There is a reference to this theatre in Billy Crystal’s “Mr. Saturday Night” (1992). I wasn’t sure if the Pitkin reference was fictional or real when mentioned, but this where Crystal and his brother in the film, David Paymer, got their start.
Someone should hip the “Village Voice” to the fact that this is no longer a 16-‘plex, but an 11-'plex and it has been for at least a year. The VV still lists this as an 16-plex.
The only time I have even been even near this theatre is for the annual Tribeca Fests and when I was there last year the five theatres had already been closed and it was a weird and gloomy experience riding those escalators up, up and up before reaching the floors with the screens.
One funny story I have was at the first Tribeca Film Fest for “The Stone Reader.” In the middle of the film the projectionist must have gotten reels mixed up because a reel or part of the film was dropped. The director, fortunately, was in the house and immediately races up the aisle and goes to the back of the theatre and starts banging on the window at the projection booth to get the projectionist’s attention. Needless to say, the problem was fixed.
Another ‘plex that seems to be located in the middle of nowhere is Loew’s W. 34th Street 'plex between Eighth & Ninth Avenues. And that Kip’s Bay 'plex on Second Avenue in the twenties is also off the beaten track.
I don’t know what the Regal people were thinking when they built a 16-screen ‘plex not only way downtown, but just about as far west as you can go. It is west of West Street.
Boy, Trans Luxe must have operated this theatre for about a minute. I thought I was hallucinating, but I vaguely remember a listing for “Gone With the Wind” here, but I never went.
I’ll be attending the Tribeca Film Festival starting next week and, time permitting, I’ll take a swing by the South Street Seaport and see what is up with this building.
I too attended “Legal Eagles” at the UA 8th Street ‘plex back when it originally released. I remember wanted to go to the FF when it was still on Watts Street that night and whatever was playing that night — maybe “Chinatown” — sold out so I opted for LE. The line was around the block.
I didn’t go to the UA 8th Street much even when I lived in the Village from ‘82 to '87, but over the years I would tend to go there on Thursday nights for the late screenings because it seemed films about to close always seemed to play at the UA 8th Street last. I remember seeing Van Peebles’ “Panther,” The Coen Brothers' “Hudsucker Proxy” and “The St. of Ft. Washington” at that theatre.
I asked my mother and my aunt about a Jerry Lewis Cinema in North Kingstown. I could have sworn that as a kid I caught a movie there, but I may be confusing it with another theatre. My mother didn’t know, but my aunt lived in North Kingston and here’s her recollection:
“There was indeed a movie theatre in NK but I think it was where the old CARDI furniture store was located just outside of Quonset Naval Base. I do remember those theatres and no one thought they would last. I didn’t think HE would last after I saw him last time! Poor guy………..”
I remember this as the Four Seasons. Last time I went there, around ‘02, it was in its current second-run phase and they canceled the screening I want to attend. I think it was “The Castle” with Redford, Gandolfini & Ruffalo. I missed it on its first run.
I also went here for the first time back in 1994 to see an independent film called WHERE THE RIVER RUNS NORTH. Rip Torn was in this and an Indian actress I believe named Tantoo Cardinal or something like that. I remember I was surprised a film live WTRRN would even play in a ‘plex like this.
I never would have guessed that this catering hall was at one time a movie house. I’ve walked by numerous times over the years. That means at one time there were three movie houses west of the subway line/31st Street, the Meriden Square, the Strand and the Crescent. The Strand is the only building that obviously was at one time a movie theatre.
There isn’t much retail business west of the subway line, particularly the further west you walk. There is quite a bit of construction of large apartment buildings on 21st Street from Broadway to Newtown Road/Astoria Blvd. and along Astoria Blvd. right around where the Crescent was once situated.
I haven’t seen any films here, but have attended several jazz concerts and I noticed on my tickets stubs that I was being charged a $1 “facility fee” on top of the ticket price. Maybe they could use the proceeds from this “facility fee” to clean up the murals. I did see that Rolling Stones giant screen film back in the eighties or nineties or whenever it came out. I remember they temporarily ripped out some seats to put in equipment.
