Gramercy Theater

Astyanax on January 17, 2005 at 12:27 am

The Gramercy seemed to epitomize the uniqueness of the Rugoff/Cinema V legacy: a small, intimate setting, identified with its neighborhood, and setting a trend in the exhibition and distribution of quality films. Don Rugoff & Walter Reade Jr. were a special breed. Only Dan Talbot and New Yorker films remains. Now that City Cinemas and the Australians are intent on cashing in on real estate rather than show movies, an era will soon come to an end. Does anyone know what became of Rugoff and how he lost control of this remarkable company?

RobertR on December 13, 2004 at 11:44 am

What was MOMA doing that drew such good crowds? What was the admission policy?

chconnol on December 13, 2004 at 11:00 am

What an absolute charmer this theater is!!! I loved this place and would go out of my way to see something here even if it meant it was playing in a “better” venue.

How this place is still up and running I don’t know but I hope somehow it gets landmarked. What a cute place! One of the best theaters in NYC.

RobertR on August 20, 2004 at 8:09 am

I think there a live show in there now.

Michael Furlinger on August 20, 2004 at 2:10 am

my office was on the 3 rd floor of that building but the theater i never liked , had no charm

MikeS on August 4, 2004 at 6:03 pm

Pete, your comments brought back lots of memories…I remember selling the Incredible Edibles with either Archie or Herb(managers both)from a portable cart(!)around the Gramercy Park area.

br91975 on June 24, 2004 at 10:52 pm

The Gramercy will once again serve as a theatrical venue when it plays host to the musical ‘From My Hometown’ starting July 12th.

Bway on June 19, 2004 at 10:12 pm

I used to pass by the Gramercy Theater everyday when I was in college (I used to go to Baruch College). That was back in the early 90’s. I always enjoyed seeing the marquee at that time, because at that time, they usually had the actual font used in the title of the movie that was playing there. For example, “Fantasia” was displayed on the marquee, just like Disney wrote it on the movie posters. I remember movies playing for weeks on end at the Gramercy. (Disney’s Fantasia must have played for almost one whole semester!). I also rememer seeing “Three Men And A Little Lady” up on the marquee for many weeks.
In my three years of walking past the Gramercy everyday, I never saw a movie there (and really wish I had). By my last year at college, they were playing pretty weird films there. I was really sad a year or two later when I went by, and the theater was closed and abandoned (and looked a mess). That was probably in the late 90’s. I have not been by there in quite a while, but apparently, the museum was playing films there, but now they are also gone, so i guess it’s closed once again.

William on April 28, 2004 at 3:43 pm

Maybe plays again. Its hard to make any money with a single screen right now.

Bruno on March 29, 2004 at 10:01 pm

I was the manager of the Gramercy in 1975. I worked for Cinema-5 for several years as a theatre manager, and old Mr. Rugoff who ran the company, liked to change all the managers to different theatres, all at the same time. Sort of like ‘musical chairs’.

Mr. Rugoff believed that any manager that stayed in a theatre too long was apt to become crooked (and he was pretty close to the truth on that one). I had previously managed the Paris Theatre on 58th Street, across from the Plaza Hotel. Late one Saturday night, near midnight, I received a phone call from the circuit’s general manager, an old gent named Mr. MacMann. He said that the manager of the Gramercy had been caught cheating the company, and Mr. Rugoff wanted me to take over running the Gramercy. He wanted me to fire the entire staff, and clean the place up. After changing most of the crew, I had the screen painted (it had yellowed— painting that screen —with a special reflective paint— in 1975 cost $5,000), I had most of the seats recovered, new carpeting put in, and most of the public areas re-painted. I also had the new crew all refitted with tailor-made uniforms, and bought myself three new tuxedos.

It was no small task. I had fired almost 90% of the crew, as they were also in on ‘the take’ as participants in the fired-manager’s scams.

The only personnel we kept on were the porters and operators (because they handled no cash, nor did they have any direct contact with the public. We also kept on an elderly African-American woman, who’s name (I believe..) was Millie Brown (???). She was the only member of the crew who would take a polygraph test.—And, of course, she passed the test. She was a lovely, sweet old dear.

