Radio City Music Hall
1260 6th Avenue,
New York,
NY
10020
1260 6th Avenue,
New York,
NY
10020
116 people
favorited this theater
Showing 1,001 - 1,025 of 3,325 comments
The commitment to take down the Sixth Avenue El was made in 1924, way before the Music Hall began construction. Portions were already down when the theatre opened but the project was not completed until 1939.
Much of the scrap metal was sold to Japan who then turned it into war materials against us.
One of the photos announces “Lovely Grace Moore …” in a Radio City attraction. I love that – showmanship extends even to the marquee!
I wonder why the beautiful and spectacular RCMH was built facing 6th Ave. with an elevated train track in front of the facade. Why it was not built facing 5th Ave.? Anyone knows?
Hi, I am researching for a documentary on the life of Tessa Smallpage-Goldman, wife of Radio City’s Sidney Goldman. Tessa was an Australian soprano and married SIdney in 1950 and was a performer at the Radio City until her death in 1969.
If anyone has any stories, memories or photos etc of Sidney and/or Tessa I would love to hear from you.
Sidney started working at Radio City in 1934, he was Vice President of the Radio City until his retirement in 1970.
I can be contacted at
.au
Many thanks
Mark
a line got cut out, sorry, I said" there must be a curse on the organ"we all had something happen to us, my buddy&tech extraordinary
Ken ladner passed away,me with the Stroke Ray Bohr with lung cancer&so on
it was a load of fun watching the Christmas spectacular come together while I was there&listening to the Rockette rehearsals from the organ chambers, the orchesra rehearsals always brought tears to my eyes, plus my many late nights for george wesnerr&fred davies rehearsals on the organ, they were good guys and fun to work with,fred passed away last year in case anyone is interested, there I had a stroke, it goes on&on
Paul there is a great story regarding the presentation of the film including the projection of the train wreck on a larger screen image. It is described somewhere here if you have the patience to scroll around or perhaps REndres would be kind enough to repeat the marvelous story.
Was the stage show with The Greatest Show on Earth the shortest in RCMH history and the feature the longest shown? The stage presentation was barely 20 minutes. The usual newsreel was dispensed with. In fact, I recall the feature began over a large oval screen (a circus ring?) on stage right so that there was a seamless integration of stage show and film. The Paramount logo filled the oval and then I believe the credits were projected on the main screen which was lowered over the show finale.
That’s right! It looked like an arm that had all the life drained out of it.
I always remember how Cornell Wilde’s hand and arm looked after his fall; very strangely lit, sort of blue/green spooky.
If you like circus stories, there was an autobiography some years ago by a woman who did some TV called, I believe, “I Love You Honey but the Season’s Almost Over”. Her name was Claussen or something like that. A good read.
It was a good movie. I first rented it from the local library. Not as good as Ten Commandments, but worth watching if you like circus clowns and behind the scenes of what goes on behind the red tent.
That was the first time I was allowed to stay up till midnight to see the end of a movie. It was on the ABC Sunday Night Movie from 9 PM to midnight, in around 1966 or 1967. I was only 11 or 12 and had school the next day, but my parents couldn’t send me to bed before I saw the train wreck and its aftermath. That ending is extremely moving – to me it sums up what show business is all about, and who should know more about that than Cecil B. DeMille?
I agree Bill, I have a 16mm print I drag out every now and again.
Oh my goodness, how I would love to see it again at RCMH with the enhanced big screen train wreck scenes.
Thanks, Vito. I love that movie, and I defend it against people who say it didn’t deserve to win the Best Picture Oscar every chance I get.
January 10th 1952 the World premere at RCMH of
of the “Greatest Show on Earth”
View link
I can’t begin to tell how depressed i’ve been since my stroke 4 years now the music hall was my 2nd home the people there are family
they are great, the music hall has a safe future from what I saw while I was there, everyone cares very much for its continued success&they work very hard to ensure it.my love to all of you who work there and read this.
“Up The Down Staircase” played the Hall in the Summer of 1967. It is one of the famous “Radio City 11”. Well, they are certainly famous, and fabulous to me. I don’t have time to go into detail now; I will in my next post, which will be all about the numbers 2, 11 and 36.
There were no depressing films that played Radio City. Downbeat, maybe. Evocative, thought provoking, definitely. I"m Bipolar, and I can’t imagine the instance of sadness or depression that I would stay in one moment after seeing The Rockettes take the stage. I think it is physically and emotionally impossible to be depressed at the Music Hall.
nice interior shot Lost memory,I need all the help I can get,i’m forgetting how the place looked, i’m away 4 years now
radio city has really great people working therethat care for its operation, I
miss them dearly they’ve always offered me help where needed and kept me out of trouble, theres plenty of places one could get hurt if not alert, especially working on the Wurlitzer,so many tight spots
I’m 6'1" tall and banged my head more then one time taking care of an emergency sticking noteor other horror stories too many to write
of here
Sorry I forgot the ending in “Staircase”. I agree it was a very powerful film not like most of the silly teenage films that is made nowadays. Sandy Dennis was a great actress. I was training that year for my own teaching career when I saw the film in 1969. Through the years, I often had trouble hearing films at RCMH because of the acoustics the speech was often echoed. I wonder if that was ever fixed.
But remember, she didn’t die. The ledge broke her fall. And that movie did have a very effective happy ending. It’s one of my favorites and I only wish I could’ve seen it at the Music Hall.
I guess “Days of Wine and Roses” qualifies as a depressing RCMH film. The scariest horror movie to ever play there: “Wait Until Dark”.
The most depressing film I ever saw at the RCMH was “Up The Down Staircase” about a dysfunctional high school in upper Manhattan. It was back in 1969; even the stage show couldn’t cheer me up. I recall a troubled student jumping out of a window because she learned that her teacher didn’t love her. What other depressing films played at RCMH?
there are a few of Bohr’s intermissions on youtube
that organ was taylor made for the styles of Liebert, Bohr&Miller
we’ll never hear those great intermissions again, makes me very sad
I got hooked on theater organs and film history after hearing Dick Leibert play an intermission one Friday evening during the Christmas season of l963. He really knew what he was doing. So did Ray Bohr.