The Screening Room closed in 2003 or 2004. It wasn’t even open in ‘93 and '94.
While I am here and writing about downtown, isn’t there a cinema or at least a cinema building in the South Street Seaport. I don’t know what it is being used for, if anything. I think it may have been used as a revival house for about a minute in the 80s or 90s because I think I vaguely remember “Gone With the Wind” screening here (I didn’t go). I also could be hallucinating.
I used to go here often when it was both a first-run house then a discount theatre. It was a good place to see a film twice, the second time not having to pay full fare or a place to catch a film late in its run.
I remember seeing “Seven” for the second time here and I could have sworn they dropped a reel or left out a part of the movie for some reason.
It was wild here when it was a second run house due to huge crowds taking advantage of the low rates. However, it was noisy. It wasn’t exactly an upscale crowd.
Last night time I was in Paris I stayed right around the corner from the famous Mac Mahon. Isn’t this the theatre where the Godards and the Truffauts and the Rohmers received their cinema educations?
I remember catching David Lynch’s “Wild at Heart” here in ‘01 and this guy about three-quarters through the movie gets up from his seat, walks in front of the screen and gives the screen “the bird.” I don’t think he liked the film too much.
Yeah, this is a real movie palace. I caught “Apocalypse Now Redux” the one and only time I patronized this theatre. A branch of the Cinemateque is nearbye, but most of the films in this part of Paris screen dubbed, as opposed to sub-titled, films.
I caught a few films here back on my frequent visits of Paris. It was an interesting policy in that they tend to run the same films every day or every week. There may be five screenings a day here, with a different film playing in repertory. But the films stay and stay and stay for months, if not years. You can see all the film cannisters in the lobby. There looks to be a rather steep staircase or even ladder that leads to the projection booth. It must be fun lugging those film cannisters back and forth.
A nice little theatre, right near the Gardens due Luxenbourg.
I caught Wenders' “Paris, Texas”, Derek Jarman’s “Carravaggio” and Ken Loach’s “Family Life” at this theatre.
I remember in the late 1980s/early 1990s going to see the Abel Gance’s “Napolean” at RCMH. Carmen Coppolla conducted a full ochestra if memory serves me correctly.
And I remember attending that same film series that ran in the summer of ‘97 that someone above mentioned. The only film I caught in that series was “The Blues Brothers,” but if memory serves me correctly that screening was very well attended.
I remember in the late 1980s/early 1990s going to see the Abel Gance’s “Napolean” at RCMH. Carmen Coppolla conducted a full ochestra if memory serves me correctly.
And I remember attending that same film series that ran in the summer of ‘97 that someone above mentioned. The only film I caught in that series was “The Blues Brothers,” but if memory serves me correctly that screening was very well attended.
Ah. The Adonis. That was the name of the theatre. I remember when they built the Worldwide Plaza, which I think is the site of the old Madison Square Garden or the version of the Garden that was used just before the new Garden opened on 33rd Street. I can add to the vignette about the contretemps between the Worldwide & the Adonis. The gentlemen who was later murdered in the Bronx was the partner in charge of his white shoe law firm’s move into the Worldwide Plaza. When the Worldwide opened, Times Square wasn’t the theme park it is now and one of the conditions that the law firm stipulated was that the Adonis, on the adjoining block, had to close and I believe William Zeckendorf, the builder of Worldwide Plaza, bought the site the Adonis was on.
I have jogged and walked by this address for years and I am flabbergasted that the the garage was at one time a movie theatre. I would have never guessed. I had heard that at one time the square, the confluence of Astoria Blvd., Newtown Avenue & 21st Street was the center of Astoria. In looking at the buildings earlier this afternoon, I can understand why one would think the moving company building was the theatre. It looks a lot more like a theatre than the repair garage.
When I lived in New Haven I remember a first-run multi-plex on Dixwell Avenue. I never went, but one distinguishing aspect of the shopping center it was situated in was an asphalt sculpture of a car or several cars parked in a parking lot. There was a disco right across the street.
