Warren, thanks for that postcard view! An excellent image of the right half of the baroque faux facade of the villa. Except for a few design details it matches the drawing of the north elevation:
At the top center of the postcard there is a decorative element on the wall over the ornate oval-shaped window, and in the north elevation drawing it is represented only by a scribbled pencil mark. I can almost see and hear the conversation as the draftsman and the designer decided to add it at the last minute, and drew a quick circle to represent it, back in January 1928!
I wonder what would happen if a hundred of us showed up and demanded entry, or just strode in, cameras out and flashlights on! Maybe bringing printouts of the blueprints for the place would make us look official. Imagine how many police they would have to call to chase us outta there. heehee fantasizing is free!
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. :(
It is dangerous if inhaled, asbestos dust clings to lung tissue and causes asbestosis and cancer. Face masks minimize the danger. But I would risk 15 or 20 minutes maskless in there just to snap a few pics!
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!
Seriously maybe we can befriend a worker involved in whatever is going on and get inside that way, does anyone know if the storefront is ever open on the weekends?
Saw “The Queen” on Thanksgiving in the tiny Cinema 3. The interior of the building is unremarkable and is not being well maintained. Seats were ujncomfortable, ragged and dirty. Lobby area overheated and staff were loud and abrasive as they herded crowds around…those of us heading upstairs had to wait in a corner while huge noisy crowds exited the penguin movie on the first floor. There is an tacky painting of Brooke Shields in the lobby. If the artist reads this, I apologize for the negative opinion but it is my honest response to what I saw.
While I was waiting outside in the recessed area beneath the marquee, I noticed a plaque very low on the building indicating it had received some sort of recognition or award as an interesting example of 1960s urban architecture.
I cleaned up my desktop and found these six Lamb designs of the RKO that I missed before. What is interesting is they show the office building’s layout in greater detail. There is also a closeup of the men’s lounge/restroom on the mezzanine.
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
Sorry for the off topic remarks. If someone is a “serious architectural historian,” they won’t rely on message boards at web sites, they will do research at a library that holds architectural drawings of theatres, or take loads of pictures of existing theatre buildings. I find the comments at Cinema Treasures to be an interesting mix of reminiscences and facts about theatres, and if it did not have the comments about movies as well as experiences at individual theatres, it would not be half as interesting as it is. Lately I have noticed cool, snippy comments from members giving little lectures or wrist slaps, which is probably why I find myself visiting the site less and less, and no longer recommending it to anyone at all. I think my relevant postings of many images, notably for the Beekman and the RKO Keith’s/Flushing, contribute much toward knowing these theatres architecturally, and I think I am entitled to exchange some commentary with other members about our moviegoing tastes.
Ed I agree about “2001” being the finest in the medium. Anything new or space-y I see, I find myself automatically comparing to “2001,” especially in the special effects department. Sometimes it is hard to believe that it was released in the 1960s! Especially since 60s space shows in TV had such cheesy effects…I guess budget makes the big difference. I wish I could attend the showing at the Loew’s!! Would also love to see “Alien” and “Aliens” there.
“2001” is the best!!! I absolutely despised “ET.” Childish garbage. Intelligent kids will easily see through its fake cutesy-cutesiness and become bored. “Forbidden Planet” always irked me and today it is little more than a corny shlocky 50s scifi period piece. The fact that it was based upon Shakespeare’s “Tempest” made some suckers think it was a cut above the usual science fiction fare, which is was not. “Angry Red Planet” was more interesting than “Forbidden Planet,” and that’s not saying much for the latter.
Hi KenRaniere, I am glad you enjoyed those drawings from the Avery Library. Thank goodness they still exist and are accessible! Thanks for answering my question about the RKO Foyer’s ceiling, I love that it was dusk and not entirely midnight or entirely daytime…that way, the best of both could be evoked. In the Chang Lee photo, there still seems to be some ultramarine but most of the paint behind the baroque structures looks like it has faded to greenish gray. Probably water damage. This must have been a spectacular room, especially when the stars were on!
