Just for the record, the final two films booked into the Sutton were ‘Maria Full of Grace’ and ‘We Don’t Live Here Anymore’, both of which were move-overs from the Cinema 1-2-3; the final initial release engagement was ‘Bush’s Brain’, a documentary about G.O.P. (and George W. Bush) political strategist Karl Rove.
According to the web site of the Clarett Group, the company which currently owns the Sutton property, it is scheduled to be cleared within the next few months to make way for Place 57, a 34-story luxury condominium tower. (For the record, the Clarett Group can be contacted at 212.399.2400 or at , while Ismael Leyva Associates, P.C. – the architecture firm responsible for the Sutton’s recent exterior alterations – can be reached at 212.290.1444 or at .)
A partial, pre-renovation image of the Canarsie Theater, accompanied by an article about the unfortunate safety hazard its presumably since-removed marquee was beginning to pose, can be found by clicking on the following link: View link
I always thought that we at Cinema Treasures were part of a community, not an ‘every man/woman for themselves’-type operation; apparently, RidgewoodBill subscribes to the latter theory…
The Olympic, in its final years before it closed sometime around 1997, was often the last stop for films within the Metropolitan Theatres downtown circuit, which, at the time, also included the Orpheum, the Palace, and the State.
Nice move, but let’s see more of the theatre INTERIORS renovated. It’s great that a few of these treasures are being or have been brought back to previous glories (the Orpheum, the Palace, etc.), but there are still far too many that are lying in rot or being misused as swap meets or for other retail uses (the Globe and the noted Roxie, to name a couple) that could be restored for entertainment-based purposes.
One of the essays on the DeadMalls.com Mountain Farms page makes mentions of a Barnes & Noble being open for business as part of what is now a strip shopping center; is it, as per what Ross reported in his September 30, 2001 posting, occupying the former AMC 4-screen multiplex space?
The Royal, due to its classy atmosphere and the quality of the films shown there, is considered by many to be the L.A. equivalent of NYC’s Paris Theatre.
I’m curious to know… does anyone have any memories of having seen movies at the Nova or any memories they’d like to share of the theatre, the people who went or worked there, etc., etc.? What was the interior like? Was it as popular a theatre as the Coliseum on 181st Street? What was its history, beyond its opening as a photoplay house in 1913, Jesus Nova assuming the lease in the early 1980s, and its recent shuttering and conversion into a 59/79/99-cent store? The only time I visited its interior was when I wanted to see what had become of it this past March and I’ve been haunted since by what I saw that day and heartbroken that such a cool, little long-running neighborhood movie house slipped away and just became another retail space…
Translation: Clearview was pushed into selling their Metro Twin lease by the property owner; they wouldn’t have booked ‘Garden State’ for an engagement scheduled to BEGIN August 27th otherwise. If it reopens again, it’ll likely be for the short-term and it’ll probably be an independent who’ll run it, as what happened with the Art Greenwich Twin in 1999-2000 after Loews Cineplex pulled out of that property and the landlord, wanting to maximize his or her profit on the space while waiting for Equinox to settle its property conversion plans with the various neighborhood commissions, ran that space as a non-chain house for its final 16 months of operation. Far more probable in the case of the Metro is that, unless there’s strong community backlash, its time of operation has come to an end.
The Criterion couldn’t have survived after the AMC Empire 25 opened and had already begun to suffer (as did the other Times Square movie houses) after the opening of the Loews 42nd Street E-Walk in November of 1999. Two harsh realities helped contribute to the downfall of the Criterion: studios always want to book their product into the top available venues, and the best ones at that (i.e., ones with stadium seating, etc.), which means that older sites within or close to the same booking zone traditionally become little more than move-over houses or dumping spots for films that stand zero chance of doing bang-up business and of turning any sort of profit. Studios also, quite often, won’t book their product into two sites within the same zone (the E-Walk and Astor Plaza double-bookings being a unique circumstance because of their Times Square location, along with the movie-going crowds drawn to the area; the prestige house the Astor Plaza was – as opposed to the carve-up job the Criterion became; and Loews keeping the revenue the Astor Plaza strong, or at the least, solid, by limiting most of the films it ran in concurrence with the E-Walk to 2-3 week engagements).
(To answer your other question, Mike, the Criterion’s layout, at the end, was as follows: orchestra split left/right – auditoriums 1 and 2; balcony – auditorium 3; basement/former lounge area – auditoriums 4 through 7.)
The final features shown at the Criterion, which closed one week after the AMC Empire 25 on 42nd Street opened its doors to the public in April of 2002, were ‘Black and White’ (on 2 screens), ‘Boys Don’t Cry’, ‘The Cider House Rules’, ‘High Fidelity’, ‘The Hurricane’, and ‘The Sixth Sense’, which, from the day it opened at the Criterion, wound up having a nine-month engagement. (The films I personally saw there were ‘Deep Blue Sea’, in the former balcony; the Jackie Chan flick ‘Twin Dragons’ in the right ochestra split; and ‘Cider House’ and ‘Lake Placid’ in two of the basement auditoriums. It was far from the best venue in the city after its many subdivisions, but the crowds it drew for action and horror films, especially on weekend nights, IMHO, made it a fun place to be.)
