Uptown Theatre
4037 Broadway,
New York,
NY
10032
4037 Broadway,
New York,
NY
10032
1 person
favorited this theater
Showing 1 - 25 of 32 comments found
Here’s a 1980s tax photo with exterior walls of the auditorium still intact: lunaimaging
The moderate height of the remaining building suggests that the auditorum was of the stadium type, with a raised section of seats at the rear instead of a conventional overhanging balcony(ala the current Ziegfeld in midtown).
Another missing intro.
???
I was a frequent moviegoer at the Uptown Theatre in my boyhood, and I recall seeing there, among other films, DEMETRIUS AND THE GLADIATORS, THE SILVER CHALICE, THIS ISLAND EARTH, THE LAST COMMAND, HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME (Anthony Quinn version), THE BUCCANEER, DAMN YANKEES, many others. I distinctly recall that around 1960 or early 1961, to the chagrin of everyone in the neighborhood, it was turned into a Sloan’s Supermarket. Years later, as mentioned in these posts, it became a Gristedes market. It was indeed a small theater, but it had a handsome lobby where there was always a large standee cutout or poster of the films being shown. I took a walk through the old neighborhood last year, and did see that the low building itself was still there, but I can’t seem to find any photograph of this theater online.
The ceiling was obviously lowered for the supermarket.
The photo is the streeet entrance which leads to the entrance/checkout section which looks ilke a lobby and leads you to the store. The supermarket is huge for NYC standards. It was definitely an auditorium, no columns, etc., though the ceiling is low for a theater.
That photo linked above on 2/25/10 apparently shows only a portion of the building, which looks to me like it’s only one-story high. Perhaps they tore down the entrance/lobby portion of the theatre for the supermarket, and the auditorium housing remains behind as part of some other enterprise.
I have been at this supermarket and it was definitely a movie theater. You can just know from the shape of the outside of the building. Which theater? I don’t know.
The address is currently used for a Gristedes supermarket. This photo suggests that the Uptown theatre building is now long gone with the proverbial wind: View link
I think it’s still there. I was biking by towards the GWB before the United Palace and noticed the looming stagehouse on the left (going north) around 170th.
The Uptown opened in 1920.
The architect was George M. Pollard.
The movie palaces of Washington Heights and Inwood.
View link
I finally managed to visit the Municipal Archives to look for a photo of this Uptown Theatre. Thanks to help from an expert staff, I found one within five minutes. The photo was taken in 1940 and shows a double bill of “The Secret of Dr. Kildare” & “Big Guy” on the marquee. In comparing it to the photo of an Uptown Theatre linked above on ½/08 at 10:44am, I can say with absolute certainty that they are NOT the same Uptown Theatre. This Uptown Theatre in Manhattan had a fairly narrow corner entrance with a marquee to match. The two sides of the marquee are much wider than the front. The “mystery” Uptown marquee has a wide front and narrow sides. The NYC Uptown marquee also has three rows for lettering, while the other Uptown has only two rows. Also, the front of the NYC marquee says only “Uptown,” while the other has “Uptown Theatre.” The NYC Uptown did have a vertical sign, but it stood at midpoint above the marquee and said only “Uptown” (the vertical for the other is beyond the marquee and says “Uptown Theatre”). Hopefully, we will eventually identify the other Uptown, but it is definitely not this one in upper Manhattan. I suspect that it had a history of presenting adult exploitation movies, if that’s any help.
When I first saw the disputed photo of the Uptown Theatre, I was immediately reminded of a photo I’d seen at CT of the Costello Theatre. Not that the theatres were alike, but the photos were of similar size and possibly taken by the same person. Here they are again:
www.flickr.com/photos/somethingstartedcrazyy/2151198714/
www.i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/costellofix.jpg
Yesterday, I discovered that both the Costello and Uptown were operated by Lee Ochs, so it seems possible that the Uptown depicted really is the one in upper Manhattan. The photos might be from a scrapbook kept by Ochs, who was a NYC pioneer best known for the midtown Piccadilly (aka Warner, Republic, etcetera). At the moment, this is only conjecture. I hope to go to the Municipal Archives soon to look for a tax photograph of the Uptown Theatre building. These were taken 1940-41, around ten years after the disputed Uptown photo was probably taken, so the exterior of the Uptown couldn’t have changed that much.
I still haven’t been able to identify the Uptown Theatre showing “No More Children,” but the answer will probably come in ongoing research on the movie, which had a very limited distribution and couldn’t have played in too many cinemas named Uptown. Produced independently in Los Angeles, it was released by First Division Pictures, starting on the West Coast. A trade journal ad shows it having its “first Eastern engagements” in New Jersey in July, 1929, at Fox’s Monticello in Jersey City and Walter Reade’s Lyric Theatre in Asbury Park. The movie is described as “The Flaming Sensation,” and “For Adults Only.”
I could find only one mention of “No More Children” in The New York Times, and that was in the issue of March 22nd, 1930, in a news report that the “birth control film” had been banned from being shown at the State Theatre in Elizabeth, New Jersey. I’ll post more details at the State’s listing, but that at least dates the Uptown photo to around March, 1930, which was probably the time of the first release of the movie. “No More Children” was never reviewed in the NYT, and the title does not appear in the Film Daily Year Book lists of “Features released since 1915.” I have yet to check Variety’s index.
It looks like zero population growth was the evening’s theme on the night that picture was taken. And rather insistent about it.
I am also trying to run down this photo. The large triangular rails server as a additonalattraction board over the marquee were used mostly in the east and midwest. I don’t know of them ever being used on the west coast. In Ohio they were used on the Cleveland Palace and Alhambra, and in Columbus on the Palace and Grand, in Chicago on the Garrick and modified to one side on the Palace, Oriental, State-Lake and others. This is not the Uptown in Cleveland which was over 3.000 seats. The entrance area was several sets of doors, as was the entrance to the Chicago Uptown. This theatre photo shows only two or three sets of doors, and I would guess it to be a theatre of about l200 to 1500 seats.
When you look at the smaller version of this photo, the owner of the photo has it tagged as “manhattan-nyc”. I tried matching this photo to other Uptown Theaters, but I haven’t found a match so far. It is a nice photo and I hope that I can find the theater that it belongs to.
I agree that the photo is not of Uptown on B'way near 170th St. Really nice photo though Lost Memory. Looks to date from the late thirties when there was a spate of exploitation films.
I seriously doubt that the photo shows this Uptown Theatre. It reminds of a cinema in the Mid-West or on the West Coast, but definitely not in New York City. Check the CT listings for other Uptowns that have photos displayed.
This is supposed to be a photo of an Uptown Theater in Manhattan. Could it be this theater?
According to a 1943 ticket stub this was an Interboro house at B'way and 170th Street. Adult admission was .46 cents plus .09 federal tax for total of .55 cents evening performance. Child rate was .15 cents plus .03 federal tax for total of .18 cents.
I believe that this theater occupied the location where the supermarket (south west of the McDonalds).
Warren, please contact me,
Thanks Warren. My mistake. Now… do you know anything about a possible old theater whose shell (at least) is still standing at Broadway and 204th Street? I drove past a few weeks back and thought I recognized the familiar roof-line of a theater on the west side of the block, but have been able to determine what that might have been.