Holy Crow that view of the Orpheum as the Loweez takes me back!! On the left is a sliver of the Horn & Hardart Automat, which fascinated me as a kid. I remember this Loew’s fondly, but do not remember it ever looking the way it looks as the twin in the second photo. All I remember is that long after the demolition, the space formerly occupied by the Loew’s entrance lobby had become a Coconuts, which is now also gone. All our old neighborhoods are becoming unrecognizable.
Attended a Star Trek showing here on Friday the 22nd. When I arrived at the ticket window I found the showtimes had been changed from what I had just printed out from online (all shows were running 15 minutes later) and the escalator was not working. Enjoyed the movie but the previews and commercials before it were loud and excruciating. HOWEVER…the theater is beautiful, clean and spacious. Lighting is ambient, the carpets mute noise. Picture and sound quality during the film was excellent, and the concession and foyer area are beautiful, and seem unchanged from what I recall back as far as the early 1980s. Thank goodness we still have the Ziegfeld. Over the last 22 years I have only gone to see about 8 or 9 movies here, but I am going to make it a point to get here more often. Not much to look at outside but marvelous within!
This publicity for the Keith’s is great stuff! Is there any possibility at all now, with the surge in renewed interest in this theatre, of getting inside for photo sessions? I wanna go if there are photo forays!!
The legal problems of challenging multiple tenants' apartment leases was probably daunting, so they opted to end a couple of commercial leases instead of many residential ones.
Banks, hospitals, and Rite-Aids abound in NYC while the commercial diversity I remember from decades ago is long gone. If you aren’t a chain store with million-dollar backing, good luck finding retail space. But we just keep on worshiping the wealthy developers and giving them whatever they want! A bland, mall-like city will be the ultimate result.
Once at this main page, key in Beekman Theatre under Search All Collections at the upper right, and the list of images comes up. They are beautiful B&W images.
Just passed by this theatre today, I was glad to see that it is reopened. Doesn’t look any different except for the new Beekman Theatre logo on the old signage. The medical building on the site of the original Beekman is nearly complete.
“Church members held a special ceremonial service last Sunday where they burned the decades-old porn, saying that they were making the unholy property holy. Firefighters oversaw the blaze.”
If the firefighters are representatives of the state, and were present at a religious group’s pornburn, is not the issue of church/state separation raised? Would this fire department oversee the blaze if the church was burning copies of Harry Potter, Plato, the Qu'ran, or The Diary of Anne Frank?
SWC thanks for those was-is images, they are very poignant indeed. I am amazed so much still remains, though so much has been ruined. Also thanks for those brightened images that were originally dark, I tried this myself in Photoshop but could not achieve the clarity you did.
Recently the company I work for hired one of the auditoriums here to have its pretentious annual meeting where the whole company gets into one room and celebrates itself and expects even its lowest-paid employees to service the corporate crevices with worship and adoration. I fully intended to hide in the back row and flee after 5 minutes but to my horror I found myself in the front row in the thick of the orgy of corporate self-stimulation onstage, and could not escape until it was over. I blanked my mind in order to survive the terrible occasion but do remember that the CEO’s fly was open. I had a front-seat view, and giggled throughout.
The theater is so changed from when it was Worldwide that it is unrecognizable. All that remains familiar is the mall-like layout. Gone are the expanses of carpet and the mood lighting I recall from before Worldwide became a discount sub-run house. The floors are now shiny concrete. The walls are metal and glass. Lighting was harsh. It was like being inside the Death Star, or a post-modern industrial art museum.
Thanks for that photo of a wonderful old lost nabe moviehouse. I love that one set of those door-pulls visible in the image are now in my living room on the trunk I use as a coffee table:
They are just too enormous and heavy to put onto a piece of furniture like a TV armoire. Their weight would either pull the armoire over or tear the doors right off.
NYC grew into a bland financial disneyfied capital. The vibrant cultural old days are gone and it’s just bland, boring rich and the urban poor. Affordable housing is out, and everyone knows it. Proper balance. Yeah, right.
That building on Queensboro Plaza had a grand facade indeed, it is a shame to see it go. The web site forgotten-ny mentions that the beautiful murals on the building disappeared a few years back. I snapped a pic of the site from the stranded N train last week or the week before:
QBP is rapidly developing with condos and rentals…for the wealthy, of course. If the RKO Keith’s was sitting empty in the QBP area instead of Flushing, it would be bulldozed for sure to make way for luxury housing.
When I was a kid in the 1960s and 70s my family drove down from NYC to spend summers with my dad’s parents in Houston. I remember it was always fun to go the the Northline Mall, and it was a short drive from my grandparent’s house on Catamore Street. We only attended a couple of movies at this theater and I don’t recall what they were, but I remember many times looking across the parking lot at the building. In the picture the vertical gray stripes on the exterior look much lighter than I remember them. In fact I remember them as nearly black. Sorry to learn it was demolished. Looks like many places from my childhood are disappearing, Astro World is gone and so is my grandfather’s old church on Little York Road. :(
Wow, I wish the streets were that empty all the time! Must have been taken on a Sunday morning.
Holy Crow that view of the Orpheum as the Loweez takes me back!! On the left is a sliver of the Horn & Hardart Automat, which fascinated me as a kid. I remember this Loew’s fondly, but do not remember it ever looking the way it looks as the twin in the second photo. All I remember is that long after the demolition, the space formerly occupied by the Loew’s entrance lobby had become a Coconuts, which is now also gone. All our old neighborhoods are becoming unrecognizable.
