I’ll go along with that. Yawn. If there is anything actionable in the things Life’s too short has written on this page as well as the “Chalet Theaters Needs One More” page, I’m a monkey’s uncle. I really hope the judge gives you a good verbal lashing for abusing the system, sctheaters, should you press the matter to litigation.
So, that previous ad was the 1st anniversary for the theater. I can’t imagine there was much to celebrate given the Victory’s out of the way location and nearby competition from larger houses on Bell Blvd and Northern Blvd. And in the midst of the great depression, were reserved-seat gala evenings such as the opener and the jubilee a year later all that well attended?
I love that photo of the old exterior. Here’s an image of the current exterior I took last year. If you compare the brick face of the current facade with the adjacent stores, it appears to have been completely re-pointed and painted. That small ledge above the upper floor windows in the 1930 photo are now gone, but the three round anchors that supported the weight of the canopy marquee remain. It also appears as if that border row of bricks around the current sign for the church existed as an obscured detail just above the marquee in the 1930 shot.
I wonder what, if anything, remains of the interior from the original design. I’ll try to get inside this weekend, even if they don’t allow my camera.
Again, I don’t see Life’s too Short referring to your company at all in any specific manner on this page. That you are implicating yourself in his accusation, is all I am pointing out. Now, if you are talking about a debate you and he have been carrying out in another page or news item, then I stand corrected. But why bother linking your company to his comments on this page? I don’t want to make a federal case of it. Respond if you like, but I’m ready to move on.
If Life’s too short was talking about your theater chain in his September 1st posting, sctheaters, I certainly wasn’t aware of it until you made the connection yourself in your comment of 1:02pm today. Life might have been thinking about your chain, but he was considerate enough to discuss the situation in general terms. Surely, yours is not the only company to have made propositions such as that described on this site before… I’ve seen several similar scenarios pop up in the News items in the past.
Davebazooka… Promise me one thing: If you ever are able to gain access to the Keith’s (that is, short of breaking and entering), you’ll be sure to bring me along with you!
Outstanding, Lost. Glad to see you back in action. That would certainly flesh out the history for this theater some, inlcuding an AKA, an actual street address and, perhaps most importantly, a correction to the current use.
Other questions remain as to the date this theater opened and whether it ever had stage facilities prior to conversion to live peformance. But, I jump the gun.
Well… there’s also a “women cleaner’s room” under the ticket lobby, so that might very well be!
I never really explored the mezzanine promenade, unfortunately, so I’m not familiar with the “palm room.” I can remember looking down on the grand foyer from the railing of the promenade, but I never really strayed too far from the stairs up there, mostly sticking to my route from the candy counter and men’s room back up to the balcony theater. And then those times when I saw a film in theater 1 or 2, I didn’t venture up there at all.
Anyway, I believe the promenade floor is where a lot of the Huang-inflicted damage to the theater exists. Ed Baxter’s 2/27/05 comments mention gaping holes punched through the floor in this area – which I believe he also describes as having been unsafe to traverse.
Well… there’s also a “women cleaner’s room” under the ticket lobby, so that might very well be!
I never really explored the mezzanine promenade, unfortunately, so I’m not familiar with the “palm room.” I can remember looking down on the grand foyer from the railing of the promenade, but I never really strayed too far from the stairs up there, mostly sticking to my route from the candy counter and men’s room back up to the balcony theater. And then those times when I saw a film in theater 1 or 2, I didn’t venture up there at all.
Anyway, I believe the promenade floor is where a lot of the Huang-inflicted damage to the theater exists. Ed Baxter’s 2/27/05 comments mention gaping holes punched through the floor in this area – which I believe he also describes as having been unsafe to traverse.
Tremendous job, davebazooka! A million thanks! What beautiful drawings! OK… enough exclamatory remarks!
That “FoyerSouthElevation” image about halfway down your list represents the detail depicted in the modern-day photo you purchased from the NY Times. I don’t recall a high ceiling in the ticket lobby, but I did notice that feature in the drawings above – almost like a rotunda overlooking the lobby. Perhaps others can offer their recollections.
