Adonis Theatre

839 8th Avenue,
New York, NY 10019

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Showing 51 - 75 of 132 comments

Sailor729
Sailor729 on October 9, 2011 at 2:01 pm

I Started Going To The Adonis Theater In The 80s. That’s Where I Fell In Love With The Old Run Down Movie Theater Look. Had Many Good Times There. After The Place Closed It Was The “Cameo Theater” Down The Street That Became The New “Adonis”. Didn’t Last Long. In The Fall Of The Early 90s I Saw A Box Office For Sale On The Lower East Side. Turns Out It Was From The Adonis! Then The Girl Took Me Into A Warehouse To Show Me A “Bar” That Came Out Of A Movie Theater. I Loved It , But Didn’t Realize Right Away The That Was The “Juice Bar” In The Movie “A Night At The Adonis”. I Remember This HUGE Chandelier In The “Oval” At The Adonis & It Was For Sale Along With Sconces & Signs Etc…The Chandelier In The “Oval” Really Wasn’t That Big, It Just Looked That Way Because Of All The Material Protruding From It. In December 1994 This Guy I Knew From My Past Was Part Owner Of That Entire Block. The Adonis Was Now A Closed “Flea Market”. He Let Me In Thru The Gypsy Fortune Teller’s Shop. I Had A Uhaul & Was Able To Take Anything I Wanted! I Did, But The Best Was All The Pictures I Managed To Take With A Flashlight & Camera. Boy Was Scary Looking! I Have 36 Pictures Taken Inside Right Before Demolition. There Was A Piece Of The Material Hanging From The Oval (From The Chandelier). I Got A Shot, Then Lassoed It, Got Another Shot Then Pulled It Down. For Me It Was Like A Kid In A Candy Store! I Also Risked My Life In An Elevator Shaft To Rescue One Of Those Mortica Addams Chairs, That Was Dangling On A Beam Around The Level I Was On. I’ll Have To Post Some Of Those Pictures! Stay Turned…

topindabx
topindabx on April 16, 2011 at 9:37 pm

Thanks for the great posts. I have fond memories of this place and the great times spent there in the ‘80s and I definitely cherish my copy of “A Night at the Adonis”. Another view of the infamous balcony can be seen in a 'B’ movie titled Times Square starring Trini Alvarado as a runaway in NYC.

skin4ever
skin4ever on March 12, 2011 at 11:52 pm

I knew the history of the Tivoli Theatre because I am a movie theatre buff. I started going to The Adonis soon after it reopened. Sometimes I would sit in the upstairs lobby and have a smoke. The former glory was still visible through all the grime.It was a grand place in it’s day.
My playtime was mostly during the winter and on rainy nights. I must say the place was always jumping.
One of the best places for favorite place for tricking with hotties was the tea rooms. There were always 20-30 guys in there. Any less and it was empty by my standards. I never saw a lady there. I am sure it happened on some occasions. Too bad, I didn’t think of that. Some of my female friends (fag hags) would have loved to go there with me. It could have been a gay porno field trip. What a hoot! Sometimes they would watch porn with me at my apt.. They liked hot guys as much as I do.
I would see bits and pieces of the film each time. It didn’t matter since no plot, no story only hot guys having hot sex.
When I ran into a friend there. The joke was it was research we were doing for our thesises. We were both doing the same research on our knees.
The place was a wreck. That plus progress in the area and the ugly face of AIDS led to it’s end.
I moved to San Francisco in the summer of ‘85. Good Bye Adonis.

celaniasdawn
celaniasdawn on March 8, 2011 at 8:56 am

While vacationing in the 70’s we passed by this theater and it was showing a movie called The Other Side of Joey. My friend who was with me just divorced her husband named Joey and I joked with her that maybe it was him. She laughs and says lets find out! So we had the taxi turn around and drop us off there. I never saw a all male film before, and the guy that sold us the tickets warned us of it. What an experience it was. The movie stopped like two different times, the screen would show colors all running into one another for a few minutes, then the movie started back up. I had to use the bathroom, and one of the employees took me to the restroom and had me wait while he went inside, kicking out about 5 guys that were in there. The door had a sign on it saying “closed” but I guess it was being used for other things. The bathroom was filthy and I couldn’t use it, after seeing wads of tissue all over the floor and other things. When we walked out afterwards, we bumped into a couple of police officers walking by, and they took us to lunch at a vendomat, and the first thing I did was use the restroom and it was clean.

