Beekman Theatre
1254 2nd Avenue,
New York,
NY
10021
1254 2nd Avenue,
New York,
NY
10021
41 people favorited this theater
Showing 251 - 275 of 399 comments
Is it gone? Did it close this weekend?
Who was this theatre named for? I looked through all of the comments but did not find this information.
Excellent photos! For those unfamiliar with New York theatres, in the photo (marquee.jpg) davebazooka mentions in the previous post, the tall black glass building in the background houses the former Loews/Crown now Clearview New York twin theatre, which is going to be renamed ‘Beekman One Two’.
Glad you like them, Gerald! I wonder if anyone is inside right now taking pics of the interior one last time. :–(
SOB.
It would definitely be nice if the Beekman logo crowning the façade could be reused at the theater that will be renamed for it…I am not sure but I think it is the theater across the street, barely visible in the “Marquee.jpg” photo link in my last post.
Sic transit gloria Beekmani!
Dave, great shots! I took similar photos a couple of weeks ago and was going to post mine. You saved me the need.
Excellent suggestion, thanks, Gerald!
Here they are, I hope everyone can view them. The album is not private:
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These are nothing special but they at least show the Beekman marquee advertising its final feature (“The Interpreter”). I hope someone will be able to take some images inside the theater. I would think the owners would not allow picture-taking, but maybe they will. Or someone can sneak a few!
I will periodically revisit the site and record the progress of the Beekman’s demolition…it’ll provide closure.
Simple, post them on Photobucket.com and then link to the images.
Sweating bullets in horrific humidity, I trekked up to The Beekman earlier this morning and took 4 digital pics of the front. Showtime was still hours away, so there is no crowd there. It is eerily silent and the theater looks like I always remembered. The very last movie I saw there was “Manhattan Murder Mystery” in 1993, and I can hardly believe how fast time zooms by! I used to live on Roosevelt Island back in the 70s and 80s, so the Beekman was only a brief ride on the tram and a few streets walk. After leaving Roosevelt Island, the Beekman was no longer convenient so through most of the 90s I did not attend movies there. Bummer, I should have!!! (Kicks self.)
Out front of the Beekman, the trees have grown tall, and they obscure the marquee somewhat. The sun is behind the building so the marquee is not bathed in a golden glow as it should be! :–(
I can post/email the images to Cinema treasures, but on my screen, the “upload photo” function says it is offline. If anyone knows where I can send the images, let me know!
Thanks to all and farewell to the Beekman.
Dave Bazooka
The Beekman theater, regarded as one of New York’s premier movie art houses since it opened in 1952 and one of the last single-screen theaters in Manhattan, will shut down next Sunday. A spokesman for Clearview Cinemas, the theater chain that operates the Beekman, told Reuters that it was being forced to close because its landlord, the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, had exercised a lease option to take back the property in order to establish an outpatient care facility there. In an interview with Reuters, Woody Allen, who featured the theater in Annie Hall, mourned its extinction. “The Beekman epitomized New York movie houses at their best,” he said. “The size, the architecture, the location seemed perfect. I saw many great films there by great foreign filmmakers, and it was an honor to have my films shown there.”
RobertR: IMAX should be in NYC especially Times Square. I think they did not do it initially because only up until a couple of years ago, they did not show mainstream films in IMAX. They started doing it with some of the Disney revivals like “The Lion King” and now it seems they’re doing with more and more films. “The Polar Express” (a loathsome film) did vastly better business in IMAX than it did in the conventional theaters. In fact, I read in Entertainment Weekly that the only way that dud made it’s money back was in IMAX. So that proves the point.
It is time to start adding one or two 1000 seat auditoriums to complexes with wrap around curved screens. In Times Square AMC could convert a few of those auditoriums in one of the complexes to IMAX. The DeMille-Mayfair would make an incredible Cinerama Imax house, but I see this buisness getting smaller again instead of growing. Boy do we need CINERAMA again, it’s time. But not half assed like the Ziegfeld revival, a screen with no curtains is not Cinerama.
RobertR: regarding your comment about “Batman Begins” and it’s playing in IMAX theaters. My wife and I went to see “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” last Saturday night (not a masterpiece but pretty good though…). Anyway, we stopped by the IMAX up in the Palisades Center and all three evening showings of the Batman flick for were completely sold out. I had posted something similar on another theater’s site: namely that if one looks closely at this phenomenon (sp?) you will see that people DO want to see grand movies presented BIG. This trend is continuing with the release of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” at the IMAX theaters soon also.
I have often wondered why there’s no IMAX theater in Times Square yet.
