Embassy Theatre (New York City)

The inner lobby's south wall included entrances to lounges for men and women.[14] The lounge was decorated in a Francois I style, while the women's lounge was designed in a "Chinese Chippendale" style.^[11][15] Public telephones were placed in both rooms.^[16] These spaces have since been redecorated.^[11]

Auditorium

The former auditorium is accessed from the inner lobby and was designed with a single level of seating. There was neither a balcony nor boxes.^[5][13][15] Originally, the auditorium had 598 seats,^[17][18] later cited as 582.^[19] The original seats contained tapestry coverings; lacquered carmine-colored arms; and lacquered black-and-gold seat backs.^[14] Aisles ran along each side of the auditorium.^[9] The room has a slightly raked floor that slopes down toward the proscenium arch on the east wall.^[20] The Pele Soccer store's floor is largely a flat surface placed on footings above the raked floor, which is still extant.^[21] The store's raised floor is designed to resemble a soccer field.^[3][22] To the north and south of the raised floor are ramps that are actually part of the original raked floor.^[21]

On the north and south walls of the auditorium are four piers.^[13][23] Each pier contains oval marble panels surrounded by floral designs, as well as gilded lighting fixtures above the marble panels.^[24] These piers were originally decorated with gilded details, and damask curtains were draped between the piers.^[11] The piers are topped by arches containing grotesque heads.^[13] The lighting fixtures were designed so they appeared to be resting on mermaids' backs.^[4][11] Air vents were placed within the bottoms of each pier.^[16] This created what Exhibitor's Trade Review magazine called "the latest and most effective heating and ventilation system".^[25] The walls are topped by a cornice with brackets and paneling; this cornice contains some air-conditioning grilles.^[24] There were formerly "gilded Hermes" above some of the piers.^[11][26]

Behind the piers are six murals painted by

The auditorium's ceiling is mostly flat but is designed with plasterwork in low relief.^[13] The center of the ceiling has a wide recessed dome, which is surrounded by eight smaller brass-and-crystal lighting panels.^[24] The central dome is surrounded by gilded filigree decorations, which were subsequently painted cream to match the surrounding ceiling.^[30] Rambusch Studio designed the lighting fixtures.^[4][30] According to Exhibitor's Trade Review, the lighting fixtures were designed specifically for the theater, with a mixture of direct and indirect lighting.^[16]

History

Movie palaces became common in the 1920s, between the end of World War I and the beginning of the Great Depression.^[34][35] In the New York City area, only a small number of operators were involved in the construction of movie palaces. Relatively few architects were responsible for these theaters' designs, including legitimate theater architects Thomas Lamb, C. Howard Crane, and John Eberson.^[17] In particular, many movie palaces were built around the Times Square area in the early 20th century.^[36]

Original theater use

Billboard magazine reported in April 1925 that Joel Weinstock would operate the 600-seat Embassy Theatre adjacent to the Palace Theatre, a vaudeville house. The Embassy was planned to be the first movie house in New York City to operate 24 hours a day, charging 25 cents for admission at all hours.^[37] In July 1925, it was announced that socialite Gloria Gould had signed a contract to manage the new theater,^[38][39][40] which would be operated by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.^[40] Nineteen years old at the time,^[41][42] Gould was described in Exhibitors' Trade Review as "the youngest person, either male or female, to have ever achieved the distinction of directing a modern motion picture theatre, and that in the great metropolis of the world".^[42] Also unusual was the fact that Gould had no previous experience managing a cinema.^[42] The Embassy Theatre officially opened on August 27, 1925, with the film The Merry Widow.^[43][44] Opening-night tickets were $5.50 each (equivalent to $96 in 2023);^[45] about half the audience were "local or national celebrities", protected by a police reinforcement.^[46]

When the theater opened, Gould said the theater would not host any comedies or newsreels.^[41][47] All seats were reserved and cost $2 each (equivalent to $35 in 2023),^[42][48][a] as Gould wanted the theater to cater to impatient "society people", rather than the general public.^[4][30] Furthering the Embassy's exclusive nature, "beggars, vagrants, peddlers, bootleggers and blind persons" were not allowed to enter.^[30] Gould also announced that all of the Embassy's staff would be women, from the ushers to the musicians,^[39][40] in the belief that women could work more efficiently than men;^[19][30][50] she said MGM vice president Major Bowes supported the effort.^[39] Gould's ushers had to be blondes in their late teens or early twenties,^[b] at most 5 feet 4 inches (1.63 m) tall, with white teeth and the "ability to wear clothes with dignity".^[46][49][18] Almost four hundred women applied for staff positions, including a "white-haired widow" and a "daughter of a Russian general", according to Gould.^[50] According to the American Guild of Organists, there were still four men on staff: a porter and three operators.^[28]

The Embassy initially only had two screenings daily:

