The Paris with its signature-topped, three-sided box marquee, proudly standing as the one of the oldest independent theaters in the country. 4 West 58 Street.
The Capri is now fully dismantled. It’s air. The entire building is being removed. About 1/3 of the bed and breakfast portion of the building remains as of today.
Great news! At the Raiders of the Lost Ark screening tonight it was announced the Paris Theatre would continue showing classic films and would be getting a new website soon: www.paristheatre.com
At the New York Post film times site, a couple of the Loews theaters do not list times and say, Call theater for schedule. The Loews 72nd Street East is one of them.
I called 34th Street and an employee answered and gave me a number for the 72nd Street East. No answer and no recording. I called Loews E-Walk and an employee answered and gave me a different number for the 72nd Street East, which was busy when I called. I called the Lincoln Square Loews and was given a number one digit off from the first, which was also busy.
The last guy said the merger is not official until Friday.
Sure wish I saw Munich at the Loews 72nd Street East rather than the E-Walk… When I endured House of Wax the manager told me it was going to stay open for a long time…
If we’re going to go with stevebob’s argument, then we simply must include the grandeur of the Loews 175th Street and Broadway, and the abundance of decor at the Mark Hellinger, and albeit not Manhattan, even the luxury of the Paradise in the Bronx.
Oh, but wait, like Radio City, these venues NO LONGER SHOW MOVIES. So, stevebob’s argument is not an argument, it’s an illogical statement. If we’re going to open up the field to palaces that DO NOT SHOW MOVIES then we have a different dialogue altogether. If we could walk into Radio City tonight and enjoy the sparkling lights of the bulbs under the marquee, the joy of entering an enormous space once our tickets are taken, multiple levels of seating, all of this enhancing our enjoyment of a film, well, by gosh golly, Radio City wins!
But Radio City doesn’t offer cinema. It’s idiotic to include this venue in a statement about filmgoing.
As far as what is a palace and what is a trashbin, I guess it really depends on the audience member. I love the New Beverly in LA, but yeah, it’s a dump. I dig going to the 62nd and Broadway just to go down ONE escalator to ONE door with ONE screen. So I’ll see a simple single-screen venue, and see something special, even if not elaborate. When we see a film we enjoy, we usually see something of ourselves in the film. When there is a particular theater we enjoy, we can relate to it somehow. When Edward and I and countless others walk into the Ziegfeld, we’re seeing something that reflects something inside of us.
The way we see things is a reflection, a mirror, of how we see ourselves, as stevebob so gloriously confirms here:
The UA 85th Street is pretty much ‘70s grossout, but these days it’s just grand to go to any single-screen houses in New York at all. They have a square plastic lighted flat marquee out front. Just a big flat square with plastic letters (plastic letters are so much cooler than LED). The ticket booth is outside and you are buzzed into a nondescript top floor. You go down one flight to the bathrooms, and another to the popcorn area and then past that to the theater door on your left. There is also an escalator to take you back up to the top street level entrance.
What I like about this venue, besides the single-screen aspect, is that UA knows where to buy seats. The same seats are in their 64th and 2nd auditoriums. They’re tall in the back with a headrest and very comfortable. Just a simple auditorium, but a nice comfortable one.
I don’t know how many seats, I’d say 200-300.
The 62nd and Broadway is pretty bland, but the hand-painted deco is kinda fun, and again, there just ain’t nothin' like a single screen. The moviegoing experience just feels more special. I have never, ever, felt anything close to special going to a multiplex or split job anywhere in Manhattan. Maaaaaybe the Metro after the renovation, just because those rising curtains were so great. Going to the movies at multiplexes makes me feel like I’m at an airport.
I’m not sure why every now and then pissing on the Ziegfeld feels needed by some.
We have FIVE single screens TOTAL in Manhattan. FIVE. The Zeigfeld is the only real theater of note. Love the Paris, but it ain’t the Ziegfeld. And right now with the curtain being broken for over half a year at the Loews auditorium at the Loews 68th, only the Ziegfeld and Paris have curtains at all (except for MoMA’s screening rooms).
The Paris
Loews 72nd Street East
UA 85th
62nd and Broadway
The Ziegfeld and the Paris are the only ones that go by name alone, with no street address or number.
Without the Ziegfeld, there is no large classy theater to show any kind of ‘royal’ filmgoing history. It’s the one theater where even the not-so-educated $7/hr. kids say, This is a special place. They actually can tell there’s something special about it.
I was at the world premiere of King Kong on Dec. 5 and found it rather depressing that instead of Radio City Music Hall and the Roxy (the 1933 original venues, simultaneously), this time 8,000 people saw it over 38 screens between two megaplexes. The largest auditorium held 540. As cool as it was to show to 8,000 people at once, nobody saw it in an auditorium the size of the Zeigfeld. And there was no class to it. Escalators, numbered rooms, no chandeliers, and no curtains.
I’ll take piss elegance over no elegance in a heartbeat in today’s soul-crushed New York. If it’s another Duane Reade and Starbucks, or piss elegance, I’ll take the elegance, piss and all.
