Loew's Capitol Theatre
1645 Broadway,
New York,
NY
10019
1645 Broadway,
New York,
NY
10019
47 people
favorited this theater
Showing 51 - 75 of 1,086 comments
For those who went to the Capitol during its reserved seat days what exactly were the divans? Were they the firsts rows of the mezzanine or loge?
The Paramount had an office building (still existing) which presumably would have helped with costs whereas of course the Roxy and Capitol didn’t. Radio City was destined to go the same way but as we know was saved and still survives. I would imagine that with the huge numbers of tourists visiting the city the Roxy for instance would possibly survive today as a great attraction. Back in the days when these movie palaces were destroyed they relied almost exclusively on New Yorkers as the visitor numbers were a fraction of what they are now. I agree with vindanpar that unbelievably the Times Square area today is even worse than in the 70’s, sounds crazy but sadly it’s true I absolutely hate it.
Hello-
to vindanpar. you certainly make a number of valid points. to which a question- the Astor was a moderate sized movie theater whereas the Roxy and Paramount were HUGE. wouldn’t you say HUGE theaters like the Roxy and Paramount were doomed the second tvs became commonplace in the American home?
I believe the decline of midtown and Times Square began with the destruction of all the great buildings that were its anchor. Starting with the Roxy but really accelerating in the mid 60s.You had Penn Station, the old Met, the Paramount, the Astor, the Claridge, and the Capitol. People were avoiding the area because there was bleak construction going on seemingly on every other block, the streets were getting darker because of the skyscrapers going up and the middle class had no reason to go to midtown any more for entertainment bringing in the criminals and sleaze that the 70s an 80s were famous for. Of course the Disneyfication of the area that was to follow was even far worse than that. I was stunned that anything could be worse, but it was.
Yes, when I was last in NYC I had to stand on the opposite corner and tried to imagine how wonderful it must have looked compared to now. The book “The best remaining seats” by Ben Hall celebrates the Roxy with good illustrations including the one with Gloria Swanson. It makes almost painful reading to think the “Cathedral of the Motion Picture” could not have been saved for future generations.
The Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, NY has a very detailed model of the Roxy’s auditorium. It must have really been glorious.
And the Roxy too. I was too young to ever go there, but I was aware of it. I remember my dad pointing out to me what corner it stood on. There’s a famous photo of Gloria Swanson standing in the ruins of the Roxy during its demolition.
Hard to believe it’s over half a century since the Capitol was destroyed. The demise of the Paramount a few years earlier really was the beginning of the end for the Times Square district as a great centre of entertainment. When I was a kid who would have thought that in my lifetime every one of the great Movie Palaces would be destroyed.
I just added a photo of the ad from 6/15/1968.
1:30, 5 and 8:30 on weekends. They later added a midnight show every Saturday night.
1:30? Was there a late afternoon showing? I never knew 2001 went the 3 a day roadshow route. I believe Sound of Music never did it.
Today is the day I saw 2001 at the Capitol. It was the 1:30 pm show, so I know where I was 53 years ago this very minute. I’m grateful I got to see that theater and its amazing screen just that one time.
Thanks, you just caught me where I live: the day-to-day minutiae of operating a great movie palace. No detail too small!
Hello-
to MarkDHite- I thank you replying to my posts about HTWWW in an intelligent adult manner. all replies should be written in such a manner.
I concur with Mike (saps). Too bad it will never again be THAT screen. Even 90% of it.
Hello-
to Archive, thanks for the detailed info. I was lucky enough
to have seen 2001 twice during its roadshow engagement here.
I hope we will soon have the opportunity to see it again on a big screen
I did have that issue of Life magazine. In fact, I still have it. It’s been my favorite movie since I first saw it, and the way things are now, I don’t think it will ever be replaced.
Thanks, Archive. Do you have the percentage of screen fill for Planet of the Apes, the final 35mm film to play the Capitol?
For 52 years, my memory of 2001 on that screen was the most overwhelmingly huge movie experience of my life. Now I find out it was only filling 90%! 🙂
That’s great info, Archive! Mind if I ask what the source is? Just curious.
The Capitol was being marketed as Loew’s Cinerama at the time, with “How the West Was Won” running nearly 40 weeks by the Thanksgiving holiday. Seating capacity was reported as 1,552 in trade journals… I never attended a Broadway stage play or reserved-seat movie that started exactly at the time stated on tickets.
If you look at the timings of the overture and exit music, the time between shows is probably more like 22 minutes. Pretty tight turnaround, no doubt, but the 5:15 show probably rarely sold out and there was a healthy 40 minute break before the evening show to pick up trash and straighten up.
The overture and exit music played with the curtain closed and the lights up, so that was extra time to get people in and out. I’ll bet the Capitol, designed as it was for 5000 people, emptied pretty fast.
Hello-
to Ala A. thanks again for your reply. you are probably right that by Thanksgiving 1963 HTWWW was no longer selling out. since this was a roadshow engagement everyone had to leave. I have seen the ads for roadshow engagements in the photo section of the other six theaters the studios used. often for Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas depending on the length of the film they would always schedule what I would deem sufficient time to get the old audience out and the new audience in. with HTWWW this theater was kind of cutting it close with only 15mins.
Cinerama seating was 1552 and by Thanksgiving that year “WEST” was probably no longer selling out.