NYC must have been a bit slow in issuing its final C/O’s… The theater was definitely in operation as a twin by late 1980 as evidenced by this Movie Clock listing from December of that year:
Thanks Lost… looks almost identical to the postcard I posted from the cinematour.com site back on December 15th. According to the two features advertised on the marquee (“The Nth Commandement” and “Truxton King”) the photo from which this postcard was made dates from 1923. I wonder what is spelled out before the word “Lynbrook” on the front side of the marquee… can anyone make that out or care to make an educated guess?
Nice collection of images on that site… Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any for the Arcade/Studio 1 Theater that was located on Atlantic Ave around the corner from the Lynbrook.
When my Junior High School graduation was held at the Elmwood in June of 1979, the theater was still a single (and playing the horrible monster movie “The Prophecy”). Sometime by the following year, the place was twinned up and down. I don’t remember it as a triplex, but by the end of the ‘80’s the theater was a quartet with 2 up and 2 down (see the seat counts Lost Memory provided above on June 3rd).
Looks like the theater ran straight back in a line from its entrance on Atlantic with the screen wall facing Broadway behind it. Anyone have any further info on the history of the Studio 1 or its predecessor the Arcade? The first photo was snapped in Feb 2006 and the latter just a few weeks back in May of this year.
The marquee for the Show Follies porn palace is still in place, though it is now over the entrance to a typical Times Square gift shop. You can’t make it out in either 2002 photo, but I seem to recall that you could make out the marquee lettering from the Will Smith & Gene Hackman flick “Enemy of the State” under the white canvas sheets hung over the marquee with the rental contact information. Assuming that was one of the last films to play here would place the closing of the Embassy 2,3,4 sometime in late 1998 or early ‘99.
I’m thinking the Kitty Kat was on 49th across the street from the legit Ambassador Theater. I was just wondering if this became the Pussycat 2, being as it was right around the corner from the Pussycat/Grand Pussycat (former Trans Lux West) that faced Broadway.
Allow me to quickly correct myself… Looking on local.live again (the western view) it appears that the old right-of-way for the theater’s fire exit alleys has been sealed off. Except for the Northern Blvd front facade, the theater’s parcel appears to be completely land-locked.
Jeffrey… I must have been mistaken. I’ve used the site from home only on my IBM laptop, not the Mac. I assume since the site is called Windows Local Live that the software is proprietary to the Windows platform.
Meanwhile… as promised, I took a trip to the Kieth’s the other morning with camera in hand and couldn’t stop snapping. I’ve added the series of 34 photos (including a few of the rear of the building) to my photobucket album.
That shot of the smaller structure that appears to be attached to the rear stage wall shows a door that seems to be kicked in. I wonder if this was a stage entrance or alternative exit for the dressing rooms. It looks like there is a narrow alley behind the fencing for the small parking lot I was standing in to take these photos. I assume the stage left balcony fire escapes (which appear to have run within the building’s outer wall) must have routed folks through this structure around the rear stage wall and into the alley leaving them to exit onto Farrington Street which ran along the block’s eastern perimter. If you inspect those local.live aerial shots (particularly the view facing south showing the back wall), looks like the skinny right-of-way still runs between the building on the block’s northeast corner and the row of buldings running along Farrington.
Anyway… if that rear structure is a part of the Kieth’s, looks like easy interior access for potential vandals and squatters.
Thanks Al… at least you and I seem to be having some fun on this page! So… what became of the Cine Lido? Didn’t it front on Broadway? The address indicates an entrance on the short side street between 7th and B'way. Is this the block that the Playland arcade ran through? Or was it the next block down between 47th and 48th?
Regarding Cine Lido… we started touching on this block over on the Rivoli page and someone mentioned that the place went legit for a short stretch and a play called “Pump Boys and Dinettes” played there in the early ‘80’s. I looked the play up on ibdb.com and found it played at the Princess Theater from February 1982 to June '83. If the Princess was converted from the former Cine Lido, that would preclude any of the Pussycat theaters in my ads from March of '82 from having been the same theater.
