I don’t know if he is ‘from’ NY originally, but he’s been around for years. He was with Joe Salah and them up in the Angelika’s corporate office on Green St., where they were also involved in distribution of videos.
The landlord there is psychotic, so either he got a bug up his butt about some minor point of the operation, or Clearview got tired of his antics and walked away from the place. The terms for that theatre are that he is a partner in the business – he was with Loews after the initial lease ran out and he was with Crown. I’m sure it was the same deal with Clearview.
I was snooping around the formerly beautiful Loew’s Yorktown 1&2 today, and discovered the following: The International House of Prayer seems to be confined to the lobby area. The main entrance doors are covered over with paper, but on one the paper had fallen off and you could see there has been a wall built across inside, thereby sealing those doors. The entry is on the west side of the building. The former auditorium houses an enterprise known as Yorktown Surplus. It is basically a junk store, selling items salvaged from buildings that were being demolished such as store fixtures, old computers, cash registers AND, lo and behold, the projection automation units and popcorn warmers from the Westgate Mall Cinema. Near the entry to the place remnants of the dividing wall, which was mostly removed, can be seen. Above that are the projection portholes. The original plaster ceiling of the auditorium is still there, though in the former stage area it has been removed, and the roof structure is visible. Also in the stage area are stairs going into a basement below the new flat floor, but I don’t know how extensive the basement is. The walls are stripped down to the bricks. The church was locked so I couldn’t see how that looks, but from what I did see the place is an overall mess.
It looks good! They have removed the anodized aluminum and exposed the architect’s original marquee design and incorporated the Daktronics' digital display into it better than Loews did. The Regal letters on the blade appear to be fiberoptic, as were the Loews letters, changinig colors and effect. The signs on the marquee look like they are neon.
Ron Salters: The new stage house is on the State, not the Palace. The Palace has no place to expand to, it is bounded on the south by Euclid Ave, on the east by E 17 St, on the north by the State auditorium and on the west by the State lobby. Behind the back wall of the Palace stage is the back wall of the State auditorium.
Chuck 1231: When I worked here as an usher, I’m recalling that there was a fairly large room that we used as an ushers room off of a landing of the stairway going to the top of the balcony on the east side. It had a window with a view of 17th St. Though I don’t recall specifically, I would assume there is another similar room on the west side, since the auditorium is more or less symmetrical. Perhaps one of these rooms was used by Loew’s for their Regional Manager.
When I was existed in Flint in the mid-70s the Eastland Mall was an ABC theatre. When Henry Plitt took over ABC I don’t know if he kept this or sold it off. ABC had another theatre north of town, on Pierson Rd. as I recall, but I don’t remember the name of it.
And as marquees go, this one is pretty high off the ground. It would have to be a really BIG truck, like the huge ones used in strip-mining, to crash into it.
Yes, all that could have been done in the beginning. The point was to illustrate what a dirtbag he is. I believe Mrs. Reade was willing to pay for the painting, so why not sell it to her and make some money instead of throwing it in the trash? If this was an isolated incident it could be chalked up to miscommunication or an oversight, but it wasn’t an isolated situation – this guy went out of his way to f**k over people for sport.
And yes, they did build and renovate some good theatres, but they didn’t maintain them after they were built, with many becoming no better or worse than those of other chains, organizations he criticized for not knowing how to run a theatre.
The New York State Board of Censors?? While I wasn’t around in those days, I never would have thought that New Yorkers were so delicate and unaware of the concepts of adultery and murder that they had to be protected from the movies by a State board of censors. I’d heard of various private organizations like the Legion of Decency and a few others, but why was the State involved in that stuff? It sounds very ominous to me.
When Walter Reade had this theatre, in the Coronet side the main lobby contained a very large abstract painting against the back wall. I was told that when the self-appointed Savior-of-the-movie-theatre-business from Toronto took over and announced plans for the renovation, Dolly (Mrs. Walter, Jr.) Reade, having been instrumental in the commissioning and installation of the painting, asked the afore-mentioned self-appointed Saviour-of-the-movie-theatre-business for it and was refused. Instead, when the renovation finally got under way, it ended up in the trash.
Does Cinema Treasures actually delete the word ‘girl’ from the sentence ‘Linda, Bruce Wayne’s girl, surprised by Daka in his underground hideout:’?? Let’s see….
If you go on 85th Street btwn 2 & 3 Aves. on the north side of the street is a colonnaded building with ‘Musicians Union Hall’ or something like that carved in the stone at the top. It was re-purposed as the original auditorium of the 86th St. East theatre, now divided into 4 auditoriums, 2 on the street level and 2 upstairs.
