Yes, Vincent… the entrances for the Astor and Gaiety/Victoria were located in seperate buildings. Years later, as each building’s facade was covered in giant billboards and signage, that fact might have been obscured. At the far left of the photo at the top of this page, you’ll see that the column of windows is actually a building adjacent to the Gaiety building, facing Broadway. Because of the contrast in the old B&W shot, it only appears to be a sliver of the Astor – whose mansard roof line on its 45th street profile can be seen rising above it. As I said, compare the image to the photo at the top of the Astor page and you’ll see what I’m talking about. The Astor entrance is in a completely different building. The one you can just make out along the left edge of the photo above.
The movie you describe is how I remember “The Beast in the Cellar”, Lost. I remember thinking there would be an actual “beast” as in monster down there, but it was really just this creepy guy with long unkept hair and beard who behaved like an animal. As for the “Godzilla” sequels being silly, hey… I was 7 years old! And after having caught up with all the Godzilla movies on WPIX and WOR TV (not to mention the 4:30 movie on WABC), I have to say that “Smog Monster” was certainly the wildest and nuttiest of the bunch!
Having been so young at the time, I can’t say which of the two drive-ins we frequented most or which films we saw where… but the name Tropicaire and the neon flair of it’s signange certainly stayed with me over the years. I want to say that one of these drive-ins was fairly close to a hard-top theater maybe across the street or down the block? But I can’t be certain at all. We lived in two different locations in Florida – spending most of the time in a courtyard complex of two-story apartment buildings on Carrol Way. (That may only be one “r”, but again, my memory is fuzzy).
I think Vincent is referring to the photo at the top of the page. If you look all the way to the left, Vincent, you’ll see just a slice of the adjacent building (which ran to the 45th Street corner) that housed the Astor Theater entrance and lobby. You can see the roofline of the Astor Hotel running down 45th because it was several stories higher than this corner structure.
Here’s a link to the Astor’s page. If you compare the row of windows that is just visible at far left in the photo above with those on the facade in the photo at the top of the Astor’s page, you’ll see it’s the same building.
Wow. Thanks, Lost Memory. This is one of two drive-in theater’s my parents took me to with great frequency while we lived in Miami from the summer of 1971 until the summer of ‘72. I can’t recall the name of the other theater, but my Mom tells me she thinks it was located on the Dixie Hwy. We saw many double features here. Well, actually, my parents did since I was usually fast asleep within the first 5 minutes of the 2nd feature. My parents would often tell me that this was a good thing as many of the 2nd features turned out to be rated R (even when the first feature was PG) and were quite explicit in their sexuality and violence. I can’t recall many of the titles we saw here or how they paired up.
One double bill I definitely remember vividly was “Godzilla vs. The Smog Monster” backed up by a little something called “The Return of Count Yorga” – one of the rare 2nd features I stayed completely awake through – that frightened the hell out of me! Another title I recall is “The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant”, a low budget horror flick featuring Bruce Dern, Pat Priest (of Munsters TV-show fame) and top-40 radio DJ Casey Kasem! I can’t recall the supporting film. Another title that comes to mind is “The Beast in the Cellar”, which creeped me out, and the British import “Blood on Satan’s Claw”. I only have fleeting memories of most of this, as I was only 6 – 7 years old at the time, but there are still some visuals from these movies that have stayed with me through the years. Even as I’ve caught one or two of these flicks on TV since moving back to NYC, when I come to certain moments in each movie, I travel back in time and still see the image through the windsheild of my Dad’s red ‘68 Volvo, peering from the back seat between my parents’ shoulders.
Now… if only I could remember which NY theater it was where my Dad took me to see the double feature of “The House That Dripped Blood” and “Dracula, Prince of Darkness” just before we left for Florida in ‘71!!!
That’s a fascinating piece of history, Lefty… The MPAA ratings were established in ‘68 and Federal Appeals Court had ruled that the content of films like “I Am Curious (Yellow)” was protected by First Amendment rights around the same time (or shortly thereafter). I can understand the community outrage against explicit cinematic content, but it’s hard to imagine in this day and age how the Police Department would have had grounds for any arrests for what should have been the legal exhibition of a motion picture!
I’m also curious what kind of product the Quartet’s management thought they’d be able to book into the “X” theater. Were they actually thinking of showing hardcore porn alongside the other fare? Or did they expect a steady stream of films like “A Clockwork Orange”, “Midnight Cowboy” and “The Devils” to meet their programming needs?
