Plaza Theatre
42 East 58th Street,
New York,
NY
10022
42 East 58th Street,
New York,
NY
10022
13 people
favorited this theater
The Plaza Theatre opened in September 1929 and was designed in a Tudor style. This theatre later had a modern style that somewhat mirrored the Beekman Theatre with it’s rising balcony toward the back. It had a decent sized screen and sound. The curtains closed after every presentation. I saw “Crossing Delancey” there, and a year before it closed I saw the indie film “Straight Outta Brooklyn” there. It was on a side street and was hard to find. It’s amazing how that theatre stayed in business.
It closed in January 1996 and became some kind of tourist attraction showing films about New York like the old New York Experience used to do in Rockefeller Center. That later stopped and now it’s home to an Asian sushi restuarant named Tao.
Contributed by
jamal p. Savage
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Recent comments (view all 120 comments)
Thanks Al for the reference to the American Musical schedule in 1974. Going through the pages of that VV edition, the head spins at the humber of summer film festivals, including the Carnegie Hall Cineam & Cinema Studio. In addition to the art house fare, you could catch a double feature of Bananas & Sleeper for a buck. So much for technological progress with Netflicks & On Demand.
Is “Vinnie P” still reading? I’d love to know if you remember Robbie.
…if you worked there in the 60s, you should! Please read my earlier posts and see if you remember me! We lived next door.
In June, 1939, during the first season of the NY World’s Fair, Leo Brecher announced that he had renewed his operating lease on the Plaza Theatre, which had developed a following as “Smarter New York’s Favorite Movie.” To mark the event, Brecher adopted a new and reduced price scale: 40 cents from noon opening to 6:00pm on weekdays, and 60 cents at night and all day on Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays. Bookings of sub-run single features would continue, starting with a two-day engagement of “Pygmalion,” with Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller. Comparatively speaking, the Plaza’s prices were still high for 1939. For example, you could attend a brand-new movie, plus stage show, at the Roxy Theatre for 25 cents until 1:00pm on any day of the week.
The last big engagement at the theatre (before it became a move-over house) was David O. Russell’s Spanking The Monkey, which had a long run from July to September 1994.
Hello- this was one of the most prominent quasi-art houses in Manhattan in that it would occasionally play big films as well. granted it was on 58 St. between Park and Madison but to deem that it was “hard to find” as the intro states it sooooo way off base. it was a favorite theater of mine. i would have loved to have the downstairs lounge as my apartment.
It was hard to find if you thought it was indeed actually inside the Plaza Hotel.
Darling.
When built, the Plaza was intended to be a posh subsequent-run house that catered to residents of that affluent neighborhood and to people staying at its luxury hotels. The Plaz strived to book only the cream of Hollywood product and ran only single features with a few shorts. That policy continued until after World War II, when the “art house” movement started in earnest. Even then, the Plaza was slow to convert due to its side-street location in what was not a prime entertainment or shopping district.
The Plaza was very successful as a subrun theatre. The conversion to art house took place only because a distributor desperate for an east side outlet for his films took over the lease. The location, near other art houses, and down the street from the Paris was perfect.
Hello-
my original post in which i said that calling the the theater “out of the way” or “hard to find” was a bit much was from my personal experience. the first time i can remember going to the Plaza was to see “Anne of the Thousand Days”. this i believe was the beginning of 1970. until reading my fellow posters replies i had no idea that the theater was first built to be an elegant second run house. so i guess the Plaza must have become a prime first run house shortly before my first visit. i seriously doubt Universal would have
booked a big Oscar bait film like “Anne….” into an exclusive Manhattan run at a theater out of the way or that no one could find.