The 1912 Eltinge (Empire) Theatre - Times Square

Photo NYPL Collection



Thomas W. Lamb had already established himself as a respected theatre architect when, in 1911, producer and manager Al Woods commissioned him to design a new 42nd Street theatre. Julian Eltinge was, at the same time, the premier female impersonator in the country, having plays written for him and earning one of the highest salaries in the entertainment business. Eltinge had been largely responsible for Wood's success and wealth and, out of appreciation, the new theatre was named “The Eltinge.”

The new theatre opened on September 11, 1912. Its restrained Beaux Arts, white terra cotta façade was dominated by an immense arched window, several stories high. Inside, a mural by French artist Arthur Brounet adorned the lobby. The auditorium was decorated in an Egyptian theme, which both pleased and displeased the critics of the day.

photo NYPL Collection

One reported “The interior is artistic. The dome and sounding board contain Egyptian paintings. The color scheme of the auditorium is Egyptian, and the walls are of a gold brown…” Simultaneously the critic for The New York Times remarked “What the designer intended when he decorated the boxes with bacchanic figures wearing Egyptian headdresses and playing pipes can only be imagined.”

The opening production, Within the Law, starred Jane Cowl. Despite the pedantic warnings of The New York Times theatre critic, it ran for 541 performances.

"How [Al Woods] dared have the play performed during the present demoralized condition of the police force is a matter he must settle with his own conscience,” chided The Times. “The worst of it is that everybody in New York will go to see the play, and it must not surprise any high school girl’s parent to have his daughter carrying out some perfectly heinous scheme with the excuse that it is ‘within the law.’”

While The Times critic panned the play, he found the auditorium “to be a commodious, well-arranged affair.”

The Eltinge was a small theatre, having only 759 seats, but it presented the greatest names in the theatre. Two years after its opening John Barrymore starred in The Yellow Ticket. In 1929 Laurience Olivier made his American debut in Murder on the Second Floor and in 1930 Love, Honor and Betray opened with Clark Gable and Alice Brady.

Not everything went smoothly for The Eltinge and Al Woods during this time, however.

In 1915, two years before the U.S. entered World War I, an audience of German-Americans crowded into the Eltinge to hear B. Herman Ridder speak of the war from a German point of view. “It is remarkable,” he told the audience, “how much misunderstood Germany is in this country today. The ignorance of the average American is amazing.”

The "average American” reading the account as published in The New York Times was irate.

On November 22, 1921 Police Commissioner Gilchrist order the theatre to be shut down, calling the play The Demi-Virgin “indecent.” A highly-publicized media battle between Gilchrist and Woods ensued; Woods refusing to shut down, saying that the police commissioner had the right, by law, to shut down a motion picture but not a play. The manager distributed pink slips of paper to the audience asking their opinion as to whether the play was indecent or not.

In the end, Woods won the battle after about a week of arbitration and the play never faltered.

photo NYPL Collection

With the onslaught of Great Depression the Times Square theatres suffered financially. By 1931 Al Woods could no longer hold onto his Eltinge. On February 26 of that year The New York Times reported that Woods subleased it to Max Rudnick for two years. “Following the recent example of the Republic, another legitimate theatre in West Forty-second Street,” the article said, “will be converted into a burlesque house.”

Rudnick’s idea of entertainment was far removed from the legitimate theatre produced by Woods. Although some of the acts were tame – Jackie Gleason got his start here and in 1935 Bud Abbot and Lou Costello met doing separate acts – the strippers went too far as far as local politicians were concerned.

On November 17, 1934 seven female performers, along with the manager and assistant manager, were arrested during intermission, charged with indecent performance.

Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, bent on closing all the burlesque houses, finally closed down the Eltinge in 1937, along with fourteen other such theatres that same day.

After being boarded shut for five years, the Eltinge was converted to a movie theatre, opening in 1942 as Laffmovie, a first-run movie house. By 1954 the 42nd Street neighborhood had declined. The theatre was renamed The Empire, a “second-run grind house” screening grainy pornographic movies. By mid-1980s the seedy neighborhood made survival impossible and the theatre was closed for good.

In 1992, the exterior of the vacant Empire was used in the filming of Columbia Picture's Last Action Hero starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The Empire - 1992   Photo Ken Mac greenwichvillagenydailyphoto.blogspot.com

Things began improving for 42nd Street in the mid-1990s with the Times Square Redevelopment Plan. Tax breaks and assistance from the city encouraged concerns like Disney to invest heavily in the renovation and restoration of historic Times Square properties.

Where the Empire sat deteriorating, developers Forest City Ratner envisioned a colossal 335,000 square foot entertainment and retail complex. Plans were drawn up, proposals discussed, and the concept took shape.

