Embassy 1,2,3 Theatre

Warren, I actually asked Mr. Gray about his comment regarding theaters and that they don’t work well as subjects. Here is what his reply was (received this afternoon):

“built by corporations, without the "human” touch.
buildings are formula based.
hard to associate specific people to them, except in terms of who played there, which is, for me, always a weak link.

an Eberson atmospheric, the unusual Beacon and Lane (in Staten Island), the complex Sutton Theater (really a bank) – these are the theatre stories which have worked for me.

c"

I like his articles in the Times because he highlights structures that may have otherwise gone unnoticed (sp?). In those terms, The Mayfair fits the bill because it’s virtually invisible now.

I’ve seen a photo (from the NYTimes) of the Mayfair/DeMille when “The Day the Earth Stood Still” playing there and it’s got that great, huge marquee that curved around 47th Street. But the big lit marquee that was lower is gone by that time. Does anyone know when the last movie played there that used the big, wraparound marquee?

Again, that’s what amazes me about this place. How could such a prominent theater seem so utterly forgotten now? Obviously it’s just me…or rather, all of us who are interested in this theater.

The New York Times runs a weekly article about NY architecture and buildings every Sunday called Streetscapes. I’ve E-Mail the writer of the articles, Christopher Gray, to see if perhaps they would do an article about The Mayfair (sorry, but it’s such nicer name than the LAME-O Embassy 2,3,4…can we change it on this site?).

Anyway, I think it would be great to see an article about it. It might help drum up some support for it’s preservation.

Look on the bright side — the plans to make it a porn house with live (who would want to see dead?) strippers never materialized. One of the most beautiful restorations I’ve ever seen is of the Rapp and Rapp Orpheum in Galesburg, Illinois. I spend time there every summer researching its history and I think its ironic that it started with a live symphony orchestra and is now home to the Central Illinois symphony so its come full circle, but at one point it did run porn. So did the Art in Champaign, Illinois after a run as one the most successful art and foreign film theatres in the country. Now its been restored as a major venue for the city by a private investor. Those changes in policy at least kept the theatres from being bulldozed. Hopefully, the fact that the Embassy 2-3-4 hasn’t been torn down yet may help it to survive long enough for someone to find an appropriate and profitable use for it.

I think the triplexing took place in the middle 70’s. In 1975 when i was there in Aug they were reopening the Demille as a $1.00 house. When I moved to NYC in late 1976 it was triplex and called the Mark 3 which didn’t last long. It was closed for a while and in the late 70’s Guild took it and reopended it as the Embassy 2,3,4. The two times I was there I was always in the downstaurs theater. They kept the original curtain from the Demille, but the small stage was gone.

