This theatre showed gay porn during the mid 70s, then became legit. I recall seeing “Poltergeist” here in 1982. Later I saw “The Prince of Darkness” and “Serpent and the Rainbow.” All horror stuff. Funny, I recall the marquee and the interior as being very dark.
I don’t think the building was demolished, the space that used to be the theatres has been converted to other use…but I am not sure about this.
I remember going to see “Sasquatch” and “Steel Magnolias” at the small single-screen theatre directly across the street, which I recall as being the “DW Griffith.” Does anyone know what it is called now? thx
This theatre must have been something to see!!! I recently walked past…all of 58th street between Third and Lexington is new post-1970 architecture. The bland office tower that replaced the RKO is flanked by equally bland glass box buildings. Across the street, the old Alexander’s is replaced by the new Bloomberg Building. Everything is glass and steel and modern, the street is like a futuristic starbase from one of the Star Trek movies. It would be fab if someone would build a replica of the original RKO Proctor’s or any other atmospheric, but I guess that kind of thing just doesn’t happen.
If this is the theatre I recall, I saw “Island at the Top of the World” here in the early 1970s when I was a kid on East 93rd Street. The theatre was new and had very 70s-style wallpapering in the lobby that looked like shiny contact paper with dark blue and green and black patterns resembling leopard spots. I went for other movies but completely forgot about this location for the last 25 or 30 years! It was in the bottom of an apartment tower that had just been built. I remember there was some hooplah about it being a new modern movie venue, so my mom took us to that “Island” movie, which I remember starred David Hartman.
This was a very nice movie mall-style operation when it first opened around 1990. Then, it was caleld “Worldwide Plaza Cineplex odeon,” or something like this. I remember seeing “Thunderheart,” “Misery,” “A League of their Own,” and “Forrest Gump” here, plus a few others before it became a discount second-run place. When it first opened, the carpeting and low lighting were very nice, the auditoriums were spacious, and the facility was clean. I saw an usher or a manager here punch a patron in the face when I attended “Forrest Gump,” which was the last movie I saw here, in 1995. By that time it was hot, noisy and crowded, with lots of litter and soda on the floors. Seeing the patron get punched (he was being escorted out for some reason and the manager cracked him in the jaw right in the middle of the crowd) turned me off the place, as did the noisy audiences. Never been back.
Here’s the pic of the updated, unremarkable Beekman 1-2 signage.
I don’t recall much about this theater exept that it was clean and plain. I liked the two-story central open area between the two auditoriums where the concession stand is, the stairs and escalators rising on either side up to street level. Saw “Platoon,” “Creepshow 2,” “Harry and the Hendersons,” “The Untouchables,” “The Rosary Murders,” “September,” “Dominick and Eugene,” “Little Man Tate,” “Freejack,” and “Star Trek Generations” here, all prior to 1995.
This location was called “Loew’s NY Twin” back then.
Would be great if Clearview redecorated with hardware and fixtures from the original erstwhile Beekman, such as the art deco door-pulls, the stainless steel doors, similar carpeting and of course the distinct vintage scripted logo for signage, but this probably will not happen. Clearview is a business after all, more concerned with making as much money as possible from a theatre than historic preservation.
I saw “Legal Eagles” and “Fatal Attraction” here in the 80s, and “The Stepford Wives” (the REAL one) in the 1970s. I remember that when I went to see the Stepford Wives it was a cold, very snowy February and the building across the street (the hideous ugly brown apartment tower with the Hallmark shop “State News” in it) was just a hole in the ground surrounded by a high fence.
The very last flick I took in here was “Nuns on the Run” in 1990. Also saw “Outrageous Fortune” here, and “Die Hard,” “Broadcast News,” “Hook,” and I think “Stand By Me.” Also saw “Testament” starring Jane Alexander (1983) but now not sure if it was here at the Baronet/Coronet or at the theaters next door closer to 61st.
Saw many other films here over the years. The closing took place right after September 11…I remember walking by and seeing a poster advertising the last few movies (re-releases) to play there before the closing, I think “Forrest Gump” was the final movei ever shown on these screens. After 1990 the façade got very run down and I never went back after “Nuns on the Run.”