The Empire sat, problematically, squarely in the center of the site of the $160 million project. Developer Bruce Ratner had a choice to make. His firm had already decided to preserve the Empire rather than demolish it, using the façade as the western entrance – down the street from where the theatre sat. The terra cotta façade could be dismantled and reconstructed, or for about the same cost he could move the entire structure.

Ratner chose to move it.

Frederick Bland, Partner in Charge of the project for Beyer Blinder Belle, the firm commissioned to design the new structure, was pleased with the decision. It was “a much more interesting and historically legitimate approach to preserving the structure.”

Besides, he told The Daily News, “it was more fun.”

Photo Dan Hogan Charles - The New York Times

After the Urban Foundations/Engineering workers spent three months of welding steel beams to the supporting walls and columns, then constructing an interlocking platform below, on March 2, 1998 the old theatre began its move to the west. The Daily News reported that “The historic Empire Theatre all 7.4 million pounds of it inched down W. 42nd St. at less than a foot per minute along eight rails stretching west to its new home 168 feet away, near Eighth Ave.”

Heymi Kuriel, vice president of Urban Foundation explained the caution that was required. “Everything had to be perfect. Every bolt had to be tested.”

The Daily News said “It took about four hours to shuttle the 86-year old former burlesque house…Scores watched from across the street as giant balloons of Abbott and Costello … led the move, appearing to tug the historic Empire to its new spot.”

The cost to move the theatre was $1.2 million.

Today the historic façade is essentially intact behind a new neon marquee. Inside Brounet’s mural has been restored by Harriet Irgana, director of Rustin Levenson Art Conservation.

While the old Eltinge had 759 seats, the AMC Empire boasts 4,916 seats in 25 auditoriums. Part of the proscenium of the old Eltinge remains, a reminder of the glorious days of the theatre a century ago.







The 1913 Regent Theatre -- St. Nicholas Ave and West 116th Street

In 1915, for 25 cents, patrons would enjoy "vaudeville and feature films" -- photo Museum of the City of New York

1912 was an exciting year to be alive.   Technology was exploding with inventions like the telephone, automobile, and airplane becoming more and more common.   Electricity was changing the way people went about their daily lives and the gramophone replaced the music box in family parlors.   Europe was the romantic, idyllic travel spot for the well-heeled and no one could envision the horrors that a world war would bring in just two years.

By now silent movies had matured from short Nickelodeon diversions to “photo plays.”  The entertainment that had recently been deemed by many as immoral was becoming respectable as family entertainment.

It was time for the motion picture to have its own home.

Harlem was already a major center of entertainment with respected theaters and an opera house.  In April of 1912 New Yorker Robert S. Marvin joined with Baltimore-based businessmen Charles J. Kuhlmann, James McEvoy, Jr., and William H. Hudgins to form the St. Nicholas-Seventh Avenue Theatre Company.  Its sole purpose was to build and operate “theatres, halls and other places of amusement” which would include those specifically for “moving picture films or other motion pictures.”

Only two months later the new firm spent $100 on the lot at the southwest corner of 7^th Avenue, St. Nicholas Avenue and West 116^th Street.   The natural choice for its architect was Thomas W. Lamb—already renowned for designing legitimate theaters.   It would be a career-changing commission.  Of the over 300 theater designs Lamb eventually designed, the majority would be movie houses.

The resulting Regent Theatre, completed in 1913, was among the first, if not the first, monumental movie palaces that would flourish through the next decade.   While drawing on the established form of the legitimate Broadway theater, Lamb used an exotic, romantic blend of styles to lure patrons to the wonders inside.  Extensive multicolored terra cotta cast in Italian Renaissance, northern European and Mannerist styles exploded in exuberant arcades, loggias, balconies on a diamond-pattern base. 

The newly-opened Regent, before advertising would cover the parapet.

The interior was lavish.  Frescoes, ornate moldings and elaborate chandeliers took the movie goer from the street to a fantasy palace disconnected from the world outside.   The auditorium with its loosely-styled “Spanish-Moorish” motif, was carpeted in dark blue below framed wall panels of brocaded satin.   Artist Francisco Pradillo painted the grand mural above the proscenium arch, “The Surrender of Granada,” that enhanced the theme.  The immense space could seat 1,854 patrons.

The auditorium was decorated in red, blue and gold --photo Museum of the City of New York

On February 9, 1913 the New York Tribune reported on the opening of the $500,000 movie theater.  “Not only did uptown society attend, but many prominent people from all parts of the city witnessed the photo plays presented at the elaborate theatre…The Orpheus Quartet gave a concert of classic and popular selections, accompanied by Arthur Depew, of Brooklyn, the organist, and the full orchestra.”

