Shea's Teck Theatre
766 Main Street,
Buffalo,
NY
14203
766 Main Street,
Buffalo,
NY
14203
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Scroll down to the second illustration on this web page to see the original appearance of the Music Hall, as it was called from its opening in 1887 until 1900. The massive Romanesque Revival pile was designed by Richard Alfred Waite.
This page has a photo of the auditorium as originally designed, strikingly different from the Streamline Modern interior created in its 1946 rebuilding as Shea’s Teck Theatre (which, according to this earlier comment by roberttoplin, was designed by architect B. Frank Kelly with interiors by Theodore P. Vandercoy.) The building fronting the auditorium was apparently also replaced at that time.
For a while when “Cinerama” was single projector 70mm (think ‘It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World’) they also ran standard 35mm scope on the curved screen. Saw Elvis in ‘Viva Las Vegas’ like that and it actually looked pretty good!
When Cinerama departed the Teck theatre standard 35mm and 70mm movies such as West Side Story and Ben-Hur were definitely shown on a flat screen. I was also fortunate enough to get to see genuine Cinerama films before the equipment was removed from the theatre.
Known as Leow’s tech, in the 70s it showed all the 2nd- run movies. It also regularly had all the martial arts films of the day, including Bruce Lee and Sonny Chiba (Street Fighter). It was $2 admission and the movies would play back to back all day. Spent a lot of hours there.
I have a promotional postcard of the Cinerama film “Search For Paradise”. The back of the postcard states: TECK THEATRE 760 Main Street Buffalo 2, N.Y. MOhawk 4628 Exclusive Buffalo Home of CINERAMA I remember when the Main Street businesses were expropriated and torn down. I took pictures of the theatres (Century, Cinema) including one of the Teck marquee and entrance (similar to the Josker photo).
Would you still have those photos and be willing to share? I would love to see those? Thanks!
I got to explore and photograph the Teck in the late 1970’s. There was a huge attic space above the ceiling with ghost outlines on the walls where the balcony had been and bits of surviving decorative plaster that escaped the 1945 gutting of the building. The Cenarama booths on the sides of the theatre were quite far down the auditorium to get the throw correctly to the sides of the screen with flat windows at an angle to the sidewalls. As a Cinerama theatre it must have had a very tunnel like effect for the rear of the auditorium. The place was pretty dirty as well with a lot of air handling dust on the walls and ceiling.
If my memory serves me,during the 70’s the Teck was having trouble getting first run films because the distributors were playing them in the suburban plexes.
The Teck began showing B movies, R rated adult films, and martial arts films.
I am looking for information on what was shown or played at the Teck Theatre in Buffalo, NY. I found tickets in a wall when I was remodling for a production called ‘Her Game’. Does anyone have information on what was shown or played there or about this particular production? I would like to find out the year.
AKA LOEWS TECK Interesting.
I was in several projection rooms of large cinemas in Toronto
and they usually go enough of the width of the hall that two additional projectors could be added for the two side screens.
The problem is geometric distortion which is overcome by
specially created lenses for those projectors which are sending
their picture partly obliquely to the target screen.
As I recall, this theater was converted to 3 strip by actually adding the left & right projection booths outside the physical theater building and knocking port windows through the walls! To gain entry to these booth from the center projection room, open air catwalks were hung on the sides of the building from this room – which must have been an absolute joy to the poor projectionists during the Buffalo winters.
Can anyone else add to this?
View link
There is a picture of the Teck at the above website taken in 1981.
Thanks so much, I have seen this site, but there isn’t an exterior photo.
Here try this.
http://cinerama.topcities.com/ctbuffalo.htm
I am desperately trying to locate a photo of the Teck when it was thriving. I have been unable to locate any and I would think, especially since it was Buffalo’s site for Cinerama, that there would be many. Can anyone help? Thanks.
Located 760 Main Street, phone number 1960: MOhawk 4628
JON LIDOTT, the smell of flowers in the Cypress Gardens sequence, how interesting, I never heard of that before, but Michael Todd was connected with CINERAMA and SMELL-O-VISION so it sorta makes scents.
The program for the Buffalo Premire of This Is CINERAMA reads simply TECK THEATRE Wed. Mar 16, 1955, 8:30 p.m.
I found another address of 760 Main Sreeet.
The 3-strip dates listed above are a little mixed up it should be:
From 03/16/55 to 02/17/58 and in 1958 the equipment was returned to Oyster Bay, New York (CINERAMA’s Headquarters) and then to Melbourne.
I don’t know where the equipment came from, but 3-strip CINERAMA was on again from 08/22/62 to 07/28/63, A strike action caused a six month closure in 1963.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, This is CINERAMA!” Lowell Thomas
And one by one I’m going to add all of those not already listed here. :)
Interesting site. There are 30 Buffalo theaters, all told.
Here is another photo of the Teck before it was demolished.
I saw This is Cinerama at the Teck when I was eleven years old. The rollercoaster ride obviously caused a lot of excitement in the theatre, but so did the scent of flowers during the Cypress Gardens sequence. This is something that I never experiened in a cinema again until I saw Scent of Mystery in Smell-O-Vision at the Cinestage in Chicago.
Ken: I have the “New Teck” opening on Feb.7,1946 with 1,500 seats. The architect was B.Frank Kelly and the Interior Designer as Theodore P. Vandercoy. My records also show that the Old Teck was gutted Apr.3,1942.
I have added an exterior photo of the Teck to my Buffalo Theater gallery at:
http://www.pbase.com/kjosker/image/53099585
There is nothing left now but the emmpty lot it stood on.
The original building opened in 1883 as the Music Hall, a concert venue which burn’t down in 1885. It was re-built became first the Teck Theatre, then taken over by the Shubert’s in 1908. They operated it as a live theatre until 1933 when it was shuttered.
It remained closed until 1945 when it was gutted internally and most of the front facade was removed and rebuilt and it re-opened as a movie theatre known as Shea’s Teck Theatre from 1945. The seating was all on one level and the decorative scheme was described as ‘Pompeian Moderne’.
In 1950 it became Loew’s Teck and in 1952 Stanley Warner took control and it was converted into a Cinerama theatre from 1956. It reverted to the name Loews Teck for its final years.