While I was Head Projectionist at Radio City, like most projectionists in those days, I would also work other jobs when I had the time. In a number of cases, I think the Union sent me on jobs where there had been a problem with a relief projectionist and the Union would send in “the Head Projectionist at Radio City” as a peace offering. Thus I ended up working in a number of Peter Elson houses in Manhattan. At one point he requested me for all relief assginments in all of his theatres. Thus I worked the Forum (which was co-operated by Elson and B.S. Moss at the time), the original Embassy and the Embassy 2-3-4. In reference to the Embassy 2-3-4, it was the flagship house of the Walter Reade chain when they operated it. Porter Faulkner might be better at describing the archictural detail than I, but it was quite ornate, and a major Broadway showcase. The ornamentation inside matched the style on the outside above the first floor. “Psycho” premiered there, and I believe it was the Broadway house that premiered “Spartacus” in its roadshow 70mm run. I remember that because it was the first house in the U.S. to use Cinemeccanica X 70mm projectors and the man who ran the company that imported them was instrumental in getting me out of broadcasting and into projection. Those machines were still there and operating when I worked there in the late ‘70’s. It was also the house that ran the Russian “War and Peace” in two four hour segments. I’m sure Warren could supply a list of some of the big attractions that played there and Michael Coate undoubtedly has a list of the 70mm roadshow attractions. When the Ziegfeld opened Reade had his office there, and it replaced the Embassy 2-3-4 (the DeMille in those days) as the Reade flagship house. When I started working as a relief operator at the Ziegfeld the company was in bankruptcy so that might have played a role in pulling out of the larger venue. Sheldon Gunsberg headed up Reade in those days and was probably the last of the really nice knowledgable theatre operators in the city. At some point I should ask his daughter about what happened with the DeMille as she worked for Reade handling special events at the time the DeMille was closed. She would be a great resource about the theatre’s history in the Reade days since she would have been very close to the decisions made about it. I might quibble about the statement that the volume downstairs was loud to mask the sound from the upstairs theatres. Those theatres’ walls really were pretty well built, and they only had small mono sound systems. In fact one of the speakers was hand built at Radio City. Some members of the sound crew at Radio City were experimenting with building a small theatre speaker to compete with the Altec A-7, and my friend who was doing the projection work in the triplex came up one speaker short when they were triplexing the place and asked the head of the sound department at Radio City, who he worked with on outside projects if he could help him out. Thus one of the “experimental” speakers got moved over to the balcony house at the Embassy. If the downstairs volume was too loud it was probably beacuse the staff wasn’t paying attention, and as I’ve mentioned the booth crew pretty much stayed in the booth because of the arduous climb and really had no way of knowing how loud the sound was in the downstairs house other than by communicating with the staff. As a relief operator I didn’t have to carry film up to the booth, and I doubt that the projectionists did in those days either. The union had a rule about not carrying film to the booth to protect the older operators, since most theatre had ushers or other younger staff members more able to make the trek. Since the Reade DeMille was a Broadway house, most of the projectionists were those who had seniority or were requested, and probably would have gone into cardiac arrest if they had to carry film up that far. (They did have the use of the elevator in the office portion of the building for a time, and that would have gotten the film up to one level below the booth, and I suppose they could have dropped a line down the fire ladder and hoisted the film up that way, I’m not sure which would have been harder!) I don’t remember whether the the paint job was black or dark blue, but I do remember the house being lit in gold light (much like Radio City) when I saw “Fisherman” there. The booth light board was taken out when they triplexed the house, but it did run pretty much across the width of the booth at one end, and had quite a few dimmers, so the house lighting was really attractive.

I have a question, but not about the Embassy, but was there a theatre diagonally across the street from the Embassy 2,3,4 on the southwest corner of 47th Street & Broadway? It would have been directly across the street from the TKTS booth. At one time there was a Carnegie style deli there and I believe part of the building was used as a nightclub. The building looked like a theatre. It may be gone now.

I seem to remember going to this theatre in ‘83 when STAR WARS was revived, though I could be confusing it with the Embassy. I remember it as being a real steep theatre, that is why it may have been the Embassy.

Porter Faulkner: The fire was set (one rumor was that it was by a disgruntled projectionist) probably in the back of the balcony (that’s where I remember the smoke damage when I was in the house when it was the single screen dollar house and during the triplexing.) One of the men on my crew at Radio City was working there as a relief projectionist at the time, and said that they had stayed to convert the three projectors over to 70mm since they were going to start the move-over run of “That’s Entertainment” from the Ziegfeld the next day. There was enough smoke and soot to cause the theatre to close, and that was when Walter Reade walked away from it. Perhaps their lease was up and they realized the difficulty of keeping a venue of that size going. The damage (at least what I could see) didn’t appear to be great, although the north end of the back of the balcony was smoked when the house reopened as a low-price theatre. The projectionist’s union gave them a reduced rate with the caveat that the balcony remain closed, thus reducing the seating capacity to match the lower booth cost. There were people in the balcony when I was there, but I suspect they just wanted to sit there and snuck up, the house certainly wasn’t full.

