Beekman Theatre
1254 2nd Avenue,
New York,
NY
10021
1254 2nd Avenue,
New York,
NY
10021
41 people
favorited this theater
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It’s sad to see what has happened over the past few years to the Upper East Side movie scene. The loss of so many wonderful theaters is depressing. It’s not just the Beekman (the Beekman is only the latest). As you all are aware gone are the Sutton, Trans Lux East (Gotham), Baronet,Coronet, 68th St Playhouse, The Plaza, The Fine Arts, the RKO 58th Street and many others. For me, these theaters are fond memories of my falling in love with film. My first taste of foreign films was at the Plaza (Tony Richardson’s Mademosielle) and the Baronet (Dear John). I first became acquainted with the work of one of America’s great film directors, Martin Scorsese, at the Carnegie Hall Cinema (Who’s That Knocking At My Door?). Another favorite was, and is, Woody Allen. First saw his What’s Up Tiger Lily, and I may be wrong but I believe it was at The Baronet and Take The Money and Run at the 68th Street Playhouse. The Beekman was a wonderful theater. I won’t discribe the inside it has already been said by others better than I could. I do have fond memories of seeing Easy Rider, Hannah and Her Sisters, Z and so many more there. I have not lived in NYC for 15 years. What I always missed most about NYC was its diverse movie scene, probably the best in the world.
Re the Beekman: I would not be surprised in the least if Sloan-Kettering did indeed build a luxury tower on the site with only a couple of floors near the ground (or in the basement) devoted to breast cancer research labs or testing. After a few years they could move those labs to another location and open up that space for more condos. Those in power with tons of money can always find ways around having to provide space that will not turn a dollar profit.
Yikes! Sorry everyone, getting carried away with conjecture. No insult to Memorial Sloan-Kettering intended. Still, the Beekman will be a sad loss. I truly liked that the auditorium was acccessible almost right off the street, and it was not necessary to wander through a maze of movie mall hallways to locate a particular theater.
This leaves the Loews Tower East and the Paris. I am shocked the Paris has made it this long, that property is pricele$$.
NYC legal system doesn’t give a damn about preserving theaters in NYC. I lived in NYC when they were trying to save the Morosco and Helen Hayes from the wrecking ball. Did anybody ever think that building around the theater could have helped people. It may have done someone good to take in a movie after a stressful cancer visit.
While I obviously disagree with davebazooka that a choice even has to be made between breast cancer research/treatment and landmarking the Beekman (that one can’t have both), he brings up another interesting point: who knows how long this site will be used for breast cancer research/treatment?
The really sad thing is to see a landmark destroyed and the site used for its new purpose only a few years and then switched, for one reason or another, to some other purpose. One then thinks, “For THAT (let’s say in a few years it become rental suites for the offices of private physicians) they destroyed such and such wonderful landmark?
The example that comes immediately to mind — and while not a theater, is something that is probably familiar to many Cinema Treasures posters — is the destruction of the ornate original “New York Times Tower” in Times Square (the one with the illuminated news bulletins). This building was essential destroyed by the Allied Chemical Co. so that they could use it as a showcase for their products — but was used for such a purpose only for a few years before being abandoned by Allied Chemical.
Actually, one of the main purposes of the original NYC landmark law was not so much to save buildings from destruction, but to give those concerned at least some time so that buildings weren’t destroyed “thoughtlessly” — to see if, given some time, something else could be worked out.
:–(
I saw “The Poseidon Adventure” here in 1972, and lots of other flicks since. Back in the 1980s the restaurant “Swensen’s” was conveniently right next door. It was always fun to attend a feature and talk about it over a tuna melt or ice cream soda at Swensen’s afterward.
It will be sad to see The Beekman go, but breast cancer research/treatment should take precedence over entertainment. I hope this is indeed what the site will be used for and that Sloan-Kettering doesn’t pull a fast one and lease the land to a luxury high-rise developer.
A friend of mine is in the Hospital on 63 & York so I have been driving by the Beekman a lot lately. There is no reason they could not have built over it. I was also noticing the Gemini seems like the building that was built next store has swallowed up the whole front except the doors and marquee. There are no showcases anymore.
Thanks for the article ErikH!
While not disputing that saving the Beekman is probably a lost cause, I do question that it is a lost cause because, “[it] will be replaced by a breast and imaging center for outpatient care. Which more or less nullifies the argument for preservation.” (!!!)
Such a statment makes it sound like the Beekman site is the one and only site in all of the Upper East Side that is suitable for a breast and imaging center for outpatient care, and as though no other possible alternatives exist for Memorial Sloan-Kettering. While I’m not familiar with the details of this situation, I am skeptical about this.
In most instances of landmark preservation, someone’s other plan for the property is affected — and people find other economically feasible ways to accomplish their same objectives. For instance, they build the outpatient facility around the theater, they raise the rent or sell the building and use the income for another facility somewhere else in the neighborhood, etc.