My favorite porn title, towards the end of New York, was at the Circus Circus, which is now Noche:
A Clockwork Orgy
Sure wish I got a picture of that.
Hey, I don’t know where else to post this but Howard Johnson’s last day is this Friday, sometimes between 2am and 3:45am. After Howard Johnson’s closes, the last of Times Square will cease to exist.
City Knickerbocker lights and lamps on 8th just closed and has been emptied out too. Expect another lame bar to fill the space…
Man, I was just out in New Haven for a Penderecki concert and checked this place out. It’s a cool little cinema with a long lobby, and a fun flat plastic letter marquee. Luckily I was able to walk in and look around and grab a few pics. I was looking forward to my next trip to New Haven and actually seeing a film here also.
This was a really cool little cinema that I’m certain will be missed by the regulars in the area. And right near that little Yankee Doodle food shop too. Sheesh.
What’s wrong with midnight movies? The IFC Center opened a week ago with midnight movies. Midnight movies are great. There would not be a John Waters without midnight movies.
Jeff wants to show movies at midnight. The Village East does it from time to time, as does the Angelika. The Chelsea 9 shows Rocky Horror at midnights. Dog Day Afternoon, 2001: A Space Odyssey and All The President’s Men don’t spell wrecking ball to me. I think I’m missing a puzzle piece here.
From all I’ve heard nothing is happening to the Paris. The man that owns the property likes the theater. When you’ve got a few million in the bank, you buy things you like like gigantic sculptures made of gold that sit on the front lawn behind closed gates and giant hedge walls. If I had a few million in the bank, I would buy the Mayfair, or build my own, maybe even at Bar Code next to the Virgin store and do a bad recreation of the Loews State, complete with marquee and premieres. I’m not certain where the paranoia about the Paris is coming from. It’s a fine place with a fine audience and I’m sure the people who went to 66th and 2nd can go an extra few blocks to 58th and 5th and check out a show at the Paris.
And after all that, I still am just not understanding how the Beekman is really going away. It’s not ‘just’ a theater. It’s New York. New York itself is being ripped out of itself. Yuck.
There are only six single screen first-run theaters in Manhattan:
Clearview’s Ziegfeld Theater
UA 85th
Loews 72nd Street East
Clearview’s 62nd and Broadway
The Paris
Two Boots Pioneer Theater (99 seats)
There are other single screens, but special events or specialty films only:
Florence Gould Hall (French films)
The Lighthouse
DGA Theater
ImaginAsian (first run Asian and Indian films)
Walter Reade theater at Lincoln Center
(and Avery Fisher Hall during NY Film Festival)
Then the two-screeners
Metro Twin
Beekman One and Two
Anthology Film Archives
Symphony Space and Thalia
And the three-screeners:
Cinema Village
Film Forum
UA 64th and 2nd (formerly Gemini)
IFC Center
Cinema Village was once a single screen. As was the Metro Twin, many moons ago.
If you love the Paris, try some of the Saturday night offerings at midnight. This weekend, July 2, it’s Dog Day Afternoon. The Paris has REAL curtains that OPEN before the movie!
The Beekman screened its last film, The Interpreter, at 10:00 pm, Sunday, June 26, 2005. There were about 40 or so attendees of the grand lady’s death. Several knew it was the last show. Others arrived with video cameras, digital cameras, and nice 35mm setups also. It felt good that others felt the need to keep her alive as much as I did.
No curtains opening. Hasn’t happened in years, according to what I assume was a projectionist. The mens room sign light was out. They said it burnt out during a recent screening though I saw one on during the first weekend of The Interpreter. The concessions area chairs and tables had already been removed. So had all the French posters on the walls. I did manage to grab a few pics during Melinda and Melinda’s time, and during the first weekend of The Interpreter when I took shots of the near sold-out audience in line in front, which was a heartening site, seeing so much life going on in what was to be a tomb, and then demolished, so soon after.
I noticed for the first time that there were sawed-off pieces of metal at the base of all three banisters on the stairs, mostly like suggesting an entirely different support system was removed at some point.
One really nice thing was seeing couples of many ages come in and snuggle. It was obvious some had come here on their first date. Also, during the show, an enraged woman came in screaming, “You can’t do this! This is MY theater! I live here! You can’t do this!â€
The theater’s doors were closed and locked at 1 am, June 27, 2005.
This weekend is DOG DAY AFTERNOON, Saturday at midnight.
First weekend of All the President’s Men had about 90 in attendance. 2001 had about 80. Not bad at all for being in dead just west of east side midtown next to a dead hotel. It’s great fun seeing real movies in a real theater with real fans of film. Almost feels like the mid-‘80s.
My last call to the Beekman gave June 26 as the last night the theater will be open. That’s a week from today. Sadly, it looks like The Interpreter will be the final film at the Beekman.
I saw The Interpreter will over a month ago at the Beekman and amazingly it was near sold out. I went Sunday night opening weekend and it was packed. I took pictures of the long line to get into the theater for ticketholders. Strangely, they still didn’t want pictures taken. They’re going to raze the place and they care if we take pictures?
