Terrace Theater
361 West 23rd Street,
New York,
NY
10011
361 West 23rd Street,
New York,
NY
10011
2 people
favorited this theater
Theater was located on 23rd Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues in New York. The fare was double features on a second run or revival basis. Mostly blue-collar audience. Smallish with restrooms in the basement. The ticket seller had a turnstile to let patrons in, thus eliminating the need for a ticket taker. Small lobby. The theater used 14x36 insert posters to advertise movies. A lot of Universal-International in the 50s, Francis the Talking Mule, Abbott & Costello, Audie Murphy, etc.
Contributed by
Jerry Kovar
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Recent comments (view all 31 comments)
Damn. That’s good work, Warren. Your a true history detective. I wonder what Walter Brennan’s characterization of Judge Roy Bean from “The Westerner” would have made of the story!
The first images that I’ve found in a 5 year search. It’s 1941, before my time there. If anyone has images of The Terrace please let me know. Thanks to Kenardo in Chelsea for this one:
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After years of searching, I finally found an individual ad for the Terrace in The New York Times of 12/11/37. This was apparently around the time that the Terrace first opened. Perhaps the management soon decided that most of the patronage came from neighborhood residents and that advertising was better spent on store windowcards and weekly programmes mailed to subscribers.
“Stage Door” was three months old by the time it reached the Tribune, and the incoming “Magnificient Obsession” had been making the rounds for a year:
www.i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/terra23.jpg
Warren, you’ll find the Terrace shows up again sporadically in 42, 43, 48 and 49 in the NYT.
And once in the 50s, as I posted in April ‘06.
Still searching for that 50s programming from my misspent youth. My dad would go down to the newsstand on 23rd & 8th for the Night Owl edition around 8pm, and I’d make him wait while I watched the Terrace marquee change in the distance.
I assume that the Terrace went to double features after the RKO 23rd Street opened in ‘38 with double bills. The films in Warren’s ad were RKO and Universal films which the RKO circuit would have played after the Broadway opening.
I recall The Terrace showing a lot of MGM & Paramount, in the 50s, which they may have booked after they played at the nearest Loew’s theater, The Sheridan.
But I also recall the Realart re-releases, Roy Rogers Republic films, and a Francis the Talking Mule (U-I- film) so the RKO may have passed on some of the lesser U-I double features.
The search continues…..
In its issue of April 25, 1935, the New York State Exhibitor reported that a new cinema seating 600 would be built at 361 West 23rd Street, with Arthur Paul Hess as architect and Amsterdam Apartments, Inc. as owner.
1942 picture:
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Anyone have any idea when the Terrace closed? I think it was before the RKO 23rd Street closed in 1960. We have AL’s account of the pistol whipping in late ‘57. But nothing after that.
This is from Boxoffice magazine, January 1938:
New York-Singular evidence of the public’s taste in regard to motion picture programs manifested itself when the Terrace Theater, opened November 2 by the Brandt Circuit, turned to a dual bill policy after a two months' trial with single features.
“There was nothing we could do about it. It seems the public has become accustomed to double features”, “Bingo” Brandt said.
ad for the Terrace Theater Christmas 1955
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