AMC Empire 25
234 W. 42nd Street,
New York,
NY
10036
234 W. 42nd Street,
New York,
NY
10036
80 people
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So they did a good job then!
They will be converting one of their current auditoriums into the IMAX screen. No new auditorium will be added.
I was there the other day and there were signs around, but no signs of construction. I wonder where the screen will be.
sometime next month according to iMAX’s website, the Digital IMAX Theatre will open at the AMC Empire 25.
I saw the new Woody Allen here with a quiet sophisticated sold out audience who laughed in all the right places and applauded at the end. There is hope for Times Square movie theatres after all.
Afterwards we all scrambled with the escalator shuffle on the way out.
As as adendum to my previous comment….When this theater first opened this escalator area opened into a food court. As a matter of fact, there was a Cinnabons right there and, on several ocassions, I bought one (or more) for the road. At that time,there was plenty of open space and therefore no issue.
Then the food court failed and they took all of the restaurant space and almost all of the food court’s open space and rented it to Buster and Daves. The separation being big glass walls so that you can see everyone eating and playing inside. That’s why there’s a problem now. There is no overflow and I think its a dangerous situation; especially if there is an emergency.
AlAlvarez…..the problem at the AMC is that the area originally created to hold the people as they change escaltors has been severely constricted by glass walls that were built to house more restaurant space for Buster and Dave’s. The back up (when it occurs) now has no overflow area. That’s what creates the potentially dangerous situation especially if people are trying to exit in a hurry as in the case of an actual emergency.
And those stairwells would leave you on 41st. Street across from the Times Building (the one that everyone seems to be climbing these days).
I’ll bet they’re alarmed anyway: Emergency Exit Only.
This being 42nd street, I’m not so sure I want to find those stairs.
ok, again I’m talking about when I go there, which is always on weekday afternoons, when nobody is really on the escalators. I can imagine that on a weekend night ( which you couldn’t pay me to go to) it gets pretty hairy!
I think what bothers me most about it is that almost all of the Friday night crowd standing still on those down escalators are about 25-35 years younger than me. Walking down an escalator is really easy – no strain at all. If only I had the guts to yell out “Gangway! Move it! Gotta catch a bus!” :)
my point is,people who don’t want to walk on an escalator, shouldn’t feel they HAVE to.
The AMC exit escalators appear to have been designed to move the exiting crowd away from the main building in case of fire. The large “holding” areas in between are supposed to handle the overflow when the escalators back up. Human nature is to huddle around the escalator instead, causing a dangerous result.
The buildings department often demand designs that do not conform with human nature. I often experienced this on new builds in NY. Consider the safe distance of the entrance escalators on each floor compared to the exits.
MarkieS, I disagree that escalators are made to stand still. Don’t you get annoyed by people who block the people movers at airports with luggage and stand still?
I would take the stairs down to the ground level in the Empire 25, if I knew where they were! Maybe next time I should go exploring and see if I can find them.
Escalators are made for people who don’t want to walk down stairs. If you don’t like people standing on escalators, then don’t take them. The elevators are quite convenient. This drives me crazy in subways too. People get annoyed on narrow escalators because I won’t walk up. So take the stairs if you want to walk!
The escalator exits would be OK if people would walk down them, but hardly anyone does and they’re too narrow for passing. I’ve missed many a bus to NJ at the Port Authority because of people standing still on all those down escalators.
The elevator is an alternative way to get out, but that can take longer than the escalator just waiting for it to arrive.
Those are my only complaints with the Empire 25. Being located practically across the street from the bus terminal is a nice convenience.
This comment was posted on another message board, but what exactly dies it mean?
>>Just left the 3pm at AMC of the 42nd showing of “TDK” and naturally, I was chanting like a mantra, “Please no idiots beside or in front of us, please no idiots beside or in front of us.” My mantra worked and JUST as the movie was starting a mother and 2 kids walked in and the the kid to my right’s excitement was so palpable, it was infectious. He was so cute.
As the movie continued, I noticed the kid kept darting his eyes towards me. I always eat a simple tray of sushi, (no, no chopsticks or anything bitches, I just like it because it’s easy to eat) but the kid very stealthily unwrapping his food from his bag and every time I looked he would stop and put it back in his bag and start all over again.
I so wanted to buy the whole family something, but I knew that definitely wasn’t the way to go.
The mother was so together, the kids were well behaved. Broke my heart.
.
The problem is that there is not enough space at the “turn around” areas where you switch from one escalator to the other on the floor where Busters and Applebees are located. I’ve seen some very uncomforatable situations when multiple movies let out. I think one escaltor is slower than another resulting in back ups that can lead to a dangerous situation if people panicked. I have never seen this at any other theater.
Whats inadequate about them. The regular escalator sets on the east side of the building and they can turn the ones that you enter on into exits, there are the stairwell exits in the auditoriums and mixed around the waiting areas.
All those huge airport-like waiting areas and the exit patterns are scrutinized by the buildings department before they issue a permit to open. The inadequate AMC exits may have been dictated by the city.
In regards to the exit from the AMC Empire 25: It may have been planed like that by AMC Theatres, Hilton Hotels, and Applebee’s Restaurant for the exit to be like what it is.
If anything, the ‘Stairway to Heaven’ escalator at Lincoln Square is more daunting and that only has a mere thirteen screens.
Yeah, really, what’s all the bitching about? If the escalator is THAT horrible an experience for you, take the elevator!These theaters are convenient and pleasant as far as I’m concerned. Then again, to be fair, I only go on weekday afternoons when crowd control is not an issue.
Ooops! Yes, I agree that Loews Lincoln Square is an exception, but my point was that modern megaplexes aren’t all that different form one another, as a whole and to criticize AMC 25 in this regard was unfair. Thanks.