This one really is a shame. It’s a really nice theater. Very comfortable and comforting. The whole experience from seeing the marquee from afar to pulling on those great door handles with PULL eblazoned upon them, entering the first lobby with the large lamp above, entering the next set of door, stepping down to the refreshment area with its tables and chairs and soft cushioned wall-length couch and that odd curtained window so you can watch the movie while you snack, and of course the great lighted bathroom signs, the doors to enter the auditorium itself, the curved screen area… So amazingly odd it will only be photographs and memories soon.
I called Clearview twice in the hopes that they would at least book Annie Hall in there for the final weekend, or at the bare minimum, the final show. I just felt a piece of my heart to black stone typing that. Yuck!
There are so few nice places to see movies in New York. There are many places to see films, but a nice auditorium is fairly rare. We have screening facitilies here, and some are comfortable, and few have any design elements.
Loews 72nd Street East is a cool 1962 place to see a movie, but the entrance and lobbies are merely functional. This theat is a great place to see a movie though. Nice metal work on the stairs, comfortable seats (I believe taken from the Loews Astor Plaza), and two small balconies jutting out from either side of the projection booth. The upper auditorium at the UA 64th Street is very nice, and also sports a curved screen.
The Walter Reade is my favorite NY screening facility. Fresh popcorn, large indoor waiting area, often hung with posters or photographs, a single screen, comfy seats arranged smartly, and a screen that’s right there in front of you. Great sound, etc.
As far as cool New York history, the Paris is pretty much it. The Paris is really good fun with a large auditorium, excellent descension to the popcorn area, and great design elements. After the Beekman goes next month (so unbelievably wrong and sad) it’s really the single screen marquee theater showing new releases. I’m a big fan of the ImaginAsian (the retitled 59th Street East, aka the D.W. Griffith), and should also include that, as a departure from the airport-simulations of today’s moviegoing ‘experience.’
The Ziegfeld is really the best. As soon as you enter to buy a ticket, you’re under a chandelier. You walk into a downstairs lobby adorned with display cases with the original theater’s history and artifacts on display, then have a choice of ascending stairs or an escalator, with more chandeliers to guide you, then you’re in a curved end exit/entrance lobby with black doors on one side, and then you enter the main concessions lobby with yet another chandelier, a large French My Fair Lady poster, a round soft couch, and fun signs for Mens and Ladies restrooms, and fresh popped popcorn (depends how busy). Then a choice of left or right entrance to the mammoth audotorium with raised seating in the back (308 seats I believe) and another 800 seats on the main floor. And CURTAINS! They don’t always operate them, but for my third viewing of Reveing of the Sith the curtains opened and closed before the trailers, and then closed again at the end of the 9:30 show, which was great because that was the last show of the nonstop marathon which began Weds. evening (Thurs. morning).
I was in a new friend’s 11th floor apartment last night at 54th and 7th and looked out the window and right there was the Zeigfeld! Would been great to have seen all the tents pitched for the anticipation of the Weds. premiere.
I’m partly seeing the film again because the film is fun, but mostly it’s to have yet another reason to go to the Ziegfeld, especially with a few hundred other people there. I love seeing that place so alive.
Boy, I sure am a happy boy this week. Movies for me are most definitely the films, most definitely the theatrical experience of walking into a designed house, but the excitement of getting in line for a movie, waiting for the movie, being in a room full of excited people, and enjoying the film in a packed house… unbeatable!
Wednesday night at midnight was just great. Camera crews, kleig lights, fans in costumes, packed lines, excitement! This isn’t just some opening with a bunch of autograph hunters and celeb-watchers, this is a legitimate event! Three people from Clearview were there presenting the film, and Hedda Lettuce arrived with green hair to toss out prizes.
It’s a little sad they’ve abandoned opening and closing the curtains this week, even with over an hour between shows during the marathon of screenings, but it’s just great to have a great big lovely time at the movies.
I walked into one of the little teeny shoeboxes at a multiplex to catch the end credits of Revenge of the Sith and… yuck. Just 21 blocks up you could walk through a chandelieried lobby and past a curved entraneway through designed doors and sit in comfortable seats in a huge room with over a thousand laughing, clapping people with the movie projected on a large screen.
I’ve been to the Loews Jersey, many times. I’ll be at Ninotchka at the Orpheum in LA for the Last Remaining Seats. The Ziegfeld is not an 80-year-old movie palace. It’s a great modern theater. Great great great. It’s just great. And it’s five blocks from my apartment. Long live the Ziegfeld!
I guess the unhappy people will crap on my parade, but that’s okay. I love being alive and enjoying life. Scowl your faces all you want and pooh pooh pooh on the extremely few American pleasures we have all you want, the Ziegfeld rocks!
Diane Keaton’s first appearance is when Woody is waiting for her outside the Beekman. Ingmar Bergman’s Face to Face is playing. They walk in and because Annie (Diane Keaton) was late, the movie has already been on for two minutes nad Woody “can’t walk in in the middle of the movie.” So they go to the New Yorker to see Sorry and the Pity, which they’ve both already seen. Later Woody is seen leaving the Paris, which is playing Children of Paradise. At the end of the movie, Woody is standing with Sigourney Weaver underneath the Thalia’s marquee which shows Sorrow and the Pity spelled out in plastic letters.
