yeah there were a few of those.
One used to be right by Grand Central Station
Horn & Hardart's I want to say was the name.....
they were famous in the 1930s as places where out of work people
would go in and at the time you could get a cup of hot water without
having to pay first. Ketchup & crackers were still available on the
condiments counter & they would put ketchup in the hot water, stir it
up and make tomato soup and then crumble the crackers into it. I
think you were able to do this into the 1960s before they changed it
so you had to pay first so they would give you a cup and the crackers
were taken off the counter
I can't remember what 1930s movie showed this practice
you know what folks.. reminiscing can be fun!!!
Rich
At 12:43 PM 6/20/2009, Roland Lataille wrote:
Hey,
I remember going to a restaurant and you put coins in a slot, opened
the little glass door and took out a sandwich or a piece of cake.
What were those called?
--- On Sat, 6/20/09, Richard Halegua Comic Art <sa...@comic-art.com> wrote:
From: Richard Halegua Comic Art <sa...@comic-art.com>
Subject: Re: [MOPO] NEW YORK THEATERS
To: MoPo-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU
Date: Saturday, June 20, 2009, 3:18 PM
Times Square was one of the most interesting places on Earth for many years.
I always liked it because it was an anachronism of life..
in the winter a limousine could be dropping off a guy in $1000
tailored suit with a fur-coated babe on each arm and they might have
to step over a homeless guy sleeping on the subway grating (warm air
comes up through the gratings), there would be a couple society
ladies headed up to Broadway to see a play and then a couple hookers
rousting a guy while a couple dopers would be buying from a pusher.
Every kind of person you could imagine was standing on that street
trying to make plans
One of the most obvious places was a pinball & later video game
parlor called Fascination and Melody Burlesque was down the street.
There were several theatres showing Kung-Fu flicks and to this day I
have never been able to find a copy of one of my favorites - Mad
Monkey Kung-Fu. I remember seeing it on a double bill with the 12
Drunken Masters
In front of some of the theatres were hawkers trying to get you in
and there was the porno bookstore on ground level that had the
private booths upstairs. All the babes would be advertising to get
you to walk into "their booth" for a show. I remember running into a
comic book dealer friend up there once and even though he was a
buddy, he was so embarassed he left almost immediately
There was a Howard Johnsons and if I remember correctly Dempsey's
too. I think Dempseys had a sign that told you how great their pie
was and there was a Nathan's hot dogs joint. I was surprised on more
than one occasion to see Carol Channing, Walter Cronkite (Walter is
about to take his last breath folks) or other actors there. Once -
and this would be specifically be 1978 because of the girlfriend I
was with - we were having milkshakes and Will Geer sat down at our
table (Nathan's had those long 16 people tables). I asked him for
his autograph and he said "Sure. Just let me finish my hot dog".
I know I had seen teh flea circus that Richard Del Belso mentioned,
but I was pretty young. Maybe 5-6, so I don't recall any of it
sadly, all of this is gone now.. Left in our collective memories
which will also be gone to the black hole at some point and all that
will remain will be pictures.
I lived in Queens and the theatre I most often went to as a kid &
young teen was the Lefferts Theatre on Lefferts Boulevard and 120th
street. I remember seeing a double bill Hard Day's Night & HELP! in
1965. I was with my 2 brothers (I was 8, my brothers 10 & 11).
Before the movie they had the Dave Clark 5 short, Manfred Mann and
some others and outside they had scads of posters including the
billboard on the side of the building that was 120th st. The Beatles
heads were enormous. They also had freebies like a beatles wig and
stuff. It was a big weekend and the theatre was jam packed and if I
remember correctly, it was just 75 cents!! We were there all day
long. Nobody chased us out after the first feature. Not too long ago
I was able to score the Dave Clark 5 1sh that was displayed. The
theatre was great - they had stills and posters and lobby cards all
over the outside and on the inside too.
the Lefferts was a fun theatre too. Saturdays always had matinees
and they may have been just a quarter. Always a double bill,
cartoons, in the mid-60s they showed the Superman, Batman, Flash
Gordon and Buck Rogers serials - one episode of Batman and Supe or
later Flash & Buck each week and you got a little wallet card they
would punch out. If you saw episodes 1-11, you got to see episode 12
for free (I guess that meant we got in free that week period)
across the street and down a block or so was Uncle Jack's toy shop.
