There were also many stage venues designed for occasional game hunt shows, war footage and/or educational presentations, including film, that we wouldn’t consider cinemas even today. Since full length pictures did not become common until 1914-1915 it would seem the genuine “built for pictures” theatres came after that.
For example, I can’t find records that the Apollo 42nd street showed any film at all from 1914 to 1920. After that it had an occasional run between stage shows for over 15 years amounting to less than six films.
On a side note, I found an article on that skating rink having been raided by the police for holding an illegal dance marathon during the depression. They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?
The old Rialto was replaced in 1935. The Variety Photoplays was a gay porn theatre for many years. As to what what projected on the screen, you will need to take their patrons word on that issue.
As for your original question as you have framed it, I think the Regent is indeed the answer.
saps posted this on the Variety Photoplays pages in 2006:
saps on March 23, 2006 at 4:23 am
Here is the text of J.P. Valensi’s excellent post:
STREETSCAPES: Variety Photo Plays Theater; Marquee’s Lights Are Dark on 1914 ‘Nickelodeon’
By CHRISTOPHER GRAY
Published: September 3, 1989
IT’S hard to put your finger on what was special about it. Perhaps it was the aura of the early days of the movies, but the 1914 Variety Photo Plays Theater at 110 Third Avenue was unforgettable when it was in operation.
Now the theater’s distinctive lightbulb marquee is dark, the property is vacant and being shown to potential buyers and, according to Michael Lerner, the leasing agent, a final decision – to sell, net lease or demolish the building – will come on Sept. 12.
The earliest movie theaters were just ad hoc alterations of spaces of opportunity, like a saloon or a storefront. According to the theater historian Michael R. Miller, these turn-of-the-century nickelodeons, where admission was usually nickel, were not superseded by specifically built movie theaters until 1908, when the Nicholand and Prospect Pleasure Palace went up in the Bronx.
By the early 1910’s, perhaps 100 theaters built for movies had gone up in New York City. They were good businesses and clustered near high-traffic sites. In 1914, one promoter, Jacob Valensi, secured a 15-year lease on a plot on the west side of Third Avenue, just south of the 14th Street stop of the elevated. There he built a two-story theater, according to Mr. Miller’s research, on a site previously occupied by a theater operation. Although filed as a new building, the theater actually used some of the perimeter walls of an older structure; the theater could in some ways be considered to pre-date 1914.
In its name – Valensi’s Variety Photo Plays – it sought an association with legitimate theater endeavors, of which 14th Street had been a center since the 1850’s.
Designed by Louis Sheinart, the exterior of Variety Photo Plays was in plain brick, generally unornamented except for arcaded piers projecting above a sloping tiled false roof. Mr. Miller called Sheinart ‘'a minor, minor architect of many, many theaters’‘ in this period.
Inside, the auditorium was fairly plain, but did have a slightly pitched floor and fixed seats, still novel touches in an industry that had started only recently with plain benches and sheets hung on a wall.
It is not clear if the walls have lost some architectural effect – they are now mostly patched plaster – but the ceiling is covered with modestly patterned pressed tin. Four large Tiffany-type half-globe lighting fixtures have somehow survived, and the simple fixed seats bear a ‘'V’‘ on the end panels.
There are rooftop louvered vents, still remote-controlled with chains that hang down in the middle of the theater, and a great square panel in the center, perhaps 30 feet across, is what remains of a sliding roof used in the days before air-conditioning.
Variety Photo Plays originally seated 450 and, according to Mr. Miller, probably first presented groups of two-reelers, collections of individual features, each 15 or 20 minutes long. This was at a period when the feature-length film was still uncommon and films in general were generally considered low-culture – ‘'photo plays’‘ or not.
By the early 1920’s, nickelodeons like the Variety Photo Plays were being supplanted by larger houses seating one or two thousand, and if the Variety was ever a first-rank theater, it surely must have begun a downward slide at that time.
In 1923, a marquee was added, designed by Julius Eckman. In 1930, a balcony seating 150 and a new lobby were installed by the architects Boak & Paris, who also made over the 1923 marquee. The lobby is nondescript neo-Renaissance and it is the marquee that has made the theater special, at least to modern eyes. Boak & Paris did not change the Eckman marquee’s underside, a coffered field with regularly spaced bulbs, but did add a zigzag Art Deco fascia in enameled metal and neon lighting. The fascia gives the theater’s, rather than the show’s, name and recalls the period when movies were more of a generic product. The lights buzzing on the underside of the marquee, when they were on, enveloped the passerby in a warm, glowing field. People going past the theater, even in the daytime, got a whiff of vintage celluloid, and at night it was intoxicating.
HE film fare over the last 30 years gradually shifted from B-grade to raunchy to naughty to pornographic, and added a slightly forbidden, Coney Island spice to the building. A 10-year-old schoolboy who somehow found himself on lower Third Avenue would walk straight by but keep his eyes glued to the pictures on the billboards outside the ticket booth.