One more thought… would the Pussycat 2 be the same as the Kitty Kat which was on 49th between B'way and 8th?
Mikeoaklandpark… I looked up Pump Boys and Dinettes on the ibdb.com website and found that it played from Feb 1982 through June 1983 at the Princess Theater. There is no further information on the Princess at that site, unfortunately. The Cine Lido is not listed here either – at least not under that AKA. Does anyone know if it had a history prior to its years as a porn house or was it converted from retail space specifically for that purpose?
I could swear I’ve used the site on my Mac at home. Jeffrey… try opening in Safari if Internet Explorer doesn’t work. Anyway… the building looks pretty intact from that bird’s eye view. Certainly no walls blown open in any significant way. Of course, that doesn’t preclude leaky roofing or seepage through cracks in the brick and mortar.
Al… Just checking out the page for the Trans Lux 49th and looks like that is the theater that became the Pussycat Cinema and later the Grand Pussycat. I was mistaken regarding the location listed in those ads above. They do say B'way and 49th. The Cine Lido would have been across the street and closer to 48th Street on the east side of Broadway. Perhaps it became the Pussycat 2 at some point (whose ads say B'way and 48th)? I’m trying to piece together how the theaters ran on that block using info found on this site as well as my own recollections. If I’m not mistaken, closer to 49th, also on the east side of Broadway, there was the Circus Cinema which had the all-male Big Top upstairs over it. The Trans Lux would have been across the street from the Circus near the corner of 49th on the west side of B'way.
Anyway… it’s obvious that the day-and-date connection between the Lido East and the Cine Lido was severed at some point in the ‘70’s with the Trans Lux/Pussycat/Grand Pussycat replacing the Cine Lido in that tandem by at least 1980. I’m assuming there was a common ownership in all of these theaters. It’s amazing, going back through the ads, how many times the words “New Policy” is used in connection with these XXX grinds.
Just for kicks, there’s an ad on the page below for Marylin Chambers' “Insatiable” playing at the Pussycat 2 back in December of 1980: NY Post 12/11/80
The fare at the Circus is listed at the bottom of this clipping from the same paper: Blondes Have More Fun
The theater in the reflection was indeed the former Trans Lux 49th Street which opened as a newsreel theater in the late 1930’s and later became the Trans Lux West (to compliment and often day and date with the Trans Lux East on 3rd Ave). “Woodstock” did indeed play there in 1970. Later that decade it became the XXX Pussycat Cinema (and later still the Grand Pussycat). The former Cine Lido and Pussycat 2 – I believe – were on the east side of Broadway closer to 48th Street.
Bonus points if someone can identify the porn theater whose marquee is partially reflected in the glass under the canopy towards the right in that first photo. Expand the pic to full size and you can make it out under the “W” in “Waldo” on the marquee. Judging from the reflection of the sign for Colony Records, the marquee looks to be on the south west corner of B'way and 49th.
That last photo of Robert Redford and director George Roy Hill being shown their seats evidences the drapery on the side walls of the auditorium that obscured much of the decoration in the place. I don’t recall if they ran all the way up the wall – I’m thinking not, but I’ll let Wally or others with better memories than my own clarify that. Were drapes installed in all ‘50’s road show modernizations for acoustic purposes (to hide surround speakers and inhibit reverberation) or just for the asthetics of the time?
Robbie… I think your comment (as well as the one from nearly two years ago by stukgh) belongs on the page for the original Continental Theater (now the UA Brandon Cinemas) that was located across the street and down the block from this one. The Continental 3 was an annex to the old Continental, and opened in a separate building on the other side of Austin, carved from former retail space sometime in the early ‘80’s.
Anyway, from retail space it came and to retail space it has returned.
