Gramercy Theater
127 E. 23rd Street,
New York,
NY
10010
127 E. 23rd Street,
New York,
NY
10010
11 people
favorited this theater
Showing 51 - 75 of 104 comments
Thanks for the photo. I used to pass under that marquee everyday when I went to college (I went to Baruch for a few years). I used to get out of the subway at Madison Square and 23rd St, and walk to Lexington and 23rd….
That year, movies spent so much time there. Instead of the normal standard letters on the marquee, they would use actual logo letters from the film they were playing. For example, I rememer “Three Men and a Little Lady” playing there for almost a month, and it had the actual font and style of the movie name as it appears on the posters on the marquee. Fantasia by disney also was there for over a month that year. i think it was 1990.
Very nice! it’s a shame it’s not going to be a movie theater anymore, but at least it will still be a theater, even if a concert hall. That’s gotta be better than another Walgreens on the marquee….
Live Nation is in the process of renovating the former Gramercy Theatre in NYC into a 600-capacity nightclub that will begin hosting concerts in January, according to the New York Times.
Any news? The For Sale sign is no longer on the marquee.
I think this theater status should be changed to closed! It looks abandoned and nothing has played there in well over a year.
I hope they are able to save this little theater, as opposed to it being converted to retail space.
The Available / For Sale sign is still on the marquee of the Gramercy theatre.
The Gramercy was also a motion picture theater at 310 1st Avenue that seated 540 people. I wish there were more information on this theater!
When we operated it as a movie house the marquee was stainless steel, Roundabout ‘antiqued’ it – like a piece of furniture.
The Roundabout Theatre ran it’s off-Broadway productions at the Gramercy for a couple of seasons around 2000-2001 after Moss evicted them from the Criterion Center in the Bow Tie building on Times Square to make room for Toys ‘R’ Us. The Roundabout has since made a permanent off-Broadway home in the re-dubbed Laura Pels Theater on W. 46th (formerly a complex called the American Place Theater) since the 2002/03 season. Roundabout more famously (on this site, anyway) has made the restored Selwyn Theater on 42nd Street (now dubbed the American Airlines Theater) it’s flagship Broadway house and also maintains a permanent legit stage in Studio 54 (the former Gallo Opera House), which it plans on refurbishing and modernizing while keeping its “distressed” ambience preserved.
Anyway… I drove past the Gramercy the other day and did not notice the “For Sale by Owner” sign on the marquee – which is not to say it still isn’t there. Was the marquee always that sort of faded blue color?
Drove by the theatre this past weekend, and a “For Sale by Owner” sign has been posted on the marquee. Someone hurry-up and buy this gem before we lose another one.
jrand412:
if you check with the pizza parlor just to the west of the theatre entrance, they will probably be able to tell you who the landlord is – they are also tenants of the theatre building.
I recently heard that he had been working with Dan Talbot @ New Yorker Films; not sure if that’s still the case or not…
Anybody know what happened to Frank? He was a wonderful programmer.
I am running a small theater company in Chelsea and we are looking for an abandoned or run down theater to perform our next show in this coming Fall. Does anyone know who to contact about the Gramercy Theatre, or any other theater for that matter? check out our website at www.vortextheater.com and hopefully we’ll hear from you soon. thank you.
The Gramercy, run as a Frank Rowley-run revival house, opened I believe on 4/16/93 and closed on 11/14/93 with a double bill of Olivier’s (and Shakespeare’s) “Henry V” and “Waterloo Bridge.” The cinema closed in the middle of the advertised program. I remember “Ship of Fools” was supposed to screen as were those obscure Hitchcock films that he made during WWII. I never did get to see “Ship of Fools” on a big screen. I remember I was at the venue the weekend it opened as a Frank Rowley-run revival house and the weekend it closed. And there were rumors that the theatre was closing before it closed. I still have a Gramercy Theatre T-Shirt too.
Does anyone know who owns the Gramercy now?
Garth may have mismanaged or overspent, but he put tons of money and love into his Cineplex Odeon houses, and it shows. They had curtains and wall decorations and lots of neon and other touches. They weren’t palaces but they were showplaces; Garth was an exhibitor and a showman. Compare him to the bureaucrats who run UA/Regal, with their lack of imagination and dreadful designs. Everytime I’m in the UA 14th Street I expect to hear bus departure announcements.
I thought City Cinemas had the Gramercy when frank was running revival there? Am I remembering wrong?