rlrl2010
rlrl2010 on September 14, 2010 at 10:06 am

supposedly 50th street was the northern end of the “Minnesota Strip” for prostitution and drugs. was this true, was 50th and 8th as heavy with vice as farther down? In the 70’s the few times i walked past here it was pretty quiet but there was on afternoon where the atmosphere was terrible and we quickly walked off the avenue due to all the unsavory characters hanging around

x3pilot
x3pilot on July 29, 2010 at 12:04 pm

Although the theater was opened as the Adonis with a fresh coat of blue paint for its “Greek” interior, the building seemed to receive almost no maintenance after that. Seats were never repaired when they broke. Broken seaats were simply removed, leaving unsightly gaps which grew to large voids over the years. They had only one working projector and when they needed to change reels, they projected a disk of colored oils on screen which oozed around as the disk was rotated. The oils eventually bleached out and dried over the years but they kept on using it until they switched to video projection towards the very end. The building became badly run down and I began to think that the city would shut it down, although that never happened. Notwithstanding the actions by Worldwide Plaza and Mr. Zeckendorf, the fate of the Adonis was probably sealed by a sustained lack of maintenance.

woody
woody on May 28, 2010 at 3:19 am

view the trailer for `‘a night at the adonis" here, great shots of the exterior and interior
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLd2dg3lGI4

Al Alvarez
Al Alvarez on March 2, 2010 at 8:24 am

The intro needs to be adjusted. This Adonis was closed in 1994 and demolished and 1995. By 1996 the Adonis concept have moved down to the Cameo, /theaters/7531/

vicboda
vicboda on September 26, 2009 at 1:44 pm

what a sweet memory from bflonguy. this was a great theater and a different world.

bflonyguy
bflonyguy on July 28, 2009 at 6:35 am

In 1976 or 77, my parents brought me to NYC to look at colleges (Cooper Union and Columbia). One night after dinner, they let me go out alone to visit “record stores”. My real plan was to go to the Adonis, which I’d either seen or read about. I walked from the Tudor Hotel (42nd and 1st), no short jaunt. I sat down in the middle of the main floor to watch the movie (which, I swear to God, involved a guy doing things to himself with produce). Couldn’t figure out why everybody kept walking around and changing seats while the movie was playing. (OK, I was 16 or 17.) Don’t remember much about the theater, or how long I stayed. Mostly remember how freaked out my parents were when I got back to the hotel hours later (man, that walk back was looong!).
Moved to NYC in ‘77, and visited the Adonis many times. I vividly remember the oval cutout in the upper lobby, and I think there were urns at each end of it with plastic flowers. Could be wrong. Also recall the Mens room, down a couple of steps from the main floor. It was really big, with intricate tile work and dim lighting. I think the Ladies room was reserved for the staff.
What an incredible theater. What a sad loss.

woody
woody on July 11, 2009 at 10:24 am

the black and white movie playing at the theatre in the movie is narcissus II, here are some screen grabs from the “a night at the adonis"
exterior
http://www.flickr.com/photos/woody1969/3710518398/
box office
http://www.flickr.com/photos/woody1969/3709707031/
lobby with horny punters waiting to get in
http://www.flickr.com/photos/woody1969/3709706531/

staciLondon1
staciLondon1 on June 17, 2009 at 10:21 am

Does anyone know the name of the black and white porn movie that was being watched in the orgially movie? it was hott..i would like to know the name of it…my emal addy is if anybody wants to help me out…thanks

Mike (saps)
Mike (saps) on April 17, 2009 at 12:16 am

I remember plenty about the Adonis, but funny enough, not its lobby.

Luis Vazquez
Luis Vazquez on April 11, 2009 at 11:31 am

I surprised that I have never commented on this theater prior to now. Had this theater survived into the new century, I believe it could have been saved and restored; probably into a legit house.

I say this because I have to admit that I did visit this theater once. I was in my mid twenties and still very much in the closet and the facade of this theater was so impressive and I wanted to see what it looked like inside. Well that, I I was curious about what a gay theater would be like. I believe it was the mid 80’s and as others have posted above, I remember being impressed with the beauty of the lobby and I could tell that at one time it had been a beautiful theater. I do believe that its history as a gay porno house has diminished what what lost when this theater was demolished.

