|
|
This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
|
|
Author
|
Topic: Loew's Paradise Reopens in Bronx As Grand Concert Hall
|
|
|
William Hooper
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1879
From: Mobile, AL USA
Registered: Jun 99
|
posted 10-24-2005 02:04 AM
Five years ago, lots of pretty intelligent people were giving odds that the Loew's Paradise wasn't going to survive. It was the most heavily damaged of the 5 Loew's Wonder Theatres, & it was expensive damage: water leaks had caused so much damage that it looked like the walls were melting, & atmospheric theatre like the Paradise is almost all very detailed sidewall ornamentation. So it's not just good news, it's amazing. That leaves the Loew's Kings in Brooklyn as the only unrestored, endangered Wonder Theatre. When I was there last, it had extensive, unsafe falling plaster from the ceiling, etc., but I think it's owned by the city now, so who knows what will happen with it.
quote: Martin Brooks
According to the Times article, they didn't restore the stars in the ceiling which surprises me because you'd think it could be done with LEDs today for reasonable cost.
Typically twinkling stars in atmospheric theatres were just holes into the attic with lights above, & a little bladed fan between the hole & light which turned by the rising air through the hole to make the twinkle. The renovation may have precluded holes passing through the new ceiling, & fiber optics spread out over a block-wide ceiling may have not made the final budget.
quote: Stephen Furley
What are caryatids?
Caryatids are big, loud obnoxious bugs that spawn in huge masses in 7-year cycles, leaving these really gross bug skeletons attached to the sides of all the trees.
quote: Gerard S. Cohen
I never saw the Paradise in its glory days, but attended its sister palace, Loew's Valencia many times with my family, entranced by the golden glow of the Moorish architecture, goldfish pond, stars, clouds blowing across the blue sky while watching a double feature, cartoons, newsreel and TEN acts of vaudville, only to exit blinking in the blazing sunlight wondering why it was still day outside! Alas, this theatre is now a church, and I am told the interior is painted pink, and the projection booth is part of the choir loft.
The Valencia isn't pink, it's really nicely restored.
http://www.queenstribune.com/archives/featurearchive/feature2000/0127/
The bizarre thing about it is that it's an atmospheric, which means that the decoration is all on the walls to impersonate an exterior courtyard & the ceiling is simply painted blue to impersonate the sky & thus has no chandelier, but the theatre is now a church, & the church had donated to it by another church in another country a really huge, beautiful, multicolor-jeweled chandelier, & they hung it. It's a chandelier hanging from the middle of the sky. Surprisingly, as Joe DuciBella said before I saw it, "It kinda works".
The big loss is one that wasn't a Wonder Theatre: the Loew's 72nd Street. Lamb was the architect of the job, but Eberson did the auditorium
quote: Tim Reed
Gerard, Bob... do you recall what they had in the booth as far as projectors, lamps, etc.?
There's a picture of the original booth of the Loew's Paradise at
http://www2.hawaii.edu/~angell/thsa/loewspa1.jpg
As you can see, it's almost identical to the booth of the Loew's Kings:
http://www.angelfire.com/empire/playhouse/loewskings/loewskings.htm
and the Loew's Jersey & 175th Street. Even though Eberson was the architect of the Paradise & Lamb was the architect of the Kings, the booths at the 5 Loew's Wonder Theatres were very similar because they went through some sort of corporate architectural review at Loew's which standardized much of the booth designs. It becomes very apparent when you notice that Eberson's theatres usually had wildly varying & sometimes horrible booth layouts & equipment (like at the Chicago Paradise). Corporate review & standardization on things that worked well as far as film presentation went was a VERY good thing in this case. The corporate architectural review probably went through Lamb's office, since the Loew's/Lamb relationship went all the way back & was very active & close. The booths at Loew's theatres are generally similar & very good.
quote: Michael Schaffer
Horrible kitsch.
It's easy to think that & to be right in some regard. But mainly it works like a set & doesn't work well in photos. Stage sets look stupid in photographs, too, no matter how cool & effective. Ebersons theater designs were the most "theatrical", & have this effect of looking sort of dumb in long shot as opposed to from the seats. Scale has a lot to do with it. Create an atmospheric of that detail in a small auditorium & it would be ludicrous, but on a large scale it's just massively detailed like a full-size set.
| IP: Logged
|
|
Gerard S. Cohen
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 975
From: Forest Hills, NY, USA
Registered: Sep 2001
|
posted 10-25-2005 09:55 PM
quote: William Hooper
Caryatids are big, loud obnoxious bugs that spawn in huge masses in 7-year cycles, leaving these really gross bug skeletons attached to the sides of all the trees.
![[Smile]](smile.gif) For those who might not know you're joking, the above describes cicadas. They appear on my street every August (there are many cycles, some years infestation is heavy, while this year I saw only a few.) They look like fat-bellied grasshoppers, make a fluttery sound when they fly, and make a loud sandpaper mating call shrieking in the trees. Large yellow and black striped wasps excavate tunnels in my lawn at night, and carry the bodies of dead cicadas into them.
I assume cicadas lay their eggs in the ground, which hatch into larvae, and as white grubs winter deep below, eat the roots of grass, and when they ripen, emerge, crawl up and fix themselves to tree trunks or walls of buildings. Then they metamorphose into cicadas, and the next cycle begins
| IP: Logged
|
|
William Hooper
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1879
From: Mobile, AL USA
Registered: Jun 99
|
posted 10-26-2005 05:17 AM
I thought I had some pictures of the Tabernacle of Prayer (formerly Loew's Valencia:
When the Valencia was restored by the church, it was re-painted in an afrocentric color scheme. It's really good looking, works very well. They've got about a billion times more taste than the Mobile Ladies' Garden Club, who decided to just paint the Mobile Saenger white with gold trim like bathroom.
Detail of auditorium wall:
The folks here are really very nice. The building is beautiful, the folks are friendly, & they're very appreciative & respectful of the building & have a solid feeling of a responsibility of stewardship of it. I believe this is the one where, instead of hanging over the prosc a speaker cluster for sound reinforcement (a painful visual modification in an atmospheric-style theatre), they cut away a portion of the plaster ceiling forming the "sky" over the prosc, installed the cluster in the attic behind the opening, & covered the opening with the material closely matching the material covering the rest of the ceiling (like grille cloth).
The chandelier was a gift from a sister church in Greece. It's a great-looking chandelier.
Ornamental pool & fountain in the lobby.
The theatre has in lighted niches over the proscenium several nude statues as part of the decoration. They were thought inappropriate by the church in sanctuary, so they simply robed them, then added wings behind them, & they became angels. They look GREAT.
Far better than what happened to the nudes statuary at the Jefferson Theatre in Beaumont when it was leased to a group which operated it as a church: one Sunday, the preacher exhorted the congregation to take "these sinful images and throw them into the street!" Which they all did, and then they busted them into micro-particles. When the Jefferson was restored, they had to have the original statuary reproduced.
quote: Stephen Furley
What are caryatids?
They are the two structures formed from a chromosome during cell division at metaphase.
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
All times are Central (GMT -6:00)
|
This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
|
Powered by Infopop Corporation
UBB.classicTM
6.3.1.2
The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion
and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.
|
Home
Printer-friendly view of this topic