34th Street East Theatre
241 East 34th Street,
New York,
NY
10016
241 East 34th Street,
New York,
NY
10016
2 people
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A former single-screen neighborhood movie theatre, located directly across the street from the former Loews 34th Street Theatre showplace.
The 34th Street East Theatre was opened on July 16, 1963 with Richard Harris in “This Sporting Life”. It was operated by Walter Reade-Stirling Theatres. Showing mostly upscale fare during its run, it closed it doors in September of 1997 with the decidedly downscale “Kull the Conquerer”.
Currently the space serves as home to Yeshiva University’s Geraldine Schottenstein Cultural Center.
Contributed by
br91975
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Recent comments (view all 45 comments)
There is an excellent color photograph of the marquee of the 34th Street Theater which was located on E.34th close by Third Avenue. You can descend from the EL station and be a few feet from the marquee.
The photo is in the second edition of “By the El” by Lawrence Stelter, photos by Lothar Stelter, currently in print. An excellent book of color photos circa 1949-1953, taken along Third Avenue and adjacent streets.
The photo shows a marquee of 1930’s vintage, outlined in yellow with incandescent bulbs of yellow, name in red neon, white glass attraction board with black letters proclaiming the main feature as “Kangaroo” with Peter Lawford, circa 1953.
The 34th St. East Theatre was/is located closer to 2nd Ave. on the north side of the street. The 34th St. Theatre you are referring to, near the 3rd Ave El, later became the Murray Hill Theatre, which was just off 3rd Ave. to the west on the south side of the street.
I grew up on 36th street so I saw many, many movies here. I’ll always remember seeing Caberet there with my Mom. JAWS opened there and I must have seen that 10 times. War and Peace played there and if you bought a ticket you saw ½ one day and ½ the following day.
I wonder if there were any Night Of The Living Dead prints in the basement.
I can remember hanging out in the city for the day as a kid in the summer of 1985 and going to see Pee Wee’s Big Adventure here Or it might have been Real Genius. What I do remember distinctly is falling in love with an extra large movie poster for Dance With a Stranger that was plastered up on a fence near the theater and peeling it off and running like mad because I was afraid a cop would catch me for stealing, then ducking into the 34th Street East to see one of those two movies.
The 34th St. East.
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Pictures.. from a transit site, in the background of the bus..
http://bus.nycsubway.org/perl/show?132
http://bus.nycsubway.org/perl/show?133
It is sad seeing these single screen theatres gone. They had so much more personality than the Monster-Plexes of today.
Opening ad;
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Nice marquee photos.