I do remember that vast promenade on the mezzanine level at the top of the grand staircases. Theater 3 occupied the entire balcony when it was a triplex and it seemed as if we had to travel a very long way before we ever got inside the actual seating area! The mezzanine level was dark and vast and usually quite chilly in the summertime thanks to the way they used to crank the A/C. I always took the right staircase up and down for some reason (perhaps because the men’s room was located at the bottom of this staircase) and then would traverse the long corridor along the side wall to get to my seats. Using this entrance, you’d come into the theater at the far right side of the lower cross over aisle, with the enormous old balcony spreading up and out in a steep rake to your left. I never used the additional stairs to get up to the top of the balcony (where there was another cross over aisle) as I loved sitting dead center and down a few steps in the 1st or 2nd row of the former loge section.
Those detailed alcoves in either back corner of the grand foyer under the twin staircases and near the auditorium entrance/exit doors were rather elaborate drinking fountains, as I recall.
Great work, dave… Thanks again! Was there anything else on file there of interest to CT members? Perhaps similar drawings of other notable Lamb designs for the cinema?
I knew I had seen this film at one of the 57th or 58th street theaters in mid-town Manhattan, but until I found this ad, could not be certain it was this theater: Stripper – NY Post 1/30/86
The film concerns itself with a competition at a Strippers' convention in Las Vegas, focusing on the stories of a handful of the women competing for a title. The actual competition was filmed as a documentary as were interviews with each of the featured strippers. What made the film a bit controversial was that the filmmakers then shot re-enactment footage featuring the ladies as themselves. Funny how today (after years of Court-TV, A&E docu-dramas and even segments on Nightline and 60 Minutes) such a practice wouldn’t even cause a blink.
I have a number of local newspapers from the 1980’s, saved for various reasons (the murder of John Lennon, the death of John Belushi, the Challenger tragedy, etc.) and I’ve posted a number of ads on this site from those papers. One thing I noticed from perusing those yellowing pages is that advertising for XXX theaters seemed to prosper in the NY Post and Daily News, particularly in the early part of the decade. The Times stopped allowing such advertising in the late 1970’s (after the chic had worn off). I never noticed any ads or listings for porn houses in Newsday until I came across these small ads from the fall of 1985:
I’ve never heard of “Key Theaters” and I don’t know if they owned any other screens on LI, but at least this one theater was a late-run discount house. Interestingly, the film “Creator” was only in its 3rd week of release at the time, so this engagement was not exactly late-run… unless the movie tanked right out of the gate and was rushed into $1.00 houses as a last ditch.
So is the Cine Capri an aka for the Old Bethpage or do I have the wrong theater? The location given is Old Bethpage Road at Round Swamp Road.
Excellent point, Don! I didn’t catch that. This is a stretch, but perhaps that meant the box office itself did close for a brief period of time in the wee hours, but that patrons who were already inside for the “late show” were allowed to stay until the last of the “4 big adult hits” was completely over.
Did you also notice that the third of the four glass entrance doors must have been shattered or broken (shot at?) sometime prior to this photo? It’s somewhat obscured by the figure of the “unknown soldier” in the 2nd photo, but you can make out more clearly in the first image the the door is completely encased in a plastic covering. That must have made for an interesting story.
Welcome back, Lost! Glad to have you “found” once again (insert rim-shot here). I hope things work out so that you continue to contribute for a good long time. And, no, I don’t think I would think or do any differently were I in your place. It will be interesting to see if Patrick responds here or in private to you about doling out further penalties as a result of this episode. Whatever happens, I just hope it is found to be just by all sides and we can move in with our happy little dysfunctional community ASAP.
I don’t know, Warren. I think it’s impossible to tell from the photo… My perception of that photo is that I’m looking downhill almost the whole way with a slight leveling off around 41st or so. If anything, it might begin inclining upward again past the LIRR and up towards Northern. Certainly at the Flushing Post Office (the brick and limestone building on the left under the trestle), the grade becomes much steeper heading towrads Franklin Ave and beyond towards Jamaica. Tell you what, I’ll get over there real soon with a bag of marbles and put this whole thing to rest!
Memory can play awful tricks with you, Warren. I worked on Main Street off 42nd Street for 5 years and could swear the uphill incline was from south to north, tapering off as it crossed under the LIRR trestle. No matter. If there was in fact a Prospect Avenue that intersected Main/Jarret, the mystery of that ad’s location is solved.
Mikemovies, my email address is openly provided in my profile and you are most certainly welcome to pass it along to Lost Memory. All Lost has to do to contact me is go to my profile and click on “E-mail”. I’d love to hear from him. I also hope he plans on coming back to the fold. I miss having him around to break my chops and poke fun at my long multi-post monologues on some of the less popular theater pages on this site! And whenever any of us get into a discussion about when a theater opened or when it was twinned or triplexed, he’s johnny on the spot with that C of O information!