So the old adage, “everything old is new again” might be true when it comes to theaters. Revenues are down, right? Well when is some entrepreneur going to build a really kick-ass big theater in a large city and watch as the crowds come flocking in? The IMAX trend is showing there’s an audience for it. Why none of the “suits” has noticed this yet is beyond me.
‘Annie Hall’ movie theater closing
Beekman has been fixture of New York’s Upper East Side
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) — When it opened in 1952, New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther called it a “class theater.” Twenty-five years later, Woody Allen elevated it to icon status by featuring it in his Oscar-winning “Annie Hall.” And this Sunday, the Beekman Theater will show its last film — a screening of Universal’s “The Interpreter.”
“The Beekman epitomized New York moviehouses at their best,” remembers Allen, whose films often had exclusive engagements at the Upper East Side moviehouse. “The size, the architecture, the location seemed perfect. I saw many great films there by great foreign filmmakers, and it was an honor to have my films shown there.”
So what has brought down one of the last remaining single-screen theaters in the city? Not finances, and not neglect. Beth Simpson, a spokeswoman for Clearview Cinemas, which has operated the house for more than six years, says, “We love the neighborhood, and have proudly brought quality movies to this community. Unfortunately, the theater’s landlord has exercised a lease option to take back the property. Regrettably, we have no choice but to cease operation of the theater.”
That leaseholder is Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and the Beekman — along with the other buildings in the immediate area — will be replaced by a breast and imaging center for outpatient care. Which more or less nullifies the argument for preservation.
“It’s hard to make the case for preservation when that’s going to be taking precedence,” admits Seri Worden, executive director of Friends of the Upper East Side Historic Districts, an organization that has lobbied for the Beekman’s landmark designation since 2001. A last-minute postcard campaign directed at the landmarks commission is under way, but Worden concedes the cause is lost.
“Still,” she says, “we can make a little bit of noise.”
Built to accommodate postwar movie audiences, the Beekman’s “class theater” status was typical of the small, neighborhood theaters that took root in the 1950s and ‘60s. Tied into the switch-over from newsreel theaters into art house theaters, the Beekman was designed to appeal to wealthy and upper-middle-class locals and features a Streamline Moderne late-period art deco design, exhibited best in its scripted neon name perched on the marquee. Inside, the 510-seat theater’s mezzanine and arced rows feel like a small opera house, not a cinema.
Over the years, the Beekman has maintained its classy status, even if moviegoers now all come in jeans, and remains a favorite among cinemaphiles and historians alike.
“The Beekman always attempted to create an upscale version of moviegoing, maintaining a meticulous theater that really has an emphasis on presentation,” explains Ross Melnick, co-founder of the Cinema Treasures Web site and co-author of a book by the same name. “People have a hankering for the ‘old days.’ They appreciate that attention to detail and service, even to the opening and closing of curtains over the screen before every showing.”
The theater’s name will live on a block away, as Clearview re-names its New York One Two theaters the Beekman One and Two. Yet it’s hard to imagine Allen’s Alvy Singer trying to buy tickets in that recessed interior for himself and Annie.
“It may be nice to have a Beekman One and Two so residents can remember the theater they will ultimately miss,” Melnick muses. “But I think the Beekman will always be the Beekman and will never be replaced.”
Don Rosen— I first use ProQuest, then I print the page, scan it, and submit to PhotoBucket.com. Ron Newman: thanks for your magnificent postings on the pages for Boston’s theaters.
Some public and college libraries offer free access to something called ProQuest, which serves up page images from old issues of the New York Times. Check with your local library.
It sounds funny but last night I was watching TV and a commercial came on for the new Batman and ended with now in theatres and IMAX. Then I thought it’s just like the 50’s with television killing theatres except now it’s the DVD’s. This may be a time to bring back Cinerama withing complexes or some new super large screen format to make people want to see movies in theatres not on TV. Why can’t these complexes have at least one screen with 1000 seats and a mammouth screen?
Pomeii had Vesuvius.
New York has Disney.
AMC owns a fairly new (maybe the last 10 years) theater in Orlando, the AMC Celebration Twin. I agree AMC will ruin the Tower EAst and some of the older theaters. I am sick of there mutilplex bull crap
Hey Box Office Bill:
Where did you get that page from the NY Times? I used to look at them at the library, but can you see the page “without buying it” from the New York Times Online?
AMC owns the 5-screen Chestnut Hill Cinema, the former General Cinema flagship in Newton, Mass. Someone reported that last month that it had been sold, but its ads still carry the AMC logo today.