Just to give another example: In the mid-1980s people affiliated with Columbia University, I believe, wanted to tear down the Audubon Ballroom in upper Manhattan for a much needed bio-tech facility (which might have been, I’m not sure, affiliated with Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital). The Audubon was an unofficial landmark of upper Manhattan that also had historic significance as it was where Malcom X was assasinated. In the end, a way was found to do both: save the Ballroom and build the bio-tech facility anyway. “Where there is a will there is a way.”
The problem here, so it seems to me, is not that there isn’t a (feasible, economical) “way,” but that there isn’t a (sufficiently powerful) “will.” In other words, the Audubon Ballroom supporters were able to make a stronger “political” case for preservation of the ballroom. In part this may be because of the obvious importance to history and the black community of the Audubon Ballroom and the more “frivolous” importance of a small, upscale movie theater. However, I think if one searches the list of what buildings have been landmarked in Manhattan one can probably find many instances of buildings with less historical and emotional significance than the Audubon Ballroom that have been landmarked (and have inconvenienced the owners of the property).
From today’s Hollywood Reporter. The article includes a reference to this website.
Manhattan to bid adieu to a moviehouse icon
By Randee Dawn
NEW YORK — 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.”
As W.C. Fields might have put it, “DRAT!!!!!!!”
That is the only polite way that I can express it.
I loved the Beekman Theatre and I will miss it!
My last call to the Beekman gave June 26 as the last night the theater will be open. That’s a week from today. Sadly, it looks like The Interpreter will be the final film at the Beekman.
I saw The Interpreter will over a month ago at the Beekman and amazingly it was near sold out. I went Sunday night opening weekend and it was packed. I took pictures of the long line to get into the theater for ticketholders. Strangely, they still didn’t want pictures taken. They’re going to raze the place and they care if we take pictures?
This one really is a shame. It’s a really nice theater. Very comfortable and comforting. The whole experience from seeing the marquee from afar to pulling on those great door handles with PULL eblazoned upon them, entering the first lobby with the large lamp above, entering the next set of door, stepping down to the refreshment area with its tables and chairs and soft cushioned wall-length couch and that odd curtained window so you can watch the movie while you snack, and of course the great lighted bathroom signs, the doors to enter the auditorium itself, the curved screen area… So amazingly odd it will only be photographs and memories soon.
I called Clearview twice in the hopes that they would at least book Annie Hall in there for the final weekend, or at the bare minimum, the final show. I just felt a piece of my heart to black stone typing that. Yuck!
Is the theater still open?
I have a copy of that same Showbill too! It’s in my “Rocco” file. It remains one of the towering masterpieces of world cinema. Unfortunately it was severely shortened for U.S. release. It has since been redistributed, uncut. When Visconti attended an event in his honor in New York a few decades ago and they showed “Rocco,” he was (justifiably) pissed that it was the mutilated version on display.
Here’s a Showbill Program from the Beekman in July 1961. If you want to read the fine print, after you click on the URL you must click the image itself so that it enlarges on your screen. I’m sorry that the print-out won’t be so clear.
View link
View link
In that annus mirabilis, “Rocco†was preceded at the Beekman by “L’avventura†(all of Antonioni’s films opened there, for which I have no Showbill Programs today: the publication was erratic), “Il generale della Rovere†occupied the Paris, and “La dolce vita†played at Henry Miller’s Theater on reserved seats.
My friends and I argued incessantly about which of these was the best. I opted for the intellectualism of “L’avventura.†“Rovere†seemed old-fashioned, while “La dolce vita†won popular acclaim (after its roadshow run, it traveled through the RKO circuit in a dubbed version).
Today, I’d choose “Rocco†for its operatic intensity. Thirty-seven years after seeing it, I reenacted the opening scene when my wife and I arrived at the Milan railroad station with umpteen pieces of luggage in tow. There was no score by Nino Rota to help us on.
Since Clearview is going to move the Beekman name across the street to the New York Twin, they should remove the Beekman signatures from the marquee and have them installed across the street. Those signs are part of what makes the Beekman so beloved, and they are probably the easiest part of the theatre to salvage.
ADAM S. – are you reading this??
Here’s a Showbill Program from the Beekman in November 1960. If you want to read the fine print, after you click on the URL you must click the image itself so that it enlarges on your screen. I’m sorry that a print-out won’t be so clear.
View link
View link
This film needs no explanation. Here’s the Showbill’s masthead page with its mention of Bogdanovich and the beginning of a bloviated article about dubbed dialogue by Bosley Crowther:
View link
And here’s the “Letters to Showbill†page, with a neat listing of contemporaneous films at participating theaters:
View link
You will see that the Murray Hill and Trans-Lux theaters were playing move-overs after their original B’way openings.
The should just move the Beekman. That twin would only be the Beekman in name only, like the Virgin Megastore in Times Square had the Loew’s State in name only.
From the city section of today’s NY Times:
So a Mainstay Hospital Can Expand, a Signature Theater Will Go Dark
By JOHN FREEMAN GILL
The 53-year-old Beekman Theater, an Upper East Side favorite where Woody Allen’s character was badgered by an obnoxious autograph seeker in “Annie Hall,” will show its final film on June 30.