I hope everyone saw my second post of Chang Lee’s Foyer picture on Aug 30, 2006 at 11:32am…it is a much larger version of the one I originally posted, I finally figured out how to stuff it into the photobucket.
Sorry to hear about this loss. If I lived in SF I would attend a last show and take as many pics as possible of the interior for posterity, since it seems all we will have left of our wonderful theatres is photographs.
Thank you Ed, I will look for that book…would love to see how that gallery looked, if even just a portion of it. I wonder if it is in as good a condition as the southern part of the foyer shown in Chang Lee’s pic…ARRGH we gotta find a way in!!!
Thanks for the article, Ed. That gilded plaster gallery over the ticket lobby must still be there, if that lobby is landmarked along with the foyer. Up until I saw those elevation drawings clearly showing the gallery, I wondered why the lobby was included in the landmarked areas, as without the gallery it would have been little more than a long, low-ceilinged room with decorative poster containers on the walls. I know two Queens natives who attended movies at the theatre but neither recalls the ticket lobby having a gallery above it. Of course they do recall the foyer, though, as being magnificent. So the glass curtain deal must be truly a crock, because not only would the foyer’s baroque arches over the entrance have to be removed in order for that space to be visible from the street thru a glass wall, but the landmarked lobby’s gilded plaster gallery would also have to be removed. What a tangled web!
Hi Dave:
Anyone can go to the Avery Library at Columbia. It is by advance appointment only, you can either call or arrange it by email. I arranged mine by email and then followed up with a confirming phone call the day before, which is when the librarian explains what you will need and how to find the Avery. I let them know the theatre drawings I wanted to view and they found all the drawings, which were ready for unrolling on a cart when i arrived. You must have a valid current photo ID in order to receive a “reader’s permit” from the security office at the Butler Library.
There are many, many drawings of each theatre and viewing just one batch takes a lot of unrolling and rerolling and the rolls are large and heavy…it is hard work! Viewing the designs of multiple theatres would undoubtedly entail multiple visits. I wonder what the drawings of the Loew’s Triboro show! The theatres may be gone, but at least we have their original blueprints, in case the opportunity arrises one day to build them again.
Ok Ed, maybe we can pose as prospective buyers, if there is any truth to the rumor that the current owners are looking to unload the property (mentioned in Warren’s post on Aug 26, 2006 at 8:22am). Surely they would let us in to see what we were gong to plunk money down for!
I would traverse the promenade, lightfooted as a cat. Or lightpawed. When I explored the ruins of Roosevelt Island I tiptoed over bare steel and wood beams in order to cross rooms whose floors had collapsed. The only time my explorations got dangerous was when I nearly got locked inside a massive room-sized refrigerator. I doubt if my corpse would have been found for years if I had become trapped. That was a close call indeed. If the Keith’s has any large refrigerators I will steer clear of them. :)
Hi Ed!
Glad you enjoyed the drawings. The Avery Library has THOUSANDS of Lamb drawings, and the librarian in charge told me that going into the stacks looking for them is like a scene out of Indiana Jones. She very kindly pulled drawings of the RKO 86th Street for me, but could not locate anything relating to the RKO Proctor’s on East 58th, which was built at the same time as the RKO Flushing. That was a bummer, but it is possible that they have them filed under the Third Avenue address rather than the 58th Street address, which is what I gave as a reference. I could not offhand think of the address the entry on Third might have been.
The drawings of the RKO 86th (which also had the Proctor’s name on its signage, I think) were not as extensive or detailed as these above for the RKO. But believe me, after two hours of unrolling, viewing, and rerolling huge old blueprints, my brain was on the brink of conking out, so I did not really give the drawings for the 86th a good look-thru. Many of them were specs and Hvac stuff, which I could not decipher. I may return for a more thorough look.