I suppose I can’t argue with that, RobertR. The closest theater would probably be the single screen cinema in the North Shore Towers – which creatively books multiple films by alternating show times throughout the day. Otherwise, you have to go to the 6 screen plex behind the Bay Terrace shopping center or travel all the way to Valley Stream for the Green Acres or Sunrise Cinemas multiplexes. Still, if I lived in the area, I’d make the trip to some other theater!
Minor point here, but I was mistaken about the theater in “1941”. While it might have been based on the Hollywood, the fictitious theater is called the Hollywood State in the film.
Perhaps the name “RKO FLUSHING” was some sort of short hand used simply as a way to distinguish the theater from the similarly named RKO Keith’s in Richmond Hill. I know in newspaper ads the theaters were sometimes referred to as “RKO Flushing” and RKO Richmond Hill". I don’t know this for a fact, but it’s possible (and I think likely) that the name “RKO Flushing” never graced the theater’s marquee.
Another thing to consider is that a trade-off might have been made when painting the sign to sacrifice the exact name of the theater in order to maximize the size of the lettering. Today, even in its faded condition, one can make out the advertising even from as far as the right field upper deck at Shea Stadium. I’ll bet when the sign was still bright and vibrant, people probably saw it for a great many blocks to the west.
Jeffrey… the identification of the phrase “North Shore” exclusively with Nassau and Suffolk Counties might be something of a post-war phenomenon. Remember that Queens (as well as Brooklyn) is technically on Long Island and back in the 1920’s and ‘30’s I’m fairly confident that it was not uncommon to refer to Queens as such. I think there are references to that effect in the Fitzgerald novel “The Great Gatsby” as well as in the 1930 Marx Brothers film “Animal Crackers”.
The sign reads “RKO FLUSHING” in huge letters and beneath that in smaller print, “The finest theater on the North Shore”.
Jeffrey1955… I’ll see if I can get down there with my camera and snap some shots of the rear. As big as it is, the structure doesn’t run all the way back to the rear street, and there are some structures along that street that partially obscure the view. However, I have driven down the side street (Farrington) and have caught glimpses of the theater’s rear stage wall, which appears to be intact. Judging by what can be seen from the street, the roof also appears to be largely intact, but there may be sufficient gaps in the surface or at the seams to allow for water seepage. I don’t think there are any gaping holes in the outer walls or roofing that expose the auditorium to sunlight and weather. The partial demolition referred to above was done by the previous owner, Thomas Huang, who apparently had a field day (or two) with a demolition crew on some of the theater’s interior elements.
I just checked that article, Warren. The photo is small, but if you look about a block down the street, the corner building on the left with the large sign on the roof is the theater. Doesn’t look like the marquee had much of a projection over the sidewalk in this shot. In fact, I can’t make out a marquee at all! I’m thinking there might have been a flat marquee with no canopy? One might have hoped for a better photo to accompany the short article. Anyway, try this link which should bring you directly to the specific page:
That sign is still atop the roof. It forms so that each side is angled towards Linden but still readable from further down the road in either direction. The entrance to the theater is at the edge of the Linden Blvd facade right on the corner of the building, with display cases facing Linden as well as 190th Street. I’ll try to get down there soon for some current photos (I said that back in December, didn’t I?!)
NYC must have been a bit slow in issuing its final C/O’s… The theater was definitely in operation as a twin by late 1980 as evidenced by this Movie Clock listing from December of that year:
Daily News 12/14/1980
Thanks Lost… looks almost identical to the postcard I posted from the cinematour.com site back on December 15th. According to the two features advertised on the marquee (“The Nth Commandement” and “Truxton King”) the photo from which this postcard was made dates from 1923. I wonder what is spelled out before the word “Lynbrook” on the front side of the marquee… can anyone make that out or care to make an educated guess?
Nice collection of images on that site… Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any for the Arcade/Studio 1 Theater that was located on Atlantic Ave around the corner from the Lynbrook.
