Well the lobby is gutted to the brick walls and most of the marble is gone. All the seats have been removed from the main floor. And everything has been stripped away so you can see the area where the screen once stood in front.

Warren, thats about what I posted back on Oct. 4th, 2006. Because it’s the last large piece of Times Square left to build. Because if you look at the properties just to the north of the Embassy, it is just two story shops. And would be an easy demolition along with the Embassy property for a large building. Other than the Paramount Building and the building just south of the Palace Theatre. That’s it for building in the Times Square borders. That does not count those two tiny holdouts TGF Calvin Theatreth St. and the small building next to the Virgin Mega Store. But because of the rent and the amount of money needed to restore the theatre to a industry type screening theatre and bring it all back up to codes, it was all about money.
If the owners really wanted it back up and running as a theatre the owners would have worked a deal. But they did not. Our company looked in to it back in 2003.

sounds like they could be gutting it.

Just wanted to mention in case some of you aren’t aware that on the From Script To DVD website we have recently posted a historical reference list of Cinerama presentations in New York City. It includes entries for the Soviet 3-panel films that have been mentioned in a number of postings on this page.

http://www.fromscripttodvd.com/cinerama_nyc.htm

And don’t forget we also have a companion list for Cinerama presentations in Los Angeles.

http://www.fromscripttodvd.com/cinerama_la.htm

I can probably answer two questions here

1 (Did the contractor create new dressing rooms?)

I estimate that he refurbished the dressing rooms that existed there when I was the triplex manager in 1982. There were several dressing rooms backstage, badly dilapidated and storing junk, but ready to be refurbished.

3 (Does the ornamentation remain)

I consider that probably the original ornamentation remains. The balcony was boxded in to create two theatres upstairs, but the original side walls and ceiling were retained. This resulted in a very incoherent look, as the new front wall upstairs was bare boring sheetrock, and the side walls and ceiling were ornamental, with mouldings and chandeliers. The downstairs theatre was entirely original on all walls.

Hi, Ed. I don’t remember much about the ornamental detail, but there was a mezzanine lounge, though I don’t recall that it was as elaborate as shown in the above picture.

Wow… I wonder if ANY of that ornamental detail survives behind false walls that might have been erected when the theater was triplexed! Was any of that stripped away in the ‘50’s, when several deluxe houses on Broadway were “modernized” for the widescreen roadshow era? And what of the mezzanine lounge depicted in the third photo… did it survive the years? This is one of a handful of Times Square theaters that I never made it into… so I have no personal recollections to go by at all.

Just a note here..
I attended the November 26,1971 solo concert by Melanie at the DeMille Theater.. and still have the Peter Max print that was handed out to the first hundred people who came..

A Times article on October 22, 1930, preceded the one Lost Memory alludes to regarding the opening of the Mayfair. In the short blurb, it is revealed that the new theater would seat 2300 patrons and would be managed by Walter Reade. It also states that a policy of continuous performances would begin following the opening night festivities on October 31st.

The November 1 article by Mordaunt Hall – mostly a review of the Amos ‘n’ Andy film “Check and Double Check” – includes the following descriptive passage:

“It is a lavishly decorated, spacious theater with sparkling hangings, wonderfully comfortable seats, roomy aisles and an enormous proscenium arch. It has modernistic ideas in its architecture, with bronze, marble and sculptured plaster. Above the orchestra seats is a highly effective luminous dome. The auditorium, which includes the orchestra, loges and mezzanine, seats 2,300.”

The article goes on to praise the “special thermostatic control” with theater ventilation, cooling and heating controled by a turn of an “electric switch.” Further, “not a footfall could be heard on the thickly carpeted floor. The plush covered seats were very comfortable, and more than one tall man with long legs commented on the space in the cross aisles.”

As for the presentation itself… After the opening speech from Will Hayes and some introductions, “the house was darkened, and while the Stars and Stripes floated on a huge screen, said to be 22 by 24 feet, a baritone singer rendered ‘The Star Spangled Banner.’ Then came amusing and interesting newsreel topics and, wonder of wonders, there was no further delay in bringing ‘Check and Double Check’ to the same giant screen.”

Perhaps the office space on two sides of the building in addition to the shops on the ground level generate enough revenue to make the owner in no hurry to sell. Remember, they added shops in the lobby area that go all the way to the back wall of the auditorium when they triplexed the space. Perhaps those in the offices have long-term leases as well. When I worked there I was always curious about what was in the office space above the booth, since it sounded at times as if there were a bowling alley up there.
I had another thought about the amount of stage space that I had forgotten. I was in the theatre when it was the DeMille for “Shoes of the Fisherman” a 70mm roadshow. I went up to the booth, and noted that the lighting panel was up there, not backstage. In addition to the two Local #306 projectionists, there was a Local #1 stagehand to bring the lights up and down, and presumably open and close the house curtain (assuming there wasn’t another stagehand doing it by hand backstage). That would indicate limited stage space backstage for a resistance type dimmer board. The only other theatre on Broadway that I can recall as having the same set-up with the light board in the booth was the Criterion. Even at Loew’s State 1 after the twinning, the stagehand operated the lights and curtain from backstage.

EdSolero, I was in the theatre when it was being triplexed and remember the contractor being very proud of the dressing room facilities he had made for the strippers who were supposed to perform. The house also had a runway down the middle (shades of the Columbia — everything old is new again!) When the city balked at having a porno triplex with a live show added to the plethora of porno operations already in existence at the time, the runway was removed and the theatre reverted to film. I remember standing on the stage trying to determine the maximum width of the screen image by looking at the projection port,and then walking left and right until it was blocked by the walls of the two upstairs theatres. As I recall, the stage wasn’t very deep, but deep enough for the girls to come out and work the runway. I don’t know whether the dressing rooms the contractor referred to were original, or whether he carved out an area for them backstage — I suspect the latter.

Thanks for that one, RobertR… particularly for the supporting feature. I’m a big fan of Hammer films and their Dracula series. This was the last of the original cycle of Christopher Lee films in that series which were all direct sequels to the 1958 “Horror of Dracula”. Later that year, Lee was in the standalone “Scars of Dracula” which appeared in American theaters on a double bill with a sort of black-comedy bit of revisionism entitled “Horror of Frankenstien”… any ads in your stash for that twin bill?

Also looking for ads for Lee’s last time in the cape, “Count Dracula and His Vampire Bride” which was released in late 1978 and was the film for which I was lured into the honky-tonk underworld of the Times Square and 42nd Street grind houses for the very first time.