I saw all the original “Star Wars” movies here back in the 70s and 80s, as well as “The Omega Man,” “The Man Who Would Be King,” and “The Prisoner of Second Avenue.” Also saw some Indiana Jones movies here. To my recollection, the very last movie I saw here was “Young Sherlock Holmes” around 1985 or ‘86. Saw other stuff here too over many years, as I grew up in the area. I remember the 86th street entrance, the big marquee and the flashing light bulbs underneath. The entrance on Third Avenue was less flashy, and there was a high escalator taking patrons up to the second floor, where the auditorium was, or at least where the balcony was…for many years there was a somewhat dated and tacky 1960s mural in this Third Avenue lobby, consisting of simple graphic images and symbols mounted on a lot of square boards that were supposed to resemble film frames (I think). The only image I remember clearly is Mickey Mouse…My dad, upon taking me to see The Omega Man here, saw this mural and said Mickey was The Omega Mouse.
For a while on 86th street after the demolition, the new space that was built in the space that used to be the long lobby entrance for the Orpheum, was a Coconuts store, but that is now gone too I think.
Warren, thank you for these lovely images, and all the others you post for different theatres on this site. Especially loved the pics you posted for the RKO Proctor’s that used to stand at 86th and Lexington. Seeing the image of the interior brought back dim memories of attending movies in this and similar movie palaces when I was very young. I so wish these theatres were still with us today.
Looks like the demolition has begun. Today (September 8) I went by the Beekman after class and saw a work crew in hardhats up on the roof. Looked like they were chopping the tar, or else removing the gravel from up top. Simultaneously, furnishings were being carted out of the now-closed North Fork Bank into white moving vans. A black tarp has been placed over the jagged hole in the Beekman façade where the marquee used to be.
I have done this but I find myself wondering more about what films were booked into them long before in the past. For example I wonder what film was playing at the Beekman the day I was born in 1962. Or, take “Annie Hall”: I know Alvie mentions the theater and there is action out front in the movie, but was “Annie Hall” ever actually booked for a run at the Beekman? What about “Sleeper”? I wish there was a list of every single movie that played the Beekman from 1952 up till “The Interpreter.” Nerd-like I would pore over it and try to recall if I had attended any of the showings…just because! Almost like doing penance for not having gone to the Beekman (or any lost theater) enough when it existed.
Went by the Beekman Thursday morning. It looks the same as in my last set of postings…the only thing different is that now there are pest control notices on the glass doors in front, and on other parts of the building.
Sorry for offending your sensibilities, Astyanax. You didn’t have to click on the links and view the images, but in order to avoid any further offenses against your refined tastes, I will post no more. Enjoy your day.
I went to the Beekman on the hazy, sweltering morning of Saturday, August 13 to take these pics. The marquee is gone. Note the severed steel I-bars. :–(
I found this online…scroll down to the bottom of the page for a photo of the Beekman script logo being removed from the marquee. Powerful image, puts my pics to shame!
Re the Bosley Crowther quote: I wish I could see one of those vast ornate barn-like picture palaces he refers to. I have only seen them in photos. On this site there is a page for the RKO Proctor located on Third Avenue and 58th. From the description it must have been something to see!! I wish there was at least one of these left to us.
Hi dave-bronx, you’re welcome for the pics. I hope no one is having trouble viewing them, I rezzed them down and the photobucket album views shows the complete image, but sometimes only half the image loads.
In the second sentence of the “New York 1960” excerpt I posted before, “beanck” is supposed to be “branch.” Horrible typo. How embarrassing! Please excuse the other typos too, and the double post…I spazzed out big time.
One block uptown from the “New Beekman” 1&2, there is a sign in a store window announcing that it is soon to be the location of a new branch of North Fork Bank. Perhaps the bank next door to the true Beekman will be moving there.
I saw one of the old Beekman photos from its opening in 1952…so weird to see the cobblestoned Second Avenue! It brought back memories, at 43 I still recall quite a number of streets on the Upper East Side being similarly paved…or unpaved. I am sure they have all been tarred over by now.
If anyone wants high-resolution files of any of the images I have posted here, let me know and I will email them to you. Each is about 1.1 megabytes. They might take some time to travel through cyberland.
On Friday, August 5, a work crew was at the Beekman, setting up a scaffold directly beneath the marquee. Either the marquee is going to be taken down, or the scaffold is being built to conceal the demolition of the interior.
I also included a pic of the new Beekman 1&2…definitely should have used the old script for the name. After looking at the front of the hideous glass building the theater occupies, I see very little room for where the original metal and glass Beekman signs (removed from the Beekman marquee weeks back) might have been placed. Maybe those two signs were brought into the Beekman once they were removed, just to store them until they can be taken away.