I remember when I first moved to NYC in March of ‘82, the stretch of 14th Street east of Union Square was seedy. You couldn’t even walk in Union Square Park and the hulk of Klein’s Department Store stood on the northeast corner of Park Avenue South & 14th Street. The hulk of the Jefferson Theatre still stood, but I don’t remember the Palladium before it was the Palladium. I remember Julius Pool Hall, on the second floor of a building near the Palladium. You walked up a steep flight of stairs to get up there.
I don’t think you can blame NYU for the demise of Luchow’s. Luchow’s briefly moved back to the Times Square area before closing for good. This was in the early-to-mid eighties, perhaps even before the Palladium Club opened.
Do you by any chance have the time(s) “Patton” is playing? I have only seen it on video and am chomping at the bit to see it on the big screen. I need to know so I can schedule my Tribeca Film Festival going around this screening. The Loew’s Jersey City web site doesn’t have the new schedule posted yet.
I’ve been going out to the Loew’s Jersey City for several years now. I don’t know why more New Yorkers don’t make the trek. It is a 20-minute PATH ride from Penn Station and then directly across the street from the PATH station.
I was out there most recently for the “Rocky” screening, a movie, I’m sad to say, doesn’t stand the test of time. Hard to believe this one bagged a Best Picture Oscar.
I think the volunteers at the LJC deserve all the credit in the world because this on-going restoral is very much an on-going effort.
When I lived in New Haven from ‘80 to '82 I used to go to a $1.00 theatre in Hamden all the time. It was mostly second run stuff, but occasionally they would open a film hear. I remember being blown away when I caught Louis Malle’s Atlantic City. I think the theatre was on a road that ran paralell to Dixwell. I would drive down Dixwell Avenue through a dingy part of New Haven and Hamden then would take a left coming from New Haven. This theatre was right next to a nice, neighborhood bar we would adjourn to after the film. I forget the name of this place, but have fond memories.
There is a reference to this theatre in Billy Crystal’s “Mr. Saturday Night” (1992). I wasn’t sure if the Pitkin reference was fictional or real when mentioned, but this where Crystal and his brother in the film, David Paymer, got their start.
Someone should hip the “Village Voice” to the fact that this is no longer a 16-‘plex, but an 11-'plex and it has been for at least a year. The VV still lists this as an 16-plex.
The only time I have even been even near this theatre is for the annual Tribeca Fests and when I was there last year the five theatres had already been closed and it was a weird and gloomy experience riding those escalators up, up and up before reaching the floors with the screens.
One funny story I have was at the first Tribeca Film Fest for “The Stone Reader.” In the middle of the film the projectionist must have gotten reels mixed up because a reel or part of the film was dropped. The director, fortunately, was in the house and immediately races up the aisle and goes to the back of the theatre and starts banging on the window at the projection booth to get the projectionist’s attention. Needless to say, the problem was fixed.
Another ‘plex that seems to be located in the middle of nowhere is Loew’s W. 34th Street 'plex between Eighth & Ninth Avenues. And that Kip’s Bay 'plex on Second Avenue in the twenties is also off the beaten track.
I don’t know what the Regal people were thinking when they built a 16-screen ‘plex not only way downtown, but just about as far west as you can go. It is west of West Street.
Boy, Trans Luxe must have operated this theatre for about a minute. I thought I was hallucinating, but I vaguely remember a listing for “Gone With the Wind” here, but I never went.
I’ll be attending the Tribeca Film Festival starting next week and, time permitting, I’ll take a swing by the South Street Seaport and see what is up with this building.
I too attended “Legal Eagles” at the UA 8th Street ‘plex back when it originally released. I remember wanted to go to the FF when it was still on Watts Street that night and whatever was playing that night — maybe “Chinatown” — sold out so I opted for LE. The line was around the block.
I didn’t go to the UA 8th Street much even when I lived in the Village from ‘82 to '87, but over the years I would tend to go there on Thursday nights for the late screenings because it seemed films about to close always seemed to play at the UA 8th Street last. I remember seeing Van Peebles’ “Panther,” The Coen Brothers' “Hudsucker Proxy” and “The St. of Ft. Washington” at that theatre.
