Visual Arts Theatre
333 West 23rd Street,
New York,
NY
10011
333 West 23rd Street,
New York,
NY
10011
9 people
favorited this theater
Opened as the RKO 23rd Street in 1963 on 23rd Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues and was originally a single screen movie house. The RKO 23rd Street auditorium had a large lower section of seats, and an upper section of seats, like the Astor Plaza, Beekman, Ziegfeld, and others.
During the 1970’s, Roundabout Theatre plays replaced movies here.
Over the years, the green-gilded theatre has been extensively renovated. In the 1980’s, Cineplex Odeon triplexed the theatre by twinning the lower section of seats and converting the mezzanine into another auditorium. In 1996, Cineplex Odeon un-twinned the lower section and renamed what became a two screener as the Chelsea West Cinemas.
Shortly after the renovation, Cineplex Odeon merged with Loews and due to an antitrust agreement, divested this theatre. Clearview took over. The two screen Chelsea West Cinemas was booked as a combined eleven-screener with the nearby Chelsea Cinemas 9, that is just down the street. The theater was tastefully maintained, but lost its 1960’s flourishes, save the green tile on the facade and in the bathrooms. Clearview ceased operating the Chelsea West on February 10, 2008.
In 2006, the School of Visual Arts began a 26 year lease on the theatre, to use it as a repertory and special event venue, and renamed it the Visual Arts Theatre. Some people had expected the School to takeover a theatre on the eastern end of its campus, but that instead became a concert venue, the Blender Theatre at Gramercy. Designer Milton Glaser renovated the exterior and interior of the Chealsea West, retaining the two auditoriums with 300 and 550 seats. Upgrades will be made so the theatre can present digital, 3-D, as well as 35mm and 70mm. There will be tie-ins with the Museum of Moving Image, and possibly other organizations. On April 2, 2008, the Visual Arts Theatre presented its first film, the premiere of “Cook County” in the Glen Arts Film Festival.
Contributed by
Cinema Treasures, Howard B. Haas
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Text of Variety article (by Dade Hayes) posted April 2, 2008:
One of the boldest moves in Gotham exhibition this decade is taking shape along a quiet stretch of West 23rd Street.
The Clearview Chelsea West Cinemas, a somewhat unlikely center of gravity for the film biz in recent years, has been acquired by the School of Visual Arts. The school, which signed a 26-year lease to operate the site, is renaming it the Visual Arts Theater and renovating inside and out under the guidance of noted designer Milton Glaser.
Tonight’s premiere of “Cook County” in the Gen Art Film Festival, will mark the end of the 1963 theater’s days as a commercial house. After several months of rehab, a new repertory/special event venue will hope to satiate the screen-starved Manhattan industry.
“It’s great. There’s nowhere to go but up in terms of repertory cinema in New York,” said Kent Jones, a contributing editor at Film Comment and assistant programmer at the Film Society at Lincoln Center. “When I got to town (a generation ago) there were dozens of them.”
SVA’s goals are different from those of IFC, which turned the old Waverly into a largely firstrun site that opened in 2005. But they are also notably more ambitious than those of NYU, which bought the former Art Theater on Eighth Street and turned it into classrooms and smaller screening rooms that seldom offer public shows.
“Some people were disappointed when we didn’t close a deal for the Gramercy Theater, which is now the Blender Theater at Gramercy, because that’s closer to the core of our campus” on the eastern end of 23rd Street, said SVA spokesman Michael Grant. “But in terms of the physical space it seems to me that it works out even better.”
The 20,000-square-foot Visual Arts will maintain two auditoriums that currently seat 350 and 550. They will be upgraded with digital and 3-D projection gear as well as 35mm and even 70mm projectors.
Though it may not have quite the national profile of NYU or Columbia, SVA has spent aggressively in recent years to advertise itself, boosting undergrad enrollment this decade by 25% and the graduate ranks by 45%. Notable film alums include “Zodiac” DP Harris Savides, thesp Jared Leto and animator Bill Plympton.
The new theater gives SVA a presence in a fashionable downtown nabe favored by party planners and film bizzers largely due to logistics.
“I always liked doing red carpets there because there’s not a lot of foot traffic and the two screens are on one level,” said Donna Dickman, VP of publicity for Focus Features, which has preemed star-studded films such as “Evening” and “Broken Flowers” at the site. “In L.A., everyone drives, so there are a lot of feasible places to have big premieres. But here, you need subway access and easy logistics, which that place definitely has.”
Industry screenings will still definitely happen at the Visual Arts. SVA has also been in talks with the major guilds as well as Women in Film, the Cinematheque Francaise, the Museum of the Moving Image and the National Board of Review about partnerships.
For Clearview, a Cablevision subsid since 1998, the loss of the Chelsea West is minimal given the continuation of ops across Eighth Avenue of the Chelsea, a sister multiplex. The two sites had always been booked as a unit, so distribs often didn’t know where on 23rd Street they would be playing until opening day.
The Chelsea West has the 60s aesthetic of Clearview’s flagship Ziegfeld uptown, and indeed began its life as a single-screen house with a balcony and a large capacity.
Grant wasn’t able to speculate about the exact nature of programming, noting only that tie-ins were set with the Museum of the Moving Image. Gene Stavis, an SVA faculty member and onetime American rep for French film biggie Henri Langlois, will be the director of the theater.
International fests and series will definitely be a possibility, with spotlights on Iran, Turkey, Canada, Israel and France already under consideration.
saps, if I go to work there, are you coming over to visit? ;)
Just let me know when! Glad to hear you’re in New York.
The intro should be corrected to reflect that Walter Reade, not Cineplex Odeon, tripled this theatre.
Gene Stavis told me the revised seating was going to be 480 for the main theater and 280 for theater 2. That was last year while they were still under construction.
If you are still wondering Bob T., that movie you described was called Ronja: The Robber’s Daughter. It played for a week or two in May 1986.
Inside the Visual Arts.
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Described in this 1963 trade article: Boxoffice
I always thought this theater was a bit of a pain in the neck, and that BoxOffice article reminded me why — short lobby, steps down into lounge, entrance in the back, frosted white glass here and there — I never got its supposed charm.
Totally disagree.
Lovely lobby with a 60’s style sunken seating area and a sprawling candy counter. Stadium seating in the main house thirty years before it became the industry norm. Woody Allen even made it his premiere house after the Beekman closed. A wonderful theatre!