This site needs him back and I have to trust that whatever differences exist between him and CT management can be worked out amicably. I do wonder why it was he alone who was singled out for disciplinary action, but I have no plans to insert myself into whatever disagreements there may be between the parties. I just hope we can all rise above it and move on with some dignity. In the end, Patrick and Ross have still not mandated that conversations on this site must be restricted to historical facts and statistics pertaining to each theater, merely that we do not engage in sedition. I see that as a decision in favor of the more liberal view of comment thread subject matter shared by Lost, myself and others on this site.
As a courtesy, however, to the membership at large, we must acknowledge that with that kind of latitude, comes the responsibility to know just how far such anecdotal musings should carry the conversation away from theater specifics. I think we all know when a thread gets a bit out of hand and really just becomes a “chat session” between a handful of members. For the better enjoyment of ALL concerned, I think we should agree to exercise some restraint and resolve to take conversations off-line when they become completely disassociated with a specific theater. And on the same token, we might also agree to be a bit more accepting of the diversity in this amazing forum and stop chiming in to admonish and chastise other members as if they were children when they share a tangential memory.
Oh brother… there you go getting me on my soapbox and sermonizing like a street corner preacher! Anyway, that is the way I feel and I’ll gladly suffer the flames from folks on either side who feel I’m off base. But, as always, I will not engage in a flame war. Have a great holiday weekend, everyone! Lost… come on back home!
Interesting thought, Warren. Although, the grade of Main Street runs pretty steadily (if only slightly) uphill from the south THROUGH the spot where the Prospect Theater stood and on up towards its terminus at Northern Blvd. The grade is much steeper to the south of 41st than it us to the north – which is the direction of downtown Flushing. Perhaps you’re right that this was once a “prospect point” where that grade sort of leveled out offering an overview of the lower lying lands to the south and east – and possibly to the west across nearby Flushing creek and towards Manhattan.
Oh, and dare I broach the subject of clemency for the departed CT member (and prolific contributor) Lost Memory? His passions may have certainly gotten the better of him from time to time, but in light of this new re-stating of comment posting policy, is the relationship between him and CT beyond repair? Surely there were no completely innocent victims in the flame wars that raged on the Ridgewood and Willard Theater pages.
True, I don’t know all the facts about what went on outside of the comment pages, but the situation concerns me as it does a number of loyal CT members who enjoyed his colorful style and the invaluable information he provided on so many theater pages on this site.
Thanks for the clarification, Patrick. While you might not feel it was needed, I think it was. The initial posting above seemed a little broad. I agree that slander and malicious attacks should be discouraged. We are a rambunctious bunch and we sometimes let our passions get the better of us. Thanks again.
Looking optimistically forward, now… Any update on what lies ahead for Cinema Treasures in terms of enhancements, new features or other developments of interest to the membership?
Caught that film a number of times on the old “4:30 Movie” that ran weekdays on WABC-TV channel 7 in NYC. I guess not even the scissor-happy editors at channel 7 could whittle “Journey” down to a cogent 72 or so minutes in order to accommodate the commercial breaks in the 90 minute time slot, so they would spread it out over two days.
Damn. That’s good work, Warren. Your a true history detective. I wonder what Walter Brennan’s characterization of Judge Roy Bean from “The Westerner” would have made of the story!
Hmmm. Something to ask the Turner Classic Movies archivists perhaps?
I’m curious about the Variety description of the new Mayfair having eliminated the Columbia stage and the back alleyway… When I called the “for lease” number currently advertised on the Embassy 2, 3, 4 marquee not too long ago, the gentleman representing the owner described the building as still having a backstage area with dressing rooms and fly space, although he did mention that the stage had been “cut” at some point and would have to be extended to accomodate live shows. I posted about this conversation back on Nov. 1, 2005.
I’m just curious as to why this backstage space was preserved, if the former vaudeville house had been gutted to the bare walls and rebuilt for screen shows only. That is, assuming the information provided to me by the rental agent was accurate.
I’ll go along with that. Yawn. If there is anything actionable in the things Life’s too short has written on this page as well as the “Chalet Theaters Needs One More” page, I’m a monkey’s uncle. I really hope the judge gives you a good verbal lashing for abusing the system, sctheaters, should you press the matter to litigation.
