Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: For Sale: The Ziegfeld Theatre (plus: projection at Radio City Music Hall)

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Topic: For Sale: The Ziegfeld Theatre (plus: projection at Radio City Music Hall)

Mark Ogden
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 943
From: Little Falls, N.J.
Registered: Jun 99

posted 08-09-2002 08:44 AM

Break open yer piggybanks, fellas, New York City's premier movie theatre is up for grabs. Cablevision has announced that it will seek a buyer for it's Clearview Cinemas chain, which includes the 1163 seat Ziegfeld and it's eastside sister, the Beekman. Unfortunatly, you'll also have to pick up 277 other screens in the tri-state area, most of them in truly mediocre, bizarrly converted mulitplexes. Clearview picked up it's NYC screens from Cineplex shortly after the Loews merger, and has been way over their heads on all of them since.

$100 million buys the whole schmeer. Whoever buys has to promise they will take the ad slides off the screen at the Zieg. Please?

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Charles Everett
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1470
From: New Jersey
Registered: May 2001

posted 08-09-2002 04:56 PM

The problems Cablevision Systems has aren't limited to Clearview Cinemas.

Cablevision was forced to admit that it had lost cable TV subscribers because Cablevision refuses to carry the YES Network for Yankees baseball. I live in a Cablevision town. My family lives on Long Island -- which is dominated by Cablevision. Lack of the YES Network on Cablevision has become a political issue in the New York area.

As if that's not enough Cablevision is hemorrhaging red ink on The Wiz, a computer/electronics/music chain that's getting hammered by Best Buy and Circuit City.

For my comments on Clearview see "Theatres for sale", which I've just bumped up top in Film Handlers' Forum.

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System Notices
Forum Watchdog / Soup Nazi

Posts: 215

Registered: Apr 2004

posted 05-03-2012 07:08 PM

It has been 3555 days since the last post.

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Mark Ogden
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 943
From: Little Falls, N.J.
Registered: Jun 99

posted 05-03-2012 07:08 PM

Nearly a decade after I made the above post, the circle comes 'round again: Cablevision is once again trying to dump Clearview Cinemas, including the Ziegfeld, New York City's only real premier quality single screen cinema. The buyer also gets the very popular Chelsea Cinemas, the not-especially-popular First & 62nd Cinemas, and 42 other suburban losers, most cheaply constructed multi's or horrible conversions. Clearview is the tri-state area operator that barely spends a buck on upkeep or technology. I'm going to guess that the bulk of the non-NYC screens are still film (the ones near me in NJ are), meaning a big bill awaits whoever the buyer is.

If they couldn't unload these places ten years ago, I don't understand what makes them think they can dump them now.

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Frank Angel
Film God

Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 05-03-2012 10:04 PM

Can anyone say pennies on the dollar? And to developers who will really just be intersted in acquiring the land. There will be lots of razing going on if they can indeed find a buyer.

The terror scenario is that a true real estate developer will see the Ziegfeld only as a NYC property worth much more for the land it is sitting on rather than for the fact it has been a premiere, single screen flagship theatre for decades (but despite it's impecable rep, for years it still struggled to stay out of the red). Sad indeed.

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Bill Gabel
Film God

Posts: 3873
From: Technicolor / Postworks NY, USA
Registered: Jan 2002

posted 05-05-2012 12:27 PM

Maybe Cablevision will book more premieres into Radio City Music Hall or the Beacon Theatre. Which are finer venues than the Ziegfeld Theatre. And are multi usable for concerts, film and other events. New York City lost better real flagship theatres over the years. Think about the old UA Rivoli or the old Warner Cinerama or Loew's State Theatres.
Maybe Apple will turn it into a large Apple store or someone will gut it into a dinner theatre type location. The old Loews Astor Plaza Theatre was a better theatre.

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Frank Angel
Film God

Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 05-07-2012 08:09 PM

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Frank Angel
Film God

Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 05-07-2012 08:16 PM

No doubt, Bill -- I loved the Astor Plaza, before it they let it crash and burn (they are the ones trashed the 70mm 2001 print in 2003). But those great ladies are long gone, so just looking at today's NYC landscape, to loose the Ziegfeld is really sad -- just one more single screens dies. And that puts another nail, probably the last one, in the coffin of what used to be a stellar city of great movie houses. Now everything is all on the West Cost.

