", followed by "Phaedra" and "Lolita".

Hmmm, so the soft core porn king also owned theatres!

A 1966 double bill
http://americanclassicimages.com/Default.aspx?tabid=141&txtSearch=CATAdvancedSearch1%2c32%2c3%2c-1&catpageindex=114&ProductID=30950

The Bijou Theatre was vividly described in yesterday's "Metropolitan Diary" in The New York Times. The letter by a former patron is the second entry here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/08/nyregion/08diary.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Victor%20Washkevich&st=cse

The theater also ran jazz matinees on Sunday afternoons in the early 60s. I remember seeing Jerome Richardson and Les Spann playing flute duets or flute and guiter duets, among other acts. It helped that the theater was diagonally across the avenue from Stanley's, one of the earliest of the hipster bars in the far east.

Reverend Carlos Torres is working to restore the theater:
http://www.thevillager.com/villager_338/avenuebchurch.html

There's a nice article by Charles L. Mee, Jr. on the Charles in the November 1962 issue of Horizon magazine: "WHERE TALENT IS TRIED AND TESTED, At the Charles Theatre in New York the art of film has found a smoky and uproarious arena for self-criticism."