What Times Square Area Buildings Use To Be Theaters? — Page 8

I wanted to revive this thread to tell you about this terrific book I just received. It's "Historic Photos of Broadway - New York Theater, 1850-1970". The text and captions are by Leonard Jacobs and it's filled with images from the Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Not only are photos shown from productions but so are lots of photos of the actual theatres - so many of which are only a memory. And I swear I haven't yet run across a pic that I've seen before. Every one of them is new (to me at least). Of course I'm only at the beginning!

I shouldn't even try this (the scanner here at work makes horrible images out of really good ones) but this is one of the more recent photos in the book. It's the stage door at the Imperial - so familiar to all of us but not looking like this! The book is so new that the caption under this photo reads "The Imperial has earned its name by housing musical smashes" (includes list of long running hits)"....., Les Miserables (1987), which premiered at the Broadway, ran here for 13 years. Billy Elliot (2008 ), based on the hit film, promises to be the next long-term tenant."

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Bump! I love this thread :)

I think that's a different Liberty Theatre. The 42nd Street Liberty had a much narrower facade with just one set of doors. (This facade still exists, for the most part, and is presently hidden under signage).

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Updated On: 7/13/09 at 02:43 AM

I thought so too but the photo I posted is identified exactly as I described it and is on file in the Billy Rose Theatre Division of the NY Public Library. It also states that this theatre opened in 1904 and that agrees with the IBDB history of the theatre. (Which simply means that THEY got it wrong too!)

This one shows it much more recently. The columns on the left and right side of the Internet Cafe are all that's recognizable.

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Because of all the junk now covering that end of 42nd Street, I was never able to tell exactly where the old entrance to the Liberty was actually located. Now I can spot it when I compare the pic below with the one above. If you look at that row of lights running above the internet cafe you can see that those two columns span the length covered by the last three lights. Also note the location of the pole with the street light. You can easily spot the same location on the photo below by looking for those same three lights and the pole (now a street light). I could be completely wrong here, but it sure looks right.

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Smaxie - according to this history the theatre ran silent films when the legit stage was dark. It didn't go completely over to films until much later. (Of course, they got the photo wrong!)

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Oh - Fabulous!

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Here's what they looked like before they were separated.

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There was an off-Broadway Mayfair Theatre at 235 W. 46th St., now the address of the Paramount Hotel. It housed productions during the 60's and 70's, including one I'm really sorry to have missed, "A Curious Evening With Gypsy Rose Lee."

The small Broadway theatre in the basement of the Paramount Hotel also was known as the Century (also briefly the Stairway). It did have a few decent tenants, like a return engagement of On Golden Pond, and a revival of A Taste of Honey with Amanda Plummer, but it mostly housed flops. It originally had opened as Billy Rose's Diamond Horseshoe nightclub. I'm not aware of what the Paramount has done with the space, but it last housed a Broadway show in 1982 (Melvin Van Peebles' Waltz of the Stork).

Here's a photo of the space as Billy Rose's Diamond Horseshoe:

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Updated On: 7/13/09 at 11:56 AM

The New Century was knocked down in the 1950s. There's an apartment building that stands on the spot.

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In 1921 the Klaw Theatre opened at 251 W. 45th Street. In 1929 the name was changed to the Avon Theatre. It was leased and then sold to CBS in 1934 when it became the CBS Radio Playhouse No. 2. Today it?s the beautiful parking lot you see next to the Imperial Theatre. The first pic here shows it after it went to CBS. All other photos were marked Klaw Theatre.





(Klaw, Imperial, Music Box)

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