Fair Theatre

90-18 Astoria Boulevard,
East Elmhurst, NY 11369

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Showing 276 - 300 of 358 comments

Ed Solero
Ed Solero on June 16, 2006 at 7:12 am

The closest subway stop would be for the #7 train (actually an elevated line) on Roosevelt Ave and 90th Street. I think the stop is called 90th Street/Elmhurst Ave and leaves you about 8 or 9 blocks south of Astoria Blvd. You can catch the #7 from either Times Square, 5th Ave and 42nd or Grand Central Station. Once you get off the train, head up 90th Street until you come to Astoria Blvd and then hang a right. The theater will be just down the block on your right.

jcx238
jcx238 on June 15, 2006 at 12:22 pm

What’s the best way to get here by subway (from Manhattan)? Is a bus a better bet? Sad – I lived in Astoria for 6 years (just making it in time to enjoy the last couple of years of the old Steinway street Astoria Theater that is now a Duane Reade) – and I could have been riding my bike to the Fair all the time.. I didn’t know…

Ed Solero
Ed Solero on June 15, 2006 at 4:51 am

Did you notice that they also installed reflectors at the apex of the canopy’s projection over the sidewalk? They face in either direction down the block so that trucks pulling in or backing in to park can navigate around the projection and avoid smashing into the structure. There does appear to be a few dings around that big cursive “F” that graces the marquee.

dave-bronx™
dave-bronx™ on June 15, 2006 at 12:58 am

Ed, that’s no scarecrow – that’s one of the drag queens from inside coming up for a bit of air LOL…

Jeffrey1955
Jeffrey1955 on June 14, 2006 at 12:39 pm

The underside looks a bit better (though it appears the paint that was peeling was similar to what was just added) but overall it looks really bad. Wrong paint, wrong colors.

Ed Solero
Ed Solero on June 14, 2006 at 11:38 am

Took some photos earlier this month of the freshly painted marquee:

Marquee and entrance
Profile marquee
Marquee close-up
Fair Scarecrow?
Freshly coated canopy

Compare that last shot with the following close-up view at the peeling paint under the canopy from just a few months ago:

Feb. 2006 under canopy

I’ll have to run by there one evening to see what the new neon looks like when fired up! And they certainly haven’t switched from porn, Mikeoaklandpark… In the main auditorium (the original theater) they had been running ‘70’s and '80’s grind house fare via video projection, while maintaining porn in the smaller separate screening rooms that had been carved from adjacent retail space. According to Alto, they have been mixing in the latest home video releases with the grind house fodder in the main auditorium.

I’m not sure what the deal is with that. Why bother? Was it in response to the Guiliani zoning laws that restricted businesses from operating 100% porn within a certain distance from schools, churches and residential areas? I can’t imagine any other reason. Who’d shell out the $15 admission just to sit in a musty old theater watching kung fu flicks on a video projector? No insult intended if that’s your gig!

Mikeoaklandpark
Mikeoaklandpark on May 16, 2006 at 1:50 am

So have they switched from porno films?

Alto
Alto on May 15, 2006 at 6:44 pm

The marquee just received an “upgrade” of sorts – workers recently repaired and replaced cracked frost glass and missing letters. The biggest change though is the new multi-color neon lighting installed around the face (it matches the pastel-colored tubes underneath that lead to the entry doors). Although not historically “true” to the original, it does add a bit of “punch” to the somewhat spartan and tired-looking old signage.

The owner’s “zest” for color lately has also resulted in some rather tacky interior redecoration of the lobby area as well (a god-awful amateurish hand-painted “rainbow” mural whose theme or concept eludes me, along with the existing hodge-podge of both modern and traditional furnishings, lamps, fake palms, Egyptian statuary, fish tanks, Christmas lights and fiber-optic “objets d’art”). Before, the walls were painted a relaxed, low-key basic black and dotted with small black & white framed photos of Hollywood stars (such as Laurel & Hardy, The Marx Brothers, Charlie Chaplin, Mae West and Lana Turner) – this made sense given the theatre’s “old-time” style and history and lent the place a bit of “vintage” charm and aesthetic as well.

Incidentally, the programming has also changed a little – in the main auditorium, they are breaking up the non-stop horror, action/adventure and martial arts films with the occassional latest home video new release – they were not getting the response to these films that they wanted, and quite frankly the regular patrons (who literally spend hours at a time in this place) were probably getting bored with it all (I know I was).

