Gaiety Burlesk
201 West 46th Street,
New York,
NY
10036
201 West 46th Street,
New York,
NY
10036
5 people
favorited this theater
This was one of several gay male adult theatres in the Times Square area and it operated from at least the mid-1970’s until finally closing early-2006, and was demolished in 2007.
It was formerly known as the Orpheum Dance Palace and had a prime location on the second floor of a building on the northwest corner of Broadway and West 46th Street, across the street from the former Gaiety/Victoria/Embassy 5 Theatre.
The main entrance was on 46th Street up a flight of stairs. I recall going to see movies there in 1976 and during the break in the films, the ‘stars’ of the movie came on stage to meet their ‘fans’.
Advertised as the Gaiety Male Burlesk-‘The Only One in Town’, it was also known as the Kings Cinema.
Contributed by
KenRoe
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Recent comments (view all 65 comments)
Wait. Before I get to relaxing… doesn’t the little circle in that ad say “Giant Double Feature”?
Ed, it was not rare for that double feature to have multiple runs. The theatres owned the prints so they kept bringing them back. It is precisely the lack of consistent distributors that caused Variety to stop tracking the films and the reason for recent claims that DEEP THROAT may have grossed as much as 600 million dollars making it among the highest grossing films of all time. No one can prove it.
THE BIRTH OF A NATION is the other title with a similar dilemma. Both films are politically incorrect so their true effect on history is being denied and erased.
Ha! Excellent point, Al. Thanks for pointing that out.
It was a double feature after all. Start worrying again Ed. :) Another possibility, maybe the Frisco was closed for a brief time in 1975 and the Avon 7 ran those movies instead.
Here’s another image from Woody’s flickr page dated 12/2005 that follows up the earlier shot of his (1990’s?) that KenRoe posted somewhere above.
Here’s that earlier shot again to avoid having to scroll up.
I was last in the Gaiety in 2004, with my friend who lives back in NJ. The place was about half full. Silence reigned supreme while the boys were stripping, but my friend and I made noise and stuffed bills in the strippers boots—all they had on!—and had a lot of fun. Some of the strippers were just ordinary guys getting a few easy bucks, but a couple of them were really hot and seemed to enjoy showing off. By then there was no j/o, just flaunting of erections, and no touching of the strippers, by order of the “bored” voice over the speakers. I was only ever inside twice, but I’ll remember it as a part of gay history in NYC.
Yep this place has gone as has the Howard Johnsons on the same block. The Duffy Theatre that was on the same block but directly on Times Sq has gone also but is now housed in the “Snapple' centre a few blocks up Broadway.I remember you entered The Gaiety up steep stairs right next door to th Broadway theatre- The Lunt-Fontainne. It was an interesting place for New Yorkers and tourists. Very small and in its last years very dirty and run down.The ‘performers’ i saw certainly didnt have their mind on the job and seemed pretty aggressive. Where do guys go know dare i ask?
and here is shot of the whole block including the Howard Johnsons
http://www.flickr.com/photos/woody1969/73329909/
just prior to demolition
Miss the chicken croquettes at Howard Johnson’s. They were conical shape and had some sort of white sauce on them.
Harlequin rehearsal studios was directly next door to the Gaiety, and if you werent paying attention to which entrance you were using, you quickly found out by the pictures on the wall as you went up the stairs!