I was in the house once when it was run by Walter Reade and was their showcase house. I was still living in the Midwest and came up from a technical conference in Washington D.C. to spend the weekend in New York. “Shoes of the Fisherman” had just opened and was running roadshow in 70mm. Reade even had a VIP section in one corner of the orchestra completely walled off from the rest of the seating area which had its own speakers and which may have been vented to allow smoking. At intermission I also went up to the booth. As you have pointed out, there was no stage presentation (or much of a stage) and the house lighting and stage lighting board was in the booth (as it was at the Criterion in its one screen days.) Thus there were two projectionists and a stagehand since the lighting was under the jurisdiction of Local #1. The theatre was really beautiful in those days.

The reason I didn’t go into the orchestra when I worked there was that when I came in I headed directly up to the booth. As I mentioned that is a very large climb, and once I got there I stayed there, although I did go into one of the balcony auditoriums to see what Wharhol’s “Frankenstein” looked like in 3-D (quite bad as it turned out). You don’t see a lot of the auditorium from the booth — the projection and viewing ports are cut into the decorative molding you noticed around the top of the theatre, and it curve out and down, so it looks like you’re watching the screen through a tunnel even when they were running 70. One thing Elson did do was to keep the curtain in the downstairs house, and it had to be closed and opened at end and start of every show. If Wednesday White Man gets the house and lowers those hanging speakers and if the lines they are anchored by are anchored by are tied to building steel above the auditorium ceiling he’ll have the lines for a good sized lighting truss for his shows. Let’s hope someone can the place open again — there aren’t many spaces like that left in New York these days.

As far as I know, there hasn’t been any work done to the Embassy/Mayfair since it closed. The lobby – as difficult as it is to peer in through all the bills plastered across the boarded-up entranceway – appears to still be intact and in decent condition.

Two items.

Porter Faulkner: I will take some pictures. I just never thought people would be interested in what it looks like from above. I think it’s fascinating and it’s what got me interested in this theater. I’ll take some of the front now. It’s a sad site.

Wednesday White Man: when you talk about the numbers, I assume you mean that the owner wants lot of $$$$. I can imagine. Whether you like what they are doing in and around Times Square, real estate is HOT HOT HOT. And this is prime. But from what I can see above, I cannot determine if the Mayfair is it’s own building or whether it’s tied into the ones around it. I think that might be what’s complicating it’s sale.

I don’t think many people are aware of this place’s history and such. Perhaps if people did, more would/could be done to save it.

CConnolly, why dont u take a pic for us. Be great to see it from above and even some from the street if you had the time. Please ;–)

Porter Faulkner: I think it must have been the Columbia that Ben Olevsky was talking about when he said the auditorium was reversed. Before he was Head Projectionist at the Hall he worked in a lot of other theatres in the city so may have actually worked at the Columbia. The idea of it being gutted and revised is what I was asking about in the above post. Was the office building wrapped around it as it is now and were the original auditorium walls retained in the construction? I was in and out of the theatre a number of times during the triplexing, but when I worked there I don’t remember ever going into the downstairs auditorium and only saw it from the booth. I do remember the architectural details remaining the same during the triplexing. I was also in the theatre a couple of times in between the time Walter Reade operated it and the time it became the Mark 1-2-3 when it was operated as an impossibly cheap dollar house. At that time the smoke damage from the fire was still evident in the balcony. Another feature from its roadshow days that was still there was a set of five huge Altec A4 speaker systems hung above the proscenium. They were installed when the “Concert for Bangledesh” was played in 70mm and the producers wanted better sound coverage in the upper balcony area for the filmed rock concert. Apparently it was considered too much trouble or too expensive to get them down since they were still hanging up there when I worked there. Its possible the black or dark blue paint was put on to cover the smoke damage up. I doubt that Peter had any plans to add another screen. I think it was his first multiple screen theatre and he only inherited it when the plans for the porno/striptease venue fell through. It would certainly be great to see it restored and put to theatrical use again.

I never noticed this before in other images or recalled it in my own memories, but in the 1986 photo Thomas linked to in his post this past Sunday, there appears to be a dash after the ‘4’ in the signage. If there’s to be any credence taken in that, seemingly Peter Elson considered carving at least one additional screen out of either the orchestra or the former balcony.