So, that previous ad was the 1st anniversary for the theater. I can’t imagine there was much to celebrate given the Victory’s out of the way location and nearby competition from larger houses on Bell Blvd and Northern Blvd. And in the midst of the great depression, were reserved-seat gala evenings such as the opener and the jubilee a year later all that well attended?
I love that photo of the old exterior. Here’s an image of the current exterior I took last year. If you compare the brick face of the current facade with the adjacent stores, it appears to have been completely re-pointed and painted. That small ledge above the upper floor windows in the 1930 photo are now gone, but the three round anchors that supported the weight of the canopy marquee remain. It also appears as if that border row of bricks around the current sign for the church existed as an obscured detail just above the marquee in the 1930 shot.
I wonder what, if anything, remains of the interior from the original design. I’ll try to get inside this weekend, even if they don’t allow my camera.
Again, I don’t see Life’s too Short referring to your company at all in any specific manner on this page. That you are implicating yourself in his accusation, is all I am pointing out. Now, if you are talking about a debate you and he have been carrying out in another page or news item, then I stand corrected. But why bother linking your company to his comments on this page? I don’t want to make a federal case of it. Respond if you like, but I’m ready to move on.
If Life’s too short was talking about your theater chain in his September 1st posting, sctheaters, I certainly wasn’t aware of it until you made the connection yourself in your comment of 1:02pm today. Life might have been thinking about your chain, but he was considerate enough to discuss the situation in general terms. Surely, yours is not the only company to have made propositions such as that described on this site before… I’ve seen several similar scenarios pop up in the News items in the past.
Davebazooka… Promise me one thing: If you ever are able to gain access to the Keith’s (that is, short of breaking and entering), you’ll be sure to bring me along with you!
Outstanding, Lost. Glad to see you back in action. That would certainly flesh out the history for this theater some, inlcuding an AKA, an actual street address and, perhaps most importantly, a correction to the current use.
Other questions remain as to the date this theater opened and whether it ever had stage facilities prior to conversion to live peformance. But, I jump the gun.
Well… there’s also a “women cleaner’s room” under the ticket lobby, so that might very well be!
I never really explored the mezzanine promenade, unfortunately, so I’m not familiar with the “palm room.” I can remember looking down on the grand foyer from the railing of the promenade, but I never really strayed too far from the stairs up there, mostly sticking to my route from the candy counter and men’s room back up to the balcony theater. And then those times when I saw a film in theater 1 or 2, I didn’t venture up there at all.
Anyway, I believe the promenade floor is where a lot of the Huang-inflicted damage to the theater exists. Ed Baxter’s 2/27/05 comments mention gaping holes punched through the floor in this area – which I believe he also describes as having been unsafe to traverse.
Well… there’s also a “women cleaner’s room” under the ticket lobby, so that might very well be!
I never really explored the mezzanine promenade, unfortunately, so I’m not familiar with the “palm room.” I can remember looking down on the grand foyer from the railing of the promenade, but I never really strayed too far from the stairs up there, mostly sticking to my route from the candy counter and men’s room back up to the balcony theater. And then those times when I saw a film in theater 1 or 2, I didn’t venture up there at all.
Anyway, I believe the promenade floor is where a lot of the Huang-inflicted damage to the theater exists. Ed Baxter’s 2/27/05 comments mention gaping holes punched through the floor in this area – which I believe he also describes as having been unsafe to traverse.
Tremendous job, davebazooka! A million thanks! What beautiful drawings! OK… enough exclamatory remarks!
That “FoyerSouthElevation” image about halfway down your list represents the detail depicted in the modern-day photo you purchased from the NY Times. I don’t recall a high ceiling in the ticket lobby, but I did notice that feature in the drawings above – almost like a rotunda overlooking the lobby. Perhaps others can offer their recollections.
I do remember that vast promenade on the mezzanine level at the top of the grand staircases. Theater 3 occupied the entire balcony when it was a triplex and it seemed as if we had to travel a very long way before we ever got inside the actual seating area! The mezzanine level was dark and vast and usually quite chilly in the summertime thanks to the way they used to crank the A/C. I always took the right staircase up and down for some reason (perhaps because the men’s room was located at the bottom of this staircase) and then would traverse the long corridor along the side wall to get to my seats. Using this entrance, you’d come into the theater at the far right side of the lower cross over aisle, with the enormous old balcony spreading up and out in a steep rake to your left. I never used the additional stairs to get up to the top of the balcony (where there was another cross over aisle) as I loved sitting dead center and down a few steps in the 1st or 2nd row of the former loge section.
