Liberty Theatre

Well… I was on the Duece last night and ventured into the lobby of the Hilton Hotel and asked the security guard about the Liberty. He didn’t seem entirely in the know, but said that over the past couple of years he has been aware of several parties that have been shown the room and plans have been announced once or twice, but he is unaware of any major construction or renovation that has been going on in the theater since while he’s been on tour. Nor is he aware of any tenants with plans of moving in.

I went around back to the 41st Street side and snapped some photos of the original rear facade (which includes a set of exit doors sort of suspended a few feet above ground level). I also took a few shots of the old narrow 42nd street facade, which appears to have been completely renovated and restored only to be covered up with signage for the cyber-cafe that occupies the ground floor space. Open the photos to full size and take a good look behind the signage.

42nd Street facade
Alternate view of facade
Facade detail
Detail of torch on parapet
Hidden architectural detail
Former entrance archway
Entrance arch alternate view
Arch detail
41st Street facade
Doors to nowhere
Watch your step

Pretty odd about the 42nd Street facade, eh?

So what is the Liberty’s auditorium being used for now, the hotel catering hall?
Any photos?

The web site of the Cooper Union’s School of Architecture has an interesting page about the 42nd Street development of which the former Liberty Theatre is now a part.

I can testify that there were no ladies, alone or otherwise, at any of the theaters on the Deuce at that time. j

I wonder if they enforced the no ladies allowed alone rule for this feature at the Liberty?
View link

Here is the updated link to the one posted by Bryan on Feb 7th 2005. Exterior view with ‘The Waste Land’ playing in 1997:
http://www.1timessquare.com/on42/adverts/waste.htm

Looks similar to the ad I posted for the Providence Opera House showing of the Griffith film, and same $2.00 top admission, enormous for a film in 1915.

Another image…..old but not as old. January 1967.

My investigation skills indicate that the shot was taken not too long after the image that appears in Marc Eliot’s book….Down 42nd Street. The features at the Harris in Marc’s book are shown here at the Anco. And the Empire has the same double bill…The Professionals & Attempt to Kill. j

View link

It really wouldn’t help you, since I am from Providence and most of the movies I saw at the time were seen locally or in Boston. Besides, it’s a handwritten mess. I saw movies in New York sporadically only beginning around 1964…a lot more in the 1970s and 1980s. If I do note something along the line of this interest, I will relay it to you.

Jerry, I don’t “remember” them as such. I simply wrote them down. I’ve kept a log of all the movies I’ve seen since 1958. Since you are interested, the movies I saw during that stay were: Blow-Up, Chushingura, Les Carabiniers, Throne of Blood & Drunken Angel, Seven Days in May, The Chelsea Girls, Fahrenheit 451, The Railroad Man & The Shameless Old Lady, Night Games, Eric Soyas “17”, Le Bonheur & Judex. The specific theatres follow the sequence in my previous comment.

I saw John Frankenheimer’s Seven Days in May here on January 24, 1967, late at night after a five-film movie marathon in Manhattan that day. I had just gotten out of the Air Force and was spending several days in New York satisfying movie-lust and other urges before returning home to mamma. The theatres I visited during that stint were the Coronet, Carnegie Hall Cinema, the Museum of Modern Art film auditorium, Fifth Avenue Cinema, Liberty, Regency, 8th Street Playhouse, Waverly, Festival, Studio, and New Yorker. The only ones that still survive as cinemas are MoMA and the now-resurrected IFC/Waverly.

Liberty Theatre, circa 1980's
http://www.kilduffs.com/theatre_NYC_Liberty.jpg

Of course, I meant to say that I was grateful the theater WASN’T plowed under…