In Manhattan Woody leaves “Cinema Studio” and I haven’t been able to find this theater.
Is That’s Brooklyn only on on Tuesdays? Will they repeat those shows? I’ll happily pay postage and stock cost for a VHS tape yet, or better yet a DVD. If you know when/if they’ll be repeated, I’ll watch!
I’m sure they would be into that, but I think they’d be happier if someone else was coordinating all the craziness with having a portable screen. They have a 50 x 25 now. Sure it’s not the Cinerama Dome’s 86-footer, but it’s not exactly small…
I finally checked out the UA Gemini tonight, had no clue such an auditorium existed in the city, and had to walk by the Sutton. Boy, it’s a real heart-dropped. Such a cool marquee on 57th, and now just gone. Just rubble. I ran over there when I heard the news and caught my third screening of Kill Bill 2 in the main auditorium and had a peek upstairs just to see it. Not so hot up there, but the cool script doors for Sutton 1 and Sutton 2 where pretty cool. The stairs by concessions to the restrooms were cool and I thought the curved audiotorium was pretty cool.
Last film I saw there was Rick McKay’s Broadway: The Golden Age. The director was there and had a lot of great anecdotes about the film and his cast, and he had quite a few stage folks showing up to enjoy the fun, including Jim Borstelman from Chicago and now The Producers (and soon the film version also). Sad to see it go, but great to have it go out on a grand note like Broadway: The Golden Age. I heard Rick came back for a few more screenings.
In one of those sad ironies, a friend photographed the last film on the marquee:
Okay, haven’t seen a movie yet, but I walked up today to have a look. I was only able to have a peek at Theater 2 on the right, the main auditorium of the original theater. The statues are still there. It looked like all the seats had been replaced. There is a curtain that rises over the screen. The screen is much larger than the previous one. It looked like some painting had been done, and some carpeting had been replaced.
Sadly, the cool old-style Ladies and Gentleman hanging bathroom signs are gone. They merely have common block-people flat plastic signs to distinguish between the sexes.
The concession menu signs have been taken down so the flourescents usually highlighting the popcorn prices are a bit coldly claring. They have printed pieces of paper with the menu items at the concession counter. I was told they’re still renovating.
The four cool 3-D Coming Soon movie poster cases are there. The ceiling tiles are there inside and out.
The marquee is lit up, the lobby pillars are lit up, but the neon METRO sign over the pillars was not lit. I asked about it but the high schoolers earning their bubblegum money were clueless about all these details I was interested in.
At the minimum, I’m happy with what I’ve seen so far. I do miss the restroom signs, but I’d rather merely miss those, than miss the chance to enter through this funky lobby and see a film in what seems to be an okay theater. It also looked like a new sound system had been set up.
I’m checking their website weekly for a film I want to see. It looked like they might be getting the Danish film The Green Butchers as a moveover from Cinema Village but now they’re reporting two other films on their website. I hope to catch something soon. Although programming is bizarre at the moment, this kind of theater is very rare now in Manhattan and boy, that massive marquee stretching out over the entire sidewalk to the street is pretty nice. Especially as it’s not a digital readerboard.
I wouldn’t mind seeing nice maroon vests or something on the crew there. It was hard to tell who was working there and who was seeing a movie.
Cinema 1, 2, 3 is just in sad shape. I love the back wall but on Friday’s screenings, which were packed, they had ONE person serving concessions and TWO people guiding people into Cinema 1 and 3 upstairs. I set my coat down in Cinema 1’s upper section, went down to the long concessions line, and got back to find the film had already started. I sat back with my popcorn and the seat back fell out from behind her. I moved over one seat to the aisle, but the intense bright lights under the handrails leading to the upper section had me moving another row back. Luckily the legroom is good, but…
When the lights came up I saw the horror that was adding the hallways to Cinema 3. It’s just completely awkward. And sadly I noticed the curtains did not move before or after the show. I asked the ushers and they said that the curtains go up once before the first show and down only at the end of the last show.
It’s just too simple to create a nice experience. It really causes more problems to have bad management than to just spend a few hours figuring out a better scenario.
The back curved wall is nice, the odd ‘gallery’ is interesting, the scultpure down to Cinema 2 could be cooler, but it’s great to be in that upper lobby and imagine how great it must have been to go to a premiere exclusive film and look out over east side New York in front of Bloomingdale’s.
As it is now, Cinema 1, 2, 3 is one of the lesser filmgoing experiences in town. It just doesn’t have to be this poor. Especially with audiences filling the seats.
The Paris with its signature-topped, three-sided box marquee, proudly standing as the one of the oldest independent theaters in the country. 4 West 58 Street.
The ImaginAsian (former 59th Street)
The Pioneer (R.I.P. as of 10/31/08)
The 64th and 2nd (Former Gemini)
The Quad on 13th Street
The Capri is now fully dismantled. It’s air. The entire building is being removed. About 1/3 of the bed and breakfast portion of the building remains as of today.
Great news! At the Raiders of the Lost Ark screening tonight it was announced the Paris Theatre would continue showing classic films and would be getting a new website soon: www.paristheatre.com
At the New York Post film times site, a couple of the Loews theaters do not list times and say, Call theater for schedule. The Loews 72nd Street East is one of them.