“It’s very sad,” said Beth Simpson Crimmins, a spokeswoman for Clearview Cinemas, which operates the Beekman, on Second Avenue near 66th Street. “It’s a very strong theater for us, but unfortunately the landlord has exercised a lease option to take back the property.”
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, which has owned the property since 1989, plans to raze the Beekman, along with a North Fork bank branch and two existing Memorial Sloan-Kettering buildings, to make way for a breast and diagnostic imaging center.
Christine Hickey, a spokeswoman for the hospital, said Memorial Sloan-Kettering had outgrown an existing breast center on East 64th Street. “There’s just no more space in the building,” she said. “There’s nowhere for us to go.”
The new blocklong construction, which can be built without any zoning variance from the city, will be presented to Community Board 8 in July. “It’s probably 14 or 15 stories,” Ms. Hickey said.
The 510-seat Beekman, known for its late Streamline Moderne tilted-glass facade and the looping, chrome-and-neon sign atop its marquee, is one of the last single-screen movie houses in a city ruled by multiplexes.
“It’s a New York City icon, it’s an Upper East Side icon, and it’s a piece of modern architecture, and we’re losing our modern architecture constantly,” said Seri Worden, executive director of Friends of the Upper East Side Historic Districts. The preservation group tried unsuccessfully to persuade the city to designate the Beekman a landmark so the new facility would be built around it.
Others see the situation differently.
“People tend to confuse nostalgia with architectural merit,” said Barry Schneider, president of the East Sixties Neighborhood Association. “Preservation is forever. Just because you had a swell date there when you were coming of age doesn’t qualify it for historic preservation.”
The Beekman will be the latest in a series of period East Side movie theaters – along with the Baronet and Coronet on East 59th Street, the Sutton on 57th Street and Cinemas 1, 2 and 3 on Third Avenue – to be demolished or altered in recent years.
“That’s a disaster,” David Alcosser, an Upper East Side resident, said of the Beekman’s demise, adding, “But I’ve had family members die of cancer, so it’s hard to take a side.”
The Beekman name will live on in a theater one block north, the New York OneTwo, which Clearview Cinemas plans to rechristen the Beekman One and Two. But unlike its predecessor, the new Beekman is set back from the street, a letdown for some Beekman boosters like Mr. Alcosser. “When you walk past here, the popcorn smell is phenomenal,” he said of the Beekman. “I live across the street, and I walk home on this side just for that smell.”
June 17 has not passed yet. There may be a show, and I hope there is. Maybe I should try to get in to the Beekman.
At their site, Clearview Theatre’s online ticketing feature still shows the “Interpreter” showing up until Thursday June 16th. with shows at 2pm, 5pm and 8pm.. After that date it comes up with no shows available.
At their site, Clearview Theatre’s online ticketing feature still shows the “Interpreter” showing up until Thursday June 16th. with shows at 2pm, 5pm and 8pm.. After that date it comes up with no shows available.
At their site, Clearview Theatre’s online ticketing feature still shows the “Interpreter” showing up until Thursday June 16th. with shows at 2pm, 5pm and 8pm.. After that date it comes up with no shows available.
Personally, I think they should can the idea of a West Side Stadium and bring back the World’s Fair. I would rather have money that goes into the improvements behind one of those then some stadium for a team that doesn’t need it.
Thanks for you comment, CConnolly! Yes, its does remain to be seen how home theater will impact movie going. On the other hand, some reasonable speculation can provide food for thought. Of course, the future of movie going demands on studios producing GOOD movies. However, a high quality presentation such as you find at the Arclight Cinemas on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood makes a very positive contribution to the public’s desire to go out to the movies. It’s not inconceivable that the Federal Government will allow the media conglomerates to own a bigger stake in movie exhibition, although not to pre-1948 levels. The studios still need the theatrical launch to sell DVD’s. So, in the not too distant future we may be seeing a major shakeup in the movie business. Of course, it all remains to be seen.
Mayor Bloomberg seems like an insideous man. My friends in New York loathe the very idea of his west side stadium. Unfortunately, Bloomberg and his friends own and control so much of the city, that I doubt that such projects can be stopped. It’s times like this when I don’t miss living in New York.
Regarding Don K.’s comments above, it remains to be seen how home theater will impact movie going. I thought the way you did that it would end theater going entirely. BUT…I have noticed that the studios are beginning to release some of their bigger films in, of all places, IMAX theaters. Now, what’s going on with that?
Well, here’s my take: people can and will continue to go to theaters IF and only IF the movie is good and they can have a true movie going experience.
As for Bloomberg, he will go down in history as one of the most slyly destructive mayors this city has ever known. What he’s doing with his west side stadium is so ludicrous I haven’t a clue why there’s not more of a public outcry. Friday is literally D-Day for the stadium. I can be shot down then and I hope for the sake of New York City, it does. Somehow with his connections, I just don’t see it happening though.