Avenue Playhouse
1187 Avenue of the Americas,
New York,
NY
10036
1187 Avenue of the Americas,
New York,
NY
10036
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A Manhattan art house on Sixth Avenue (now Avenue of the Americas) at 47th Street where Vittorio De Sica’s neo-realist masterpiece “Shoe Shine” began a long run in August, 1947.
Contributed by
Gerald A. DeLuca
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Recent comments (view all 42 comments)
You can find the Avenue Playhouse using Miami as a search word. From this page, its a two step process. Do a search for Miami using the search function on the left side of this screen. No NY theaters should appear on the list.
Next, check the box that reads “previous names” and press the search button that is below “Show List”. Don’t press the search button on the extreme left side of your screen for the second search as that button will repeat the original search. The Avenue Playhouse should appear on the list. It sounds complicated but its actually very simple.
Thanks!
The exterior photo that I posted above on 8/4/05 was copied from a magazine clipping that I found in the theatre’s file at the Lincoln Center Performing Arts Library. I think it was from Life Magazine, but I can’t swear by it. If the actual photo (or negative) still exists, you might be able to purchase a print from the Time-Life archives. As I recall, it was part of an article about the revival of interest in silent movies.
Warren, many of the photos you have posted at Photobucket (including the one on 8/5/05, say that the “page is not found.” I hope you can activate some of these defunct links, here and on other theater pages.
Thanks Warren. I’ll see what I can find on that photo and article. Meanwhile, interesting to find out that the Lincoln Center Performing Arts Library actually has a file on the theatre.
Richard
Anyone getting a “page is not found” message at any of the links to my Photobucket scrapbook can contact me privately and I’ll be happy to send them the image that was removed. Once I remove an image, it’s unlikely that I will ever put it back, as there are only so many that a scrapbook can hold at a time. I presently have more than 600 links that are active. My contact address is .com
In 1946-47, the Avenue Playhouse broke all of its boxoffice records with a 30-week NYC premiere engagement of Marcel Pagnol’s “The Well-Digger’s Daughter,” according to a report in The New York Times on 4/18/47. About 320,000 tickets were sold, meaning a weekly average attendance of around 10,667. Of course, it would have been much higher in the opening weeks…Here’s a new link to an image of the theatre in its previous life as the Miami:
View link
In early 1937 there was a 47th Street Cinema operating at 104 West 47th Street and showing Irish films. Could this have been the Miami?
The status of this theatre should be changed to “Demolished” as the entire odd-numbered block front of Sixth Avenue between 46th and 47th Streets is now occupied by the monolithic 1185 Avenue of the Americas.
As the Avon it functioned as a TV preview theatre. When I was a teen in the early 1950’s I attended one of these sessions with my parents. Most of the pilot’s we previewed never made to it the airwaves.