Those detailed alcoves in either back corner of the grand foyer under the twin staircases and near the auditorium entrance/exit doors were rather elaborate drinking fountains, as I recall.
Great work, dave… Thanks again! Was there anything else on file there of interest to CT members? Perhaps similar drawings of other notable Lamb designs for the cinema?
I knew I had seen this film at one of the 57th or 58th street theaters in mid-town Manhattan, but until I found this ad, could not be certain it was this theater:
Stripper – NY Post 1/30/86
The film concerns itself with a competition at a Strippers' convention in Las Vegas, focusing on the stories of a handful of the women competing for a title. The actual competition was filmed as a documentary as were interviews with each of the featured strippers. What made the film a bit controversial was that the filmmakers then shot re-enactment footage featuring the ladies as themselves. Funny how today (after years of Court-TV, A&E docu-dramas and even segments on Nightline and 60 Minutes) such a practice wouldn’t even cause a blink.
I have a number of local newspapers from the 1980’s, saved for various reasons (the murder of John Lennon, the death of John Belushi, the Challenger tragedy, etc.) and I’ve posted a number of ads on this site from those papers. One thing I noticed from perusing those yellowing pages is that advertising for XXX theaters seemed to prosper in the NY Post and Daily News, particularly in the early part of the decade. The Times stopped allowing such advertising in the late 1970’s (after the chic had worn off). I never noticed any ads or listings for porn houses in Newsday until I came across these small ads from the fall of 1985:
Little Oval Annie – Newsday 9/23/85
Call Girls and Superstar Ladies – Newsday 10/5/85
Does anyone know if this is the same theater advertised in the following clipping as the “Cine Capri”?:
New Mgmt New Prices – Newsday 9/23/85
Creator – Newsday 10/5/85
I’ve never heard of “Key Theaters” and I don’t know if they owned any other screens on LI, but at least this one theater was a late-run discount house. Interestingly, the film “Creator” was only in its 3rd week of release at the time, so this engagement was not exactly late-run… unless the movie tanked right out of the gate and was rushed into $1.00 houses as a last ditch.
So is the Cine Capri an aka for the Old Bethpage or do I have the wrong theater? The location given is Old Bethpage Road at Round Swamp Road.
Excellent point, Don! I didn’t catch that. This is a stretch, but perhaps that meant the box office itself did close for a brief period of time in the wee hours, but that patrons who were already inside for the “late show” were allowed to stay until the last of the “4 big adult hits” was completely over.
Did you also notice that the third of the four glass entrance doors must have been shattered or broken (shot at?) sometime prior to this photo? It’s somewhat obscured by the figure of the “unknown soldier” in the 2nd photo, but you can make out more clearly in the first image the the door is completely encased in a plastic covering. That must have made for an interesting story.
Welcome back, Lost! Glad to have you “found” once again (insert rim-shot here). I hope things work out so that you continue to contribute for a good long time. And, no, I don’t think I would think or do any differently were I in your place. It will be interesting to see if Patrick responds here or in private to you about doling out further penalties as a result of this episode. Whatever happens, I just hope it is found to be just by all sides and we can move in with our happy little dysfunctional community ASAP.
I don’t know, Warren. I think it’s impossible to tell from the photo… My perception of that photo is that I’m looking downhill almost the whole way with a slight leveling off around 41st or so. If anything, it might begin inclining upward again past the LIRR and up towards Northern. Certainly at the Flushing Post Office (the brick and limestone building on the left under the trestle), the grade becomes much steeper heading towrads Franklin Ave and beyond towards Jamaica. Tell you what, I’ll get over there real soon with a bag of marbles and put this whole thing to rest!
Things have certainly gotten a might less interesting around here… and I don’t just mean the fact that the flame wars have been doused.
I should say, “the mystery of the location provided in that ad is solved.”
Memory can play awful tricks with you, Warren. I worked on Main Street off 42nd Street for 5 years and could swear the uphill incline was from south to north, tapering off as it crossed under the LIRR trestle. No matter. If there was in fact a Prospect Avenue that intersected Main/Jarret, the mystery of that ad’s location is solved.
