Radio City Music Hall
1260 6th Avenue,
New York,
NY
10020
1260 6th Avenue,
New York,
NY
10020
118 people
favorited this theater
Showing 926 - 950 of 3,332 comments
Radio City Music Hall is The Palace of Dreams.
For starters, there is the 1983 TV Movie, “Legs”. It was the story of three dancers auditioning for one spot in the line. Shanna Reed, Maureen Teefy, and Deborah Geffner played the dancers. Gwen Verdon played the director of the Rockettes, a role based on Violet Holmes. The movie featured bits and pieces of some of the Rockette numbers being performed at that time. I remember that a friend’s loft was rented to serve as the apartment that the three women shared.
Can anyone please help me and name some movies in which RCMH and/or the Rockettes are shown and/or part of the plot?
theres always stories going aroundabout the hall,wishI was that popular!!lets wait till next year shall we??maybe they’ll hold the tonys at the disney theatre? possible?but..its not on broadway, maybe the renovated Beacon theatre?maybe they want to show it off?
ahh, whocares!!! i’m not gonna be there!
Well the Garden is going through with a major renovation soon.
nice how they clean the sign up so that it doesn’t age that much.
Here is a May 2010 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/2fbkln8
I appeciate the update on both the ecreening rooms and “Sex in the City” screening.
I was surprised to learn that they have not installed red light readers in any of the projectors. I would have thought they would have updated the optical sound heads if for no other reason but to provide analogue backup to the digital track. THe Music Hall must have one of the very few projection rooms still using exciter lamps (do they still make those anymore?)
Of course it would be highly unlikely for both digital projectors and the digital sound on the 35mm to all go down leaving them to have had to cancel the show for lack of the red light readers.
Or would it, I mean seriously, can you imagine. :)
Thanks again guys I appreciate the feed back.
Screening rooms: they are no long used for offices. One room is used for stage managers during Christams. The other is now known as the “red carpet room” for Rockette Meet and Greets and catering for Rockettes during Christmas. The room adjacent to the two screening rooms on 51st street is a Rockette Physical Therapy Room. The stairwell in the back that connected the screening rooms to the 8th floor terrace had a had 2 restroom attached to it that are now house whirlpools for the Rockette Physical Therapy room.
Vito: I haven’t been in the rooms since I left in 2000, but as far as I know they’re still being used for office space, although I understand a number of the offices have now been moved to the Garden. One of the projectors from Preview B is on (or was on) display on a staircase niche out at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens.
I do have some more information for you about the “Sex and the City 2” screening. They used two digital cinema projectors with 6K lamps. Because one had an E-Fib card, and the other an F-Fib card (don’t ask!) they couldn’t run both superimposed during the show, but did have both superimposed so they had back-up. You will be pleased to note that they agree with you and ran the 35mm print from a Double-MUTT rather than a platter. They did lower the gamma on the digital copies to get a little more light on the screen — the equivalent of my having prints pulled a couple of points lighter. Since the Music Hall asn’t installed red lilght readers for analogue, only the digital track on the film could be used, but by the time they would have needed the SR track they would have lost two digital projectors and the 35mm digital track, so it wasn’t a major concern. Apparently everything looked and sounded fine.
William, I read that back then but that was 5 years ago and I wondered what the satis of the rooms are today.
vito, REndres posted some info on the screening rooms back on Mar. 24th, 2005.
I have a question for REndres or any of the people currently connected to the Hall.
There were/are two screening rooms which were used during the movie/stage show era, are they still in use and in what capacity.
thanks for the info old joe!!
Graduations this year are 5/10 NYU Steinhardt, 5/11 NYU Arts and Sciences, 5/14 School of Visual Arts, 5/17 Pratt, 5/18 NYU Polytechnic, 5/25 FIT , 5/26 Pace, 5/27 College Of New Rochelle, 6/3 Hunter, and 7/29 ASA Institute
never an empty seat at Christmas time, only at some shows from what I recall&at such high prices too, amazing!!
