Adonis Theatre
839 Eighth Avenue,
New York,
NY
10019
839 Eighth Avenue,
New York,
NY
10019
11 people
favorited this theater
This theater started life in September 1921 as the Tivoli Theatre.
In 1975 it became one on New York’s most popular adult all male film theaters, the Adonis Theatre, which operated successfully until it was closed in 1989, and business transferred to the Cameo Art Cinema on 44th Street. The Adonis Theatre was demolished in 1995.
Contributed by
RobertR
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Recent comments (view all 123 comments)
I Started Going To The Adonis Theater In The 80s. That’s Where I Fell In Love With The Old Run Down Movie Theater Look. Had Many Good Times There. After The Place Closed It Was The “Cameo Theater” Down The Street That Became The New “Adonis”. Didn’t Last Long. In The Fall Of The Early 90s I Saw A Box Office For Sale On The Lower East Side. Turns Out It Was From The Adonis! Then The Girl Took Me Into A Warehouse To Show Me A “Bar” That Came Out Of A Movie Theater. I Loved It , But Didn’t Realize Right Away The That Was The “Juice Bar” In The Movie “A Night At The Adonis”. I Remember This HUGE Chandelier In The “Oval” At The Adonis & It Was For Sale Along With Sconces & Signs Etc…The Chandelier In The “Oval” Really Wasn’t That Big, It Just Looked That Way Because Of All The Material Protruding From It. In December 1994 This Guy I Knew From My Past Was Part Owner Of That Entire Block. The Adonis Was Now A Closed “Flea Market”. He Let Me In Thru The Gypsy Fortune Teller’s Shop. I Had A Uhaul & Was Able To Take Anything I Wanted! I Did, But The Best Was All The Pictures I Managed To Take With A Flashlight & Camera. Boy Was Scary Looking! I Have 36 Pictures Taken Inside Right Before Demolition. There Was A Piece Of The Material Hanging From The Oval (From The Chandelier). I Got A Shot, Then Lassoed It, Got Another Shot Then Pulled It Down. For Me It Was Like A Kid In A Candy Store! I Also Risked My Life In An Elevator Shaft To Rescue One Of Those Mortica Addams Chairs, That Was Dangling On A Beam Around The Level I Was On. I’ll Have To Post Some Of Those Pictures! Stay Turned…
Please post those photos as soon as you can, They are an invaluable record of an era long gone.
Hey Sailor… is the entirety of your post the title to a book or something? Ha. Just wondering about the Capitalization Of Every Word. Unless that’s just the way you like to communicate, which is fine by me… I just find it odd and maybe just a bit of a challenge to read through. Anyway… would love to see those pictures also!
Sailor729’s comment about the material hanging from the ceiling gives a perfect opening opportunity to ask a question that I have been wondering how to ask and in what context. Many of the pictures of ruined theaters such as found on the Urban Ruins sites show ceiling material hanging down several feet and looking quite pliable—much like the headliners of old autos in the days of cloth headliners. Is it possible that these theaters had so much of this fancy ceiling work done on canvas and plaster or some sort of sizing material and cloth? If so no wonder old time theaters were fire traps! In general antique plaster work was done on laths buts these stalactites do not appear to contain laths. Do any of you theater experts happen to know and care to take the time to explain this phenomenon to the rest of us who might want to know also? If so, thanks.
It was a beuatiful old theater inside. I have many memories of the Adonis theater.
In answer to an earlier question, the Adonis anchored the northern end of the infamous “Minnesota Strip” that flourished during the heyday of the Deuce in the 1970s. It extended roughly from the Port Authority bus terminal north up 8th Avenue to the Adonis and was so named because of the number of very young girls who got off the bus from the hinterlands (like Minnesota) to escape from abusive families and were immediately sucked into prostitution by the pimps who hung out around the Port Authority Terminal and forced these desperate kids to ply their trade along 8th Avenue.
Across 8th Avenue from the Adonis on 50th street was the King’s Cinema, a seedier gay theatre, and next to the King’s was a hustler bar that I forget the name of that was downright scary. The Adonis was the one gay cinema along the 8th Avenue strip that you didn’t feel nasty entering: it had that great marquee and was always well lighted and the interior was kept clean. Only once in my several trips there did I actually engage in some play in the balcony with an incredibly nice guy: we shared a cigarette afterwards and he said, as he was leaving, as a way of thanking me for a good time, to go buy stock in Warner Brothers immediately because “Superman” was going to be a huge hit. I did and made a nice little bundle. I don’t know many guys who get stock tips in the balcony of a gay porno theatre, but there you are.
The best way to observe what the Adonis looked like is, as I think several people have mentioned, to watch “A Night at the Adonis” with good ol' Jack Wrangler as the star. It’s practically a guided tour of the place. For a great view ot the exterior of this lovely theatre when it was the Tivoli, rent or buy “Confessions of a Psycho Cat,” one of the many many sexploitation films that were shot in the Times Square area during the 1960s. There is a great shot of the exterior of the theatre as Jake LaMotta (the star of the movie) is running down 8th Avenue. I believe the next block down was the location of the old Madison Square Garden whose exterior can be seen in the great movie, “The Manchurian Candidate.”
I understand that the Adonis was at the northern end of the Minnesota Strip. When I was a teenager back in the 70’s I noticed that most of the prostitution was centered closer to the Port Authority area, like around 44th 43rd, etc
Most of the time if i ever had any reason to walk on 8th Avenue in the upper 40’s back in those days it seemed quiet with hardly anyone around. However i do recall there was one afternoon when I noticed a lot of intimidating looking street hangouts (drunks, addicts, loiterers) on the block by the firehouse from 48th street going toward 47th, including a transexual hustler standing on the corner with their pimp. I remember being intimidated by the block so i ended up going east to avoid 8th Avenue
so, was the area between say 47th and 50th streets(the firehouse, the old Blarney Stone,the old Ramada Inn, the old parking lot that became Worldwide plaza) as heavy with prostitutes and criminals as it was further down? were there a lot of arrests for prostitution, drugs and other crimes between 47th and 50th? or was it safer and tamer?
I don’t remember those blocks north of the old Ramada (subsequently the Days Inn, now the Hilton Garden Inn) as being part of “the strip”. I remember waiting at the bus stop across from the Adonis at night, and the area was dead. On another note, just finished reading a new book, “Andy Warhol’s New York City”. It mentions the Tivoli as one of the late-60s temporary locations of “Film-makers' Cinematheque”. It was a famous showcase for experimental (often controversial) films, like Warhol’s, that had to keep changing locations due to legal and financial issues. Too lazy to read all the comments to see if that’s already been noted!
This intro needs to be corrected. This Adonis stopped operating in 1989 in conjunction with the opening of the World Wide Center. The Adonis operation then moved down to the Cameo Art on 44th Street.
I am working on a project to document the history of adult theatres in the US. If anyone would like to share some of their personal memories of the Adonis (especially anyone who might have worked there) please contact me at
Thanks!