Posted above was a comment from Zechendorf about how ugly the Adonis was and that he hoped to put up a more attractive building in keeping with the new identity of Hells Kitchen. Well, the building that was built was the Longacre, a banal high rise rental that is certainly no improvement over what was lost.

p.s. I remember staying in the theater only about 15 minutes. I couldn’t bring myself to actually sit down and I wasn’t comfortable with what was going on around me. I’m glad I got to see the theater though and I never went to another gay porno theater. :–)

DavidZornig
DavidZornig on November 22, 2008 at 5:19 pm

Ha. In the words of the Tivoli backwards: ILOVIT.

kencmcintyre
kencmcintyre on November 22, 2008 at 4:47 pm

Weak-kneed thief, from the NYT on 9/3/59:

Hold-Up Try Is Foiled By Unyielding Cashier

A would-be bandit’s flesh was willing last night but his spirit quailed before an unrelenting cashier at the Tivoli Theatre, Eighth Avenue and Fiftieth Street. He told his intended victim before he fled: “If you’ll forget about this, I will.”

GeorgeStrum
GeorgeStrum on July 31, 2008 at 12:01 pm

What a shame this theatre couldn’t have been saved and restored.

William
William on July 17, 2007 at 3:13 pm

You can see the marquee for the Tivoli Theatre in the film “Willie Dynamite” (1974), around 53 minutes into the film.

Al Alvarez
Al Alvarez on May 13, 2007 at 12:21 pm

The Tivoli advertised as showing LA CUCARACHA in the New York Times, a Mexican all star hit headlining Maria Felix and Dolores del Rio in 1961. This implies it was showing Spanish product then and this one had cross-over potential.

pmullinsj
pmullinsj on March 27, 2007 at 4:08 pm

Scott—that’s super and I’d like to see the book. I just looked it up at NYPL and they don’t have it, will search later. In the meantime, let us know something about it. I’m very envious you own the marquee signs—that’s fantastic! I’ve felt that way about signs before, and been glad when they’ve been preserved, like the old PanAm signs which are, I think, now in Florida, but preserved (I’ve always hated looking up Park and seeing MetLife, which seems to indicate death, whereas the old PanAm logo was part of the zingy period of New York when things were lighter and there was a real chic, not this low hum of computers and fax machines that the city feels like now. I used to go to both the Eros and the Venus on rare occasions, but think that is wonderful of you to have preserved the signs. Almost all this heritage that we took for granted in the 70s has been destroyed—not just the fun ways of life that went with some of them, but even the relics. You’re a real inspiration, I have to say.

scott42
scott42 on March 27, 2007 at 3:27 pm

great blog on the adonis. i remember so clearly watching them blow torch the neon sign into pieces and dropping the chunks into a dumpster, when it was at the cameo location. i couldnt believe it. i became determined to save it’s sister and brother- the eros and the venus. a few years later during the giuliani nightmare- i contacted the eros and venus owners and they sold me their marquee signs. they are safe for now and i will return them to one of the cities museums when they appreciate them. i illustrated the theaters for marc almonds book “the end of new york”.

pmullinsj
pmullinsj on March 20, 2007 at 5:20 pm

Very true, and thanks, actually. However, mention of the film about the theater was appropriate, not commentary that was tangential about life-styles. It is necessary that you recognize that there are some people on these threads of gay porno houses do take the opportunity to make unnecessary remarks while pretending to be sincere.

I realize that saying this may get me banned from this forum, but I don’t care, because this thread and the one for the Fair is full of such stuff, and you should direct your moderating at the first offender, not those who try to get them to stop.

Patrick Crowley
Patrick Crowley on March 19, 2007 at 9:17 am

Knock it off, Warren and pmullins. This isn’t the place for this sort of discussion.

Let’s please try to stay focused on the purpose of this website.

Thanks,
Patrick

pmullinsj
pmullinsj on March 19, 2007 at 7:00 am

Warren—you are a homophobe and a nuisance. You are not trying to get people to practice safe sex, which everybody is aware that they should be doing anyway, whether or not they are. You come here to make self-righteous pronouncements about people’s lifestyles, to be a boring missionary that nobody wants to hear from.

Most of the New York original cases of AIDS came from the bathhouses and heavy bars like the Mineshaft, not from movie theaters, where sexual activity was more restricted. You want to police gays, and tell them they should hear your message when it is very transparent that you are trying to make a moral point about certain kinds of sex acts, which are not nearly all in themselves dangerous anyway, and the others are dangerous only if unprotected.

Most of the video versions have long had warnings at the beginnings of the films warning people NOT to engage in what they see on the screen. You are not really worth talking to, since you are obviously not very bright, but since you won’t shut your redneck mouth, I do agree with fairytale that you ought to be shut out of here.

Or why don’t you go stand out in front of the baths or the Fair and preach like some vulgar street evangelist? That’s what you are anyway, isn’t it? Or probably just some homely troll who wants to bother guys that like to get laid.

Michael Furlinger
Michael Furlinger on March 19, 2007 at 5:44 am

Oklahomo Cowboy====== what a name ===== love it !