Loew's Delancey Theater

Someone “corrected” the Google Maps view incorrectly. It needs to be changed.

Bittersweet nostalgia. Growing up on the Lower East Side meant the Loew’s Delancey was the movie theater of choice during my teenage years during the 60’s. Although the Loew’s Canal theater was in close proximity, this theater was situated on a “main street” as it meant good food as well as convenient shopping (in addition to street fare on Orchard, Essex, Clinton.)

I remember watching James Bond double features, Von Ryan’s Express, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Duel at Diablo, A Guide for the Married Man, The Battle of The Bulge, to name a few (good movies.)

Strange, I remember movie going weekend afternoons with my adolescent friends, eating the food there, laughing, carrying on, but not being admonished by adults for doing so. I think kids made up all most of the audience during the day. As an aging adult, these days I couldn’t tolerate such a distraction.

Every time I past by and see the outer building it’s like looking at a ghostly hulk of a sunken ship. Quite heart breaking as this area still doesn’t have a decent movie complex in addition to empty undeveloped lots across the street.

For the past several years I’ve been getting ecstatic experiences of times past whenever I’ve gone to the restored Loew’s Jersey Theater (unashamed plug) in Jersey City, viewing classic films. The symmetry and decor inside is reminiscent of immense showcases like Delancey and the defunct 14 st. Academy of Music. The venue is a gigantic bonus to simply watching an old great film, say, as shown at Film Forum. The sound, the screen, all should be experienced by those with and without remembrances of what New York City used to have.

There was a movie made a long time ago with Marlo Thomas called Thieves (if I remember right) and she would say in the movie how she used to go to the Lowes Delancey. There is a brief shot of the interior of the theater, showing the stage and the asbestos fire curtain down halfway, the curtain had Lowes Delancey on it.

Relinking.

The Delancey Street Theatre was designed by architect S.S. Sugar, who also designed Loew’s Greeley Square Theatre. An item saying plans for the project had been filed was published in The New York Times of July 2, 1911.

Once again great old pictures and info.

This website has a photo of Loew’s Delancey. You can click on the photo to expand it.

Part of this marquee was behind the bar of a Times Square bar that closed and demolished in the last few years. Does anyone know where it went?

Didn’t someone alter the sign on the marquee so the letters OEW and ELANCY were OFF so it read LSD! This was during the psychedelic late 1960’s!
—Alan

What a shame that this theater didn’t survive to enjoy the revival of the Lower East Side although revival might not be a good term as I don’t think that the Lower East Side was EVER known as a nice neighborhood. I have to admit, that of all of the crummy New York Neighborhoods that I remember growing up in the 70’s and 80’s I would have picked the Lower East Side as dead last in potential for revival. But when I go there today, it is truly astounding! Trendy restaurants, including one of my favorites (Kampuchea), lounges, bars, boutiques, museums (including the amazing Tenement Museum on Orchard Street) and new Condominiums and luxury rental towers.

Times have changed so much that I feel very comfortable walking home (at night) from the Lower East Side through Chinatown to my home in the Financial District without the least worry for my safety. This is quite a difference from way back when when you made sure your car door was locked when driving through and that is all you did back then…….Drive Through!

The revival of many parts of New York in the last 15 years has been nothing short of spectacular. I’m confident that we won’t go back to the bad old days in spite of the current challenging economic environment.

While it is too late for Loews Delancey, I hold out some hope for Loews Canal which I think may be largely intact and quietly hibernating and waiting to be rediscovered.

Loews stopped advertising this site around May 1976 so that may be the closing date.

The delay in building might have been due to changes in the business partnership between Marcus Loew and Adolph Zukor. On April 24th, 1910, The New York Times reported that Zukor (then spelling his name as Zucker) had just purchased the plot at the northwest corner of Delancey and Suffolk Streets from the Gilbert estate. The plot had a frontage of 150 feet on Delancey and 100 feet on Suffolk: “The purchaser, who is at present interested in a number of moving-picture and vaudeville houses, intends to erect a theatre and roof garden, each accommodating 2,500 persons.” The article made no mention of Marcus Loew. It seems possible that Loew bought the property from Zukor when they ended their joint business dealings.