Regal Times Square
247 W. 42nd Street,
New York,
NY
10036
247 W. 42nd Street,
New York,
NY
10036
31 people
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Showing 276 - 300 of 355 comments
Most of the time that sign is out of order! Either parts are black or they have truoble getting it lit correctly!
Nice photo, Ed! That blade sign there is fiberoptic – there are no lights on it, the lights are inside the theatre and transmitted through glass fiber cables to the glass prisms that make up each of the letters.
Ed, I read somewhere that they had 4 months to divest the theaters. And, probably on this site, I read that Boston’s Fenway might also go to Regal. I’m equally eager to hear where Washington D.C.’s Union Station and Wisconsin Avenue will go. National Amusements is an excellent company already in those markets (in the suburbs) and it would be nice if they bought all of those theaters. However, Regal for Boston and NYC was mentioned.
Sorry, Howard, I read your post of Feb 4th and I meant to ask if there was any updated news on that front confirming the sale to Regal.
I was on 42nd Street the other night for a show with the kids down at the New Victory. I snapped this photo of the marquee at night (and also the Empire across the street):
View link
I wonder how long the sign will read “Loews” before AMC sells it off and the new owner slaps their brand onto it. Anyone hear any news on that front?
On the Beekman page, somebody says this theater is being sold to Regal.
As of right now, this theatre is AMC Loews E-Walk 13 Theatre.
Not known yet. Clearview may not be expanding, but Regal, National Amusements, and Crown would all seem to be possible.
Who gonna get this theatre when the AMC Loews merger closes on 1/27/06?
According to the 11/2005 Loews directory, the exact seat counts and digital audio processor in each auditorium is:
01 – 266 – SDDS, 8 channel
02 – 219 – Dolby 6 ch. + Boeing Digital Projector
03 – 178 – Dolby 6 ch.
04 – 199 – Dolby 6 ch.
05 – 199 – Dolby 6 ch.
06 – 199 – Dolby 6 ch.
07 – 199 – Dolby 6 ch.
08 – 197 – SDDS, 6 ch. + Boeing Digital Projector
09 – 200 – SDDS, 6 ch.
10 – 177 – SDDS, 6 ch.
11 – 176 – SDDS, 6 ch.
12 – 481 – SDDS, 6 ch.
13 – 528 – SDDS, 8 ch.
——– 3218 – Total
Movieguy718’s approximations are just about right on!
Someone’s been giving this place some TLC lately. It’s starting to resemble itself from when it first opened.
If you catch them on a good day, THIS is the place to see the weeks big blockbuster (try to catch a showing in #13 and don’t let them talk you into #12. The sound in 13 is much more impressive and less prone to trouble)
Approximate seating capacities:
1 – 275
2 – 225
3 – 180
4 – 205
5 – 205
6 – 205
7 – 205
8 – 205
9 – 205
10 – 180
11 – 180
12 – 500
13 – 550
9 and #12 are prone to sound problems and #13 does have a “ghost” problem that they seem to be working on. However, even the small screens are not that small and overall the sound is usually loud and clear.
This, the Ziegfeld, the Regal Union Square and the Regal Battery Park are the city’s best theatres.
One of the biggest losses of the theatre district was the Hotel Astor(French-Reinassance) between 44th and 45th streets on Broadway. It had style and elegance, complimenting the theatres around it. Many still feel it was a huge error to tear it down.
You’re right that Times Square has lost it’s charm, but to me that’s more the fault of the high-rise buildings that occupy the area now and the overall planning of the area, not the lights and signs themselves. In the old Times Square, most of the buildings were only a few stories tall and completely hidden behind the signs. When the signs came down before the buildings were demolished, it exposed the fact that a lot of them were pretty wreched looking, but we never saw them thanks to the signs. Now, you can’t help but see some of these wreched high-rises and their bad architecture. I’ve seen the photos of the area in the 30s, 40s and 50s, and 42nd St. always seemed to have a more ‘honky-tonk’ atmosphere than the Square itself with a chaotic jumble of signs. Today, the chaos is planned, there is no spontanaity to it.
When the restoration of 42nd street were first made it sounded like the outside would be done with more taste. As far as the sarcastic remarks of some of the above posts, there was a sense of balance to the Broadway lights & buildings of years ago. Were you around then? The Broadway area of today has lost a certain charm. I used to work in the area for many years. It’s not the same now. So much has been lost and replaced with mega edifices. And yes- when the original theatres (some now restored) were built at the turn of the last century, Times Square was fashionable, not gaudy as later years.