I had thought that a Cipiriani-like caterer was supposed to refit the space for their use, but that’s been the story for several years now and I’ve read nothing about its opening. I’ll try to see what the doorman there knows when I’m in the area on Friday night.
Sheesh, Al… when was the last time that page was updated? The David is still listed as are the Cinema III (in the Plaza Hotel) and the Hollywood on 8th Ave. Not sure I’d classify the Cinema III address at 2 West 59th Street as “Clinton”, however. It might be interesting to search different nieghborhoods on the site to see what other old listings and addresses are still there.
To try and answer my own question from Jan 30th, perhaps Movieplex 42 was created in the space formerly occupied by the 2nd Roxy Twin that opened between the Empire and Anco in the late ‘70’s or '80’s? I forgot there were two Roxy locations and the address seems right.
I was tooling around with the Windows Local Live satellite mapping site and found that the image for the old Cinema City 5 lot still shows the building to be in existence. The image is copyrighted 2005 and the al fresco mural that adorned the upper facade facing the LIE has already been painted over. However, cars are still seen in the shopping center’s parking lot, so at least one or two of the businesses there might still have been opened, even if the theater was not. Here’s the link to the image:
The theater occupied the large trapezoidal structure at the left end of the shopping center. The view that opens up faces north and once can see the five small rectangular “marquees” that ran along the overhang that wraps around the entire shopping center. The mural was on the facade directly above this awning. This is actually the side of the theater where exit doors from the auditoriums were located. The entrance is around the corner to the left. You can rotate the view to look eastward (by using the directional tool in the palette to the left of the image) to view the side with the theater entrance.
The lobby was in the center of the building and was sunken by a few steps from street level. There was a large circular candy counter and the auditoriums were on the perimeter of the lobby at street level (so you had to climb a ramp or a few steps back up out of the sunken lobby to enter each room). I believe there were 3 or 4 auditoriums on the right side (with the screen walls facing the southern exposure seen in the above photo) with the remainin screen(s) toward the rear. I hated when this was the only local theater where a given movie was playing and after a while I just chose to travel to other parts of the borough (or into Nassau County) to catch a flick rather than suffer the low-rent quality of the presentations here.
This site is currently a huge hole in the ground and is completely fenced in. Again, I say “good riddance!”
When I was last along 42nd Street a few week’s back, I noticed that the old facade of the Liberty entrance is still somewhat visible behind some of the signage for the new complex. I’ll be back this Friday night for a show at the New Victory and I’ll see if I can snap a decent image of what can be seen from street level. Thanks again for that post, Joe. I saw it on the AMC Empire page as well.
Great post, Joe. Naturally, it also mentions how the Liberty Theater was retained within the complex. Unfortunately, the beautiful Harris Theater was pounded to dust to clear space for Madame Tussaud’s.
You might be thinking of the old Park East further down Jericho which is now a Charlie Brown’s restaurant. I posted a recent photo on the Park East’s page here. I’d include a link to the Park East in this comment, but I’m having a problem opening another window on the site right now. You can search for the theater if you wish to visit the page, mns2lv4ever.
The St. Nicholas Arena was near what is currently Lincoln Center in the mid ‘60’s off Columbus Avenue. While closed for many years, the arena was only demolished fairly recently – within the last 5-10 years or so? The arena was originally a turn of the century roller rink and played host to rock and roll concerts as well as boxing and wrestling matches. Not sure where the St. Nicholas Palace was located, but I am sure that the aka “United Palace” listed above refers to the building’s current name under Rev. Ike’s stewardship.
I passed by this site over the weekend and the old double sided pylon sign is still standing, with it’s large attraction board a blank white canvas facing traffic in either direction on Route 347. The top of the derelict sign reads “FOX CENTER” and behind it is a vacant lot where the theater once stood.
Jahn’s is still open for business. I actually passed by last weekend. I plan on stopping in for a cone or sundae very soon. My lady has been dying to try it. Parking is a bit difficult around the area.
Nice job, as usual Al… You’re on the cusp of my era of movie going at the Hall – the horrible ‘70’s. Vincent is on to something in his comments. While I truly enjoyed some of the “spectacles” performed on stage, even at my tender age much of it seemed just as garish and trashy as the stuff you’d see on typical network TV variety shows of the day.
Paul Bubny… Yes… I sometimes see some old postings I made and can’t believe I’ve been tagging this site for so long. A lot of the very oldest comments here were removed and incorporated into the introductory paragraphs of some of the theaters on this site when the site was overhauled in late 2003. Back then there was a lot of sketchy information posted here. Anyway… see my much more recent posting above from Feb 20th for some more rumination on that “Crossed Swords” engagement as well as a few images of the souvenir booklets I took home with me the day I saw that flick and the Glory of Easter show.
