Uptown Theatre

4037 Broadway,
New York, NY 10032

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Showing 1 - 25 of 29 comments

snowy
snowy on May 16, 2023 at 2:49 pm

The Supermarket and all frontage commercial sites are closed - the demolition plans filed in 2020 have not been implemented - so the developer’s plans for a 13 story residential tower must be on hold. The closed storefronts are a blight on an otherwise vibrant commercial thoroughfare.

kidblast1
kidblast1 on July 8, 2022 at 10:10 am

The Uptown Theater closed in the mid-1960’s after a fire did much damage. I was a neighborhood kid back then.

Trepverter
Trepverter on March 27, 2022 at 5:19 pm

If you look at the THSA website on the Manhattan index cards (card 186) it says Pollard started work on a theater at 4023 Broadway that wasn’t completed, but De Rosa built the Uptown at 4037. https://historictheatres.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/MM-Manhattan-Index-Cards.pdf

As I said, I’ve been in there and if you see the dome and the proscenium you’d immediately recognize it as a De Rosa theater.

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel on March 27, 2022 at 2:53 pm

It’s quite possible that De Rosa was the the architect and Pollard was simply acting as supervising architect. De Rosa was a very busy guy in those days and might have turned the project over to Pollard after it stalled, or the owner of the theater, Adolph Lewisohn, might have hired Pollard to get the project finished if he was dissatisfied with how De Rosa’s office was handling the construction phase.

Trepverter
Trepverter on March 27, 2022 at 1:09 pm

@Joe Vogel I’ve been inside this theater. It looks like a Eugene de Rosa theater, and various lists of De Rosa theaters have him as the architect.

bronxtheaters6
bronxtheaters6 on October 30, 2014 at 5:24 pm

I have went into this building before my dad worked here as a produce guy and he took he up were the autorium was now is a storage room

Will Dunklin
Will Dunklin on March 24, 2014 at 7:58 am

The Wurlitzer company shipped an organ, Style H-Special, opus 1403, to the Uptown Theatre, NY in July 1926.

guarina
guarina on March 3, 2014 at 2:06 am

Thanks, BobFurmanek. It’s been a long time. Good memory (or reference).

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel on July 5, 2013 at 1:22 pm

The Uptown Theatre probably opened in late 1921 or early 1922. Items in the Bulletin of the Board of Standards and Appeals of the City of New York indicate that the application for a permit to build the theater was made on July 25, 1919, but as late as July 13, 1921, architect George Mort Pollard applied for an extension of the time the board had required for completion of the project. The extension was granted for one year. Adolph Lewisohn was the owner of the theater.

Pollard, best known for his residential buildings, designed at least one other theater in New York, the Harlem Grand. There was also a theater in his artists cooperative studio-apartment building, the Hotel des Artistes, but I’ve found no indication that it was ever used as a movie house.

BobFurmanek
BobFurmanek on June 10, 2013 at 7:50 pm

The Perez Prado film is Cha Cha Cha Boom!

guarina
guarina on June 9, 2013 at 11:56 am

I remember seeing a movie with Bill Haley and the Comets there, and one with Dámaso Pérez Prado in ‘56, maybe “Mambo Mania” or “The Mambo Kings”.

Al Alvarez
Al Alvarez on September 7, 2011 at 8:45 am

Another missing intro.

???

GaryZ7
GaryZ7 on May 4, 2010 at 1:19 pm

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.

AGRoura
AGRoura on April 25, 2010 at 4:37 pm

The ceiling was obviously lowered for the supermarket.

AGRoura
AGRoura on April 25, 2010 at 1:05 pm

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.

AGRoura
AGRoura on April 25, 2010 at 12:26 pm

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.

shoeshoe14
shoeshoe14 on February 14, 2010 at 1:58 am

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.

Al Alvarez
Al Alvarez on February 12, 2010 at 7:44 pm

The Uptown opened in 1920.

The architect was George M. Pollard.

Al Alvarez
Al Alvarez on January 14, 2010 at 12:22 pm

The movie palaces of Washington Heights and Inwood.

View link

kencmcintyre
kencmcintyre on January 8, 2008 at 7:58 pm

It looks like zero population growth was the evening’s theme on the night that picture was taken. And rather insistent about it.

fmbeall
fmbeall on January 8, 2008 at 7:35 pm

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.

jflundy
jflundy on January 2, 2008 at 2:09 pm

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.

jflundy
jflundy on June 1, 2007 at 7:14 am

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.

JonLoews83
JonLoews83 on October 18, 2006 at 5:30 am

I believe that this theater occupied the location where the supermarket (south west of the McDonalds).

Warren, please contact me,

Ed Solero
Ed Solero on December 6, 2005 at 7:41 am

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.