Loew's National Theatre
570 Bergen Avenue,
Bronx,
NY
10455
570 Bergen Avenue,
Bronx,
NY
10455
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On this first day of spring in 1949, Loew’s National treated the Bronx to a vaudeville show, with two performances at 3:30 and 8:30pm. Young Hollywood and Broadway star Tommy Dix was the headliner. Also, on screen, the National presented two Film Classics releases in glorious Cinecolor, “Sofia: City of Intrigue,” and “Miraculous Journey.”
I would venture that the location of this theater was the east side of Bergen Avenue just south of the intersection with Westchester Avenue. A parking lot now occupies most of this block front from Westchester Avenue and down along Bergen approximately 2/3 of the way to the corner of E 149th Street. The E 149th Street corner is occupied by a vacant and overgrown lot. Department of Buildings records indicate a Certificate of Occupancy was issued on July 26, 1985, for a “public parking lot for 74 private passenger cars” at 570 Bergen Avenue.
The street view above faces the opposite side of Bergen Avenue, down the block near E 149th – south of the theater’s site. The correct view can be obtained by turning around to the right and heading north about half a block.
Marcus Loew was born on this date in 1870.
Cool pictures, Lost Memory.
I’m a Three Stooges Fan Club member, trying to confirm a personal appearance by the “3” Stooges (Moe Larry and Shemp), on a bill with Wee Bonnie Baker, the Barretts and Don Hooton, after an appearance by the A.B. Marcus Revue. The movie “Queen of Burlesque” was also shown. I have a display ad, but no dates (or town shown). Believe it was the Summer of 1946, and may have been Shemp’s first appearance after Curly’s strokes. The National was advertised as air cooled and showed a phone number of JA-7863.
Any help will be appreciated.
Thanks Frank Reighter
The year given for this photo is 1968.
This is a new link to the photo posted on Jun 3, 2008.
Here is the Loew’s National circa 1967.
Henry Loew, the only brother of Marcus Loew, was the very first manager of the National, and ran the theatre for 33 years, until his death in 1943 at age 66, according to an obituary in The New York Times of 6/15/43. Henry Loew entered the business in 1904 as manager of his brother’s penny arcade at 147th Street & Third Avenue in the Bronx, and then ran another Loew’s arcade in Manhattan at 23rd Street & Sixth Avenue before Marcus promoted him to the National when the theatre opened in 1910. Marcus Loew died in 1927 at age 57.
In 1974 the National was still open as an independant.
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That original marquee made it all the way to 1971.
According to the current Loew’s exhibit at the American Museum of the Moving Image, the National was the very first theatre actually built by the company, and the construction coincided with the formation of Loew’s Consolidated Enterprises, which had Marcus Loew as president, Adolph Zukor as treasurer, Nicholas Schenck as secretary, and the Shuberts as key investors. The National first opened on October 17, 1910, and cost nearly $400,000.
A circa-1971 view of the Loew’s National can be seen towards the top of this page. On the marquee are two films, “Weekend With the Babysitter” and “Fountain of Love”.
I’m very interested to see the address given above for this theatre as 570 Bergen Avenue, because the information I had said the address was 500 Bergen Avenue. I spent many hours walking around that area trying to identify the location so I could take a “now” pic to go with the “then” pic on my web page (scroll half-way down):
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It closed as a Loew’s single screen operation in 1971.