Attended a Star Trek showing here on Friday the 22nd. When I arrived at the ticket window I found the showtimes had been changed from what I had just printed out from online (all shows were running 15 minutes later) and the escalator was not working. Enjoyed the movie but the previews and commercials before it were loud and excruciating. HOWEVER…the theater is beautiful, clean and spacious. Lighting is ambient, the carpets mute noise. Picture and sound quality during the film was excellent, and the concession and foyer area are beautiful, and seem unchanged from what I recall back as far as the early 1980s. Thank goodness we still have the Ziegfeld. Over the last 22 years I have only gone to see about 8 or 9 movies here, but I am going to make it a point to get here more often. Not much to look at outside but marvelous within!
What remains of the theatre on the gym floor? Are there decorative moldings, the proscenium arch, etc.?
I wish this current owner would at least allow a photo session so we can all go in and take as many pictures are possible!
View link
Definitely Odd Lot.
I remember “Deep Throat” playing at the United Artists East 85th Street on First Avenue in the early 1970s, but not here at the Trans Lux on Madison.
This publicity for the Keith’s is great stuff! Is there any possibility at all now, with the surge in renewed interest in this theatre, of getting inside for photo sessions? I wanna go if there are photo forays!!
View link
The legal problems of challenging multiple tenants' apartment leases was probably daunting, so they opted to end a couple of commercial leases instead of many residential ones.
Banks, hospitals, and Rite-Aids abound in NYC while the commercial diversity I remember from decades ago is long gone. If you aren’t a chain store with million-dollar backing, good luck finding retail space. But we just keep on worshiping the wealthy developers and giving them whatever they want! A bland, mall-like city will be the ultimate result.
Walked by here today, took this picture of the sign out front:
View link
Passed by here today. Here is the building that replaced the Beekman:
View link
Lost Memory thanks for reposting that link, I remember it from years back on this immense thread. The pics can be seen by going to:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html
Once at this main page, key in Beekman Theatre under Search All Collections at the upper right, and the list of images comes up. They are beautiful B&W images.
Just passed by this theatre today, I was glad to see that it is reopened. Doesn’t look any different except for the new Beekman Theatre logo on the old signage. The medical building on the site of the original Beekman is nearly complete.
“Church members held a special ceremonial service last Sunday where they burned the decades-old porn, saying that they were making the unholy property holy. Firefighters oversaw the blaze.”
If the firefighters are representatives of the state, and were present at a religious group’s pornburn, is not the issue of church/state separation raised? Would this fire department oversee the blaze if the church was burning copies of Harry Potter, Plato, the Qu'ran, or The Diary of Anne Frank?
SWC thanks for those was-is images, they are very poignant indeed. I am amazed so much still remains, though so much has been ruined. Also thanks for those brightened images that were originally dark, I tried this myself in Photoshop but could not achieve the clarity you did.
Found a page with some memories and an etching:
View link
Recently the company I work for hired one of the auditoriums here to have its pretentious annual meeting where the whole company gets into one room and celebrates itself and expects even its lowest-paid employees to service the corporate crevices with worship and adoration. I fully intended to hide in the back row and flee after 5 minutes but to my horror I found myself in the front row in the thick of the orgy of corporate self-stimulation onstage, and could not escape until it was over. I blanked my mind in order to survive the terrible occasion but do remember that the CEO’s fly was open. I had a front-seat view, and giggled throughout.
The theater is so changed from when it was Worldwide that it is unrecognizable. All that remains familiar is the mall-like layout. Gone are the expanses of carpet and the mood lighting I recall from before Worldwide became a discount sub-run house. The floors are now shiny concrete. The walls are metal and glass. Lighting was harsh. It was like being inside the Death Star, or a post-modern industrial art museum.
1955:
View link
How the same site looks today…May 2008:
View link
Very welcome, Michael!
-Dave
Thanks for that photo of a wonderful old lost nabe moviehouse. I love that one set of those door-pulls visible in the image are now in my living room on the trunk I use as a coffee table:
View link
They are just too enormous and heavy to put onto a piece of furniture like a TV armoire. Their weight would either pull the armoire over or tear the doors right off.
NYC grew into a bland financial disneyfied capital. The vibrant cultural old days are gone and it’s just bland, boring rich and the urban poor. Affordable housing is out, and everyone knows it. Proper balance. Yeah, right.
That building on Queensboro Plaza had a grand facade indeed, it is a shame to see it go. The web site forgotten-ny mentions that the beautiful murals on the building disappeared a few years back. I snapped a pic of the site from the stranded N train last week or the week before:
View link
QBP is rapidly developing with condos and rentals…for the wealthy, of course. If the RKO Keith’s was sitting empty in the QBP area instead of Flushing, it would be bulldozed for sure to make way for luxury housing.
When I was a kid in the 1960s and 70s my family drove down from NYC to spend summers with my dad’s parents in Houston. I remember it was always fun to go the the Northline Mall, and it was a short drive from my grandparent’s house on Catamore Street. We only attended a couple of movies at this theater and I don’t recall what they were, but I remember many times looking across the parking lot at the building. In the picture the vertical gray stripes on the exterior look much lighter than I remember them. In fact I remember them as nearly black. Sorry to learn it was demolished. Looks like many places from my childhood are disappearing, Astro World is gone and so is my grandfather’s old church on Little York Road. :(