What Times Square Area Buildings Use To Be Theaters? — Page 9

Couple of nice shots of the Mark Hellinger that I'm not sure we've posted previously.

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It's a crime we don't have the MArk Hellinger as a Broadway theater.

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I have a playbill from the Liberty Theatre when it played The Spring Maid starring Christie MacDonald. It says that Klaw and Erlanger were the managers of the theatre. Is this the same Klaw that the Klaw Theatre was named after?

Mark Hellinger Theater

I hope we get this beautiful theater back!



The Balcony:




The Stage (view from Orchestra)




Proscenium


Balcony (view from stage)


Box Seats


More interior (ceiling)

Updated On: 7/14/09 at 02:08 PM

The New Victory is run as a non-profit, housing productions for children and families and is not available as a house for commercial Broadway or Off-Broadway productions.

When the renovation of 42nd Street began, the New 42nd Street Organization did not want the theatres on the street to all return to use as Broadway theatres. When work began, there were nine former Broadway theatres on that block - the New Amsterdam, Apollo, Lyric, Times Square, Selwyn, Harris, Liberty, Empire and Victory ... 10, if you count the remains of one, the Lew Fields, which was stripped of almost all interior and exterior detail and ended its life as an ugly cinema called the Anco.

The idea in the early to mid 1990s was that Broadway could not sustain nine additional new Broadway theatres, so the New 42nd Street Organization was determined to find alternate uses for some of them. As it turns out, having a few more of those theatres available for Broadway productions would probably have been a good thing, as Broadway seems to be encountering booking jams in most of the recent seasons, with productions waiting in the wings for shows to fold.

Obviously, the New Amsterdam became Disney's flagship theatre and the Selwyn returned as the American Airlines. The New Victory became a children's theatre.

The Harris - once owned by and destined for renovation by the Nederlander Organization - was knocked down, with almost no attention paid to it. A shame, because as per photos, so much of that theatre seemed to be intact.

The Apollo and Lyric were also knocked down, with elements of both of those intimate playhouses used for the unbookable, unsustainable Ford Center/Hilton.

The Lew Fields/Anco was demolished, with no tears shed.

The Empire (aka Eltinge, named for famed female impersonator Julian Eltinge) was moved down the street, given a cheap coat of paint and a cursory "renovation" and is the entrance for the AMC theatres.

The Liberty auditorium sits marooned on West 41st Street.

The Times Square - which several non-profits and I believe some commercial theatre owners had looked at - has been embroiled for about five years in the aborted Marc Ecko store and still does not seem to have a determined future use.

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Updated On: 7/14/09 at 03:32 PM

The Times Square Church has kept the Hellinger in better shape than the Nederlander Organization ever did. Apart from missing it as a Broadway venue for 20 years and the foolishness that it was sold outright to the church, the only thing that ever alarmed me in particular about the Times Square Church was a story that ran in Theatre Week or In Theatre Magazine where a reporter snuck in one day at an off hour to take a peek at the venue and found a couple having sex in the mezzanine.

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Updated On: 7/14/09 at 05:33 PM

wow what a great video

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Updated On: 7/14/09 at 06:52 PM

The Nederlander Organization originally leased it to the church but a few years later, for reasons I cannot understand, sold it. The church owns it. So, unless the church were to go under or find a property they prefer or get an astronomical offer for the building, it won't be returning as a Broadway theatre.

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Just have to pop in and mention how much I always enjoy this thread and how glad I am whenever more pictures are posted. It's a fascinating little treat.

That stop-time video of the Star Theater coming down is so sad.

I wonder whatever happened to the ghosts?

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Here's a nice shot looking into the house from the stage of the Hudson Theatre. (It's the theatre just down the street from the Belasco and attached to the Millenium Hotel).

The Hudson was built in 1903 and was used as a legit theatre up until 1968, with intermittent periods as a TV studio. After 1968, it was a porno theatre, a rock club and is now a conference center.

It's been beautifully restored with a large, spacious lobby. Another house that would be great if it returned to the legit fold, but not likely to happen.

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Time for another old theatre - The Hippodrome!

The Hippodrome was a huge theatre located on 6th Ave, filling the block between 43rd and 44th Streets. The Hippodrome had an enormous 119 foot wide stage and held an audience of 5,000. The last production there was "Jumbo" in 1935. The picture I have from that production (2nd one down) covers 2 pages and was too big for my scanner. You can get an idea of how big a production it was from this piece of the picture. I did a quick count and found 47 people in addition to the live elephant in the center.




JUMBO


Irish tenor Jack McCormack in 1918 - WITHOUT amplification!




Houdini and Jennie - in 1918

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Updated On: 7/16/09 at 09:43 PM

This remains one of my favorite threads on BWW. Out of everything I've read here and in "Lost Broadway Theatres", the Liberty Theatre remains the most fascinating. It's probably because it still exists in some capacity, and it is hidden from public view.