Ha! You could probably drop the entirety of the Lincoln Square multiplex and Imax theater on 68th and Broadway very comfortably into the confines of the Hall’s vast auditorium with some room to spare!
Nice list, AlAlvarez. And I can’t think of a better place to share it than right here amongst the comments. On a quick glance, looks like most features changed after a week or two. A three week run must have meant a pretty big success. The one that pops out looks to be Disney’s 1937 “Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs” which looks like it ran for over a month! Give or take the 5 day margin of error Al notes in his post.
I imagine the prints for many of those genre flicks (particularly the imports and low budget indy exploitation films) remained in very close proximity to the Duece at all times since many of the same titles had a habit of popping up on the bottom of double and triple bills up and down the block for years. Maybe that’s because most of them were owned by the Brandt’s chain. I never had the pleasure of actually attending a flick at the Cine 42. I spent most of my time on the north side of the block, though did venture into the Liberty, Harris and Empire once or twice in the ‘80’s.
Warren… You can capture the image of the open window on your desktop by simultaneously pressing CTRL+ALT+PRINT SCR if you have a Windows computer. I’m not sure what the procedure is on a Mac. Once you’ve captured the image, you should be able to open your photo editor and paste the image as a new photo into the program using the standard “PASTE” function in the program’s Edit menu. The PRINT SCR button should be on the right side of the very top row of buttons on the keyboard, after Home and End.
I think Warren is right. It would have been highly impractical anyway, due to the theater’s immense size. REndres didn’t join the RCMH family until a few years later, but perhaps he could shed some light as to whether he had ever heard any stories of the like.
I wonder what that configuration would have looked like! A left/right split with some rows up front removed? Or some kind of up/down segregation (hard to imagine with the multiple balconies, though they may have planned on ripping them out altogether as part of the conversion). Thankfully, whatever the plans might have been, they are left only to supposition.
Yes, Vincent… the entrances for the Astor and Gaiety/Victoria were located in seperate buildings. Years later, as each building’s facade was covered in giant billboards and signage, that fact might have been obscured. At the far left of the photo at the top of this page, you’ll see that the column of windows is actually a building adjacent to the Gaiety building, facing Broadway. Because of the contrast in the old B&W shot, it only appears to be a sliver of the Astor – whose mansard roof line on its 45th street profile can be seen rising above it. As I said, compare the image to the photo at the top of the Astor page and you’ll see what I’m talking about. The Astor entrance is in a completely different building. The one you can just make out along the left edge of the photo above.
I should say “two different locations in Miami”…
The movie you describe is how I remember “The Beast in the Cellar”, Lost. I remember thinking there would be an actual “beast” as in monster down there, but it was really just this creepy guy with long unkept hair and beard who behaved like an animal. As for the “Godzilla” sequels being silly, hey… I was 7 years old! And after having caught up with all the Godzilla movies on WPIX and WOR TV (not to mention the 4:30 movie on WABC), I have to say that “Smog Monster” was certainly the wildest and nuttiest of the bunch!
Having been so young at the time, I can’t say which of the two drive-ins we frequented most or which films we saw where… but the name Tropicaire and the neon flair of it’s signange certainly stayed with me over the years. I want to say that one of these drive-ins was fairly close to a hard-top theater maybe across the street or down the block? But I can’t be certain at all. We lived in two different locations in Florida – spending most of the time in a courtyard complex of two-story apartment buildings on Carrol Way. (That may only be one “r”, but again, my memory is fuzzy).
I think Vincent is referring to the photo at the top of the page. If you look all the way to the left, Vincent, you’ll see just a slice of the adjacent building (which ran to the 45th Street corner) that housed the Astor Theater entrance and lobby. You can see the roofline of the Astor Hotel running down 45th because it was several stories higher than this corner structure.
Here’s a link to the Astor’s page. If you compare the row of windows that is just visible at far left in the photo above with those on the facade in the photo at the top of the Astor’s page, you’ll see it’s the same building.
Wow. Thanks, Lost Memory. This is one of two drive-in theater’s my parents took me to with great frequency while we lived in Miami from the summer of 1971 until the summer of ‘72. I can’t recall the name of the other theater, but my Mom tells me she thinks it was located on the Dixie Hwy. We saw many double features here. Well, actually, my parents did since I was usually fast asleep within the first 5 minutes of the 2nd feature. My parents would often tell me that this was a good thing as many of the 2nd features turned out to be rated R (even when the first feature was PG) and were quite explicit in their sexuality and violence. I can’t recall many of the titles we saw here or how they paired up.