I called 34th Street and an employee answered and gave me a number for the 72nd Street East. No answer and no recording. I called Loews E-Walk and an employee answered and gave me a different number for the 72nd Street East, which was busy when I called. I called the Lincoln Square Loews and was given a number one digit off from the first, which was also busy.
The last guy said the merger is not official until Friday.
Sure wish I saw Munich at the Loews 72nd Street East rather than the E-Walk… When I endured House of Wax the manager told me it was going to stay open for a long time…
If we’re going to go with stevebob’s argument, then we simply must include the grandeur of the Loews 175th Street and Broadway, and the abundance of decor at the Mark Hellinger, and albeit not Manhattan, even the luxury of the Paradise in the Bronx.
Oh, but wait, like Radio City, these venues NO LONGER SHOW MOVIES. So, stevebob’s argument is not an argument, it’s an illogical statement. If we’re going to open up the field to palaces that DO NOT SHOW MOVIES then we have a different dialogue altogether. If we could walk into Radio City tonight and enjoy the sparkling lights of the bulbs under the marquee, the joy of entering an enormous space once our tickets are taken, multiple levels of seating, all of this enhancing our enjoyment of a film, well, by gosh golly, Radio City wins!
But Radio City doesn’t offer cinema. It’s idiotic to include this venue in a statement about filmgoing.
As far as what is a palace and what is a trashbin, I guess it really depends on the audience member. I love the New Beverly in LA, but yeah, it’s a dump. I dig going to the 62nd and Broadway just to go down ONE escalator to ONE door with ONE screen. So I’ll see a simple single-screen venue, and see something special, even if not elaborate. When we see a film we enjoy, we usually see something of ourselves in the film. When there is a particular theater we enjoy, we can relate to it somehow. When Edward and I and countless others walk into the Ziegfeld, we’re seeing something that reflects something inside of us.
The way we see things is a reflection, a mirror, of how we see ourselves, as stevebob so gloriously confirms here:
“the garish-tacky-whorehouse mess that it is”
The UA 85th Street is pretty much ‘70s grossout, but these days it’s just grand to go to any single-screen houses in New York at all. They have a square plastic lighted flat marquee out front. Just a big flat square with plastic letters (plastic letters are so much cooler than LED). The ticket booth is outside and you are buzzed into a nondescript top floor. You go down one flight to the bathrooms, and another to the popcorn area and then past that to the theater door on your left. There is also an escalator to take you back up to the top street level entrance.
What I like about this venue, besides the single-screen aspect, is that UA knows where to buy seats. The same seats are in their 64th and 2nd auditoriums. They’re tall in the back with a headrest and very comfortable. Just a simple auditorium, but a nice comfortable one.
I don’t know how many seats, I’d say 200-300.
The 62nd and Broadway is pretty bland, but the hand-painted deco is kinda fun, and again, there just ain’t nothin' like a single screen. The moviegoing experience just feels more special. I have never, ever, felt anything close to special going to a multiplex or split job anywhere in Manhattan. Maaaaaybe the Metro after the renovation, just because those rising curtains were so great. Going to the movies at multiplexes makes me feel like I’m at an airport.
I’m not sure why every now and then pissing on the Ziegfeld feels needed by some.
We have FIVE single screens TOTAL in Manhattan. FIVE. The Zeigfeld is the only real theater of note. Love the Paris, but it ain’t the Ziegfeld. And right now with the curtain being broken for over half a year at the Loews auditorium at the Loews 68th, only the Ziegfeld and Paris have curtains at all (except for MoMA’s screening rooms).
The Paris
Loews 72nd Street East
UA 85th
62nd and Broadway
The Ziegfeld and the Paris are the only ones that go by name alone, with no street address or number.
Without the Ziegfeld, there is no large classy theater to show any kind of ‘royal’ filmgoing history. It’s the one theater where even the not-so-educated $7/hr. kids say, This is a special place. They actually can tell there’s something special about it.
I was at the world premiere of King Kong on Dec. 5 and found it rather depressing that instead of Radio City Music Hall and the Roxy (the 1933 original venues, simultaneously), this time 8,000 people saw it over 38 screens between two megaplexes. The largest auditorium held 540. As cool as it was to show to 8,000 people at once, nobody saw it in an auditorium the size of the Zeigfeld. And there was no class to it. Escalators, numbered rooms, no chandeliers, and no curtains.
I’ll take piss elegance over no elegance in a heartbeat in today’s soul-crushed New York. If it’s another Duane Reade and Starbucks, or piss elegance, I’ll take the elegance, piss and all.
The Paris continues its 2005 Saturday midnight screening series with Rebel Without a Cause.
Nope, and after the smaller turnout for Dog Day Afternoon last Saturday, it’s not certain whether the midnights will be continuing.
I love this site, but boy, it sure would be nice to see people LEAVE THEIR COMPUTERS and GO TO THE THEATERS AND SUPPORT THEM from time to time…
My favorite porn title, towards the end of New York, was at the Circus Circus, which is now Noche:
A Clockwork Orgy
Sure wish I got a picture of that.