Owner Henry Marvin intended from the start to separate his theater from its more tawdry predecessors.  “The Regent presents no vaudeville, selections from grand opera and symphony music being substituted,” said the Tribune.   The Sun reported on some of the important audience members who viewed Pandora’s Box that night.  “Among those in the boxes were Prince and Princess Jean Palealogue, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Neurington, Mr. and Mrs. Byron Fellows, Prince Jean Tapieha, Mr. and Mrs. Roland Hinton Corry, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Daniels, Col. William Washington, Rear Admiral and Mrs. Bradley Allen Fisk and Mr. and Mrs. J. J. Little and party.”

The pit was designed to accommodate a full symphony-sized orchestra and the electro-pneumatic organ was an innovation that would become a staple among the giant motion picture houses.   None of it went unnoticed by Harlem Magazine.  “Harlem’s latest and handsomest entertainment house, marks an altogether new era in the moving picture world, as it is without doubt the largest and most completely equipped motion picture playhouse yet opened.  For beauty and convenience it surpasses many of the Broadway theatres.  It has been the intention of the Regent management to give New York Theatre goers something individually new in its form of entertainment, in a combination of the finest selection of photoplays that can be produced and music of a high and pleasing quality.”

In keeping with the high-tone quality of entertainment they intended to offer, Marvin and his manager, Claude H. Talley, screened an extravaganza in March of that year.  The New York Times reported “As an appropriate feature for Easter Sunday, a motion picture entitled ‘From the Manger to the Cross,’ illustrating the life of Christ, will be shown at the Regent Theatre…This production is in five reels.  The scenes were photographed in the Holy Land, and a specially arranged musical programme will be played by full orchestra, organ and chimes.”

Oddly enough, the Regent struggled.  Within a year, Henry Marvin hired the flamboyant Samuel Lionel Rothapfel, later known simply as “Roxy,” as “director.”    Roxy was already well known in the Midwest for his genius in accompanying music to the silent films.  By December 1913 he had made some renovations of the interior—adding potted plants, changing details like the stage curtains and lighting—and was ready for the public.

The Regent was reintroduced with The Last Days of Pompeii.  An epic production, it featured custom stage settings, an organ prelude, an orchestra, singers and recitations by live actors.  The Motion Picture News was awed.  “It served very clearly…to portend for the first time the theatrical future of the picture…it was less than a revelation. “  Likewise, The Harlem News called Roxy, “a veritable genius in the art of staging moving picture plays.”

Roxy saved the day and the Regent thrived.  In 1916 patrons were lured back week after week with serials that accompanied the feature films.  One, that year, was The Strange Case of Mary Page.  An advertisement in The Evening World enticed audiences.  “You see Mary pursued by the ‘Brute.’  You see the lights and shadows of stage life.  You see the tremendous court scene, without doubt the most thrilling and realistic trial found in the fiction of any country.  You see Mary badgered by the prosecution—every man against her but one.

You see this one—her lover and attorney—fighting desperately to snatch his sweetheart from the death cell.  You hear testimony that makes you clench your fists.  You see vividly pictured both the chivalry and the brutality a young girl meets in her struggle to win success as an actress.  Through it all you follow the shimmering, golden, unbreakable thread of love.”

The theater was used not only for motion pictures; but like other grand spaces, was leased for events.  In June 1917 the “Jewish Billy Sunday,” Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein held what he termed “a Jewish revival” meeting.

Nearly 2,000 patrons were given a scare on October 23, 1920 when fire broke out in the basement.  The New York Times reported that while the audience “was watching a vaudeville and motion picture show,” smoke began permeating the auditorium.  “The audience was told there was no danger, but that they could leave if they wished.”

They wished.

The crowd massed outside the theater while the blaze was quickly extinguished by firemen.  Those patrons who could prove they had been inside were readmitted and “the entertainment proceeded without further interruption.”

Although police and firefighters said the fire had started in the basement of the theater,  the manager, Joseph Connelly, insisted it was in an adjoining store.  His version made for better public relations.

 A year later the Pansy Amusement Corporation leased the theater and would run the Regent for decades.   In its 1937 lease extension, Pansy (now part of the RKO corporation), included television broadcasts.  The same year air conditioning was installed and the theater could be opened year-round for the first time in its existence.

The Regent Theatre Corporation, part of the RKO-Keith-Orpheum Theatres, Inc., purchased the theater in 1950.  But by the 1960s the Harlem neighborhood had changed drastically.  The 2000-seat movie theater was closed and the building sold to the First Corinthian Baptist Church on March 31, 1964.

An unfortunate scar remains where the marquee one hung, but the grandeur of the theater is still evident -- photo by Paul Lowry

The church, understandably, modified the auditorium to address the needs of a church rather than a movie house.  However, overall the interior and exterior of the grand movie palace remain intact, if a little careworn.  It is what the Landmarks Preservation Commission called in 1994 “one of New York City’s most significant surviving early motion picture theater buildings.”

Despite the renovation of the stage for religious purposes, the interior is largely intact. -- photo holy-ny.com