Earlier this year the Department of Health closed the Variety Photo Plays, which was operating as a gay movie theater. Now it is still and musty inside, its 1940’s candy machine empty, its projection booth a small museum of antique apparatus – carbon arc projection lighting was discontinued only a few years ago. The owner, the 110-112 Third Avenue Realty Corporation, includes members of the same families who owned it since the 1920’s. In their hands lies the fate of a institution that will live on at least in the memories of many New Yorkers.
I think the confusion comes from this NYT article.
[In 1949, Norman Elson, who was then the president of the competing Trans-Lux chain, took over the Newsreel theaters.
‘'That was just the beginning of TV,’‘ Peter Elson recalled, ’‘and he saw that newsreels were not much longer for the world.’‘ Norman Elson remodeled the theater and reopened it as the Guild.]
If you search for the ART or MOVIELAND you can get Cantor Film Center, its current name, as an option. The problem is you need to know that it is now called that in order to find it.
Anyone who would dismiss Times Square based on their disapproval of what may be happening on the fringes is seriously closed minded, and this poster had already admitted to that. Most of it still happens today behind the facade of the new Disneyscape, as vice never dies.
I never understood the mindset that could blame a sexuality transmitted disease on a building. I suppose if we shut down the Port Authority in Times Square it would end teenage prostitution in America.
AIDS is still thriving in many parts of the world without a porn cinema in sight, including sections of NY and LA.
A February 21, 1960 NY Times article on the Roxy closing makes this interesting observation:
“The poor old Roxy was never too successful, sandwiched as it is between the Scylla of the older capitol and the Charybdis of the newer Music Hall. Its various programs of pictures with stage shows (and without stage shows) have had to compete with programs that have usually been a little better at one or the other of those near-by theatres.”
Cablevision has been peddling the Clearview chain for over seven years.
There were also many stage venues designed for occasional game hunt shows, war footage and/or educational presentations, including film, that we wouldn’t consider cinemas even today. Since full length pictures did not become common until 1914-1915 it would seem the genuine “built for pictures” theatres came after that.
For example, I can’t find records that the Apollo 42nd street showed any film at all from 1914 to 1920. After that it had an occasional run between stage shows for over 15 years amounting to less than six films.
On a side note, I found an article on that skating rink having been raided by the police for holding an illegal dance marathon during the depression. They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?
Ed, I found several NY Times articles placing it at 560 W. 181st Street.
That is exactly what I meant.
The old Rialto was replaced in 1935. The Variety Photoplays was a gay porn theatre for many years. As to what what projected on the screen, you will need to take their patrons word on that issue.
As for your original question as you have framed it, I think the Regent is indeed the answer.
No. I did not see them because I am not 100 years old.
I did see the Variety and the Nova (Bunny) and I think that it is what Bigjoe really wants to know.
I think the item that best addresses bigjoe’s query is:
“By the early 1910’s, perhaps 100 theaters built for movies had gone up in New York City.”
saps posted this on the Variety Photoplays pages in 2006:
saps on March 23, 2006 at 4:23 am
Here is the text of J.P. Valensi’s excellent post:
STREETSCAPES: Variety Photo Plays Theater; Marquee’s Lights Are Dark on 1914 ‘Nickelodeon’
By CHRISTOPHER GRAY Published: September 3, 1989
IT’S hard to put your finger on what was special about it. Perhaps it was the aura of the early days of the movies, but the 1914 Variety Photo Plays Theater at 110 Third Avenue was unforgettable when it was in operation.
Now the theater’s distinctive lightbulb marquee is dark, the property is vacant and being shown to potential buyers and, according to Michael Lerner, the leasing agent, a final decision – to sell, net lease or demolish the building – will come on Sept. 12.
The earliest movie theaters were just ad hoc alterations of spaces of opportunity, like a saloon or a storefront. According to the theater historian Michael R. Miller, these turn-of-the-century nickelodeons, where admission was usually nickel, were not superseded by specifically built movie theaters until 1908, when the Nicholand and Prospect Pleasure Palace went up in the Bronx.
By the early 1910’s, perhaps 100 theaters built for movies had gone up in New York City. They were good businesses and clustered near high-traffic sites. In 1914, one promoter, Jacob Valensi, secured a 15-year lease on a plot on the west side of Third Avenue, just south of the 14th Street stop of the elevated. There he built a two-story theater, according to Mr. Miller’s research, on a site previously occupied by a theater operation. Although filed as a new building, the theater actually used some of the perimeter walls of an older structure; the theater could in some ways be considered to pre-date 1914.
In its name – Valensi’s Variety Photo Plays – it sought an association with legitimate theater endeavors, of which 14th Street had been a center since the 1850’s.
Designed by Louis Sheinart, the exterior of Variety Photo Plays was in plain brick, generally unornamented except for arcaded piers projecting above a sloping tiled false roof. Mr. Miller called Sheinart ‘'a minor, minor architect of many, many theaters’‘ in this period.