Hey, I don’t know where else to post this but Howard Johnson’s last day is this Friday, sometimes between 2am and 3:45am. After Howard Johnson’s closes, the last of Times Square will cease to exist.
City Knickerbocker lights and lamps on 8th just closed and has been emptied out too. Expect another lame bar to fill the space…
Man, I was just out in New Haven for a Penderecki concert and checked this place out. It’s a cool little cinema with a long lobby, and a fun flat plastic letter marquee. Luckily I was able to walk in and look around and grab a few pics. I was looking forward to my next trip to New Haven and actually seeing a film here also.
This was a really cool little cinema that I’m certain will be missed by the regulars in the area. And right near that little Yankee Doodle food shop too. Sheesh.
Hey dave-bronx,
What’s wrong with midnight movies? The IFC Center opened a week ago with midnight movies. Midnight movies are great. There would not be a John Waters without midnight movies.
Jeff wants to show movies at midnight. The Village East does it from time to time, as does the Angelika. The Chelsea 9 shows Rocky Horror at midnights. Dog Day Afternoon, 2001: A Space Odyssey and All The President’s Men don’t spell wrecking ball to me. I think I’m missing a puzzle piece here.
From all I’ve heard nothing is happening to the Paris. The man that owns the property likes the theater. When you’ve got a few million in the bank, you buy things you like like gigantic sculptures made of gold that sit on the front lawn behind closed gates and giant hedge walls. If I had a few million in the bank, I would buy the Mayfair, or build my own, maybe even at Bar Code next to the Virgin store and do a bad recreation of the Loews State, complete with marquee and premieres. I’m not certain where the paranoia about the Paris is coming from. It’s a fine place with a fine audience and I’m sure the people who went to 66th and 2nd can go an extra few blocks to 58th and 5th and check out a show at the Paris.
And after all that, I still am just not understanding how the Beekman is really going away. It’s not ‘just’ a theater. It’s New York. New York itself is being ripped out of itself. Yuck.
There are only six single screen first-run theaters in Manhattan:
Clearview’s Ziegfeld Theater
UA 85th
Loews 72nd Street East
Clearview’s 62nd and Broadway
The Paris
Two Boots Pioneer Theater (99 seats)
There are other single screens, but special events or specialty films only:
Florence Gould Hall (French films)
The Lighthouse
DGA Theater
ImaginAsian (first run Asian and Indian films)
Walter Reade theater at Lincoln Center
(and Avery Fisher Hall during NY Film Festival)
Then the two-screeners
Metro Twin
Beekman One and Two
Anthology Film Archives
Symphony Space and Thalia
And the three-screeners:
Cinema Village
Film Forum
UA 64th and 2nd (formerly Gemini)
IFC Center
Cinema Village was once a single screen. As was the Metro Twin, many moons ago.
If you love the Paris, try some of the Saturday night offerings at midnight. This weekend, July 2, it’s Dog Day Afternoon. The Paris has REAL curtains that OPEN before the movie!
LAST NIGHT AT THE BEEKMAN â€" JUNE 26, 2005
The Beekman screened its last film, The Interpreter, at 10:00 pm, Sunday, June 26, 2005. There were about 40 or so attendees of the grand lady’s death. Several knew it was the last show. Others arrived with video cameras, digital cameras, and nice 35mm setups also. It felt good that others felt the need to keep her alive as much as I did.
No curtains opening. Hasn’t happened in years, according to what I assume was a projectionist. The mens room sign light was out. They said it burnt out during a recent screening though I saw one on during the first weekend of The Interpreter. The concessions area chairs and tables had already been removed. So had all the French posters on the walls. I did manage to grab a few pics during Melinda and Melinda’s time, and during the first weekend of The Interpreter when I took shots of the near sold-out audience in line in front, which was a heartening site, seeing so much life going on in what was to be a tomb, and then demolished, so soon after.
I noticed for the first time that there were sawed-off pieces of metal at the base of all three banisters on the stairs, mostly like suggesting an entirely different support system was removed at some point.
One really nice thing was seeing couples of many ages come in and snuggle. It was obvious some had come here on their first date. Also, during the show, an enraged woman came in screaming, “You can’t do this! This is MY theater! I live here! You can’t do this!â€
The theater’s doors were closed and locked at 1 am, June 27, 2005.
Here’s a link to some pics I took:
View link
This weekend is DOG DAY AFTERNOON, Saturday at midnight.
First weekend of All the President’s Men had about 90 in attendance. 2001 had about 80. Not bad at all for being in dead just west of east side midtown next to a dead hotel. It’s great fun seeing real movies in a real theater with real fans of film. Almost feels like the mid-‘80s.
Foreign small films open at:
Single Screens:
Loews 72nd Street East (the ‘Tower’) (occasionally)
Paris Theater
Pioneer Theater
Metro Twin (two screens)
Cinema Village (three screens)
IFC Center (three screens)
Film Forum (three screens)
Quad (four screens)
Multiplexes:
Lincoln Plaza Cinemas
AMC Empire 25
My last call to the Beekman gave June 26 as the last night the theater will be open. That’s a week from today. Sadly, it looks like The Interpreter will be the final film at the Beekman.