In October 1929, William Fox took over the Embassy, with plans to use the theater exclusively for displaying Movietone newsreels.^[58][59] The theater was the first of its kind to feature newsreels with sound^[60] (although the first sound newsreel had been created in 1927 at the Sam H. Harris Theatre^[61]), and it was the first exclusive newsreel theater in the U.S.^[62][63][c] The Embassy incurred a relatively high cost of $500 per week for one reel, a price no one was willing to pay.^[60] The first newsreel was screened on November 2, 1929, with footage of news items such as the city's 1929 mayoral election debates and the Wall Street Crash.^[61][63][66] There was a ticket price of 25 cents (equivalent to $4 in 2023) for an hour-long show.^[67][68] Screenings took place every hour from 10 a.m. to midnight.^[61] As part of an opening-week promotion, the Embassy distributed tickets to thousands of residents.^[61]

The renamed Embassy Newsreel Theatre saw six or seven thousand visitors per day in its first two weeks as a newsreel theater.^[68] The newsreels were completely changed every week,^[69] and the theater was on the heavily traveled Times Square, adding to the Embassy's popularity.^[61] By 1930, Movietone's editor E. L. Harvey said the Embassy had "far outgrown its original plans" of being "a show window on Broadway for Fox News".^[70] The Embassy's newsreels included the first sound reel of a whale being captured;^[71] a tribute to U.S. president Calvin Coolidge;^[72] the rise of Adolf Hitler;^[73] appearances by Pope Pius XI^[74] and J. P. Morgan Jr.^[75] and the trial and sentencing of several men who kidnapped oil magnate Charles F. Urschel.^[76] Fox Movietone published advertisements saying, "The Embassy Newsreel grossed more than $11,000 in a 550-seat house showing only Fox Movietone News."^[60]

The Embassy Theatre's lease expired in January 1934,

The Embassy Newsreel continued into the 1940s despite the growing popularity of the television.^[6][60] The Embassy Newsreel Theatre grew into a chain with locations on 50th and 72nd Street as well as the original theater on Times Square. As a whole, the newsreel industry was impacted negatively by World War II, when studios began sharing footage with each other to reduce costs, which consequently resulted in a decrease in competition between newsreel studios (and thus less content). Furthermore, there was growing criticism of the newsreels' tendencies to dramatize factual events, as well as the fact that newsreels discussed stories in a decreasing order of importance.^[6] In November 1949, it was announced that the Embassy would revert to showing feature films.^[85][86][87] Githens said he had decided to return the Embassy to cinematic use specifically because newsreels could no longer compete with television.^[87]

Return to feature films

Norman Elson, a son-in-law of prolific theater architect

By December 1952, the theater had again returned to showing feature films because newsreels were facing greater competition from television.[96] The Embassy's features in the 1960s included numerous French and Italian films.^[97] During this decade, Alfie ran at the Embassy for over six months in 1966, being the longest-running English-language film to be shown at the theater.^[98] This was followed in the 1970s by films such as Take a Girl Like You (1970)^[99] and Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973).^[100] In its later years, the Embassy Theatre on Times Square was also called the Embassy I to distinguish it from similarly named theaters in Manhattan.^[88][d]

By the 1980s, many of Times Square's cinemas had closed and had been modified or demolished, but the Embassy I remained active, with its architectural details being largely preserved.^[36] The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) had started considering protecting the Embassy as an official city landmark in 1982,^[103] with discussions continuing over the next several years.^[104] Norman Elson's son Peter favored the designation,^[36] and the LPC designated the theater as an interior landmark on November 17, 1987.^[105] This was part of the commission's wide-ranging effort in 1987 to grant landmark status to theaters in Midtown Manhattan. The Embassy was one of the few movie theaters being considered as a landmark; most of the other theaters were Broadway houses whose facades and interiors were both being considered as landmarks.^[106] The New York City Board of Estimate ratified the designation in March 1988.^[107]

Commercial use

Times Square Information Center

By February 1997, the Times Square

Subsequent additions to the visitor center included a concierge service for Broadway and off-Broadway shows, which opened in 2008.^[112] The visitor center was renovated in 2010. An exhibit about Times Square's old peep shows, a Times Square Ball, a photo booth, and a collection of hats used in Broadway shows were added to the visitor center during this time.^[113]

Retail conversion

In July 2013, the Actors Equity Building's owners proposed adding an escalator from the outer lobby to the basement, as well as relocating the inner lobby wall. Manhattan Community Board 5 opposed this plan.^[26][114] The owners subsequently made another proposal in October 2013, which involved modifying the basement escalators and leveling the raked auditorium floor; Community Board 5 also opposed this plan.^[26][115] The community board approved a third proposal made by Carlton Architects, who represented Brazilian soccer player Pelé, a prospective retail tenant for the space. Carlton proposed that the theater's layout be retained "to respect the space".^[26] The Times Square BID closed its information center in June 2014.^[26][116]

In November 2019, a Pelé Soccer store opened within the former Embassy Theatre space.^[3][22] Prior to the store's opening, the marquee above the theater's entrance was modified with the store's name. Television screens were installed in the theater's entrance vestibule, displaying soccer games, and the outer and inner lobbies were arranged with soccer memorabilia. The auditorium itself was used sell to soccer gear and footwear, and the auditorium floor was modified to look like a soccer field.^[3]

See also

• List of New York City Designated Landmarks in Manhattan from 14th to 59th Streets

References

Notes

Citations