Inside, the auditorium was fairly plain, but did have a slightly pitched floor and fixed seats, still novel touches in an industry that had started only recently with plain benches and sheets hung on a wall.
It is not clear if the walls have lost some architectural effect – they are now mostly patched plaster – but the ceiling is covered with modestly patterned pressed tin. Four large Tiffany-type half-globe lighting fixtures have somehow survived, and the simple fixed seats bear a ‘'V’‘ on the end panels.
There are rooftop louvered vents, still remote-controlled with chains that hang down in the middle of the theater, and a great square panel in the center, perhaps 30 feet across, is what remains of a sliding roof used in the days before air-conditioning.
Variety Photo Plays originally seated 450 and, according to Mr. Miller, probably first presented groups of two-reelers, collections of individual features, each 15 or 20 minutes long. This was at a period when the feature-length film was still uncommon and films in general were generally considered low-culture – ‘'photo plays’‘ or not.
By the early 1920’s, nickelodeons like the Variety Photo Plays were being supplanted by larger houses seating one or two thousand, and if the Variety was ever a first-rank theater, it surely must have begun a downward slide at that time.
In 1923, a marquee was added, designed by Julius Eckman. In 1930, a balcony seating 150 and a new lobby were installed by the architects Boak & Paris, who also made over the 1923 marquee. The lobby is nondescript neo-Renaissance and it is the marquee that has made the theater special, at least to modern eyes. Boak & Paris did not change the Eckman marquee’s underside, a coffered field with regularly spaced bulbs, but did add a zigzag Art Deco fascia in enameled metal and neon lighting. The fascia gives the theater’s, rather than the show’s, name and recalls the period when movies were more of a generic product. The lights buzzing on the underside of the marquee, when they were on, enveloped the passerby in a warm, glowing field. People going past the theater, even in the daytime, got a whiff of vintage celluloid, and at night it was intoxicating.
HE film fare over the last 30 years gradually shifted from B-grade to raunchy to naughty to pornographic, and added a slightly forbidden, Coney Island spice to the building. A 10-year-old schoolboy who somehow found himself on lower Third Avenue would walk straight by but keep his eyes glued to the pictures on the billboards outside the ticket booth.
Earlier this year the Department of Health closed the Variety Photo Plays, which was operating as a gay movie theater. Now it is still and musty inside, its 1940’s candy machine empty, its projection booth a small museum of antique apparatus – carbon arc projection lighting was discontinued only a few years ago. The owner, the 110-112 Third Avenue Realty Corporation, includes members of the same families who owned it since the 1920’s. In their hands lies the fate of a institution that will live on at least in the memories of many New Yorkers.
bigjoe, I think you are talking about short-lived storefront nickelodeons.
I think the confusion comes from this NYT article.
[In 1949, Norman Elson, who was then the president of the competing Trans-Lux chain, took over the Newsreel theaters.
‘'That was just the beginning of TV,’‘ Peter Elson recalled, ’‘and he saw that newsreels were not much longer for the world.’‘ Norman Elson remodeled the theater and reopened it as the Guild.]
If you search for the ART or MOVIELAND you can get Cantor Film Center, its current name, as an option. The problem is you need to know that it is now called that in order to find it.
Bigjoe59, there was the ART (Movieland 8th Street) further down.
Anyone who would dismiss Times Square based on their disapproval of what may be happening on the fringes is seriously closed minded, and this poster had already admitted to that. Most of it still happens today behind the facade of the new Disneyscape, as vice never dies.
I never understood the mindset that could blame a sexuality transmitted disease on a building. I suppose if we shut down the Port Authority in Times Square it would end teenage prostitution in America.
AIDS is still thriving in many parts of the world without a porn cinema in sight, including sections of NY and LA.
“I seriously doubt if anyone in an adult theater spent any time admiring the proscenium.”
Check out the Adonis page and you will find out you are also wrong about that, aside from being homophobic, racist and apparently fattist.
“It was really unique and will never be duplicated.”
I have to agree….
Saps, I understand your well intended contribution. It is what makes cinematreasures work for many of us.
Moviemanforever, what are you afraid of? It happened already, buddy! Please tell us what your roll was or stay away and deny.
This is great news!
The NY Times mentions plans for a new Lincoln Center Cinerama location back in 1962. That,of course, never happened.
Could it be the Majestic in Jersey City you are thinking of?
Dave, the marquee on the front right is actually the Anco. Note that the Roxy and the Modells' both moved on 42nd street over the years.
There was a Majestic (Woolworth)further north on Second Avenue. Here
Breathtaking!
Eighty two years ago.
A February 21, 1960 NY Times article on the Roxy closing makes this interesting observation:
“The poor old Roxy was never too successful, sandwiched as it is between the Scylla of the older capitol and the Charybdis of the newer Music Hall. Its various programs of pictures with stage shows (and without stage shows) have had to compete with programs that have usually been a little better at one or the other of those near-by theatres.”