When my Junior High School graduation was held at the Elmwood in June of 1979, the theater was still a single (and playing the horrible monster movie “The Prophecy”). Sometime by the following year, the place was twinned up and down. I don’t remember it as a triplex, but by the end of the ‘80’s the theater was a quartet with 2 up and 2 down (see the seat counts Lost Memory provided above on June 3rd).
The link I posted on Feb 25th no longer works. Below is an updated link plus a couple of current views of the former theater’s rear wall:
Former Studio 1 facade
Rear view
Rear wall
Looks like the theater ran straight back in a line from its entrance on Atlantic with the screen wall facing Broadway behind it. Anyone have any further info on the history of the Studio 1 or its predecessor the Arcade? The first photo was snapped in Feb 2006 and the latter just a few weeks back in May of this year.
Not sure what went wrong with those last two links. Here they are again:
2002 long shot
2002 marquee and facade
Below are a few shots I took of the theater back in 1993 when it was still in operation and then again in 2002 when it was not:
1993 Long shot with Show Follies
1993 Marquee and facade
2002 Long shot
2002 Marquee and facade
The marquee for the Show Follies porn palace is still in place, though it is now over the entrance to a typical Times Square gift shop. You can’t make it out in either 2002 photo, but I seem to recall that you could make out the marquee lettering from the Will Smith & Gene Hackman flick “Enemy of the State” under the white canvas sheets hung over the marquee with the rental contact information. Assuming that was one of the last films to play here would place the closing of the Embassy 2,3,4 sometime in late 1998 or early ‘99.
Rick… check my post from Mar 10th about the owner. He also has a porn theater in Newark, NJ and Jackson Heights, NY.
I’m thinking the Kitty Kat was on 49th across the street from the legit Ambassador Theater. I was just wondering if this became the Pussycat 2, being as it was right around the corner from the Pussycat/Grand Pussycat (former Trans Lux West) that faced Broadway.
Great work, Warren! Thanks a lot. I will get down there for some current shots (and a comparable angle to your photo) this week.
Allow me to quickly correct myself… Looking on local.live again (the western view) it appears that the old right-of-way for the theater’s fire exit alleys has been sealed off. Except for the Northern Blvd front facade, the theater’s parcel appears to be completely land-locked.
Jeffrey… I must have been mistaken. I’ve used the site from home only on my IBM laptop, not the Mac. I assume since the site is called Windows Local Live that the software is proprietary to the Windows platform.
Meanwhile… as promised, I took a trip to the Kieth’s the other morning with camera in hand and couldn’t stop snapping. I’ve added the series of 34 photos (including a few of the rear of the building) to my photobucket album.
Here’s a link to my RKO Kieth’s slbum. The new photos start at the end of the 3rd row down from the top and are all labeled “June 2006”.
If you want to cut to the chase, here are some images of the building’s rear:
Long shot rear exterior
Closer view rear stage wall
Water tower
Structure behind stage
Easy access to interior?
Chimney
Alternate view of rear wall
Alternate view of chimney
That shot of the smaller structure that appears to be attached to the rear stage wall shows a door that seems to be kicked in. I wonder if this was a stage entrance or alternative exit for the dressing rooms. It looks like there is a narrow alley behind the fencing for the small parking lot I was standing in to take these photos. I assume the stage left balcony fire escapes (which appear to have run within the building’s outer wall) must have routed folks through this structure around the rear stage wall and into the alley leaving them to exit onto Farrington Street which ran along the block’s eastern perimter. If you inspect those local.live aerial shots (particularly the view facing south showing the back wall), looks like the skinny right-of-way still runs between the building on the block’s northeast corner and the row of buldings running along Farrington.
Anyway… if that rear structure is a part of the Kieth’s, looks like easy interior access for potential vandals and squatters.
Thanks Al… at least you and I seem to be having some fun on this page! So… what became of the Cine Lido? Didn’t it front on Broadway? The address indicates an entrance on the short side street between 7th and B'way. Is this the block that the Playland arcade ran through? Or was it the next block down between 47th and 48th?