I asked my mother and my aunt about a Jerry Lewis Cinema in North Kingstown. I could have sworn that as a kid I caught a movie there, but I may be confusing it with another theatre. My mother didn’t know, but my aunt lived in North Kingston and here’s her recollection:
“There was indeed a movie theatre in NK but I think it was where the old CARDI furniture store was located just outside of Quonset Naval Base. I do remember those theatres and no one thought they would last. I didn’t think HE would last after I saw him last time! Poor guy………..”
I remember this as the Four Seasons. Last time I went there, around ‘02, it was in its current second-run phase and they canceled the screening I want to attend. I think it was “The Castle” with Redford, Gandolfini & Ruffalo. I missed it on its first run.
I also went here for the first time back in 1994 to see an independent film called WHERE THE RIVER RUNS NORTH. Rip Torn was in this and an Indian actress I believe named Tantoo Cardinal or something like that. I remember I was surprised a film live WTRRN would even play in a ‘plex like this.
I never would have guessed that this catering hall was at one time a movie house. I’ve walked by numerous times over the years. That means at one time there were three movie houses west of the subway line/31st Street, the Meriden Square, the Strand and the Crescent. The Strand is the only building that obviously was at one time a movie theatre.
There isn’t much retail business west of the subway line, particularly the further west you walk. There is quite a bit of construction of large apartment buildings on 21st Street from Broadway to Newtown Road/Astoria Blvd. and along Astoria Blvd. right around where the Crescent was once situated.
I haven’t seen any films here, but have attended several jazz concerts and I noticed on my tickets stubs that I was being charged a $1 “facility fee” on top of the ticket price. Maybe they could use the proceeds from this “facility fee” to clean up the murals. I did see that Rolling Stones giant screen film back in the eighties or nineties or whenever it came out. I remember they temporarily ripped out some seats to put in equipment.
My, bad.
The Screening Room closed in 2003 or 2004. It wasn’t even open in ‘93 and '94.
While I am here and writing about downtown, isn’t there a cinema or at least a cinema building in the South Street Seaport. I don’t know what it is being used for, if anything. I think it may have been used as a revival house for about a minute in the 80s or 90s because I think I vaguely remember “Gone With the Wind” screening here (I didn’t go). I also could be hallucinating.
I used to go here often when it was both a first-run house then a discount theatre. It was a good place to see a film twice, the second time not having to pay full fare or a place to catch a film late in its run.
I remember seeing “Seven” for the second time here and I could have sworn they dropped a reel or left out a part of the movie for some reason.
It was wild here when it was a second run house due to huge crowds taking advantage of the low rates. However, it was noisy. It wasn’t exactly an upscale crowd.
Last night time I was in Paris I stayed right around the corner from the famous Mac Mahon. Isn’t this the theatre where the Godards and the Truffauts and the Rohmers received their cinema educations?
I remember catching David Lynch’s “Wild at Heart” here in ‘01 and this guy about three-quarters through the movie gets up from his seat, walks in front of the screen and gives the screen “the bird.” I don’t think he liked the film too much.
Yeah, this is a real movie palace. I caught “Apocalypse Now Redux” the one and only time I patronized this theatre. A branch of the Cinemateque is nearbye, but most of the films in this part of Paris screen dubbed, as opposed to sub-titled, films.
I caught a few films here back on my frequent visits of Paris. It was an interesting policy in that they tend to run the same films every day or every week. There may be five screenings a day here, with a different film playing in repertory. But the films stay and stay and stay for months, if not years. You can see all the film cannisters in the lobby. There looks to be a rather steep staircase or even ladder that leads to the projection booth. It must be fun lugging those film cannisters back and forth.
A nice little theatre, right near the Gardens due Luxenbourg.
I caught Wenders' “Paris, Texas”, Derek Jarman’s “Carravaggio” and Ken Loach’s “Family Life” at this theatre.
I remember in the late 1980s/early 1990s going to see the Abel Gance’s “Napolean” at RCMH. Carmen Coppolla conducted a full ochestra if memory serves me correctly.
And I remember attending that same film series that ran in the summer of ‘97 that someone above mentioned. The only film I caught in that series was “The Blues Brothers,” but if memory serves me correctly that screening was very well attended.