In the RKO Flushing drawings, I love the way the Grand Foyer’s dome is tucked beneath the uppermost reaches of the balcony, and the mezzanine areas are very interesting. I can see exactly the path you took to your seat! What was the “Palm Room”? It looks long and narrow, along the back wall of the main mezzanine room.
I didn’t take a pic of it but somewhere among the basement specs was a small room named the “Colored Porter’s Room.” Was there segregation in the basement of the Keith’s?
Seeing these drawings makes me REALLY WANNA GET IN to take pics!!!! ARRGH
I visited the Avery Library at Columbia University and viewed the drawings of the Keith’s. WHEW they were printed on massive heavy rolls of cloth and paper, and covered with dust. Most of the drawings are labeled “revision” or “revised.” A good many dealt with HVAC or drainage and machinery and other engineering specs which I could not make sense of, so I photographed the most interesting drawings relating to decor and layout:
Examining the elevation drawings of the Ticket Lobby, it looks like there was originally some kind of decorative space or dome above the area where the poster cases were hung…is this correct, or was there no such decorative element?If it had been included it would have encroached upon the available rentable space in the office building above, so it may have been nixed from the start or else removed at a later time.
When I got the foyer picture from the Times I was surprised that the decor seems to be mostly intact, very nearly pristine in fact. I thought it would be in much worse shape. It is amazing that the false awnings still hang behind the collonnade-like windows. I wonder if they are the original awnings. I notice that most of the blue paint behind them is faded away completely, but the ceiling aboev looks to be midnight blue. Was the foyer’s ceiling bright daylight blue or midnight blue with stars? Either way I am sure it was spectacular.
Warren, thanks for that postcard view! An excellent image of the right half of the baroque faux facade of the villa. Except for a few design details it matches the drawing of the north elevation:
View link
At the top center of the postcard there is a decorative element on the wall over the ornate oval-shaped window, and in the north elevation drawing it is represented only by a scribbled pencil mark. I can almost see and hear the conversation as the draftsman and the designer decided to add it at the last minute, and drew a quick circle to represent it, back in January 1928!
I wonder what would happen if a hundred of us showed up and demanded entry, or just strode in, cameras out and flashlights on! Maybe bringing printouts of the blueprints for the place would make us look official. Imagine how many police they would have to call to chase us outta there. heehee fantasizing is free!
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. :(
It is dangerous if inhaled, asbestos dust clings to lung tissue and causes asbestosis and cancer. Face masks minimize the danger. But I would risk 15 or 20 minutes maskless in there just to snap a few pics!
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!
Seriously maybe we can befriend a worker involved in whatever is going on and get inside that way, does anyone know if the storefront is ever open on the weekends?
Saw “The Queen” on Thanksgiving in the tiny Cinema 3. The interior of the building is unremarkable and is not being well maintained. Seats were ujncomfortable, ragged and dirty. Lobby area overheated and staff were loud and abrasive as they herded crowds around…those of us heading upstairs had to wait in a corner while huge noisy crowds exited the penguin movie on the first floor. There is an tacky painting of Brooke Shields in the lobby. If the artist reads this, I apologize for the negative opinion but it is my honest response to what I saw.
While I was waiting outside in the recessed area beneath the marquee, I noticed a plaque very low on the building indicating it had received some sort of recognition or award as an interesting example of 1960s urban architecture.
I cleaned up my desktop and found these six Lamb designs of the RKO that I missed before. What is interesting is they show the office building’s layout in greater detail. There is also a closeup of the men’s lounge/restroom on the mezzanine.