It’s not the lights and billboards that get me â€" Hell, Times Square has always had spectacularly bright and gaudy displays – but the sheer verticality of all the new and recent construction in the area. There’s no sense of scale there anymore… it doesn’t relate at all to people walking down the street. It’s overwhelming. The old square was dominated by modestly sized office buildings, storefronts and theaters. There was sunlight during the day and the feel of open air at night. The old Times building rose 25 floors and the Paramount topped that, but the other buildings along 7th Avenue and Broadway were of a much smaller scale, the tallest probably topping out around 12-15 stories and many more closer to 4-7 stories tall.
Now, with the foot-traffic almost unbearably thick on either side of the Square, the space feels much smaller and congested than it ever did in the past. I feel corralled when I walk through the area, almost claustrophobic. It’s been transformed into an X-shaped canyon of glass and steel. As a result, the displays go up higher along the outer walls of these new skyscrapers and any notion of individuality has been abandoned. I don’t get that sense of “character” that I used to get when the old movie palace marquees lined the streets. I see photos of the Ginza in Tokyo and can hardly tell it apart from Times Square, but for the Japanese lettering. There is a chapter in the book “Lost New York” that discusses how a public square is defined not so much by the space of the square itself, but by the profile of the edifices that face it. The example of Grand Army Plaza in front of the Plaza Hotel is used to illustrate how over-development has detracted from the beauty of the Plaza as a public space. I think the same can be said of Times Square.
I guess that’s the trade-off associated with any civic reclamation project. Keep the faded and shady dime-a-dance ballrooms, massage parlors and seedy live-sex clubs and you may have your old palaces, grind houses, Nathans, Nedicks, Grand Luncheonette and retain a sense of architectural scale. Sweep away the porn and sleaze and restore one or two historic theaters to legitimate use and you will find hordes of real estate developers stumbling over one another for the opportunity to carve up the territory and build over the rubble of that which gave the place its identity in the first place. This is what is meant by re-development. Out with the old, in with the new. Times Square has become Disney World North and 42nd Street is its Main Street, USA.
When has 42nd Street not been gaudy?
You said it Dave!!
It’s Times Square, for crying out loud, NOT Beverly Hills….
All those lights and signs outside the revitalized 42nd street theatre district has made it looked gaudy and ineffectual. Those who put them up should remember the old saying that sometimes less is more.
Has there been any word on what will happen with the smaller Loews Theaters like the 72nd St East and 84th St?
According to today’s Variety, the E-Walk is slated to be sold:
“As the result of an antitrust review of the AMC and Loews merger, which was announced in June and is expected to close early next year, the exhibs will sell 10 theaters in six cities.
The exhibexhib bizbiz is closely monitored by antitrust officials so that one chain does not, in effect, have a monopoly on movies in any particular market. Because Loews and AMC had competitive theaters in several distribdistrib zones, some sell-off was expected (Daily Variety, June 22).
After unloading the 10 theaters — five each from AMC and Loews, comprising 93 screens total — the merged company will be left with 437 locations and 5,843 screens in the U.S., making it the second-largest chain after Regal, which has 6,264 screens.
However, several of the theaters now on the auction block are considered strong earners in film-distrib circles. Included on the for-sale list is one of the biggest-grossing theaters in the country, the Loews E-Walk 13 in GothamGotham.
It is across 42nd Street in Times Square from the AMC Empire 25, which is the biggest-grossing moviehouse in the country.
Also on the list is the AMC Fenway 13 in Boston and the Loews Meridian 16 in Seattle.
Other locations now up for grabs include: in Chicago, the AMC City North 14 and Loews Webster Place 11; in D.C., the AMC Union Station 9 and Loews Wisconsin Ave. 6; in San Francisco, the AMC Kabuki 8 and AMC Van Ness 14; and in Dallas, the Loews Keyston 16."
Warren… have you ever researched the Harem for its own page on this site? Or is it not an interesting enough topic? I’m guessing it was carved out of retail space and probably has a fairly unremarkable history. I’m still curious to learn its origins and I’m not sure I’d know where to begin looking without as much as an address.
I believe the Harem was always porno, as long back as I remember. Does anyone know if that’s the original name or was it called something else before?
That’s a great “death row” photo, Bryan… It’s been so long, I’ve forgotten how many building sites occupied the location where the E-Walk and the Westin Hotel were constructed. I love how they painted all those shutters in bright primary colors and how the Modell’s and Harem signs were still in place. Since there is no entry on this site for the Harem, I’ll ask here if anyone knows the history of that theater? I assume there is no great history and that it was simply carved out of existing retail space, but was it ever used for anything other than a porn house? It’s one of the few 42nd street theaters that I was never able (or perhaps more accurately, willing) to attend. Never got into the Anco or Cine 42nd either.
In under six years, this place has managed to go from great to mediocre but it is still preferable to the AMC across the street.