Here is an excerpt from the massive tome “New York 1960: Architecture and Urbanism Between the Second World War and the Bicentennial.” Published by The Monacelli Press. Second edition, 1997. Page 842:
New York Life’s plans for Manhattan House also included a two-story commercial structure, built to preserve the views from the apartment building. Designed by Fellheimer & Wagner and completed in 1952, the low-rise building contained a beanck of the Corn Exchange Bank on the northeast corner of Sixty-fifth Street and Second Avenue, and the Beekman Theater, at 1254 Second Avenue. The theater, which featured art films and served coffee in the lobby, lent a note of sophisitication to the area. The New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther applauded the decision to include the theater: “Despite all the dire prognostications of the ruinous competition of TV, not to mention the mischievous rumors that the public is getting tired of films, the big New York Life Insurance Company had the courage to go right ahead and back this new theater construction, to the tune of a million or so.” The theeater’s Modernist design, Crowther said, was a vast improvement over the previous era’s vast and ornate picture palaces and an overdue response to public preference. “For a long time it has been apparent,” he asserted, ‘that one of the several things that have caused a decline in movie-going, especially by people of better taste, has been an increasing aversion to the older downtown and neighborhood 'barns’….Clean and respectable though they may be, they are achitecturally passe and dull.“ In contrast, Crowther said, the Beekman was "tastefully planned and decorated in sleek but not ostentatious style, with plenty of room for lounging, having coffee and stretching the legs, as well as for freedom pf passage in and out of the widely spaced rows.” All in all, he said, the theater had an “air of refinement, elegance and chic that bathes the discriminating patron with a relaxing warmth.” The lobby was redesigned in 1962 by Rolf Myller to include a free-form, undulating bank of seating that accommodated up to seventy-five people."
On Friday, August 5, a work crew was at the Beekman, setting up a scaffold directly beneath the marquee. Either the marquee is going to be taken down, or the scaffold is being built to conceal the demolition of the interior.
I also included a pic of the new Beekman 1&2…definitely should have used the old script for the name. After looking at the front of the hideous glass building the theater occupies, I see very little room for where the original metal and glass Beekman signs (removed from the Beekman marquee weeks back) might have been placed. Maybe those two signs were brought into the Beekman once they were removed, just to store them until they can be taken away.
Here is an excerpt from the massive tome “New York 1960: Architecture and Urbanism Between the Second World War and the Bicentennial.” Published by The Monacelli Press. Second edition, 1997. Page 842:
New York Life’s plans for Manhattan House also included a two-story commercial structure, built to preserve the views from the apartment building. Designed by Fellheimer & Wagner and completed in 1952, the low-rise building contained a beanck of the Corn Exchange Bank on the northeast corner of Sixty-fifth Street and Second Avenue, and the Beekman Theater, at 1254 Second Avenue. The theater, which featured art films and served coffee in the lobby, lent a note of sophisitication to the area. The New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther applauded the decision to include the theater: “Despite all the dire prognostications of the ruinous competition of TV, not to mention the mischievous rumors that the public is getting tired of films, the big New York Life Insurance Company had the courage to go right ahead and back this new theater construction, to the tune of a million or so.” The theeater’s Modernist design, Crowther said, was a vast improvement over the previous era’s vast and ornate picture palaces and an overdue response to public preference. “For a long time it has been apparent,” he asserted, ‘that one of the several things that have caused a decline in movie-going, especially by people of better taste, has been an increasing aversion to the older downtown and neighborhood 'barns’….Clean and respectable though they may be, they are achitecturally passe and dull.“ In contrast, Crowther said, the Beekman was "tastefully planned and decorated in sleek but not ostentatious style, with plenty of room for lounging, having coffee and stretching the legs, as well as for freedom pf passage in and out of the widely spaced rows.” All in all, he said, the theater had an “air of refinement, elegance and chic that bathes the discriminating patron with a relaxing warmth.” The lobby was redesigned in 1962 by Rolf Myller to include a free-form, undulating bank of seating that accommodated up to seventy-five people."
I remember this theater, I saw “Baby Boom” here in 1987 and a couple of Disney cartoon feature re-releases…I believe “Snow White” and “Cinderella.”
There used to be an irish pub across the street called “the Old Stand,” and it too is now gone.
Just went by the site on Saturday, looked through the window of the carpet showroom, it is so weird to be able to see the area where I used to sit when it was an auditorium!
This theatre showed gay porn during the mid 70s, then became legit. I recall seeing “Poltergeist” here in 1982. Later I saw “The Prince of Darkness” and “Serpent and the Rainbow.” All horror stuff. Funny, I recall the marquee and the interior as being very dark.