View link
View link
View link
View link
View link
View link
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
Sorry for the off topic remarks. If someone is a “serious architectural historian,” they won’t rely on message boards at web sites, they will do research at a library that holds architectural drawings of theatres, or take loads of pictures of existing theatre buildings. I find the comments at Cinema Treasures to be an interesting mix of reminiscences and facts about theatres, and if it did not have the comments about movies as well as experiences at individual theatres, it would not be half as interesting as it is. Lately I have noticed cool, snippy comments from members giving little lectures or wrist slaps, which is probably why I find myself visiting the site less and less, and no longer recommending it to anyone at all. I think my relevant postings of many images, notably for the Beekman and the RKO Keith’s/Flushing, contribute much toward knowing these theatres architecturally, and I think I am entitled to exchange some commentary with other members about our moviegoing tastes.
Sorry for diluting the value of the site!
Thanks Warren!
Ed I agree about “2001” being the finest in the medium. Anything new or space-y I see, I find myself automatically comparing to “2001,” especially in the special effects department. Sometimes it is hard to believe that it was released in the 1960s! Especially since 60s space shows in TV had such cheesy effects…I guess budget makes the big difference. I wish I could attend the showing at the Loew’s!! Would also love to see “Alien” and “Aliens” there.
“2001” is the best!!! I absolutely despised “ET.” Childish garbage. Intelligent kids will easily see through its fake cutesy-cutesiness and become bored. “Forbidden Planet” always irked me and today it is little more than a corny shlocky 50s scifi period piece. The fact that it was based upon Shakespeare’s “Tempest” made some suckers think it was a cut above the usual science fiction fare, which is was not. “Angry Red Planet” was more interesting than “Forbidden Planet,” and that’s not saying much for the latter.
The Loew’s web site is down, has been for a couple of days. I hope everything is ok with the theatre!
Hi KenRaniere, I am glad you enjoyed those drawings from the Avery Library. Thank goodness they still exist and are accessible! Thanks for answering my question about the RKO Foyer’s ceiling, I love that it was dusk and not entirely midnight or entirely daytime…that way, the best of both could be evoked. In the Chang Lee photo, there still seems to be some ultramarine but most of the paint behind the baroque structures looks like it has faded to greenish gray. Probably water damage. This must have been a spectacular room, especially when the stars were on!
I hope everyone saw my second post of Chang Lee’s Foyer picture on Aug 30, 2006 at 11:32am…it is a much larger version of the one I originally posted, I finally figured out how to stuff it into the photobucket.
Sorry to hear about this loss. If I lived in SF I would attend a last show and take as many pics as possible of the interior for posterity, since it seems all we will have left of our wonderful theatres is photographs.
Thank you Ed, I will look for that book…would love to see how that gallery looked, if even just a portion of it. I wonder if it is in as good a condition as the southern part of the foyer shown in Chang Lee’s pic…ARRGH we gotta find a way in!!!
Thanks for the article, Ed. That gilded plaster gallery over the ticket lobby must still be there, if that lobby is landmarked along with the foyer. Up until I saw those elevation drawings clearly showing the gallery, I wondered why the lobby was included in the landmarked areas, as without the gallery it would have been little more than a long, low-ceilinged room with decorative poster containers on the walls. I know two Queens natives who attended movies at the theatre but neither recalls the ticket lobby having a gallery above it. Of course they do recall the foyer, though, as being magnificent. So the glass curtain deal must be truly a crock, because not only would the foyer’s baroque arches over the entrance have to be removed in order for that space to be visible from the street thru a glass wall, but the landmarked lobby’s gilded plaster gallery would also have to be removed. What a tangled web!
Heehee hey Jeffrey1955, I swear the only thing I was inhaling was loads of dust from the 1928 blueprints! cough hack
Hi Dave:
Anyone can go to the Avery Library at Columbia. It is by advance appointment only, you can either call or arrange it by email. I arranged mine by email and then followed up with a confirming phone call the day before, which is when the librarian explains what you will need and how to find the Avery. I let them know the theatre drawings I wanted to view and they found all the drawings, which were ready for unrolling on a cart when i arrived. You must have a valid current photo ID in order to receive a “reader’s permit” from the security office at the Butler Library.