As for RCMH, as much as it is an architectural marvel and stunning to look at and wander the marble art deco halls, it really is too much of a barn for decent cinema sound. How on earth would they do 7.1 in there? How do you even eq such a cavern? Still, you have to be glad no one has decided it would make a better high rise, although I can guarantee there are developers drooling over the prospect as we speak.

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Jeff Taylor
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 601
From: Chatham, NJ/East Hampton, NY
Registered: Apr 2000

posted 05-10-2012 09:30 AM

The Music Hall closed temporarily in 1979 at which point they did propose tearing it down, but it was Landmarked. That's when it reopened without the movies and stage shows but as a concert venue. I used to be involved with Rockefeller Center and had the pleasure of touring through all the nooks and crannies of that place--fabulous. I even got to play the organ briefly. With their original lighting control system they were second only to NASA as a consumer of vacuum tubes!

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 05-10-2012 10:48 AM

Not to be too much of a downer, but I think this is part of a larger trend -one that is probably unintentional yet a factor in the potential suicide that can take place upon the commercial movie theater industry over the next several years.

Big "flagship" movie theaters, premiere class ones at that, are part of what has given the commercial movie theater industry its image of offering more magical settings in which to see movies.

If all movie theaters are nothing more than unremarkable clones of one multiplex after another I'm not really going to give so much of a damn about going versus watching the movie at home on Blu-ray disc. I've seen a lot of movies in great quality movie theaters (including the Ziegfeld, Astor Plaza and other places in New York City). The memory of visiting those places is part of what drives me to see movies in commercial movie theaters.

Some theaters are trying to "reinvent" the experience. Warren Theatres does a lot to pump up the old movie palace feel. They're also getting into the act of building small "director's chair" screening rooms. Unfortunately, the efforts to deliver great showmanship are now seen as a luxury priced item. It's now pretty easy for one person to spend more money seeing a certain movie at a theater than it is to buy the movie when it comes out on DVD or Blu-ray.

A movie's "world premiere" has been a big part of movie marketing for several decades. The Ziegfeld has been the host of quite a few notable world premieres. Those premieres are best suited to single screen (or twin) theaters boasting auditoriums of 1000+ seats. They kind of suck when they're placed into a multiplex setting. A single screen site can easily be reserved for a premiere on a certain evening. It would be stupid to shut down most or all of a multiplex in order to host a world premiere.

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Richard May
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1057
From: Floral Park, NY USA
Registered: Aug 2004

posted 05-10-2012 10:12 PM

BTW, movies sound fine at RCMH and you CAN do 7.1 there....

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Jeff Taylor
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 601
From: Chatham, NJ/East Hampton, NY
Registered: Apr 2000

posted 05-11-2012 09:33 AM

I understand that studios used to strike special drive-in style "lighter" prints for the Music Halk due to the problem of getting enough light on the screen with that tremendous throw. I don't remember what size lamphouses they used there--anyone know?

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Barry Floyd
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1079
From: Lebanon, Tennessee, USA
Registered: Mar 2000

posted 05-11-2012 09:51 AM

quote: Jeff Taylor
understand that studios used to strike special drive-in style "lighter" prints for the Music Halk due to the problem of getting enough light on the screen with that tremendous throw.

They still do - on a limited basis. My new print of "Dark Shadows" that opens tonight is a special "drive-in print", that is printed 3 points lighter than normal.

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James Westbrook
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1133
From: Lubbock, Texas, Usa
Registered: Mar 2006

posted 05-11-2012 10:23 AM

I don't know the size of the xenon bulb, but RCMH was using Orcon 2 consoles starting in the mid to late 70s. I read that in one of the Boxoffice magazine online archives.

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Rick Raskin
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1100
From: Manassas Virginia
Registered: Jan 2003

posted 05-11-2012 10:46 AM

I read that some RCMH prints had the sound advanced a couple of frames to compensate for propagation delay.

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