David Cinema

FYI Al Parker AKA Andrew Okun died in 1992 2 months after his 40th birthday. Steve Taylor his aforementioned lover circa 1980 died in 1987…😔

I remember going here one time after leaving the DuArt film lab. I was literally carrying at least two canisters of film. This place had a spiral staircase leading up to a lounge area.

Walking by, I remember this theater used to advertise –“Hot & Cold Buffet”. Does anyone remember sampling this? Or the set-up?

To the left of the screen was a tiny metal spiral stairway (about 18" wide — so narrow that you always had to back up or back down if someone was coming toward you) leading to a large upstairs “lounge”, with a darkroom off to the side.

When I was there a few times in the late Seventies it was just called “The 54th St. Theatre. I believe it was on 54th between Broadway and Seventh. The first time I went there they showed a "Premiere” feature starring Al Parker. When the first film was over they brought up lights and introduced Al Parker, the star of the film and had a Q & A session. Everyone was terribly uncomfortable with the lights up and no one really had anything to ask Al other than “How do you get it up if you’re not attracted to your co-star” Al said the co-star of this film was his lover. In the Eighties I used to see all on Castro Street in San Francisco wearing the sandpapered jeans that outlined his huge schong going down one leg of his 501’s, you could see it from a block away. Unfortunaltely, I think he died in the late eights.
The 54th Theatre had a “Behind the screen lounge” which was behind the screen and served as a “back-room” I remember leaving there with a hunky trucker once. Hot very hot! Would love to hear more dirt, I’m on FB

The New David.

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The sign in Ed Soler’s picture refers to a new building on the esat side of 8th Avenue between 53rd/54th, for which the land has already been cleared and construction has begun. The site is on the east end of the block and does not affect any of the structures in the photo, none of which are endangered any time in the forseeable future. The hotel on the corner is still in operation, the Divine Bar is still around, and just east of that is the “Studio 54” Theater which also is active. You can search this query in a composite view of Google Maps “260 w. 54th st new york” and see the block. “Studio 54” is just to the right of the construction site, next is a commercial low-rise, then the Divine Bar/ex-David, then the hotel on the corner.

I found this fuzzy image of the David’s exterior on our friend Woody’s flickr.com photostream. As for my first impression of the canopy per the photo I posted in my previous comment, I guess a partial view can be deceiving.

Here’s another ad from just a couple of days later, showing the David’s programing had quickly turned over and featuring the photo of a gentleman who looks startlingly like Gabe Kaplan:

Fantasy Island Post 3/10/82

Woody-
“lonely sad naked guys” need love too.

That snippet of comment had to be the best thing I have ever read here…awesome!

The David Theatre i visited in the early 90’s was located next door to the Ameritania Hotel on Broadway, it was a single storey classical facade and a grubby little theatre with a sloping floor. Badly projected porn films flickered on the screen while bored looking sleazoids and fat cab drivers cruised the aisles, it had hard plastic seats (easy to clean… if that ever happened) there were also endless corridors and blocked overflowing toilets full of silent sex hunters, one particular vivid memory is of cockroaches falling on peoples head as they climbed up the rickety spiral staircase behind the screen to the upper rooms where lonely sad naked guys sat waiting for someone to love them

br91975;

This was a second David Cinema, located on W. 54th St which operated until about 1999.

My initial posting was for the original David Cinema, 238 West 55th Street which was operating in the mid 1970’s. I have listing guides from that era which show it at that address.