The closing of the cinemas at the Beverly Center is inevitable, due to the success of its relatively new zone mate (and first-run major-studio flick magnet), the all-stadium seating Pacific Theatres at the Grove, which opened in 2002. (The AMC Beverly Connection sixplex across the street – which was once, as was true of the Beverly Center multiplex, one of the most popular theatres in L.A. county – was put out of its misery this past August 15th, and is likely, along with the rest of the Beverly Connection property, to soon be redeveloped.)
I had the privilege of visiting the Little also, during a business trip to Rochester in October, 2002. It’s a cool place to catch a flick – reminding me of a cross between and capturing the best elements of the Angelika Film Center and Village East Cinemas in NYC – and also the last surviving downtown cinema.
The Metro has been – or likely still is – doomed for redevelopment(see my comment above from this past April 15th), but what’s odd is its listing in today’s NY Post Movie Clock makes mention of ‘Garden State’ playing there effective today, succeeding an engagement of ‘The Manchurian Candidate’ remake. What apparently happened is what occurred in January of 2003 when the Metro suddenly closed at that time – a dispute between Clearview and the landlord over the terms and length of Clearview’s lease on the property. Whether their latest dispute, renewed or otherwise, can be resolved, I’d have to imagine, is a pure wild-card at this point.
The 20 North Versailles actually shut its doors in February, 2001, as part of the first wave of Loews Cineplex venues to be closed upon court approval of its then-bankruptcy reorganization plan. (Other Loews Cineplex sites cut loose at that time included the Worldwide Cinemas in Manhattan and the Nickelodeon in Boston.)
Looking at the southwest corner of Broadway and 47th, it’s pretty obvious the building which housed Movieland (and, later, the Roxy Delicatessen) was demolished, which it was, in January and February of 1998. After that parcel of land was cleared, construction began on what was to have been a hotel owned and operated by Planet Hollywood, but they pulled out due to financial problems and Ian Schrager took over, converting the then-mid-development project into one of his W Hotels. (The Roxy Delicatessen, meanwhile, lives on to this day, next door, at 1565 Broadway.)
Just for the record, the final two films booked into the Sutton were ‘Maria Full of Grace’ and ‘We Don’t Live Here Anymore’, both of which were move-overs from the Cinema 1-2-3; the final initial release engagement was ‘Bush’s Brain’, a documentary about G.O.P. (and George W. Bush) political strategist Karl Rove.
According to the web site of the Clarett Group, the company which currently owns the Sutton property, it is scheduled to be cleared within the next few months to make way for Place 57, a 34-story luxury condominium tower. (For the record, the Clarett Group can be contacted at 212.399.2400 or at , while Ismael Leyva Associates, P.C. – the architecture firm responsible for the Sutton’s recent exterior alterations – can be reached at 212.290.1444 or at .)
A partial, pre-renovation image of the Canarsie Theater, accompanied by an article about the unfortunate safety hazard its presumably since-removed marquee was beginning to pose, can be found by clicking on the following link: View link
I always thought that we at Cinema Treasures were part of a community, not an ‘every man/woman for themselves’-type operation; apparently, RidgewoodBill subscribes to the latter theory…
The Olympic, in its final years before it closed sometime around 1997, was often the last stop for films within the Metropolitan Theatres downtown circuit, which, at the time, also included the Orpheum, the Palace, and the State.
Nice move, but let’s see more of the theatre INTERIORS renovated. It’s great that a few of these treasures are being or have been brought back to previous glories (the Orpheum, the Palace, etc.), but there are still far too many that are lying in rot or being misused as swap meets or for other retail uses (the Globe and the noted Roxie, to name a couple) that could be restored for entertainment-based purposes.
One of the essays on the DeadMalls.com Mountain Farms page makes mentions of a Barnes & Noble being open for business as part of what is now a strip shopping center; is it, as per what Ross reported in his September 30, 2001 posting, occupying the former AMC 4-screen multiplex space?
The Royal, due to its classy atmosphere and the quality of the films shown there, is considered by many to be the L.A. equivalent of NYC’s Paris Theatre.
I’m curious to know… does anyone have any memories of having seen movies at the Nova or any memories they’d like to share of the theatre, the people who went or worked there, etc., etc.? What was the interior like? Was it as popular a theatre as the Coliseum on 181st Street? What was its history, beyond its opening as a photoplay house in 1913, Jesus Nova assuming the lease in the early 1980s, and its recent shuttering and conversion into a 59/79/99-cent store? The only time I visited its interior was when I wanted to see what had become of it this past March and I’ve been haunted since by what I saw that day and heartbroken that such a cool, little long-running neighborhood movie house slipped away and just became another retail space…
Translation: Clearview was pushed into selling their Metro Twin lease by the property owner; they wouldn’t have booked ‘Garden State’ for an engagement scheduled to BEGIN August 27th otherwise. If it reopens again, it’ll likely be for the short-term and it’ll probably be an independent who’ll run it, as what happened with the Art Greenwich Twin in 1999-2000 after Loews Cineplex pulled out of that property and the landlord, wanting to maximize his or her profit on the space while waiting for Equinox to settle its property conversion plans with the various neighborhood commissions, ran that space as a non-chain house for its final 16 months of operation. Far more probable in the case of the Metro is that, unless there’s strong community backlash, its time of operation has come to an end.
