Kenmore Theatre

Please update, total capacity 2440 Theatre 1 and 2 662 seats with Dolby Stereo Theatre 3 and 4 558 seats (MONO) Source: NYC DOB When Cineplex Odeon renovated the theatre, they never upgraded the sound system in the balcony screens

Comfortably cool. As I remarked on another theater site, the Nearby feature of CT is far from reliable and there is no point in questioning it.

Hello-

is the comment “the theater rapidly deteriorated” after the late80s/early90s renovations referring to the physical condition of the theater or the to be frank the quality of the patrons?

Lived briefly in the area and saw Lady Sings the Blues in its showcase run. Regretfully, didn’t have a chance to admire the sumptuousness of the theatre, not realizing that it would be my one and only visit.

I was an usher, relief cashier and doorman, and eventually a phone receptionist in the mid-1960s. A fascinating building, still holding all the backstage stuff and dressing rooms all over the theatre for when it had been a vaudeville house earlier in the century. You always knew where the local cops were if there was a problem; the cops had their own “cards and beer” room in an old dressing room at the top of the theatre, where they hung out every day.

Being an old theatre, nothing was automatic, including the screen and the curtain, and as an usher, we had to close the curtain after each film (we were still in the days of double features) and actually adjust the size of the screen for widescreen (Panavision had pretty much replaced Cinemascope by then, but same idea) and the old 4:3 size. The old vaudeville signs on each side of the stage, which had been used to announce each act, were still visible but no longer in use. Some times I would be on the pay phone talking to a friend on the mezzanine level, and would forget to open the curtain or adjust the screen when the film began!

As an usher, mostly in the balcony, I had to make sure that two customers were NOT sitting in one seat, and when they were, I had to quietly go up to them with my flashlight and ask them to stop (lol, as if) and it was not unusual to find used condoms and wrappers on the floor! And yes, we sold separate loge tickets upstairs on Saturday nights, and I’m not too sure that the extra 25 cents always made its way down to the office…

Finally I was promoted to a “desk job,” where I spent the time answering the phone (Good evening, RKO Kenmore, may I help you?). By this point in time, autoanswerers were already in fashion, so people were surprised to hear a human voice on the line. Most were appropriate calls, some cranks or kid pranks or heavy breathers, and some people called every day because they were lonely. I was also given the chance to rifle through the file drawers, loaded with posters and stills from earlier films, when theatres actually used “ballyhoo” or in-house advertising and made up their own signs and posters from the ad materials provided by the distributor. This was how I really started my career as a poster collector, which has grown to over 5,000 posters, but that’s another story…

British art film “PRIVILEGE” played at the Kenmore?

Yes, they had the same RKO block letters on the theatre marquee when they closed this theatre in 1999. White letters on a black background. They titles of the films were still visible years after that, before they started to gut the place inside. I was inside recently, it does not look like there is anything left.

On Friday 23 February 1951, Bela “Dracula” Lugosi presented his in person Horror and Magic Stage show at RKO Kenmore. Currently I am conducting research on all things Lugosi; if anyone out there actually saw this show and/or has memorabilia (handbill, photos) related to this show, please contact Bill at Thanks in advance for any assistance! I already have an image of the full size poster for this show.

I used to go to the RKO Kenmore as a child in the 70’s and 80’s. If I had Tens of millions of Dollars to spare I’d buy Modells out and rebuild the theater as a community landmark project. It’s sad it closed down the way it did but it’s even more sad what replaced it.

I happened to walk by the Kenmore site a couple of weeks ago. The temperature was soaring and I missed walking past a theater lobby and getting a blast of cold air. What a pity that the Flatbush movie palaces are all shuttered, although there is slim hope for the Loews Kings. The urban turmoil of the ‘70’s was a major contributor to the demise of these theaters and although it is easy to blame population shifts and major crime, we also have to consider the lack of product. Apart from the occasional Star Wars / Lady Sings the Blues / French Connection / James Bond movies, Hollywood (and the breakdown of the studio system) could not come up with enough product to consistently sustain these venues. The blax-sploitation flicks and the kung fu movies were sure to attract the very element that would want to act-out the violence and the mayhem represented on screen. With the increased availability and affordability of air conditioning and color TV, why go out. All in all, I could have dashed into Models for a quick respite from the blistering heat.

I was thinking about my above comment about never seeing anything very good or memorable at the Kenmore and I vaguely remembered seeing “From Russia With Love” there. Since this is one of my 5 favorite Bonds, I take back my previous statement.
I did read the previous statements about the eventual fate of the Kenmore and what it deteriorated into and it saddened me. It is so depressing what happens to these beautiful theaters when the ethnic makeup of the area changes. I grew up in East New York and I never really saw my local theaters, the Biltmore and the Kinema, go down the drain since my friends and I had already graduated into going to see movies at “Showcase” theaters in Downtown Brooklyn, Flatbush Avenue and Manhattan. And I stopped going to beautiful theaters like the Loews Kings, RKO Albee and Loews Metropolitan when the areas started changing and getting more dangerous. However I remember being Downtown Brooklyn for some reason in the 1970s and seeing the Albee reduced to showing 2 Kung-fu films. They did not even have a 1 sheet poster for these films so a little ad from the newspaper was cut out and put under the glass where the poster should have been. Utterly pathetic. The picture of the Loews Pitkin from 1970 showing this glorious, mini-Radio City showing 2 low-grade Japanese horror films was sad also.
But even sadder were the stories of murders, metal-detectors, bullet holes and barbed wire at the Kenmore. I have the utmost contempt for the naive, pathetic jerks who actually defend and rationalize this barbaric behavior. And I have little pity on those in the area who allow this type of behavior to take place and then cry and whine to the media about not having anyplace to see a movie when the theater finally gives up and just shuts down. Too damn bad for you.

What’s the latest on this building? Is it gutted?

Warren – could you ever re-post those old pics of the Pogany murals from the Kenmore? The link no longer works and I’m trying to research another mural he did at the back of the lobby of the Eldorado apartment building at 300 Central Park West. Would love to see the Kenmore murals to compare. Thanks so much! And reading these comments has been really interesting and made me wish I could’ve seen the theater.