I kept a Philippino young man named “Topino”, first as doorman & sometimes usher, and I trained him to maintain the marquee, and almost act as an assistant manager (even though I had several assistant managers, none whom were worth a darn).

The Gramercy was a dollar-theatre in 1975, and the house was always packed. It was a rough house to operate, nothing like the Paris Theatre, where I had been in 1974, nor the Art Theatre (on E.8th St) which I managed in 1976, nor the Beekman in late 1976 thru 1977. Nor the Sutton, or Murray Hill, or any of the other houses in the circuit.

I managed every house that Cinema-5 operated in Manhattan, at one time or another.

Cinema-5 owned some of them, but just operated others for their owners. We operated the Paramount for Gulf & Western, and we ran the Paris, which was independently owned by a quiet and distinguished gentleman name Mr. McGregor. He maintained an office in the building ABOVE the Paris Theatre— though there was no way into the theatre from his office. In fact, he rarely ever came to the theatre, nor did he ever call.

I so loved working in the theatres that I often took on extra shifts in other theatres (when their managers were on vacation, or on sick leave, etc.)

The Gramercy was unique in that it was a ‘depository’ of sorts for the entire circuit. For example, all of the operating supplies (tickets, timecards, and every other type of paperwork) were stored at the Gramercy. If another theatre needed cashier’s logs, or payroll forms, they had to fill out a requisition form and send it to the Gramercy’s manager to “fill” for them. Usually an usher was sent to the Gramercy to run those errands.

We had huge locked-up sub-basements in the Gramercy where publicity stills and posters were stored from all the theatres, going back to the 1940’s. I still have 8 x 10 stills and framed movie posters that I was free to take (with Mr. Rugoff’s OK) adorning my walls to this day.

The Gramercy was a theatre of many surprises, some of them bordering on catastrophic.

One Sunday matinee, while we were running an almost-3-hour film (RYAN’S DAUGHTER, if I remember correctly— in it’s umpteenth run) it rained torrentially all day long. A large (and HEAVY) pool of water formed on the roof, in the “V-Shape” formed by the auditorium’s slant down toward the screen, and up flush to the next building over.

I was in the box office helping the cashier count out the show’s take after we had just moved in a line of people numbering about 500, when an usher came running into the tiny box office and said to me: “There’s a leak inside!” I brushed it off with: “Put a bucket under it” (a standard Gramercy-Theatre-fix). He excitedly said, “NO, that won’t work, you had better look at this.”

I went into the auditorium and found that the weight of the huge pool of water on the roof had broked a great gash in the ceiling above the stage. The water was cascading in like Niagara Falls. The 30 foot wide wall of falling water totally obscured the screen.

I realized that we had to clear the theatre. The patrons, all of whom had been standing outside in the pouring rain on a “ticket-holders” line for a couple of hours, and were very touchy about it, did NOT want to move. —Even though viewing the picture through the wall of water was impossible. Plus the noise of the water hitting the wooden stage simply drowned-out the soundtract (no pun intended!)

After evacuating the theatre, I wound up having to spend the night in the theatre, as it was the manager’s responsibility to not leave the premises unprotected and unwatched while there was a “gaping hole” in the building.

To make matters worse, I had tickets to a James Brown concert at Madison Square Garden at 10PM that night, and of course, was unable to go. Instead, I invited several of my friends to come to the theatre for an all-night party. I still have a photo (which I’ll have to dig out, and scan for you) that a friend of mine took of me, seated in the ‘open-sky’ auditorium at about 3AM. I had to stay in the theatre until a repair crew came in on Monday to begin work on the roof. We were closed for a few days because of ‘the flood’.

And that was not an isolated incident— The Gramercy was one surpise after another. The next time Mr. Rugoff did his “musical manager’s” switcheroo (the following year), I was indeed grateful to find myself managing the delightfully intimate Art Theatre in the Village (where I lived, so I could walk to work). Of all the theatres that Cinema-5 operated, the Art Theatre was my favorite.

