RKO Keith's Theatre

Well, it isn’t necessarily ALL bad news, except as far as access for photos is concerned. If they replaced the wall, it may mean they aren’t intent on imminent demolition. On the other hand, if it is a black plastic, that could indicate they are actually “sealing up” the area from which they need to remove asbestos. At any rate, it at least seems to show that they’re not simply ripping everything out indescriminately.

GROAN that is bad news. I am off work next week and the following week, was going to bring my camera at some point and skulk around the theatre and look for access. :(

I didn’t notice, Tom S. I was looking mostly ahead and to the right. I got as far as the next room which was the foyer between the smoking lounge and the powder room/toilets. I never really got any further than the threshold, because lighting got dimmer and I was a bit disoriented, not knowing exactly where I was standing until I got back home and checked davebazooka’s blueprint images. I don’t recall seeing a mirror or a door. It might have been an indication on the wall of where a vanity or some kind of decoration might have been. Now that I think of it, there might have been a door on the right wall (perhaps a broom or utility closet), but I can’t recall precisely.

This being a smoking room, I doubt there would be a door exiting the building into the adjacent building. Actually, I don’t think there’d be an exit door into the adjacent building at all, much less in an area with public access. Moreover, there is no indication of a doorway in the plans.

We should exchange numbers or somthing and maybe meet up there , not much just 2 or 3 of us so if the place is open again, well, you know, stregnth in numbers. And I WILL bring a camera and flashlight!

They wear protective suits and respirators, though I wonder if all that is really necessary.

I wonder how one becomes an asbestos removal/demolition professional. Those guys have legal access to the buildings the rest of us can only dream about entering. If I were one of the workers I would sneak as many photos as possible of the interiors of old buildings!

Possibly on Saturday, though I’m rarely downtown on the weekends.

I notice the left-most storefront open nearly every weekday. Sometimes I venture over to Northern after the school commute to see what’s up. It definitely sounds like stuff is being ripped out, so I wonder if some of us can arrange to…take a gander of the inside somehow.

Wow Ed that is excellent, I knew exactly what you were looking at just from your description and my recollection of the floorplan, I did not even have to refer to it. It is too bad the damage is so extensive. I intend to visit the Keith’s soon with my camera, I can only hope there is some access similar to what you found! It would be great to get even one picture of the Foyer’s north elevation, to document its condition. Guess I better bring a flashlight. And a cell phone, though I would definitely not mind spending the night trapped in the building, what a gas that would be, I would be much more worried about being discovered by the workers or the police the following morning. Spending a spooky night in the RKO would be infinitely preferable to getting tossed into a holding cell. Maybe there will be a worker there on site to bribe for a tour. AARRGH

I passed by the theater late this afternoon and had to pull over quickly and park at the curb when I noticed that the left-most store front was wide open to the sidewalk with a view deep into the structure. I immediately cursed the fact that I did NOT have my camera with me. After finding a spot for the car down the block, I hiked back to the theater and tentatively entered into the empty shell of the old commercial space.

There was minor debris all over and the walls and ceilings looked decrepit with a hole (big enough for a fella to climb through) leading into the adjacent store-front. Most interestingly for me, however, was the missing wall at the back of the store front that appeared to give free access into some recess of the Keith’s itself. A few work lights were hung from the ceiling in this space, strung along a series of orange power supply cables, so I ventured forth even more tentatively. The room beyond this missing wall appeared to be a lounge of some kind, with outlines in the faded pale orange (almost pink) paint on the walls indicating where mirrors or other fixutures and ornamentation might have hung. Sub-flooring from the level above was exposed and a curved wall which seemd to be half missing led to a circular chamber to the right.

With my back still to the open storefront and sidewalk on Northern Blvd, I could make out a doorway between the wall facing me and the circular wall remnant to my right. It seemed to lead into another room that was too deteriorated and stripped of detail to identify. The furthest wall back in that chamber, seemed to be missing the finished plaster, with beams and the back of the wall for the area behind it exposed. Interestingly, no one else was around at all… I expected at any moment to be roused from my curiosity by some irate worker or supervisor, but none came.

Unfortunately, the areas beyond where I stood did not appear to be lit and I could not be sure of the soundness of the flooring. Nor could I view any piece of the Grand Foyer space from this corner of the building. The final straw that hastened my retreat was that the deeper I went into these rooms, the further I got from the storefront doorway and the more I feared that if I did not keep it in sight, the construction doors would be shut behind me by returning workers, leaving me to possibly spend the night in the dark with the vermin that currently call the Keith’s home.

Once home, I went back to davebazooka’s excellent posting of September 5, 2006, and poured over his images of the Keith’s original architectural plans and found that I had been standing in what had been one of the theater’s smoking lounges and that the curved wall that was half missing offered me a view into what had been the Ladies Parlor.

Here’s Dave’s image of those blueprints detailing the area I just described. The storefronts are at the bottom of the image. I entered through the left-most store and walked into the smoking room behind it. I could see into the Ladies Parlor to the right and beyond the smoking room into the foyer that led to the ladies powder room and toilets. The place was extremely creepy. The walls so worn and bare – it reminded me of the interior of that abandoned house that the students wind up finding in the woods at the end of “The Blair Witch Project.”

I wonder… had I my camera with me, would I have found the nerve to proceed a bit further and try to snake my way into the Grand Foyer? Probably not. The late hour and darkening skies outside had me convinced the workers would soon be back to lock up and that I best be well on my way before then.

From 11/07/06 NY Daily News:
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Wow. Warren joins the Cub Scouts! Welcome to the party! A bit late, but welcome anyhow. Let me see if we have an Official Theater Address Finders badges left….