I saw The Interpreter will over a month ago at the Beekman and amazingly it was near sold out. I went Sunday night opening weekend and it was packed. I took pictures of the long line to get into the theater for ticketholders. Strangely, they still didn’t want pictures taken. They’re going to raze the place and they care if we take pictures?
This one really is a shame. It’s a really nice theater. Very comfortable and comforting. The whole experience from seeing the marquee from afar to pulling on those great door handles with PULL eblazoned upon them, entering the first lobby with the large lamp above, entering the next set of door, stepping down to the refreshment area with its tables and chairs and soft cushioned wall-length couch and that odd curtained window so you can watch the movie while you snack, and of course the great lighted bathroom signs, the doors to enter the auditorium itself, the curved screen area… So amazingly odd it will only be photographs and memories soon.
I called Clearview twice in the hopes that they would at least book Annie Hall in there for the final weekend, or at the bare minimum, the final show. I just felt a piece of my heart to black stone typing that. Yuck!
There are so few nice places to see movies in New York. There are many places to see films, but a nice auditorium is fairly rare. We have screening facitilies here, and some are comfortable, and few have any design elements.
Loews 72nd Street East is a cool 1962 place to see a movie, but the entrance and lobbies are merely functional. This theat is a great place to see a movie though. Nice metal work on the stairs, comfortable seats (I believe taken from the Loews Astor Plaza), and two small balconies jutting out from either side of the projection booth. The upper auditorium at the UA 64th Street is very nice, and also sports a curved screen.
The Walter Reade is my favorite NY screening facility. Fresh popcorn, large indoor waiting area, often hung with posters or photographs, a single screen, comfy seats arranged smartly, and a screen that’s right there in front of you. Great sound, etc.
As far as cool New York history, the Paris is pretty much it. The Paris is really good fun with a large auditorium, excellent descension to the popcorn area, and great design elements. After the Beekman goes next month (so unbelievably wrong and sad) it’s really the single screen marquee theater showing new releases. I’m a big fan of the ImaginAsian (the retitled 59th Street East, aka the D.W. Griffith), and should also include that, as a departure from the airport-simulations of today’s moviegoing ‘experience.’
The Ziegfeld is really the best. As soon as you enter to buy a ticket, you’re under a chandelier. You walk into a downstairs lobby adorned with display cases with the original theater’s history and artifacts on display, then have a choice of ascending stairs or an escalator, with more chandeliers to guide you, then you’re in a curved end exit/entrance lobby with black doors on one side, and then you enter the main concessions lobby with yet another chandelier, a large French My Fair Lady poster, a round soft couch, and fun signs for Mens and Ladies restrooms, and fresh popped popcorn (depends how busy). Then a choice of left or right entrance to the mammoth audotorium with raised seating in the back (308 seats I believe) and another 800 seats on the main floor. And CURTAINS! They don’t always operate them, but for my third viewing of Reveing of the Sith the curtains opened and closed before the trailers, and then closed again at the end of the 9:30 show, which was great because that was the last show of the nonstop marathon which began Weds. evening (Thurs. morning).
I was in a new friend’s 11th floor apartment last night at 54th and 7th and looked out the window and right there was the Zeigfeld! Would been great to have seen all the tents pitched for the anticipation of the Weds. premiere.
I’m partly seeing the film again because the film is fun, but mostly it’s to have yet another reason to go to the Ziegfeld, especially with a few hundred other people there. I love seeing that place so alive.
Boy, I sure am a happy boy this week. Movies for me are most definitely the films, most definitely the theatrical experience of walking into a designed house, but the excitement of getting in line for a movie, waiting for the movie, being in a room full of excited people, and enjoying the film in a packed house… unbeatable!
Wednesday night at midnight was just great. Camera crews, kleig lights, fans in costumes, packed lines, excitement! This isn’t just some opening with a bunch of autograph hunters and celeb-watchers, this is a legitimate event! Three people from Clearview were there presenting the film, and Hedda Lettuce arrived with green hair to toss out prizes.
It’s a little sad they’ve abandoned opening and closing the curtains this week, even with over an hour between shows during the marathon of screenings, but it’s just great to have a great big lovely time at the movies.
I walked into one of the little teeny shoeboxes at a multiplex to catch the end credits of Revenge of the Sith and… yuck. Just 21 blocks up you could walk through a chandelieried lobby and past a curved entraneway through designed doors and sit in comfortable seats in a huge room with over a thousand laughing, clapping people with the movie projected on a large screen.
I’ve been to the Loews Jersey, many times. I’ll be at Ninotchka at the Orpheum in LA for the Last Remaining Seats. The Ziegfeld is not an 80-year-old movie palace. It’s a great modern theater. Great great great. It’s just great. And it’s five blocks from my apartment. Long live the Ziegfeld!
I guess the unhappy people will crap on my parade, but that’s okay. I love being alive and enjoying life. Scowl your faces all you want and pooh pooh pooh on the extremely few American pleasures we have all you want, the Ziegfeld rocks!