One double bill I definitely remember vividly was “Godzilla vs. The Smog Monster” backed up by a little something called “The Return of Count Yorga” – one of the rare 2nd features I stayed completely awake through – that frightened the hell out of me! Another title I recall is “The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant”, a low budget horror flick featuring Bruce Dern, Pat Priest (of Munsters TV-show fame) and top-40 radio DJ Casey Kasem! I can’t recall the supporting film. Another title that comes to mind is “The Beast in the Cellar”, which creeped me out, and the British import “Blood on Satan’s Claw”. I only have fleeting memories of most of this, as I was only 6 – 7 years old at the time, but there are still some visuals from these movies that have stayed with me through the years. Even as I’ve caught one or two of these flicks on TV since moving back to NYC, when I come to certain moments in each movie, I travel back in time and still see the image through the windsheild of my Dad’s red ‘68 Volvo, peering from the back seat between my parents’ shoulders.
Now… if only I could remember which NY theater it was where my Dad took me to see the double feature of “The House That Dripped Blood” and “Dracula, Prince of Darkness” just before we left for Florida in ‘71!!!
That’s a fascinating piece of history, Lefty… The MPAA ratings were established in ‘68 and Federal Appeals Court had ruled that the content of films like “I Am Curious (Yellow)” was protected by First Amendment rights around the same time (or shortly thereafter). I can understand the community outrage against explicit cinematic content, but it’s hard to imagine in this day and age how the Police Department would have had grounds for any arrests for what should have been the legal exhibition of a motion picture!
I’m also curious what kind of product the Quartet’s management thought they’d be able to book into the “X” theater. Were they actually thinking of showing hardcore porn alongside the other fare? Or did they expect a steady stream of films like “A Clockwork Orange”, “Midnight Cowboy” and “The Devils” to meet their programming needs?
I had thought that a Cipiriani-like caterer was supposed to refit the space for their use, but that’s been the story for several years now and I’ve read nothing about its opening. I’ll try to see what the doorman there knows when I’m in the area on Friday night.
Sheesh, Al… when was the last time that page was updated? The David is still listed as are the Cinema III (in the Plaza Hotel) and the Hollywood on 8th Ave. Not sure I’d classify the Cinema III address at 2 West 59th Street as “Clinton”, however. It might be interesting to search different nieghborhoods on the site to see what other old listings and addresses are still there.
To try and answer my own question from Jan 30th, perhaps Movieplex 42 was created in the space formerly occupied by the 2nd Roxy Twin that opened between the Empire and Anco in the late ‘70’s or '80’s? I forgot there were two Roxy locations and the address seems right.
That’s the one, Lost Memory.
And Windows Local Live views are copyrighted 2005, so beware of the age of those images as well.
Well… that link was wrong! The impressive theater you see there is the former RKO Madison in Ridgewood. Here’s the proper link:
Cinema City 5 satellite view
I was tooling around with the Windows Local Live satellite mapping site and found that the image for the old Cinema City 5 lot still shows the building to be in existence. The image is copyrighted 2005 and the al fresco mural that adorned the upper facade facing the LIE has already been painted over. However, cars are still seen in the shopping center’s parking lot, so at least one or two of the businesses there might still have been opened, even if the theater was not. Here’s the link to the image:
View link
The theater occupied the large trapezoidal structure at the left end of the shopping center. The view that opens up faces north and once can see the five small rectangular “marquees” that ran along the overhang that wraps around the entire shopping center. The mural was on the facade directly above this awning. This is actually the side of the theater where exit doors from the auditoriums were located. The entrance is around the corner to the left. You can rotate the view to look eastward (by using the directional tool in the palette to the left of the image) to view the side with the theater entrance.
The lobby was in the center of the building and was sunken by a few steps from street level. There was a large circular candy counter and the auditoriums were on the perimeter of the lobby at street level (so you had to climb a ramp or a few steps back up out of the sunken lobby to enter each room). I believe there were 3 or 4 auditoriums on the right side (with the screen walls facing the southern exposure seen in the above photo) with the remainin screen(s) toward the rear. I hated when this was the only local theater where a given movie was playing and after a while I just chose to travel to other parts of the borough (or into Nassau County) to catch a flick rather than suffer the low-rent quality of the presentations here.