Regarding Cine Lido… we started touching on this block over on the Rivoli page and someone mentioned that the place went legit for a short stretch and a play called “Pump Boys and Dinettes” played there in the early ‘80’s. I looked the play up on ibdb.com and found it played at the Princess Theater from February 1982 to June '83. If the Princess was converted from the former Cine Lido, that would preclude any of the Pussycat theaters in my ads from March of '82 from having been the same theater.
One more thought… would the Pussycat 2 be the same as the Kitty Kat which was on 49th between B'way and 8th?
Mikeoaklandpark… I looked up Pump Boys and Dinettes on the ibdb.com website and found that it played from Feb 1982 through June 1983 at the Princess Theater. There is no further information on the Princess at that site, unfortunately. The Cine Lido is not listed here either – at least not under that AKA. Does anyone know if it had a history prior to its years as a porn house or was it converted from retail space specifically for that purpose?
I could swear I’ve used the site on my Mac at home. Jeffrey… try opening in Safari if Internet Explorer doesn’t work. Anyway… the building looks pretty intact from that bird’s eye view. Certainly no walls blown open in any significant way. Of course, that doesn’t preclude leaky roofing or seepage through cracks in the brick and mortar.
Al… Just checking out the page for the Trans Lux 49th and looks like that is the theater that became the Pussycat Cinema and later the Grand Pussycat. I was mistaken regarding the location listed in those ads above. They do say B'way and 49th. The Cine Lido would have been across the street and closer to 48th Street on the east side of Broadway. Perhaps it became the Pussycat 2 at some point (whose ads say B'way and 48th)? I’m trying to piece together how the theaters ran on that block using info found on this site as well as my own recollections. If I’m not mistaken, closer to 49th, also on the east side of Broadway, there was the Circus Cinema which had the all-male Big Top upstairs over it. The Trans Lux would have been across the street from the Circus near the corner of 49th on the west side of B'way.
Anyway… it’s obvious that the day-and-date connection between the Lido East and the Cine Lido was severed at some point in the ‘70’s with the Trans Lux/Pussycat/Grand Pussycat replacing the Cine Lido in that tandem by at least 1980. I’m assuming there was a common ownership in all of these theaters. It’s amazing, going back through the ads, how many times the words “New Policy” is used in connection with these XXX grinds.
Just for kicks, there’s an ad on the page below for Marylin Chambers' “Insatiable” playing at the Pussycat 2 back in December of 1980:
NY Post 12/11/80
The fare at the Circus is listed at the bottom of this clipping from the same paper:
Blondes Have More Fun
The Big Top is listed here (a repeat image from a few posts back):
Live Shows! 24 Hour Disco!
The theater in the reflection was indeed the former Trans Lux 49th Street which opened as a newsreel theater in the late 1930’s and later became the Trans Lux West (to compliment and often day and date with the Trans Lux East on 3rd Ave). “Woodstock” did indeed play there in 1970. Later that decade it became the XXX Pussycat Cinema (and later still the Grand Pussycat). The former Cine Lido and Pussycat 2 – I believe – were on the east side of Broadway closer to 48th Street.
Bonus points if someone can identify the porn theater whose marquee is partially reflected in the glass under the canopy towards the right in that first photo. Expand the pic to full size and you can make it out under the “W” in “Waldo” on the marquee. Judging from the reflection of the sign for Colony Records, the marquee looks to be on the south west corner of B'way and 49th.
Well… I got Wally’s photos taken at the Rivoli during the 1975 premier of “The Great Waldo Pepper” (thanks again Wally)…
The crowd under the marquee
The red carpet in B&W
A country boy
Star and director are shown their seats
That last photo of Robert Redford and director George Roy Hill being shown their seats evidences the drapery on the side walls of the auditorium that obscured much of the decoration in the place. I don’t recall if they ran all the way up the wall – I’m thinking not, but I’ll let Wally or others with better memories than my own clarify that. Were drapes installed in all ‘50’s road show modernizations for acoustic purposes (to hide surround speakers and inhibit reverberation) or just for the asthetics of the time?