Ed Solero
Ed Solero on May 11, 2006 at 6:06 pm

I reorganized my photobucket account and all the links to the various photos I posted previously no longer work. Follow this link to my new Fair Theater photo album where all of those images are now collected.

Ed Solero
Ed Solero on April 13, 2006 at 6:50 am

The Times Square area grindhouse distributors operated in a definite sub-culture environment. It’s not surprising that available information about Levene and his colleagues is sketchy.

mcintyro
mcintyro on April 13, 2006 at 6:18 am

I met Terry Levene and dealt with him in December 1979 and January 1980 at his office in the building that housed the SELWYN theatre. I was introduced to him by the manager of the theatre I worked at THE LOEW’S ASTOR PLAZA. I was a college freshman at Iona College, and I was working at writing. Terry came to see a film and my manager introduced me to him and I told him I was studying writing, and he gave me a business card to show him some scripts.

On Xmas vacro of 1979 I dropped off a few treatments and pitched Terry some ideas. He was a nice, middle-aged subtle, soft spoking man. He was a portly version of Roger Corman, but you get the idea. Also, Terry had a foreign accent, which lead me to believe it was either British, Australian or South African. At, barely, 18, I couldn’t decipher.

In January 1980, I met him to pick up the scripts. Needless to say, Terry didn’t of course take them, but he gave me some advice and suggestions, and he couldn’t have been nicer.

Two years later, around the time he released DR. M BUTCHER or whatever the hell it was called, I read in Variety that he was sponsoring a contest by people to write treatments.

Anyway, it wouldn’t surprise me if the resourceful Levene was still at it. It was interesting reading about him here. I cannot find out much about him in Books or IMDB.

poman
poman on April 2, 2006 at 1:48 pm

Many of the movies recently shown at the Fair are owned by Aquarius Releasing, a company that has been in operation since the late 1960s and was for many years the major “exchange office” in the N.Y.C./tri-state area for most of the exploitation movie distributors, including Roger Corman. Most notoriously, Aquarius handled the controversial N.Y.C. release of DEEP THROAT.

Terry Levene, the president of Aquarius, specialized in acquiring foreign films, dubbing them, and then releasing them to drive-ins and grindhouses around the U.S. Some of his biggest hits were THE BODYGUARD (with Sonny Chiba), MAKE THEM DIE SLOWLY, FACES OF DEATH, THE SEVEN DOORS OF DEATH (a re-titling of Lucio Fulci’s THE BEYOND), BURIED ALIVE, and THE TONGFATHER. Aquarius originally had its offices in the heart of 42nd Street, in the Selwyn Theater building, but moved further west (9th Avenue, I think) in the late ‘80s.

“NOW SHOWING AT THESE AQUARIUS SHOWCASE THEATERS!” would appear under the newspaper ads for the movies Levene released — and as the old movie houses in Manhattan and the outer boroughs (and Westchester County and New Jersey) closed down one by one, Aquarius' films would mysteriously be advertised as playing in theaters that were no longer open for business! Or, in the case of Corman’s SATURDAY THE 14TH STRIKES BACK, the movie was advertised as playing in several theaters — but phone calls to those theaters revealed that it was actually playing in NONE of the theaters! Another common practice was to open a film at the Roxy III, a triplex video theater adjacent to the New Amsterdam Theater on 42nd Street. So a 35mm print of LORDS OF THE DEEP or TRANSYLVANIA TWIST would play around the corner at the Criterion Center on Broadway (in one of their basement theaters, dubbed “The Dungeon” by anyone who ever ventured down there) while a videotape of the same movie would show at the Roxy III in 24-hour rotation with stuff like THE HUMAN TORNADO and SUPERFLY, and both of these theaters would be listed in the newspaper as “AQUARIUS SHOWCASE THEATERS.” These shady practices nonetheless would help the indie distributors who needed to claim a certain number of theatrical playdates to satisfy their video deals.