The Criterion couldn’t have survived after the AMC Empire 25 opened and had already begun to suffer (as did the other Times Square movie houses) after the opening of the Loews 42nd Street E-Walk in November of 1999. Two harsh realities helped contribute to the downfall of the Criterion: studios always want to book their product into the top available venues, and the best ones at that (i.e., ones with stadium seating, etc.), which means that older sites within or close to the same booking zone traditionally become little more than move-over houses or dumping spots for films that stand zero chance of doing bang-up business and of turning any sort of profit. Studios also, quite often, won’t book their product into two sites within the same zone (the E-Walk and Astor Plaza double-bookings being a unique circumstance because of their Times Square location, along with the movie-going crowds drawn to the area; the prestige house the Astor Plaza was – as opposed to the carve-up job the Criterion became; and Loews keeping the revenue the Astor Plaza strong, or at the least, solid, by limiting most of the films it ran in concurrence with the E-Walk to 2-3 week engagements).
(To answer your other question, Mike, the Criterion’s layout, at the end, was as follows: orchestra split left/right – auditoriums 1 and 2; balcony – auditorium 3; basement/former lounge area – auditoriums 4 through 7.)
The final features shown at the Criterion, which closed one week after the AMC Empire 25 on 42nd Street opened its doors to the public in April of 2002, were ‘Black and White’ (on 2 screens), ‘Boys Don’t Cry’, ‘The Cider House Rules’, ‘High Fidelity’, ‘The Hurricane’, and ‘The Sixth Sense’, which, from the day it opened at the Criterion, wound up having a nine-month engagement. (The films I personally saw there were ‘Deep Blue Sea’, in the former balcony; the Jackie Chan flick ‘Twin Dragons’ in the right ochestra split; and ‘Cider House’ and ‘Lake Placid’ in two of the basement auditoriums. It was far from the best venue in the city after its many subdivisions, but the crowds it drew for action and horror films, especially on weekend nights, IMHO, made it a fun place to be.)
The 64th & 2nd was triplexed sometime in the mid-‘90s.
The Theatre 80 St. Mark’s ceased operations as a moviehouse during the summer of 1994.
A Burger King occupies the basement space of the former Hollywood Twin Cinemas building.
As likely as the eventual reopening of the Commodore seems, its status should be changed to ‘closed’, at least for now.
Oops… make that September of 2002; my mistake…
The Park & 86th Street Cinemas closed in September of 1999; its final two offerings were ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding’ and ‘Road to Perdition’.
The closing of the cinemas at the Beverly Center is inevitable, due to the success of its relatively new zone mate (and first-run major-studio flick magnet), the all-stadium seating Pacific Theatres at the Grove, which opened in 2002. (The AMC Beverly Connection sixplex across the street – which was once, as was true of the Beverly Center multiplex, one of the most popular theatres in L.A. county – was put out of its misery this past August 15th, and is likely, along with the rest of the Beverly Connection property, to soon be redeveloped.)
I had the privilege of visiting the Little also, during a business trip to Rochester in October, 2002. It’s a cool place to catch a flick – reminding me of a cross between and capturing the best elements of the Angelika Film Center and Village East Cinemas in NYC – and also the last surviving downtown cinema.
The Metro has been – or likely still is – doomed for redevelopment(see my comment above from this past April 15th), but what’s odd is its listing in today’s NY Post Movie Clock makes mention of ‘Garden State’ playing there effective today, succeeding an engagement of ‘The Manchurian Candidate’ remake. What apparently happened is what occurred in January of 2003 when the Metro suddenly closed at that time – a dispute between Clearview and the landlord over the terms and length of Clearview’s lease on the property. Whether their latest dispute, renewed or otherwise, can be resolved, I’d have to imagine, is a pure wild-card at this point.
The 20 North Versailles actually shut its doors in February, 2001, as part of the first wave of Loews Cineplex venues to be closed upon court approval of its then-bankruptcy reorganization plan. (Other Loews Cineplex sites cut loose at that time included the Worldwide Cinemas in Manhattan and the Nickelodeon in Boston.)
It is, although I’m not sure how often all three auditoriums are used concurrently.
Looking at the southwest corner of Broadway and 47th, it’s pretty obvious the building which housed Movieland (and, later, the Roxy Delicatessen) was demolished, which it was, in January and February of 1998. After that parcel of land was cleared, construction began on what was to have been a hotel owned and operated by Planet Hollywood, but they pulled out due to financial problems and Ian Schrager took over, converting the then-mid-development project into one of his W Hotels. (The Roxy Delicatessen, meanwhile, lives on to this day, next door, at 1565 Broadway.)
The former Cinema III space is now occupied by a restaurant of some sort.