This was the second Auto Drive-In on the site. The original one had the screen tower at the north end of the property, right at the entrance with the back facing Brookpark Rd. It was a substantially built masonry structure, I recall the side facing the road was pink with big blue letters spelling out Auto Drive-In. I can’t remember if the attraction board was was there or if it was free-standing on the ground. In the 1960s on a Palm Sunday there were tornadoes went through and knocked over the screen tower. It fell towards the street and broke apart, there were bricks and cinder blocks all over the place, even in the street. It was then closed for the rest of the season. When they rebuilt they put the screen tower in the southwest corner of the property and reconfigured the parking field and built a new projection/concession building, all oriented to the new screen location.
It was originally owned by a local chainlette called Community Circuit Theatres. They sold the business to Loews, who triplexed it in the late 70s or early 80s. The property remained owned by the Lefkowitch family, who had been the principles in the Community Citcuit theatre operation.
I think this has been photoshopped – the signs are a little too neat and crisp, and unless there has been a development that I missed, marquee letters don’t come in upper and lower case. It might be a computer generated rendering from a sign company.
The other day I was walking across town on the south side of 34th Street. Almost next door to the Empire State Bldg. there is the Herald Towers apartments, which was formerly the McAlpin Hotel. I noticed the lobby had been renovated so I looked inside and lo and behold hanging from the ceiling there are 3 of the artichoke chandeliers from the upper lobby of Cinema I. The copper leaves have been painted white. I asked the doorman where they got them and of course he didn’t know. These have to be from the Cinema, I believe they were custom made for the theatre and not an ‘off-the-shelf’ item at the Home Depot. Go there and have a look, see what you think.
Scare: The old safe in the office came from the East Side Drive-In when it closed. It had been purchased for the drive-in after someone broke in during the night and jackhammered a floor safe out of the concrete and took it. At the Mayland it was in use until the new one, in the office closet, was purchased in about 1983 as i recall. There were also 2 wall safes in the north wall of the office that couldn’t be locked. I took the doors off them and covered them over when I put up the paneling on the walls in 1974.
EdSolero- Re: your 11/24 comments on the marquee, they re-did the marquee at the Criterion on Times Square in the same manner – United Artists across the top and ‘The Broadway’ on the bottom. I never knew what that was suppose to mean as they continued to advertise in the paper as United Artists Criterion.
I don’t know if he is ‘from’ NY originally, but he’s been around for years. He was with Joe Salah and them up in the Angelika’s corporate office on Green St., where they were also involved in distribution of videos.
I forget his name, but he was the booker for the Angelika in the pre-City Cinema days.
He’s probably referring to the Paris – the same landlord owns the Paris and the NY Twin (oops! excuse me! I mean the Beekman 1-2).
The landlord there is psychotic, so either he got a bug up his butt about some minor point of the operation, or Clearview got tired of his antics and walked away from the place. The terms for that theatre are that he is a partner in the business – he was with Loews after the initial lease ran out and he was with Crown. I’m sure it was the same deal with Clearview.
I was snooping around the formerly beautiful Loew’s Yorktown 1&2 today, and discovered the following: The International House of Prayer seems to be confined to the lobby area. The main entrance doors are covered over with paper, but on one the paper had fallen off and you could see there has been a wall built across inside, thereby sealing those doors. The entry is on the west side of the building. The former auditorium houses an enterprise known as Yorktown Surplus. It is basically a junk store, selling items salvaged from buildings that were being demolished such as store fixtures, old computers, cash registers AND, lo and behold, the projection automation units and popcorn warmers from the Westgate Mall Cinema. Near the entry to the place remnants of the dividing wall, which was mostly removed, can be seen. Above that are the projection portholes. The original plaster ceiling of the auditorium is still there, though in the former stage area it has been removed, and the roof structure is visible. Also in the stage area are stairs going into a basement below the new flat floor, but I don’t know how extensive the basement is. The walls are stripped down to the bricks. The church was locked so I couldn’t see how that looks, but from what I did see the place is an overall mess.
It looks good! They have removed the anodized aluminum and exposed the architect’s original marquee design and incorporated the Daktronics' digital display into it better than Loews did. The Regal letters on the blade appear to be fiberoptic, as were the Loews letters, changinig colors and effect. The signs on the marquee look like they are neon.
Ron Salters: The new stage house is on the State, not the Palace. The Palace has no place to expand to, it is bounded on the south by Euclid Ave, on the east by E 17 St, on the north by the State auditorium and on the west by the State lobby. Behind the back wall of the Palace stage is the back wall of the State auditorium.
Chuck 1231: When I worked here as an usher, I’m recalling that there was a fairly large room that we used as an ushers room off of a landing of the stairway going to the top of the balcony on the east side. It had a window with a view of 17th St. Though I don’t recall specifically, I would assume there is another similar room on the west side, since the auditorium is more or less symmetrical. Perhaps one of these rooms was used by Loew’s for their Regional Manager.