I’m Glad I could share this with you…

Bruno
(username only— anyone who was around in those days probably knows my real name. I was very well known in the business during all of the 1970’s)

peterdamian on March 25, 2004 at 1:54 pm

I worked for Cinema 5 from 1977-1981, during college. Starting at The Sutton, I then split time between the Murray Hill on 34th Street and the Gramercy. Before I worked there, the Gramercy had been a dollar-theater in the early 1970’s, showing third run movies. I can remember seeing an enormous line for some Glenda Jackson movie in 1974 or so, when the admission was $1.00 or $1.25. When I started in late Summer, 1977, it still only showed second run movies. I remember “The Spy Who Loved Me,” “New York, New York” and “3 Women” playing. That winter, the Cinema 5 release “Outrageous!” played for a long time, second run. It was one of the first positive gay movies, starring Craig Russell and Hollis McLaren. It was a joy to have there, and I never got tired of it. The title was never put on the marquee, just quotes from the critics, and I learned how to spell “exhilarating” from the marquee. The Gramercy was a relatively small theater (500 seats?), wedged between a bank on the Northwest corner of Lexington and 23rd Street, and a doughnut shop. The marquee was chrome or stainless steel, extending out over the street and nearly the entire width of the face of the theater. The cashier’s both was Thirties art deco, and sat like a toll booth on the left hand side of the entrance. You had to go out of the theater to get into the booth. In the winter there was a portable electric heater. A bank of glass doors extended across the front. The lobby was mirrored on both sides. The small snackbar was on the left hand side of the lobby. There was a working popcorn machine, but business was usually so slow, the popcorn would be bagged up repeatedly at the end of the night. It was rare that popcorn was made fresh during an evening shift. Cinema 5 contracted with a small entrepreneurial bakery called “Incredible Edibles” and sold cookies and brownies and apple cider of all things. The cider dispenser used to smell a little fermented because this was not paseurized, but the good old raw cider. Sometimes the cider would take on a little zing of carbonation when it sat in the machine too long. The lobby was carpeted in red and sort of threadbare and dirty. The theater was at the bottom of the theater chain and was not very clean or in particularly good repair. It was generally the policy at Cinema 5 that only women cashiered. There were doormen and ushers, usually men, but at the Gramercy there was a woman usher named Theresa. She was an older Spanish lady. Someone told me that she had come to America with a man who promised to marry her, but who never did, or who left her afterwards. She had worked at the Gramercy for a very long time. She always wore a black, nylon usher’s dress, or waitress' dress. Although she was probably in her sixties, her hair was completely black and I don’t think she dyed it. She was full of advice for anyone who would listen and encouraged me to eat ruffage to “escrape de intesteens.” She would gripe when she had to do the doorman’s job, whom she called, “De doormeng.” There was a doorman she was particularly annoyed with named Peter Tan, who spoke very fast and punctuated everything with the word “man,” through his Cantonese accent. None of the managers was particularly memorable. Gail Freund was one of the snack barkeeps. She was kind of New Wave-artsy (she went to Parsons School of Design) with a Cupie doll face. She was very sweet and droll and would shave the “Incredible Edible” brownies when I begged her to. The brownies sold for $1.00, a pretty high price at the time, and I remember one time, after cutting off slivers for me, one brownie ended up looking worth about 50-cents. We laughed hard. I believe the bank of metal doors into the auditorium (and the lobby walls, for that matter) were painted red or a maroon. Going through the doors you entered straight into the auditorium, up a brief incline, under the balcony, the way a football team enters a playing field. You would go left or right to go up to the balcony, and then there was a center aisle on the main floor, with two aisles along the side walls. The screen was draped with one of those old-fashioned scalloped curtains. I cannot recall the color of the seats, but that theater always seemed very dark, so the comment above about it having aqua colored seats and interiors does not ring a bell with me and may have to do with a post-1981 time. If you didn’t go into the auditorium, you could go to the right and down the stairs to the waiting lounge, a fairly spacious room, where the pay telephone was. The manager’s office was down off the lounge, to the left of the bottom of the stairs. I believe the restrooms were at the top of the stairs, just inside of the doors into the auditorium, on either side, the men’s on the right as you entered and the