I don’t think the building was demolished, the space that used to be the theatres has been converted to other use…but I am not sure about this.
I remember going to see “Sasquatch” and “Steel Magnolias” at the small single-screen theatre directly across the street, which I recall as being the “DW Griffith.” Does anyone know what it is called now? thx
This theatre must have been something to see!!! I recently walked past…all of 58th street between Third and Lexington is new post-1970 architecture. The bland office tower that replaced the RKO is flanked by equally bland glass box buildings. Across the street, the old Alexander’s is replaced by the new Bloomberg Building. Everything is glass and steel and modern, the street is like a futuristic starbase from one of the Star Trek movies. It would be fab if someone would build a replica of the original RKO Proctor’s or any other atmospheric, but I guess that kind of thing just doesn’t happen.
If this is the theatre I recall, I saw “Island at the Top of the World” here in the early 1970s when I was a kid on East 93rd Street. The theatre was new and had very 70s-style wallpapering in the lobby that looked like shiny contact paper with dark blue and green and black patterns resembling leopard spots. I went for other movies but completely forgot about this location for the last 25 or 30 years! It was in the bottom of an apartment tower that had just been built. I remember there was some hooplah about it being a new modern movie venue, so my mom took us to that “Island” movie, which I remember starred David Hartman.
The Trans-Lux was demolished in the 1990s. A luxury apartment tower replaced it.
This was a very nice movie mall-style operation when it first opened around 1990. Then, it was caleld “Worldwide Plaza Cineplex odeon,” or something like this. I remember seeing “Thunderheart,” “Misery,” “A League of their Own,” and “Forrest Gump” here, plus a few others before it became a discount second-run place. When it first opened, the carpeting and low lighting were very nice, the auditoriums were spacious, and the facility was clean. I saw an usher or a manager here punch a patron in the face when I attended “Forrest Gump,” which was the last movie I saw here, in 1995. By that time it was hot, noisy and crowded, with lots of litter and soda on the floors. Seeing the patron get punched (he was being escorted out for some reason and the manager cracked him in the jaw right in the middle of the crowd) turned me off the place, as did the noisy audiences. Never been back.
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Here’s the pic of the updated, unremarkable Beekman 1-2 signage.
I don’t recall much about this theater exept that it was clean and plain. I liked the two-story central open area between the two auditoriums where the concession stand is, the stairs and escalators rising on either side up to street level. Saw “Platoon,” “Creepshow 2,” “Harry and the Hendersons,” “The Untouchables,” “The Rosary Murders,” “September,” “Dominick and Eugene,” “Little Man Tate,” “Freejack,” and “Star Trek Generations” here, all prior to 1995.
This location was called “Loew’s NY Twin” back then.
Would be great if Clearview redecorated with hardware and fixtures from the original erstwhile Beekman, such as the art deco door-pulls, the stainless steel doors, similar carpeting and of course the distinct vintage scripted logo for signage, but this probably will not happen. Clearview is a business after all, more concerned with making as much money as possible from a theatre than historic preservation.
I saw “Legal Eagles” and “Fatal Attraction” here in the 80s, and “The Stepford Wives” (the REAL one) in the 1970s. I remember that when I went to see the Stepford Wives it was a cold, very snowy February and the building across the street (the hideous ugly brown apartment tower with the Hallmark shop “State News” in it) was just a hole in the ground surrounded by a high fence.
The very last flick I took in here was “Nuns on the Run” in 1990. Also saw “Outrageous Fortune” here, and “Die Hard,” “Broadcast News,” “Hook,” and I think “Stand By Me.” Also saw “Testament” starring Jane Alexander (1983) but now not sure if it was here at the Baronet/Coronet or at the theaters next door closer to 61st.
Saw many other films here over the years. The closing took place right after September 11…I remember walking by and seeing a poster advertising the last few movies (re-releases) to play there before the closing, I think “Forrest Gump” was the final movei ever shown on these screens. After 1990 the façade got very run down and I never went back after “Nuns on the Run.”
I saw all the original “Star Wars” movies here back in the 70s and 80s, as well as “The Omega Man,” “The Man Who Would Be King,” and “The Prisoner of Second Avenue.” Also saw some Indiana Jones movies here. To my recollection, the very last movie I saw here was “Young Sherlock Holmes” around 1985 or ‘86. Saw other stuff here too over many years, as I grew up in the area. I remember the 86th street entrance, the big marquee and the flashing light bulbs underneath. The entrance on Third Avenue was less flashy, and there was a high escalator taking patrons up to the second floor, where the auditorium was, or at least where the balcony was…for many years there was a somewhat dated and tacky 1960s mural in this Third Avenue lobby, consisting of simple graphic images and symbols mounted on a lot of square boards that were supposed to resemble film frames (I think). The only image I remember clearly is Mickey Mouse…My dad, upon taking me to see The Omega Man here, saw this mural and said Mickey was The Omega Mouse.