I believe that the Gramercy was a non-profit. However, they didn’t sell memberships like the Film Forum, MoMA, AMMI and quickly ran into financial difficulties. That was one of its mistakes. I know you could buy books of tickets at a price lower than what you would pay if you bought a single ticket.
I was also baffled by the lack of the success by the Gramercy. After all the hoopla about the closing of first the Regency revival house and then the Biograph, you would have thought there would have been more support for the Gramercy. I remember being surprised that first weekend the Gramercy opened and seeing a mostly empty house.
The guy who ran Cineplex Odeon was a crook and I don’t believe he can step foot in the U.S. without being arrested. His name is Garth Drabinsky and he is Canadian and after getting into all sorts of trouble when he ran Cineplex Odeon into the ground, he resurfaced with Livant, a live theatre company that also got into a lot of hot water. Mike Ovitz, the former head of CAA and “most powerful man in Hollywood” was involved with Livant/Drabinsky as an investor and lost millions. Talk about a guy who lost his karma.
The Biograph closed sometime in September or October of ‘91, hardbop. (I have, somewhere in a box in my closet, an article which ran in the Village Voice at the time, discussing the end of the Biograph’s run and the unpopular reputation Cineplex Odeon was either gaining or cementing at the time amongst NYC moviegoers.)
For several months after Cineplex pulled the plug on the Biograph, Frank Rowley tried to gain traction on a plan to operate a non-profit rep house somewhere in Manhattan; whether or not the manisfestation of that was his operation of the Gramercy I can’t, however, speak to.
I remember going here when it was a first-run house and then I was a regular attendee when it was run by Frank Rowley after Cinemaplex Odeon pulled the plug on the Biograph Cinema on 57th Street (now a supermarket). Frank Rowley, by the way, works for Dan Talbott at the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas on the West Side or did until fairly recently.
I knew the Gramercy wasn’t long for this world when it reopened/was turned into a revival house. Opening day I believe was 4/13/93 and there was a double bill of “Forty-Second Street” and I think “The Gold Diggers of 1933.” I was there for the Saturday night screening on 4/14/93 and the place was empty on its opening weekend. I knew it was doomed then.
I remember when Cinemaplex Odeon closed the Regency, the beloved West Side revival house (it is now a lingerie store)run by Rowley, and turned it into a first run house. The outcry caused Odeon to let Rowley run the Biograph, but after a couple of years they pulled the plug on that and there were petitions et al and Rowley surfaced at the Gramercy after a hiatus (I forget how long it was) between when the Biograph shut and the Gramercy reopened.
The Gramercy of the 50s-60s was considered an “art house” due to eclectic programming, no admittance near the end of a film (unheard of back then, coffee (expresso?) served in the waiting area. The advertising in the narrow windows on both sides of the entrance was usually hand printed with an 8x10" still framed at the bottom. Some of the programming that the NY Times lists in the 50s for the Gramercy (a Rugoff-Becker theater)switches from single bookings to double features, a mix of foreign, sub-run mainstream, Disney, revivals, etc…..“Some Came Running” (Frank Sinatra sub-run)but paired with Jacques Tati “My Uncle”….Stendahl’s “Rouge et Noir”…..Emile Zola’s “Nana”…..“Conquest of Everest” with Richard Todd in “The Assassin”; Disney’s “White Wilderness” & “Legend of Sleepy Hollow”…..“Blue Murder at St Trinians”…..“Wuthering Heights & Grant-Hepburn "Holiday”…..DeSica’s “The Bed” & “Tonights The Night”…..sub-run western “Broken Lance” (Sept 30, 1954), mid 60’s: aforementioned “Two of Us” with “Heart is the Lonely Hunter”…….The Gramercy would switch between single bookings (“The Pawnbroker”, “Cleopatra”, “A Hard Day’s Night”) and double bills(“Secret War of Pvt Frigg” & “Games”). It was a neat alternative to our local RKO on 23rd St and Loew’s Sheridan. Jerry
Both Rugoff’s Cinema V distributing arm and WRO’s Continental Distributing had a distinguished library of cutting edge films. Cinema V distributed the Fireman’s Ball, Loves of a Blonde, Putney Swope, the Two of Us, Accident, Z, State of Seige, among others. Continental released Kwaidan. What became of those film collections?
Good question – and post – Astyanax… and does anyone know why the Walter Reade Organization sold off its theatres (and, perhaps as well, the history of the Walter Reade Organization and how it came to be involved in motion picture exhibition)?