I remember in the late 1980s/early 1990s going to see the Abel Gance’s “Napolean” at RCMH. Carmen Coppolla conducted a full ochestra if memory serves me correctly.
And I remember attending that same film series that ran in the summer of ‘97 that someone above mentioned. The only film I caught in that series was “The Blues Brothers,” but if memory serves me correctly that screening was very well attended.
Looks like it will be a long day for me in Jersey City on Saturday, April 30. Hello Jersey City, goodbye Tribeca. Any good restaurant recommendations?
Looks like it will be a long day for me in Jersey City on Saturday, April 30. Hello Jersey City, goodbye Tribeca. Any good restaurant recommendations?
Ah. The Adonis. That was the name of the theatre. I remember when they built the Worldwide Plaza, which I think is the site of the old Madison Square Garden or the version of the Garden that was used just before the new Garden opened on 33rd Street. I can add to the vignette about the contretemps between the Worldwide & the Adonis. The gentlemen who was later murdered in the Bronx was the partner in charge of his white shoe law firm’s move into the Worldwide Plaza. When the Worldwide opened, Times Square wasn’t the theme park it is now and one of the conditions that the law firm stipulated was that the Adonis, on the adjoining block, had to close and I believe William Zeckendorf, the builder of Worldwide Plaza, bought the site the Adonis was on.
I have jogged and walked by this address for years and I am flabbergasted that the the garage was at one time a movie theatre. I would have never guessed. I had heard that at one time the square, the confluence of Astoria Blvd., Newtown Avenue & 21st Street was the center of Astoria. In looking at the buildings earlier this afternoon, I can understand why one would think the moving company building was the theatre. It looks a lot more like a theatre than the repair garage.
When I lived in New Haven I remember a first-run multi-plex on Dixwell Avenue. I never went, but one distinguishing aspect of the shopping center it was situated in was an asphalt sculpture of a car or several cars parked in a parking lot. There was a disco right across the street.
Did this theatre even have a marquee? I don’t think so. This one is a real obscurity.
I remember when I first moved to NYC in March of ‘82, the stretch of 14th Street east of Union Square was seedy. You couldn’t even walk in Union Square Park and the hulk of Klein’s Department Store stood on the northeast corner of Park Avenue South & 14th Street. The hulk of the Jefferson Theatre still stood, but I don’t remember the Palladium before it was the Palladium. I remember Julius Pool Hall, on the second floor of a building near the Palladium. You walked up a steep flight of stairs to get up there.
I don’t think you can blame NYU for the demise of Luchow’s. Luchow’s briefly moved back to the Times Square area before closing for good. This was in the early-to-mid eighties, perhaps even before the Palladium Club opened.
It sounds like it was. Thanx! I have many good memories of this place. And that $1.00 admission fee really hit the spot.
Do you by any chance have the time(s) “Patton” is playing? I have only seen it on video and am chomping at the bit to see it on the big screen. I need to know so I can schedule my Tribeca Film Festival going around this screening. The Loew’s Jersey City web site doesn’t have the new schedule posted yet.
I’ve been going out to the Loew’s Jersey City for several years now. I don’t know why more New Yorkers don’t make the trek. It is a 20-minute PATH ride from Penn Station and then directly across the street from the PATH station.
I was out there most recently for the “Rocky” screening, a movie, I’m sad to say, doesn’t stand the test of time. Hard to believe this one bagged a Best Picture Oscar.
I think the volunteers at the LJC deserve all the credit in the world because this on-going restoral is very much an on-going effort.
When I lived in New Haven from ‘80 to '82 I used to go to a $1.00 theatre in Hamden all the time. It was mostly second run stuff, but occasionally they would open a film hear. I remember being blown away when I caught Louis Malle’s Atlantic City. I think the theatre was on a road that ran paralell to Dixwell. I would drive down Dixwell Avenue through a dingy part of New Haven and Hamden then would take a left coming from New Haven. This theatre was right next to a nice, neighborhood bar we would adjourn to after the film. I forget the name of this place, but have fond memories.