RobertR – With AMC taking over Loews, I’m afraid the Tower East may be doomed – I don’t think AMC even knows what a 1-screen theatre looks like. As a matter of fact, do they own any theatres with less than 15 screens? I even wonder about the future of 84th/Orpheum/19th/Village theatres.
Strongly recommend that you see Rick McKay’s documentary, BROADWAY, THE GOLDEN AGE: BY THE LEGENDS THAT WERE THERE (2003). It says so much about a truly fabulous age in New York art and entertainment that is barely a memory.
In a certain way, the Beekman Theatre was part of that era.
On a different note:
From THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, June 22, 2005
Re: The Merger of AMC and Loew’s
“I think the exhibition business is at a crossroads,” said Paul del Rossi, former chief executive of General Cinemas, which filed for bankruptcy protection four years ago before being bought by AMC. “The major players in the exhibition business are now controlled by venture capitalists, and they have different long-term views than traditional theater owners.”
Although the industry isn’t facing the dire situation it did in the 1990s, when a glut of theaters forced several exhibitors to file for bankruptcy protection, business has slowed for the big companies, helping to fuel the current consolidation wave. AMC, for example, reported a $10.7-million loss last year.
Other recent deals include last week’s acquisition by Canadian theater chain Cineplex Galaxy of Viacom Inc.’s Famous Players, a move that gives the consolidated company 60% of the Canadian market. Century Theatres in Northern California this year was reported to have hired an investment bank to find a buyer.
Consolidation benefits theater chains by lowering their administrative and supply costs, and also by potentially giving larger chains more leverage to negotiate better “film terms” with the studios. Currently, studios keep 60% to 70% of a movie’s first-weekend gross. With the DVD release timeframe shrinking from six months to as little as three months for most movies, mergers also could put theaters in a better position to push for DVDs to be released later.
John Fithian, president of the National Assn. of Theatre Owners, a trade organization that represents the majority of U.S. exhibitors, said the exhibition industry was fundamentally sound but currently in a bad cycle.
“We are not having a great year, but we have been in this position before,” Fithian said. “When the quality and the quantity of the movies come back, our patrons will come back to see them. The sky is not falling.”
Box-office sales are down 7% to date this year, and admissions are on track to fall for the third straight year.
Old Chinese curse: “May you live in interesting times.”
According to BOB’s post you could see(from what I could make out)on Broadway;
Ethel Merman, Olivia de Havilland, Charles Boyer, Agnes Moorehead, Audrey Hepburn, Julie Harris, Jack Carson, James Barton, Vivienne Segal, Harold Lang, Henry Fonda, John Hodiak, Kim Hunter, Jessica Tandy, Hume Cronyn, Gertrude Lawrence, Robert Preston, Jose Ferrar, John Raitt,and Phil Silvers.
And Singing in the Rain was playing with the Easter show at the Music Hall.
The Beekman will be closing in a New York considerally more culturally impoverished than the one it opened in.
As the people who I worked with at the Music Hall in the 70’s who had been around in the halcyon days of the 40’s said of those dark days it was simply unimaginable.
Well Bill;
I hope after all these years, you find that bracelet.
Here’s the ad from the NY Times announcing the Beekman’s opening on 28 April, 1952. If you wanted to see a movie that evening, there were plenty of good offerings to choose from at other theaters, too.
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The offerings at live theaters were at least as good:
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I will always associate the Beekman with gain and loss. In the late ‘60s, its bookings turned more and more to Hollywood product. On a cold January Saturday in ’68 on a pre-marital date with my now-wife who then lived nearby, we walked to the Beekman to see “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,†which was day-dating at the Victoria. The line stretched around the block and would have convinced a fool that we couldn’t get in by show-time, so we proceeded south toward the Victoria. On E 57 Street, a strong gust blew a twenty-dollar bill into my hands, a genuine windfall since I was then unemployed. The outcome paid for the show on Times Square and for manicotti afterward at Luigino’s. We felt like a couple o’ swells.
Win some, lose some. In Fall ’68 we returned to the Beekman to see Joanne Woodward in “Rachel, Rachel,†having tied the knot meanwhile. My wedding gift to M. was an inexpensive but tasteful bracelet whose sentiment we counted on to mature over the years. As luck would have it, the band came undone and the bracelet fell away during the film. In ensuing days, I returned repeatedly to the Beekman to inquire whether it had been found, but with no success. I wonder whether it’s still hidden between the seats? I’d prefer that to the likelihood that an East Side yuppie found it and tossed it away for being so spare. When this theater is razedâ€"all good ones eventually are, and bad ones tooâ€"perhaps someone will find that bracelet beneath the carpeting among all the lost or discarded ticket stubs, espresso cups, and Showbill Programs.