Here is the Avery Library’s web site:
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/indiv/avery/
There are many, many drawings of each theatre and viewing just one batch takes a lot of unrolling and rerolling and the rolls are large and heavy…it is hard work! Viewing the designs of multiple theatres would undoubtedly entail multiple visits. I wonder what the drawings of the Loew’s Triboro show! The theatres may be gone, but at least we have their original blueprints, in case the opportunity arrises one day to build them again.
—Dave
Ok Ed, maybe we can pose as prospective buyers, if there is any truth to the rumor that the current owners are looking to unload the property (mentioned in Warren’s post on Aug 26, 2006 at 8:22am). Surely they would let us in to see what we were gong to plunk money down for!
I would traverse the promenade, lightfooted as a cat. Or lightpawed. When I explored the ruins of Roosevelt Island I tiptoed over bare steel and wood beams in order to cross rooms whose floors had collapsed. The only time my explorations got dangerous was when I nearly got locked inside a massive room-sized refrigerator. I doubt if my corpse would have been found for years if I had become trapped. That was a close call indeed. If the Keith’s has any large refrigerators I will steer clear of them. :)
Hi Ed!
Glad you enjoyed the drawings. The Avery Library has THOUSANDS of Lamb drawings, and the librarian in charge told me that going into the stacks looking for them is like a scene out of Indiana Jones. She very kindly pulled drawings of the RKO 86th Street for me, but could not locate anything relating to the RKO Proctor’s on East 58th, which was built at the same time as the RKO Flushing. That was a bummer, but it is possible that they have them filed under the Third Avenue address rather than the 58th Street address, which is what I gave as a reference. I could not offhand think of the address the entry on Third might have been.
The drawings of the RKO 86th (which also had the Proctor’s name on its signage, I think) were not as extensive or detailed as these above for the RKO. But believe me, after two hours of unrolling, viewing, and rerolling huge old blueprints, my brain was on the brink of conking out, so I did not really give the drawings for the 86th a good look-thru. Many of them were specs and Hvac stuff, which I could not decipher. I may return for a more thorough look.
In the RKO Flushing drawings, I love the way the Grand Foyer’s dome is tucked beneath the uppermost reaches of the balcony, and the mezzanine areas are very interesting. I can see exactly the path you took to your seat! What was the “Palm Room”? It looks long and narrow, along the back wall of the main mezzanine room.
I didn’t take a pic of it but somewhere among the basement specs was a small room named the “Colored Porter’s Room.” Was there segregation in the basement of the Keith’s?
Seeing these drawings makes me REALLY WANNA GET IN to take pics!!!! ARRGH
I visited the Avery Library at Columbia University and viewed the drawings of the Keith’s. WHEW they were printed on massive heavy rolls of cloth and paper, and covered with dust. Most of the drawings are labeled “revision” or “revised.” A good many dealt with HVAC or drainage and machinery and other engineering specs which I could not make sense of, so I photographed the most interesting drawings relating to decor and layout:
View link
View link
View link
View link
View link
View link
View link
View link
View link
View link
View link
View link
View link
View link
View link
View link
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View link
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View link
Examining the elevation drawings of the Ticket Lobby, it looks like there was originally some kind of decorative space or dome above the area where the poster cases were hung…is this correct, or was there no such decorative element?If it had been included it would have encroached upon the available rentable space in the office building above, so it may have been nixed from the start or else removed at a later time.
Much larger version of the Grand Foyer image here:
View link
When I got the foyer picture from the Times I was surprised that the decor seems to be mostly intact, very nearly pristine in fact. I thought it would be in much worse shape. It is amazing that the false awnings still hang behind the collonnade-like windows. I wonder if they are the original awnings. I notice that most of the blue paint behind them is faded away completely, but the ceiling aboev looks to be midnight blue. Was the foyer’s ceiling bright daylight blue or midnight blue with stars? Either way I am sure it was spectacular.