New Amsterdam Theatre
214 W. 42nd Street,
New York,
NY
10036
214 W. 42nd Street,
New York,
NY
10036
23 people
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The New Amsterdam was a full time movie house from 1937 to 1982.
Excerpt from a NY Times review of October 19, 1971:
“Also on the bill with "Bunny O'Hare,” currently at neighborhood theaters, is “The Velvet Vampire,” which is almost as funny as “Bunny O'Hare,” though I doubt that it means to be. It has to do with a beautiful, 125-year-old woman, the mistress of a remote ranch in the southwest who stocks her own blood bank with tourists dumb enough to spend the night.
“It is to be recommended only if you can see it at the New Amsterdam on 42d Street, where audiences loudly, freely and obscenely associate with the action on the screen.”
If you can find The Last Action Hero a 1993 film with Gov. Arnold you get a great view of what 42nd St. looked like prior to the Disney gentrification.
the changing faces of the Amsterdam
1995 closed and waiting for renovation with the Cine 42 and Roxy next to it
http://www.flickr.com/photos/woody1969/78612802/
the same view renovated and showing the Lion King
http://www.flickr.com/photos/woody1969/73312407/
the same view now showing Mary Poppins
day
http://www.flickr.com/photos/woody1969/2008530988/
and night
http://www.flickr.com/photos/woody1969/2007861285/
the outer lobby
http://www.flickr.com/photos/woody1969/2008522828/
Excerpt from a NY Times review of “Horror House” dated 12/10/70:
“Customers at the New Amsterdam on West 42d Street weren’t spared after The End. In a pell-mell rush came three successive previews of coming attractions, retaining the spirit. First we saw a sailor quartering crewmen with an axe. Next was a peek at a goody about the transplanting of living human heads.
“In the third tantalizer, mother was a vampire, bidding her son farewell with a tender chomp on the neck. Deck the halls and run.”
Wish I could have been there!
Reregistering.
Back in the 1990’s when the renovation of 42nd St. started I was on a cross town 42nd St. bus headed East and at the corner of 42nd and 7th Ave there was an old Daily News front page that had come to view since it had been pasted on the wall of a newsstand that was being demolished, it said…Carol Lombard Killed in Plane Crash. I guess no one thought it was worth saving.
Here is a photo, circa 1930s:
http://tinyurl.com/otrnf7
Here is a photo circa 1980s:
http://tinyurl.com/kulnnh
Here is a February 1994 photo from the NY Daily News:
http://tinyurl.com/l3by8u
In the early 1990’s I had a friend who worked as a grip in the film industry. I was working in NYC in construction and he invited me to meet him after work at the Amsterdam where he was working on the film Uncle Vanya. They had built a platform over the orchestra seats and the action was being filmed there at a small set of couches and chairs. The theater was in very bad shape with mushrooms growing up through missing pieces of flooring. The actors each had a camping tent set up in the area behind the orchestra. As with The Victory across 42nd St. these old theaters made excellent sound-stages and movie sets since they were insulated from the outside noise and had very good acoustics. A famous rock group performance was being filmed at the same time at the Victory across 42nd Street.
photo i took in 1995 while the theatre was being refurbished
http://www.flickr.com/photos/woody1969/3508126448/
there is a painted sign high on the side of the theatre
MOVIE STREET
OF THE WORLD
The BEST
and LATEST
ENTERTAINMENT
AIR CONDITIONED
This is one of the few times where the current photos look better than the old ones!
Here is a photo, circa 1960s:
http://tinyurl.com/c6rwmk
Renewing link.
Photos I took of the New Amsterdam late 1970’s and 2008
View link
We can only hope it was something soapy.
and, saps, there was no extra charge for the “live” entertainment supplied by an audience on The Deuce.
I remember seeing the rerelease of “PSYCHO” there in ‘64 and the guy in front of me was scarier than Bates.
Excerpt from a New York Times review dated August 15, 1968:
“THE CONQUEROR WORM,” which opened yesterday at the New Amsterdam and other neighborhood theaters, stars Vincent Price, [who] has a good time as a materialistic witch-hunter and woman-disfigurer and dismemberer, and the audience at the dark, ornate New Amsterdam seemed to have a good time as well.
There are lines like, “Take three good men and ride into East Anglia,” through which a man behind me snored and a middle-aged couple next to him quarreled viciously, but people woke up for the action and particularly cheered when Price was hacked to death.
In the course of the movie, a thin streak of something soapy persisted. It must have been a watermark across the lens in the projection booth.
Hmm. I thought the Laff became the Anco. The website says it became the Empire.
Great page! There are some errors though, one of which says that “the only thing that remains of the Eltinge (Empire AMC25) is the exterior”. That is not correct, the interior auditorium survives as the lobby for the multiplex.
I know there’s some resentment of the Disneyfication of Times Square, but in truth, we owe thanks for the restorative rescue of this theater.
Night view showing the New Amsterdam and New Victory, 1/23/08
The Beacon is suppossed to be getting at least a $10MM renovation from Cablevision. I haven’t been to the Beacon lately, so I don’t know if that has been done, or more importantly, if it was enough.
Terrific photos of the interior. Too bad that the Beacon has not received the sprucing-up that it deserves.
Ken Roe’s 2006 photos of interior of this grand Art Nouveau theater:
View link