There are four theaters total in Annie Hall:
Diane Keaton’s first appearance is when Woody is waiting for her outside the Beekman. Ingmar Bergman’s Face to Face is playing. They walk in and because Annie (Diane Keaton) was late, the movie has already been on for two minutes nad Woody “can’t walk in in the middle of the movie.” So they go to the New Yorker to see Sorry and the Pity, which they’ve both already seen. Later Woody is seen leaving the Paris, which is playing Children of Paradise. At the end of the movie, Woody is standing with Sigourney Weaver underneath the Thalia’s marquee which shows Sorrow and the Pity spelled out in plastic letters.
In Manhattan Woody leaves “Cinema Studio” and I haven’t been able to find this theater.
Bruce1,
Is That’s Brooklyn only on on Tuesdays? Will they repeat those shows? I’ll happily pay postage and stock cost for a VHS tape yet, or better yet a DVD. If you know when/if they’ll be repeated, I’ll watch!
I’m sure they would be into that, but I think they’d be happier if someone else was coordinating all the craziness with having a portable screen. They have a 50 x 25 now. Sure it’s not the Cinerama Dome’s 86-footer, but it’s not exactly small…
I finally checked out the UA Gemini tonight, had no clue such an auditorium existed in the city, and had to walk by the Sutton. Boy, it’s a real heart-dropped. Such a cool marquee on 57th, and now just gone. Just rubble. I ran over there when I heard the news and caught my third screening of Kill Bill 2 in the main auditorium and had a peek upstairs just to see it. Not so hot up there, but the cool script doors for Sutton 1 and Sutton 2 where pretty cool. The stairs by concessions to the restrooms were cool and I thought the curved audiotorium was pretty cool.
Last film I saw there was Rick McKay’s Broadway: The Golden Age. The director was there and had a lot of great anecdotes about the film and his cast, and he had quite a few stage folks showing up to enjoy the fun, including Jim Borstelman from Chicago and now The Producers (and soon the film version also). Sad to see it go, but great to have it go out on a grand note like Broadway: The Golden Age. I heard Rick came back for a few more screenings.
In one of those sad ironies, a friend photographed the last film on the marquee:
We Don’t Live Here Anymore.
FIRST REPORT:
Okay, haven’t seen a movie yet, but I walked up today to have a look. I was only able to have a peek at Theater 2 on the right, the main auditorium of the original theater. The statues are still there. It looked like all the seats had been replaced. There is a curtain that rises over the screen. The screen is much larger than the previous one. It looked like some painting had been done, and some carpeting had been replaced.
Sadly, the cool old-style Ladies and Gentleman hanging bathroom signs are gone. They merely have common block-people flat plastic signs to distinguish between the sexes.
The concession menu signs have been taken down so the flourescents usually highlighting the popcorn prices are a bit coldly claring. They have printed pieces of paper with the menu items at the concession counter. I was told they’re still renovating.
The four cool 3-D Coming Soon movie poster cases are there. The ceiling tiles are there inside and out.
The marquee is lit up, the lobby pillars are lit up, but the neon METRO sign over the pillars was not lit. I asked about it but the high schoolers earning their bubblegum money were clueless about all these details I was interested in.
At the minimum, I’m happy with what I’ve seen so far. I do miss the restroom signs, but I’d rather merely miss those, than miss the chance to enter through this funky lobby and see a film in what seems to be an okay theater. It also looked like a new sound system had been set up.
I’m checking their website weekly for a film I want to see. It looked like they might be getting the Danish film The Green Butchers as a moveover from Cinema Village but now they’re reporting two other films on their website. I hope to catch something soon. Although programming is bizarre at the moment, this kind of theater is very rare now in Manhattan and boy, that massive marquee stretching out over the entire sidewalk to the street is pretty nice. Especially as it’s not a digital readerboard.
I wouldn’t mind seeing nice maroon vests or something on the crew there. It was hard to tell who was working there and who was seeing a movie.
Cinema 1, 2, 3 is just in sad shape. I love the back wall but on Friday’s screenings, which were packed, they had ONE person serving concessions and TWO people guiding people into Cinema 1 and 3 upstairs. I set my coat down in Cinema 1’s upper section, went down to the long concessions line, and got back to find the film had already started. I sat back with my popcorn and the seat back fell out from behind her. I moved over one seat to the aisle, but the intense bright lights under the handrails leading to the upper section had me moving another row back. Luckily the legroom is good, but…
When the lights came up I saw the horror that was adding the hallways to Cinema 3. It’s just completely awkward. And sadly I noticed the curtains did not move before or after the show. I asked the ushers and they said that the curtains go up once before the first show and down only at the end of the last show.
It’s just too simple to create a nice experience. It really causes more problems to have bad management than to just spend a few hours figuring out a better scenario.
The back curved wall is nice, the odd ‘gallery’ is interesting, the scultpure down to Cinema 2 could be cooler, but it’s great to be in that upper lobby and imagine how great it must have been to go to a premiere exclusive film and look out over east side New York in front of Bloomingdale’s.
As it is now, Cinema 1, 2, 3 is one of the lesser filmgoing experiences in town. It just doesn’t have to be this poor. Especially with audiences filling the seats.