For a while on 86th street after the demolition, the new space that was built in the space that used to be the long lobby entrance for the Orpheum, was a Coconuts store, but that is now gone too I think.
Went by the Beekman yesterday Thursday the 29th, it looks the same, just sitting there dark and empty with no marquee.
Warren, thank you for these lovely images, and all the others you post for different theatres on this site. Especially loved the pics you posted for the RKO Proctor’s that used to stand at 86th and Lexington. Seeing the image of the interior brought back dim memories of attending movies in this and similar movie palaces when I was very young. I so wish these theatres were still with us today.
Thanks again, Warren!
Looks like the demolition has begun. Today (September 8) I went by the Beekman after class and saw a work crew in hardhats up on the roof. Looked like they were chopping the tar, or else removing the gravel from up top. Simultaneously, furnishings were being carted out of the now-closed North Fork Bank into white moving vans. A black tarp has been placed over the jagged hole in the Beekman façade where the marquee used to be.
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I have done this but I find myself wondering more about what films were booked into them long before in the past. For example I wonder what film was playing at the Beekman the day I was born in 1962. Or, take “Annie Hall”: I know Alvie mentions the theater and there is action out front in the movie, but was “Annie Hall” ever actually booked for a run at the Beekman? What about “Sleeper”? I wish there was a list of every single movie that played the Beekman from 1952 up till “The Interpreter.” Nerd-like I would pore over it and try to recall if I had attended any of the showings…just because! Almost like doing penance for not having gone to the Beekman (or any lost theater) enough when it existed.
Went by the Beekman Thursday morning. It looks the same as in my last set of postings…the only thing different is that now there are pest control notices on the glass doors in front, and on other parts of the building.
:–)
Thanks, Bob! I’ll continue posting for you.
-DB
Sorry for offending your sensibilities, Astyanax. You didn’t have to click on the links and view the images, but in order to avoid any further offenses against your refined tastes, I will post no more. Enjoy your day.
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It’s a word-for-word rehash of one of Clearview’s press releases regarding the Beekman closing…about the landlord exercising the lease option, etc.
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Registered for class at Hunter College today, walked the few blocks to the Beekman, took these pics.
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I went to the Beekman on the hazy, sweltering morning of Saturday, August 13 to take these pics. The marquee is gone. Note the severed steel I-bars. :–(
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I found this online…scroll down to the bottom of the page for a photo of the Beekman script logo being removed from the marquee. Powerful image, puts my pics to shame!
Re the Bosley Crowther quote: I wish I could see one of those vast ornate barn-like picture palaces he refers to. I have only seen them in photos. On this site there is a page for the RKO Proctor located on Third Avenue and 58th. From the description it must have been something to see!! I wish there was at least one of these left to us.
Hi dave-bronx, you’re welcome for the pics. I hope no one is having trouble viewing them, I rezzed them down and the photobucket album views shows the complete image, but sometimes only half the image loads.
In the second sentence of the “New York 1960” excerpt I posted before, “beanck” is supposed to be “branch.” Horrible typo. How embarrassing! Please excuse the other typos too, and the double post…I spazzed out big time.
One block uptown from the “New Beekman” 1&2, there is a sign in a store window announcing that it is soon to be the location of a new branch of North Fork Bank. Perhaps the bank next door to the true Beekman will be moving there.
I saw one of the old Beekman photos from its opening in 1952…so weird to see the cobblestoned Second Avenue! It brought back memories, at 43 I still recall quite a number of streets on the Upper East Side being similarly paved…or unpaved. I am sure they have all been tarred over by now.
If anyone wants high-resolution files of any of the images I have posted here, let me know and I will email them to you. Each is about 1.1 megabytes. They might take some time to travel through cyberland.
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On Friday, August 5, a work crew was at the Beekman, setting up a scaffold directly beneath the marquee. Either the marquee is going to be taken down, or the scaffold is being built to conceal the demolition of the interior.
I also included a pic of the new Beekman 1&2…definitely should have used the old script for the name. After looking at the front of the hideous glass building the theater occupies, I see very little room for where the original metal and glass Beekman signs (removed from the Beekman marquee weeks back) might have been placed. Maybe those two signs were brought into the Beekman once they were removed, just to store them until they can be taken away.
