Colony Theatre

What happened to this theatre’s intro?

Still listed as a Trans-Lux theatre in the 1959 Film Daily Yearbook.

ECR….I’ve found that some links don’t work correctly if you include “index.html” on the end. I’ll try not to include that anymore. Thanks for fixing the link.

I was very pleased with valuable comments that followed my recent post on the Colony Theatre. I came into Manhattan last Saturday from my home in Queens primarily to snap the pictures of the former Colony and Europe theatres that I posted. I was born and raised in the Yorkville neighborhood where these theatres were located. Of the three theatres that were within two or three blocks from where I lived (on 78th St. near 1st Ave.), the Monroe, Europe, and Colony — I am old enough to remember only the Colony, which closed when I was about five years old. I particularly remember a red-haired women sitting in the ticket booth who smiled at me wheneverI passed with my parents.

It is not surprising that the German-language films played at one time at the Colony. 79th St. was the center of a large Hungarian population that had immigrated from Austria-Hungary and would have understood German. A few blocks north was a large German community. The Europe Theatre at one time showed German and Hungarian-language films, and on 86th Street, the Casino and 86th Street Garden Theatres often featured German films.

Yorkville is now a gentrified, yuppified neighborhood with few traces of its ethnic past.

This is a 1936 N.Y. Times Review for a German movie that played at the 79th Street theater.

At 79th Street Theatre

Published: May 23, 1936

“Die Fahrt ins Gruene” (A Trip to the Country), now at the Seventy-ninth Street Theatre, is a mildly diverting romantic comedy about a wealthy playboy who loses his yacht, his sweetheart and his fair weather acquaintances when his banker absconds and is compelled to undergo several unpleasant experiences before finding work and his true love. Although the pattern is routine, it has been excellently played by a capable cast.

With Hermann Thimig in the rôle of the wealthy young man and the charming little Lien Deyers as the girl, the film runs its course with infectious gayety and a rapid fire of amusing scenes. The setting, in the main, is that of a lake resort, but much of the footage can be interpreted as a promotional stunt for a back-to-the-soil movement, depicting the advantages of running a big chicken farm under comparatively ideal conditions. The photography is not always up to standard and the sound reproduction is a bit uneven at times.

DIE FAHRT INS GRUENE, a dialogue film in German; directed by Max Obal; an AAFA production.
Robert Fink … . . Hermann Thimig
Lotte Krause … . . Lien Deyers
Her brother … . . Fritz Kampers
Their mother … . . Margarete Kupfer
Lilo Kastensen … . . Berthe Ostyn
Maxe … . . Hans Richter".

Listed in the American Motion Picture Directory 1914-1915 as the New Theatre. The 1926 & 1927 editions of Film Daily Yearbook list it as the 79th Street Theatre with a seating capacity of 666. In the 1930 F.D.Y. it is the Seventy-Ninth Street Theatre with a seating capacity of 1,026.

By the 1941 edition of F.D.Y it has been re-named Colony Theatre and the seating capacity is given as 1,000. In 1943, still the colony, but seating is given as 875. In 1950 it is named as the Colony 79th Street Theatre with seating given as 886. In the 1957 edition of F.D.Y. it is listed, but no seating capacity is given, which usually means it has closed.

Here is a link to a photo (the one in the center) of the 79th Street Theatre when is it was the Colony. Note the demolition of the 2nd Avenue El in progress.