Adonis Theatre
839 Eighth Avenue,
New York,
NY
10019
839 Eighth Avenue,
New York,
NY
10019
11 people
favorited this theater
Showing 1 - 25 of 123 comments found
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!
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 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!
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?
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.”
It was a beuatiful old theater inside. I have many memories of the Adonis theater.
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.
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!
Please post those photos as soon as you can, They are an invaluable record of an era long gone.
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…
Status needs to be changed from “Closed” to “Demolished.”
The Google Maps view is incorrect, but with no option to “correct.” The Tivoli site was further south on 8th Avenue, now occupied by a Rite-Aid Store. The Blockbuster store is north of Rite-Aid.
This was advertised as the Tivoli Theatre and Roof Garden in the May 13th, 1923 issue of The New York Times. The current attraction was a subsequent-run booking of Elmer Clifton’s “Down to the Sea in Ships,” described as “The Most Sensational Photoplay of the Year.”
Thanks for the great posts. I have fond memories of this place and the great times spent there in the ‘80s and I definitely cherish my copy of “A Night at the Adonis”. Another view of the infamous balcony can be seen in a 'B’ movie titled Times Square starring Trini Alvarado as a runaway in NYC.
I knew the history of the Tivoli Theatre because I am a movie theatre buff. I started going to The Adonis soon after it reopened. Sometimes I would sit in the upstairs lobby and have a smoke. The former glory was still visible through all the grime.It was a grand place in it’s day.
My playtime was mostly during the winter and on rainy nights. I must say the place was always jumping.
One of the best places for favorite place for tricking with hotties was the tea rooms. There were always 20-30 guys in there. Any less and it was empty by my standards. I never saw a lady there. I am sure it happened on some occasions. Too bad, I didn’t think of that. Some of my female friends (fag hags) would have loved to go there with me. It could have been a gay porno field trip. What a hoot! Sometimes they would watch porn with me at my apt.. They liked hot guys as much as I do.
I would see bits and pieces of the film each time. It didn’t matter since no plot, no story only hot guys having hot sex.
When I ran into a friend there. The joke was it was research we were doing for our thesises. We were both doing the same research on our knees.
The place was a wreck. That plus progress in the area and the ugly face of AIDS led to it’s end.
I moved to San Francisco in the summer of ‘85. Good Bye Adonis.
While vacationing in the 70’s we passed by this theater and it was showing a movie called The Other Side of Joey. My friend who was with me just divorced her husband named Joey and I joked with her that maybe it was him. She laughs and says lets find out! So we had the taxi turn around and drop us off there. I never saw a all male film before, and the guy that sold us the tickets warned us of it. What an experience it was. The movie stopped like two different times, the screen would show colors all running into one another for a few minutes, then the movie started back up. I had to use the bathroom, and one of the employees took me to the restroom and had me wait while he went inside, kicking out about 5 guys that were in there. The door had a sign on it saying “closed” but I guess it was being used for other things. The bathroom was filthy and I couldn’t use it, after seeing wads of tissue all over the floor and other things. When we walked out afterwards, we bumped into a couple of police officers walking by, and they took us to lunch at a vendomat, and the first thing I did was use the restroom and it was clean.
supposedly 50th street was the northern end of the “Minnesota Strip” for prostitution and drugs. was this true, was 50th and 8th as heavy with vice as farther down? In the 70’s the few times i walked past here it was pretty quiet but there was on afternoon where the atmosphere was terrible and we quickly walked off the avenue due to all the unsavory characters hanging around
Although the theater was opened as the Adonis with a fresh coat of blue paint for its “Greek” interior, the building seemed to receive almost no maintenance after that. Seats were never repaired when they broke. Broken seaats were simply removed, leaving unsightly gaps which grew to large voids over the years. They had only one working projector and when they needed to change reels, they projected a disk of colored oils on screen which oozed around as the disk was rotated. The oils eventually bleached out and dried over the years but they kept on using it until they switched to video projection towards the very end. The building became badly run down and I began to think that the city would shut it down, although that never happened. Notwithstanding the actions by Worldwide Plaza and Mr. Zeckendorf, the fate of the Adonis was probably sealed by a sustained lack of maintenance.
view the trailer for `‘a night at the adonis" here, great shots of the exterior and interior
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLd2dg3lGI4
The intro needs to be adjusted. This Adonis was closed in 1994 and demolished and 1995. By 1996 the Adonis concept have moved down to the Cameo, /theaters/7531/
what a sweet memory from bflonguy. this was a great theater and a different world.
In 1976 or 77, my parents brought me to NYC to look at colleges (Cooper Union and Columbia). One night after dinner, they let me go out alone to visit “record stores”. My real plan was to go to the Adonis, which I’d either seen or read about. I walked from the Tudor Hotel (42nd and 1st), no short jaunt. I sat down in the middle of the main floor to watch the movie (which, I swear to God, involved a guy doing things to himself with produce). Couldn’t figure out why everybody kept walking around and changing seats while the movie was playing. (OK, I was 16 or 17.) Don’t remember much about the theater, or how long I stayed. Mostly remember how freaked out my parents were when I got back to the hotel hours later (man, that walk back was looong!).
Moved to NYC in ‘77, and visited the Adonis many times. I vividly remember the oval cutout in the upper lobby, and I think there were urns at each end of it with plastic flowers. Could be wrong. Also recall the Mens room, down a couple of steps from the main floor. It was really big, with intricate tile work and dim lighting. I think the Ladies room was reserved for the staff.
What an incredible theater. What a sad loss.
the black and white movie playing at the theatre in the movie is narcissus II, here are some screen grabs from the “a night at the adonis"
exterior
http://www.flickr.com/photos/woody1969/3710518398/
box office
http://www.flickr.com/photos/woody1969/3709707031/
lobby with horny punters waiting to get in
http://www.flickr.com/photos/woody1969/3709706531/
Does anyone know the name of the black and white porn movie that was being watched in the orgially movie? it was hott..i would like to know the name of it…my emal addy is if anybody wants to help me out…thanks
I remember plenty about the Adonis, but funny enough, not its lobby.