women’s on the left. They may have been downstairs, but I cannot recall for sure. The signs for the restrooms were pieces of etched plexiglass (“Men”, “Ladies”) set into a brass fixture that lit them from above. Art deco styling. I used to get paid $25.00 to do a marquee change, dragging a huge ladder out onto Twenty-Third Street, praying a cab wouldn’t turn the corner and knock it over as I put up the metal letters, which were kept in a scary room in the basement. You had to go out of the exit in the front of the auditorium, to the right of the screen, to get there. An alley would take patrons out to Lexington Avenue from there, but there was a basement entrance outside, behind where the screen would be. I’d go down this metal ladder to get to the cellar door (always thinking of “The Poseidon Adventure” as I went) and I remember always being afraid I’d see rats and waterbugs. The marquee letters were kept down there. I don’t think the marquee ladder was because I can’t imagine how I would have gotten it out, so my memory is fuzzy about that. The letters were black and heavy, like iron and would clip onto horizontal metal tracks on the marquee. I remember finding the pre-formed words “Technicolor” and “Cinemascope” down among the letters and I admit I purloined them. Someone eventually stole “Cinemascope” from me, but I still have “Technicolor.” Sometimes the company would buy professionally made cut outs that were in the same typeface as the movie poster. These were foam-core letters, painted, and then nailed or stapled onto wooden frames, that were then wired through holes in the little tracks on the marquee. These could be as wide as the marquee and, while not particularly heavy, could be unwieldy, especially in the wind. They looked very spiffy and were used in the last years of the 1970s and early ‘80s, when the Gramercy went first run. There must have been a contract with 20th Century-Fox, because it started with the Fox movie “Magic,” (“A Terrifying Love Story”) starring Ann-Margret and Anthony Hopkins, about a ventriloquist and his dummy in a sordid love triangle with Ann. It was from the William Goldman novel. After that there were several Robert Altman films first-run, his poorly received ones: “A Perfect Couple” and “Quintet” are the ones I remember. I thought “Quintet” was fascinating but people hated-hated-hated it and would complain about the focus when actually it was filmed in a soft focus, as though the edges of the screen were frosted by ice. When I would try to explain this, they would argue. I think the doomsday tone of the movie really bothered people. I remember second-run “Saturday Night Fever” running there, forever it seemed, and then later still, the PG-rated version of “Saturday Night Fever” for younger audiences. The profanity was dubbed out. You could still read their lips saying the “C” word and uttering “pig.” It was hell. I clearly recall a Russian movie called “A Slave of Love,” also released by Cinema 5, playing second-run at the Gramercy, and I remember I would go in to watch the last few minutes, with the image of a woman on the back of a train, being chased by soldiers. The woman is an actress who has been frivolous and silly and now has understood the need for the Revolution. Her face is in close-up and she keeps saying, “Soldiers, soldiers,” and asking why they are doing what they are doing. The train goes on into the distance, but you know the soldiers are going to capture her and it ends with a shot of the cold, white sun above the tracks and no end titles. In about 1980, Cinema 5 shipped the custom lounge furniture from the Beekman Theater down to the Gramercy, for use in the basement lounge. There had been red, 1940s or 1950s style love seats and chairs down there before. The Beekman furniture was extremely modern, sleek, amoeba shaped, dark upholstered stuff, that looked incongruous. Like putting 1960s Italian furniture in a church basement. The last time I was there was to see Drew Barrymore in “The Firestarter,” in about 1984, years after I’d stopped working there. It was on a Saturday night, and I remember the theater was full.

jce13 on February 19, 2004 at 7:38 pm

The Gramercy has 574 seats. At one time (before all the multi-plexes), the Gramercy was one of the busiest cinemas in lower Manahttan. It did record breaking business for the Kevin Costner film “No Way Out”. I believe City Cinemas closed the Gramercy in 1992. Cineplex Odeon opened the 9-screen Chelsea Cinemas down the street from the Gramercy. After the Chelsea opening, major film bookings and large audiences disappeared from the Gramercy.

William on February 19, 2004 at 3:50 pm

The site should change the listing to Gramercy Theatre, since that’s more of the original name of the theatre.

RobertR wrote “So the Gramercy may be doomed when that happens”.
What kind of turn outs has the MOMA series of film been getting???
So if someone could keep that kind of bookings going maybe the theatre could operate in that area of the city.