Robbie… I think your comment (as well as the one from nearly two years ago by stukgh) belongs on the page for the original Continental Theater (now the UA Brandon Cinemas) that was located across the street and down the block from this one. The Continental 3 was an annex to the old Continental, and opened in a separate building on the other side of Austin, carved from former retail space sometime in the early ‘80’s.
Anyway, from retail space it came and to retail space it has returned.
I suppose I can’t argue with that, RobertR. The closest theater would probably be the single screen cinema in the North Shore Towers – which creatively books multiple films by alternating show times throughout the day. Otherwise, you have to go to the 6 screen plex behind the Bay Terrace shopping center or travel all the way to Valley Stream for the Green Acres or Sunrise Cinemas multiplexes. Still, if I lived in the area, I’d make the trip to some other theater!
Minor point here, but I was mistaken about the theater in “1941”. While it might have been based on the Hollywood, the fictitious theater is called the Hollywood State in the film.
Perhaps the name “RKO FLUSHING” was some sort of short hand used simply as a way to distinguish the theater from the similarly named RKO Keith’s in Richmond Hill. I know in newspaper ads the theaters were sometimes referred to as “RKO Flushing” and RKO Richmond Hill". I don’t know this for a fact, but it’s possible (and I think likely) that the name “RKO Flushing” never graced the theater’s marquee.
Another thing to consider is that a trade-off might have been made when painting the sign to sacrifice the exact name of the theater in order to maximize the size of the lettering. Today, even in its faded condition, one can make out the advertising even from as far as the right field upper deck at Shea Stadium. I’ll bet when the sign was still bright and vibrant, people probably saw it for a great many blocks to the west.
Jeffrey… the identification of the phrase “North Shore” exclusively with Nassau and Suffolk Counties might be something of a post-war phenomenon. Remember that Queens (as well as Brooklyn) is technically on Long Island and back in the 1920’s and ‘30’s I’m fairly confident that it was not uncommon to refer to Queens as such. I think there are references to that effect in the Fitzgerald novel “The Great Gatsby” as well as in the 1930 Marx Brothers film “Animal Crackers”.
Bway… I have a better photo of the old faded sign on the side of the building here in my photobucket album for the Keith’s. It’s the last photo in the top row.
The sign reads “RKO FLUSHING” in huge letters and beneath that in smaller print, “The finest theater on the North Shore”.
Jeffrey1955… I’ll see if I can get down there with my camera and snap some shots of the rear. As big as it is, the structure doesn’t run all the way back to the rear street, and there are some structures along that street that partially obscure the view. However, I have driven down the side street (Farrington) and have caught glimpses of the theater’s rear stage wall, which appears to be intact. Judging by what can be seen from the street, the roof also appears to be largely intact, but there may be sufficient gaps in the surface or at the seams to allow for water seepage. I don’t think there are any gaping holes in the outer walls or roofing that expose the auditorium to sunlight and weather. The partial demolition referred to above was done by the previous owner, Thomas Huang, who apparently had a field day (or two) with a demolition crew on some of the theater’s interior elements.
I just checked that article, Warren. The photo is small, but if you look about a block down the street, the corner building on the left with the large sign on the roof is the theater. Doesn’t look like the marquee had much of a projection over the sidewalk in this shot. In fact, I can’t make out a marquee at all! I’m thinking there might have been a flat marquee with no canopy? One might have hoped for a better photo to accompany the short article. Anyway, try this link which should bring you directly to the specific page:
St. Albans article
That sign is still atop the roof. It forms so that each side is angled towards Linden but still readable from further down the road in either direction. The entrance to the theater is at the edge of the Linden Blvd facade right on the corner of the building, with display cases facing Linden as well as 190th Street. I’ll try to get down there soon for some current photos (I said that back in December, didn’t I?!)
All I can say is the place must have had quite the publicist on the job when providing information for that article! Grand foyer indeed!