I heard a while ago that Levene had retired and was living in New Jersey, but last year another veteran distributor told me that Aquarius was still very much in business and Levene was operating out of his home in Jersey. Since Aquarius provided the video grindhouses with product in the past — and many of the movies shown at the Fair recently are Aquarius releases (BRUCE LEE FIGHTS BACK FROM THE GRAVE, FIST OF FEAR – TOUCH OF DEATH, GOODBYE BRUCE LEE, PAY OR DIE, QUEEN BOXER), I’m 99% certain that Levene is behind these recent bookings.

Ed Solero
Ed Solero on March 15, 2006 at 4:33 pm

My mistake Alto. Yes. Passaic.

Alto
Alto on March 15, 2006 at 4:08 pm

The Montauk Theatre is located in Passaic, not Newark.
The Little Theatre and Cameo Twin are in Newark.

Ed Solero
Ed Solero on March 10, 2006 at 2:22 pm

Looks like the person who owns this theater also has a couple of other XXX theaters outside of NYC that are involved in a bit of controversy. Apparently, there is a decade old battle being waged in Pittsburgh, PA, over the Garden Theater, which the City is now fighting to condemn via eminent domain in the name of urban redevelopment. More recent is the Montauk Theater in Newark, NJ, which has been getting similar attention due to the City’s plans to build a grade school on an adjacent block. While the theater’s owner (George Androtsakis) hasn’t commented on the situation just developing in Newark, he has been making a First Amendment argument to defend his Pittsburgh theater’s right to exist as a porn house.

Here is the article that Ross linked to from today’s Newsreel item on the CT home page.

Alto
Alto on February 27, 2006 at 11:37 am

With the Polk closed as of Feb. 20th (Presidents Day), this is now the only remaining “adult theatre” in Queens, and one of only two (that I know of) still operating within NYC limits (Kings Highway Cinema is the other).

Hard to believe for a city of this status, size and population!
Consider: Newark, NJ has the same number of XXX theatres (on the same street, only blocks apart, in an undesirable locale…yet both are doing “respectable” business).

Ed Solero
Ed Solero on February 22, 2006 at 4:13 pm

That’s exactly what I’ve been saying, hardbop, since we first picked up on these Village Voice ads. “Kiss Daddy” is a 1981 horror film that probably did play on 42nd Street. The closest imdb.com match I can find for that second title is something called “9 Deaths of the Ninja” from 1985 starring 42nd Street stalwart Sho Kosugi. “Messenger of Death” is likely the Charles Bronson flick from 1988 that might have played the tail end of the Duece’s grind house existence. It was directed by veteran J. Lee Thompson who in his hey day helmed “Guns of Navarone”, the original “Cape Fear” and “Taras Bulba” before turning to low budget genre fare in the ‘70’s and '80’s (the last two “Planet of the Apes” installments and numerous Bronson flicks). That final title is actually “Bruce LE’s Greatest Revenge” from 1978 featuring one of the decade’s many Lee impersonators.

hardbop
hardbop on February 22, 2006 at 6:35 am

The fare at the Fair this week, at least according the the Voice ad, is “Kiss Daddy Goodbye” paired with “Death of a Ninja.” Then “Messenger of Death” and “Bruce Lee’s Greatest Revenge.”

Kind of reminds me of the type of fare seen on the marquees on the old 42nd Street between Seventh & Eighth Avenues.

Jeffrey1955
Jeffrey1955 on February 20, 2006 at 3:43 pm

Two Greek brothers, running an Italian restaurant and a connected XXX/grind theater adjacent to a black church.
It doesn’t get much more New York than this!

Alto
Alto on February 20, 2006 at 3:04 pm

The Fair’s original single-screen main auditorium is basically intact, including its balcony (which, by all appearances, has been declared “off-limits” for quite some time), with only minor aesthetic modifications. Expansion of the facilities to include additional smaller XXX theatres and private viewing booths was achieved by acquiring space from adjoining box stores on the west side of the building (if you look carefully, you can figure out where the walls used to exist).

The two Greek brothers who manage the theatre also run the adjacent Stella D’Argento Italian Restaurant located on the east side of the theatre (a convenient “walk-through” entry provides direct access to its “bar lounge” by theatre customers). The lounge menu offering “specials for theatre customers only” has proven popular and provides additional income for the restaurant.