Here is an excerpt from the massive tome “New York 1960: Architecture and Urbanism Between the Second World War and the Bicentennial.” Published by The Monacelli Press. Second edition, 1997. Page 842:
New York Life’s plans for Manhattan House also included a two-story commercial structure, built to preserve the views from the apartment building. Designed by Fellheimer & Wagner and completed in 1952, the low-rise building contained a beanck of the Corn Exchange Bank on the northeast corner of Sixty-fifth Street and Second Avenue, and the Beekman Theater, at 1254 Second Avenue. The theater, which featured art films and served coffee in the lobby, lent a note of sophisitication to the area. The New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther applauded the decision to include the theater: “Despite all the dire prognostications of the ruinous competition of TV, not to mention the mischievous rumors that the public is getting tired of films, the big New York Life Insurance Company had the courage to go right ahead and back this new theater construction, to the tune of a million or so.” The theeater’s Modernist design, Crowther said, was a vast improvement over the previous era’s vast and ornate picture palaces and an overdue response to public preference. “For a long time it has been apparent,” he asserted, ‘that one of the several things that have caused a decline in movie-going, especially by people of better taste, has been an increasing aversion to the older downtown and neighborhood 'barns’….Clean and respectable though they may be, they are achitecturally passe and dull.“ In contrast, Crowther said, the Beekman was "tastefully planned and decorated in sleek but not ostentatious style, with plenty of room for lounging, having coffee and stretching the legs, as well as for freedom pf passage in and out of the widely spaced rows.” All in all, he said, the theater had an “air of refinement, elegance and chic that bathes the discriminating patron with a relaxing warmth.” The lobby was redesigned in 1962 by Rolf Myller to include a free-form, undulating bank of seating that accommodated up to seventy-five people."
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On Friday, August 5, a work crew was at the Beekman, setting up a scaffold directly beneath the marquee. Either the marquee is going to be taken down, or the scaffold is being built to conceal the demolition of the interior.
I also included a pic of the new Beekman 1&2…definitely should have used the old script for the name. After looking at the front of the hideous glass building the theater occupies, I see very little room for where the original metal and glass Beekman signs (removed from the Beekman marquee weeks back) might have been placed. Maybe those two signs were brought into the Beekman once they were removed, just to store them until they can be taken away.
Here is an excerpt from the massive tome “New York 1960: Architecture and Urbanism Between the Second World War and the Bicentennial.” Published by The Monacelli Press. Second edition, 1997. Page 842:
New York Life’s plans for Manhattan House also included a two-story commercial structure, built to preserve the views from the apartment building. Designed by Fellheimer & Wagner and completed in 1952, the low-rise building contained a beanck of the Corn Exchange Bank on the northeast corner of Sixty-fifth Street and Second Avenue, and the Beekman Theater, at 1254 Second Avenue. The theater, which featured art films and served coffee in the lobby, lent a note of sophisitication to the area. The New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther applauded the decision to include the theater: “Despite all the dire prognostications of the ruinous competition of TV, not to mention the mischievous rumors that the public is getting tired of films, the big New York Life Insurance Company had the courage to go right ahead and back this new theater construction, to the tune of a million or so.” The theeater’s Modernist design, Crowther said, was a vast improvement over the previous era’s vast and ornate picture palaces and an overdue response to public preference. “For a long time it has been apparent,” he asserted, ‘that one of the several things that have caused a decline in movie-going, especially by people of better taste, has been an increasing aversion to the older downtown and neighborhood 'barns’….Clean and respectable though they may be, they are achitecturally passe and dull.“ In contrast, Crowther said, the Beekman was "tastefully planned and decorated in sleek but not ostentatious style, with plenty of room for lounging, having coffee and stretching the legs, as well as for freedom pf passage in and out of the widely spaced rows.” All in all, he said, the theater had an “air of refinement, elegance and chic that bathes the discriminating patron with a relaxing warmth.” The lobby was redesigned in 1962 by Rolf Myller to include a free-form, undulating bank of seating that accommodated up to seventy-five people."
I remember this theater, I saw “Baby Boom” here in 1987 and a couple of Disney cartoon feature re-releases…I believe “Snow White” and “Cinderella.”
There used to be an irish pub across the street called “the Old Stand,” and it too is now gone.
Just went by the site on Saturday, looked through the window of the carpet showroom, it is so weird to be able to see the area where I used to sit when it was an auditorium!