This site is currently a huge hole in the ground and is completely fenced in. Again, I say “good riddance!”
I remember it being Sante Fe… that wasn’t so long ago. Maybe 5 years?
When I was last along 42nd Street a few week’s back, I noticed that the old facade of the Liberty entrance is still somewhat visible behind some of the signage for the new complex. I’ll be back this Friday night for a show at the New Victory and I’ll see if I can snap a decent image of what can be seen from street level. Thanks again for that post, Joe. I saw it on the AMC Empire page as well.
Great post, Joe. Naturally, it also mentions how the Liberty Theater was retained within the complex. Unfortunately, the beautiful Harris Theater was pounded to dust to clear space for Madame Tussaud’s.
You might be thinking of the old Park East further down Jericho which is now a Charlie Brown’s restaurant. I posted a recent photo on the Park East’s page here. I’d include a link to the Park East in this comment, but I’m having a problem opening another window on the site right now. You can search for the theater if you wish to visit the page, mns2lv4ever.
The St. Nicholas Arena was near what is currently Lincoln Center in the mid ‘60’s off Columbus Avenue. While closed for many years, the arena was only demolished fairly recently – within the last 5-10 years or so? The arena was originally a turn of the century roller rink and played host to rock and roll concerts as well as boxing and wrestling matches. Not sure where the St. Nicholas Palace was located, but I am sure that the aka “United Palace” listed above refers to the building’s current name under Rev. Ike’s stewardship.
I passed by this site over the weekend and the old double sided pylon sign is still standing, with it’s large attraction board a blank white canvas facing traffic in either direction on Route 347. The top of the derelict sign reads “FOX CENTER” and behind it is a vacant lot where the theater once stood.
Jahn’s is still open for business. I actually passed by last weekend. I plan on stopping in for a cone or sundae very soon. My lady has been dying to try it. Parking is a bit difficult around the area.
Nice job, as usual Al… You’re on the cusp of my era of movie going at the Hall – the horrible ‘70’s. Vincent is on to something in his comments. While I truly enjoyed some of the “spectacles” performed on stage, even at my tender age much of it seemed just as garish and trashy as the stuff you’d see on typical network TV variety shows of the day.
Paul Bubny… Yes… I sometimes see some old postings I made and can’t believe I’ve been tagging this site for so long. A lot of the very oldest comments here were removed and incorporated into the introductory paragraphs of some of the theaters on this site when the site was overhauled in late 2003. Back then there was a lot of sketchy information posted here. Anyway… see my much more recent posting above from Feb 20th for some more rumination on that “Crossed Swords” engagement as well as a few images of the souvenir booklets I took home with me the day I saw that flick and the Glory of Easter show.
Ha! You could probably drop the entirety of the Lincoln Square multiplex and Imax theater on 68th and Broadway very comfortably into the confines of the Hall’s vast auditorium with some room to spare!
Nice list, AlAlvarez. And I can’t think of a better place to share it than right here amongst the comments. On a quick glance, looks like most features changed after a week or two. A three week run must have meant a pretty big success. The one that pops out looks to be Disney’s 1937 “Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs” which looks like it ran for over a month! Give or take the 5 day margin of error Al notes in his post.
I imagine the prints for many of those genre flicks (particularly the imports and low budget indy exploitation films) remained in very close proximity to the Duece at all times since many of the same titles had a habit of popping up on the bottom of double and triple bills up and down the block for years. Maybe that’s because most of them were owned by the Brandt’s chain. I never had the pleasure of actually attending a flick at the Cine 42. I spent most of my time on the north side of the block, though did venture into the Liberty, Harris and Empire once or twice in the ‘80’s.
Warren… You can capture the image of the open window on your desktop by simultaneously pressing CTRL+ALT+PRINT SCR if you have a Windows computer. I’m not sure what the procedure is on a Mac. Once you’ve captured the image, you should be able to open your photo editor and paste the image as a new photo into the program using the standard “PASTE” function in the program’s Edit menu. The PRINT SCR button should be on the right side of the very top row of buttons on the keyboard, after Home and End.
I think Warren is right. It would have been highly impractical anyway, due to the theater’s immense size. REndres didn’t join the RCMH family until a few years later, but perhaps he could shed some light as to whether he had ever heard any stories of the like.
I wonder what that configuration would have looked like! A left/right split with some rows up front removed? Or some kind of up/down segregation (hard to imagine with the multiple balconies, though they may have planned on ripping them out altogether as part of the conversion). Thankfully, whatever the plans might have been, they are left only to supposition.