In the 60’s, NYC schools were closed due to a blizzard. I dragged my friend to RCMH to see “Jumbo” starring Doris Day. Due to the weather, the theater was almost empty so we had a choice of seating. It was weird since I had usually visited during holiday season to see the Glory of Easter or the Christmas Spectacular; no empty seats then. Good memories.
fashion institute (FIT)has graduation there, I played for them, what a crowd!!!the place was full, i’m pretty sure they have it there every year
pace has their graduations ther too,I filled in for Eddie Layton one year& also the college of new Rochelle had graduation there a couple of years ago, don’t know if they still do george Wesner played for them as I recall
In answer to Myron’s comment. I know that Hunter College used RCMH for their graduations. I have no idea who else might use it.
And don’t forget live shows such as Gotta Get Away. I remember a Broadway stage actress, I think her name was Allison Reed, being onstage alone, picture that, doing these little ballet grande jete leaps, for some reason or other. They also used the screen for some travel footage.
ahhhhh, those were the days!!!
When did RCMH start having school graduations on-stage? Is this something new or has it happened for a while? I passed-by last week and noticed graduates lined-up waiting outside. I was unaware that the theater was used for schools. I wonder what the fee is to rent the Hall for a graduation. My college graduation was old-fashioned back in ‘69 on the school campus.
Rob thanks so much for that, we can always count on you to articulate the facts and teach us so much. You are truly one of this sites greatest treasures
I understand what you are saying; times sure are a-changin. Things were a lot simpler in my time and I just think they have complicated things with Digital projection at Radio City.
I fully understand the industry wanting to make the switch to Digital, the cost savings are enormous. The initial expense for the new equipment pays for itself very quickly without the print costs, shipping and man hours required with film. Ad to that the fact that the new generation of film makers, and quite a few old timers as well, who look at the bottom line and the cost differential between film and digital. As time goes by more and more of the new folks who are unfamiliar with the wonders of film will think why would I want to use that? Like Vinyl records and video tape film is slowly disappearing, it’s just very hard for many of us to let go.
I would like to ask that Rob and the rest of you connected to the Music hall continue to inform us when ever film is used in any form or fashion. I for one would appreciate that very much.
We had been using video projectors in odd places from the time I started at the Hall. In this case they are doubled up on the screen so you have a 100% backup. On one of the Grammy award shows we had four video projectors on the screen at the same time from the rear projection booth. The irony is that growing up in Illinois I always heard that the Hall always ran doubled up 35mm projectors. With the exception of special shows and premieres they never did. Now it’s possible, and the image from two digital projectors can be matched electronically much more exactly than you could match 35mm projectors. In addition, the image is much brighter. I think the “Sex” projectors used 7K bulbs. The Hall uses 7K bulbs for 70mm projection but they would tend to burn 35mm film. I must say that in all the time I was at the Hall using video projection for “Image magnification” (the visual equivalent of the P.A. system) I can remember just two failures of the projectors during a performance. The server is also matched with a back-up so there’s almost 100% redundancy.
One of the problems with both film and digital projection is that the equipment in many theatres isn’t maintained and there are no projectionists left to see that it is. Thus I think the studios would rather have digital equipment brought in for premieres that they know has been kept up by the company supplying it. In many cases it’s easier to move digital equipment into place than it is to bring neglected film projecton equipment back up to spec.
Finally, I’m afraid it’s a moot point. Pictures are being shot digitally, and even when shot on film being processed digitally to create digital intermediates from which film prints are finally generated. It makes sense to keep everything in the same form. Theatres are starting to gravitate toward 4K digital projectors which should be able to generate near 70mm quality. Great strides are being made in digital quality, while film isn’t getting much attention these days since it is a “mature” medium. I’ve been told that Panavision plans no more development engineering on its film cameras, preferring to concentrate on digital. I know of one major producer who insists that his pictures be shown digitally for screenings, and film be used only as a back-up.
I hate to sound as if I’m playing “devil’s advocate”, but having worked for the last decade with state-ot-the-art (and well maintained) digital equipment, I have to say I’m a little wistful about the things I could have done at the Hall if we had the digital capability they do now. There are trade-offs of course, but I think in the next few years you’ll see digital exhibition that will be able to rival (and perhaps even exceed) the best 70mm exhibition – if there are exhibitors around who care enough about presentation quality to make it happen.