When I was existed in Flint in the mid-70s the Eastland Mall was an ABC theatre. When Henry Plitt took over ABC I don’t know if he kept this or sold it off. ABC had another theatre north of town, on Pierson Rd. as I recall, but I don’t remember the name of it.
And as marquees go, this one is pretty high off the ground. It would have to be a really BIG truck, like the huge ones used in strip-mining, to crash into it.
The Chelsea is ranked high because Clearview, not Cineplex, is is running the place and maintaining it.
Nope, I never worked for them but knew plenty of people who did, I was in the business and saw what was going on there.
Yes, all that could have been done in the beginning. The point was to illustrate what a dirtbag he is. I believe Mrs. Reade was willing to pay for the painting, so why not sell it to her and make some money instead of throwing it in the trash? If this was an isolated incident it could be chalked up to miscommunication or an oversight, but it wasn’t an isolated situation – this guy went out of his way to f**k over people for sport.
And yes, they did build and renovate some good theatres, but they didn’t maintain them after they were built, with many becoming no better or worse than those of other chains, organizations he criticized for not knowing how to run a theatre.
The New York State Board of Censors?? While I wasn’t around in those days, I never would have thought that New Yorkers were so delicate and unaware of the concepts of adultery and murder that they had to be protected from the movies by a State board of censors. I’d heard of various private organizations like the Legion of Decency and a few others, but why was the State involved in that stuff? It sounds very ominous to me.
When Walter Reade had this theatre, in the Coronet side the main lobby contained a very large abstract painting against the back wall. I was told that when the self-appointed Savior-of-the-movie-theatre-business from Toronto took over and announced plans for the renovation, Dolly (Mrs. Walter, Jr.) Reade, having been instrumental in the commissioning and installation of the painting, asked the afore-mentioned self-appointed Saviour-of-the-movie-theatre-business for it and was refused. Instead, when the renovation finally got under way, it ended up in the trash.
Does Cinema Treasures actually delete the word ‘girl’ from the sentence ‘Linda, Bruce Wayne’s girl, surprised by Daka in his underground hideout:’?? Let’s see….
…and the circular sign was put up at the time of the re-build.
If you go on 85th Street btwn 2 & 3 Aves. on the north side of the street is a colonnaded building with ‘Musicians Union Hall’ or something like that carved in the stone at the top. It was re-purposed as the original auditorium of the 86th St. East theatre, now divided into 4 auditoriums, 2 on the street level and 2 upstairs.
This was the second Auto Drive-In on the site. The original one had the screen tower at the north end of the property, right at the entrance with the back facing Brookpark Rd. It was a substantially built masonry structure, I recall the side facing the road was pink with big blue letters spelling out Auto Drive-In. I can’t remember if the attraction board was was there or if it was free-standing on the ground. In the 1960s on a Palm Sunday there were tornadoes went through and knocked over the screen tower. It fell towards the street and broke apart, there were bricks and cinder blocks all over the place, even in the street. It was then closed for the rest of the season. When they rebuilt they put the screen tower in the southwest corner of the property and reconfigured the parking field and built a new projection/concession building, all oriented to the new screen location.
It was originally owned by a local chainlette called Community Circuit Theatres. They sold the business to Loews, who triplexed it in the late 70s or early 80s. The property remained owned by the Lefkowitch family, who had been the principles in the Community Citcuit theatre operation.
I think this has been photoshopped – the signs are a little too neat and crisp, and unless there has been a development that I missed, marquee letters don’t come in upper and lower case. It might be a computer generated rendering from a sign company.
Now that I think of it, I wonder where the other 3 lamps are – there were 6 in the theatre…
The other day I was walking across town on the south side of 34th Street. Almost next door to the Empire State Bldg. there is the Herald Towers apartments, which was formerly the McAlpin Hotel. I noticed the lobby had been renovated so I looked inside and lo and behold hanging from the ceiling there are 3 of the artichoke chandeliers from the upper lobby of Cinema I. The copper leaves have been painted white. I asked the doorman where they got them and of course he didn’t know. These have to be from the Cinema, I believe they were custom made for the theatre and not an ‘off-the-shelf’ item at the Home Depot. Go there and have a look, see what you think.
Scare: The old safe in the office came from the East Side Drive-In when it closed. It had been purchased for the drive-in after someone broke in during the night and jackhammered a floor safe out of the concrete and took it. At the Mayland it was in use until the new one, in the office closet, was purchased in about 1983 as i recall. There were also 2 wall safes in the north wall of the office that couldn’t be locked. I took the doors off them and covered them over when I put up the paneling on the walls in 1974.
Yeah, I was over there the other day and noticed the vertical was out – I wonder if it is intentional, or is it broken?
EdSolero- Re: your 11/24 comments on the marquee, they re-did the marquee at the Criterion on Times Square in the same manner – United Artists across the top and ‘The Broadway’ on the bottom. I never knew what that was suppose to mean as they continued to advertise in the paper as United Artists Criterion.