The owners have provided amenities and reasonable levels of comfort and cleanliness that are unexpected in an establishment of this type. The décor, although somewhat tacky, sets a pleasant and inviting tone. The fish tanks bubbling away in the lobby are particularly unique. The relaxed, non-intimidating (even social) atmosphere will surprise adult theatre “veterans” and “novices” alike.

Ironically, the same block-long building housing the theatre and restaurant also provides storefront space to a black “church” (I use the term loosely) on its northwest corner! These are same wonderful people who have repeatedly tried (thankfully without success) to curtail or close down the theatre’s operations.

Ed Solero
Ed Solero on February 20, 2006 at 11:04 am

I thought about that very thing you mention, Alto: folks unwittingly attracted by the advert showing up at the Fair for a grindhouse double feature. Assuming you are familiar with the layout of the theater, I’ll pose the same question here as I did in response to your comments about the Polk Theater… what is the configuration of the theater with respect to the “main screen” and the video booths? Is this theater more or less intact from its days as a nabe? While I have no recollections of it, my Mom tells me she took me to a number of films here when I was a very young child living in Elmhurst.

Alto
Alto on February 20, 2006 at 4:39 am

That Village Voice advert concerns me on two fronts.

First, from a customer standpoint, the advert’s seemingly intentional ambiguity (lack of exact show times which, of course, don’t exist anyway) and promotion of “R-rated” fare disguises the theatre’s true mission, which is to draw an “adult” audience to the XXX attractions. This is, in my opinion, misleading. For those “uninitiated” customers that do venture over, there will be quite a few raised eyebrows and a quick realization of where they are once they see the crowd that frequents this place (at least management banned the drag queens, who used to stomp about like mastodons in heals). Also, the movies and the “policy” are anything but “new” – they have been playing martial arts and other “clean” films on the main screen for years. The only difference is now they are limiting to one film genre.

Additionally, the theatre is actually located in East Elmhurst, on the northern outskirts of Jackson Heights (the comparatively-remote Astoria Boulevard location is actually closer to LaGuardia Airport than to the more “familiar” or “convenient” Northern Boulevard or Roosevelt Avenue locales).

Second, from a managerial perspective, I suppose the objective is to generate curiosity and steer queries to the theatre’s phone number, which IS prominently displayed. This could be used as a means of measuring response to the advert as well as answering questions about the theatre itself. Still, I can’t imagine what kind of response they expect to get for showing the same old martial arts flicks 13-16 hours per day (especially once they disclose the 15 dollar admission fee). Besides, as anyone in the porn business knows nowadays, the Internet is a great outlet for explicit advertising – maximum reach & frequency, and little regulation or censorship.

Bottom line: what is the point of spending money on advertising if you never bother mentioning the actual product or service that you want people to buy?

If there is some “unwritten” or “secret “ code in operation here, I must be missing it.

Ed Solero
Ed Solero on February 16, 2006 at 9:27 am

Makes sense, William. Those films aren’t exactly in high demand these days for freshly struck 35mm prints! Yes, I suppose the grind house days are gone for good. Best we can do is flip in a DVD and try to re-create the ambience in our minds.

William
William on February 16, 2006 at 8:18 am

The problem with those types of grind movies are the prints would have to be all beatup to hell and faded. Having worked grind houses before the prints played many worn out theatres. There is a very small percent chance that they are running 35mm, is if they found the print or prints leftover in the theatre from years ago. This has happened many times before and the releasing company is no longer in business.

Ed Solero
Ed Solero on February 16, 2006 at 6:59 am

I’m not sure my curiosity is sufficient for me to brave a visit inside the Fair, wobbly! If there was a genuine change in policy and actual 35mm programming, that might be another story.

There are a number of titles listed on imdb.com as “Accident” but none of them make much sense as the movie on the Fair’s double bill. “Fist of Fear, Touch of Death” is a cheapie 1980 documentary about Bruce Lee; “Champions” might be a low budget no-name actioner from 1998 that smells of “direct-to-video”; and “Bruce Lee Back From the Grave” seems fairly self explanatory. Actually, the imdb entry for that one is quite amusing… listed as “Bruce Lee Fights Back From the Grave” (1976), it is a fictional action film (not a documentary) that opens with a bolt of lightning striking Lee’s grave whereupon he is resurrected and ready to open up a king-sized can of whup-ass! Sounds like one of the ways Hammer Films would revive Dracula at the beginning of each new installment in the series!