Mikemovies, my email address is openly provided in my profile and you are most certainly welcome to pass it along to Lost Memory. All Lost has to do to contact me is go to my profile and click on “E-mail”. I’d love to hear from him. I also hope he plans on coming back to the fold. I miss having him around to break my chops and poke fun at my long multi-post monologues on some of the less popular theater pages on this site! And whenever any of us get into a discussion about when a theater opened or when it was twinned or triplexed, he’s johnny on the spot with that C of O information!
This site needs him back and I have to trust that whatever differences exist between him and CT management can be worked out amicably. I do wonder why it was he alone who was singled out for disciplinary action, but I have no plans to insert myself into whatever disagreements there may be between the parties. I just hope we can all rise above it and move on with some dignity. In the end, Patrick and Ross have still not mandated that conversations on this site must be restricted to historical facts and statistics pertaining to each theater, merely that we do not engage in sedition. I see that as a decision in favor of the more liberal view of comment thread subject matter shared by Lost, myself and others on this site.
As a courtesy, however, to the membership at large, we must acknowledge that with that kind of latitude, comes the responsibility to know just how far such anecdotal musings should carry the conversation away from theater specifics. I think we all know when a thread gets a bit out of hand and really just becomes a “chat session” between a handful of members. For the better enjoyment of ALL concerned, I think we should agree to exercise some restraint and resolve to take conversations off-line when they become completely disassociated with a specific theater. And on the same token, we might also agree to be a bit more accepting of the diversity in this amazing forum and stop chiming in to admonish and chastise other members as if they were children when they share a tangential memory.
Oh brother… there you go getting me on my soapbox and sermonizing like a street corner preacher! Anyway, that is the way I feel and I’ll gladly suffer the flames from folks on either side who feel I’m off base. But, as always, I will not engage in a flame war. Have a great holiday weekend, everyone! Lost… come on back home!
Interesting thought, Warren. Although, the grade of Main Street runs pretty steadily (if only slightly) uphill from the south THROUGH the spot where the Prospect Theater stood and on up towards its terminus at Northern Blvd. The grade is much steeper to the south of 41st than it us to the north – which is the direction of downtown Flushing. Perhaps you’re right that this was once a “prospect point” where that grade sort of leveled out offering an overview of the lower lying lands to the south and east – and possibly to the west across nearby Flushing creek and towards Manhattan.
Oh, and dare I broach the subject of clemency for the departed CT member (and prolific contributor) Lost Memory? His passions may have certainly gotten the better of him from time to time, but in light of this new re-stating of comment posting policy, is the relationship between him and CT beyond repair? Surely there were no completely innocent victims in the flame wars that raged on the Ridgewood and Willard Theater pages.
True, I don’t know all the facts about what went on outside of the comment pages, but the situation concerns me as it does a number of loyal CT members who enjoyed his colorful style and the invaluable information he provided on so many theater pages on this site.
Thanks for the clarification, Patrick. While you might not feel it was needed, I think it was. The initial posting above seemed a little broad. I agree that slander and malicious attacks should be discouraged. We are a rambunctious bunch and we sometimes let our passions get the better of us. Thanks again.
Looking optimistically forward, now… Any update on what lies ahead for Cinema Treasures in terms of enhancements, new features or other developments of interest to the membership?
Caught that film a number of times on the old “4:30 Movie” that ran weekdays on WABC-TV channel 7 in NYC. I guess not even the scissor-happy editors at channel 7 could whittle “Journey” down to a cogent 72 or so minutes in order to accommodate the commercial breaks in the 90 minute time slot, so they would spread it out over two days.
Damn. That’s good work, Warren. Your a true history detective. I wonder what Walter Brennan’s characterization of Judge Roy Bean from “The Westerner” would have made of the story!
Hmmm. Something to ask the Turner Classic Movies archivists perhaps?
I’m curious about the Variety description of the new Mayfair having eliminated the Columbia stage and the back alleyway… When I called the “for lease” number currently advertised on the Embassy 2, 3, 4 marquee not too long ago, the gentleman representing the owner described the building as still having a backstage area with dressing rooms and fly space, although he did mention that the stage had been “cut” at some point and would have to be extended to accomodate live shows. I posted about this conversation back on Nov. 1, 2005.
I’m just curious as to why this backstage space was preserved, if the former vaudeville house had been gutted to the bare walls and rebuilt for screen shows only. That is, assuming the information provided to me by the rental agent was accurate.