I bought all the Aurora monster kits there and the old man was as
nice as anyone you could meet. If he didn't have the toy or model
you wanted, he would order it for you for a 10 cent deposit and
seeing as he didn't have the Bride of Frankenstein model kit in
stock, I ordered that one. Sometime in the late 60s I remember the
shop was closed for a few days because a couple junkies had robbed & beaten him
also, Bruce is right.. at 8-9-10-11, we used to get on the subway by
ourselves and go all the way to Manhattan. When I was 9 I took the
trains all the way up to the Bronx - by myself - with $100 cash that
I had made selling comics - to go to a guy's house who was a friend
of Gary Dolgoff so I could buy early Marvels. I came back - again,
all by myself - with 2 shopping bags full of comics. I don't think
anyone bothered me. I also used to take the trains regularly at that
age to go to the Museum of Natural History on 79th street in
Manhattan because I was in love with dinosaurs and they had the best
exhibit of fossils and the rooms with live lizards were totally kick-ass.
NYC was lots of fun back in those days, but I haven't been back
since 1992 or 93, even though I've been planning on going for a
visit for some years. The first place I'm going to head to os Katz's
Delicatessen on Houston St and have some corn beef, some of their
hand made hotdogs and a potato kanish
Rich
At 08:03 AM 6/20/2009, Bruce Hershenson wrote:
Richard
One of the great disappointments of my childhood was when my uncle
(a weird guy and the highlight of my childhood) promised to take me
to HUBERT'S FLEA CIRCUS. It must have been around 1964 or 1965 when
I was around 11 or 12.
I was really excited, and I met him at Penn Station (my parents
used to let the 11 year old me go by myself to Manhattan, where
strikes me as crazy in retrospect), and we went to Times Square,
and if I remember right it was in the basement of some building,
but the flea circus was gone (although the sign was still there).
So I never did get to see those trained fleas!
Bruce
On Sat, Jun 20, 2009 at 9:40 AM, Richard Del Belso <rdel...@msn.com> wrote:
Bruce, claude...
The "art house" on 42nd street back in the day was called the
Apollo. I used to go there late at night, after doing my college
homework, and see double bills of old Ingmar Bergman movies, like
THE NAKED NIGHT and MONIKA. It was a "grind house'..just kept
repeating the shows all day and all night. The Theater is still
there but It has been converted into a legitimate playhouse now,
under a different name, repudiating its somewhat unsavory past. So
has the theater next door, the Victory.
Across the street is the New Amsterdam , which was originally used
as a legit theater for the Ziegfeld Follies. When I was in college,
it had fallen into disrepair and was just another grind house
showing third-run American movies and exploitation films...but
signs of its former glory were still visible. After almost falling
apart, the theater was beautifully restored and the musical version
of THE LION KING was installed there. I think disney put up a lot
of the money for the restoration, as they did in LA for the El Capitan.
Around 1960, i once went down to the penny arcade on the corner of
42nd St. and Broadway to see the flea circus. Yes, it was a real
flea circus (HUBERT'S FLEA CIRCUS) where the guy had put
thin-stretched strands of gold wire around the necks of these tiny
fleas, which he kept in a box filled with cotton wadding. he could
pick them up by the wire, and then attach them to toy chariots to
stage a chariot race, or turn them upside down and place balsa wood
balls on their legs to stage a 'who can kick the ball farthest"
contest. he also had cut out tiny paper triangular costumes in
different colors and placed one over each flea. the fleas wold then
naturally start to jump, and the costumes would wriggle, which,
when set to music, became 'the dancing fleas". The cost for this
never-to-be-forgotten display of weirdness? One quarter!
Ah, New York, New York. I'm with Claude...a total New York-o-phile.
but I had to move to LA in 1976, and I have to admit it's pretty
nice there, too...Academy screening are one of the nicest things
about life here.
ciao for now...
Richard
Richard Del Belso
----------
Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 09:32:37 -0400
From: twoni...@aol.com
Subject: Re: [MOPO] NEW YORK THEATERS
To: MoPo-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU
In the 70's there were a huge amount of those theaters and peep
shows in that area. This went from 8th Ave to 6th Ave and from
40th St to 50th St. There were also a huge amount of street
walkers hanging around all the theaters and they were very
dangerous if you were not polite. I remember when one man was
approached and instead of saying "no thanks" called her a
whore. She stabbed him right in broad daylight.
In my college years I went to a theater on 86th St. where they only
showed films in German. I used to go on Fridays when classes ended
early. 86th St. was known as Germantown. We went to a famous
German restaurant there when I graduated from law school. I don't
recall the name. The real estate boom also killed the area and the
developers moved in. Today it hardly exists. This is a part of
town that I really miss.
Claude
In a message dated 6/20/2009 9:21:22 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
brucehershen...@gmail.com writes:
In my youth they would still show some classic movies in the
falling down Times Square theaters. I think the admission was like $1.75.
I remember once I went to some classic movie, and a scary guy was
hanging by the ticket booth. I gave $2 to the ticket taker, and was
handed a quarter back, and the scary guy said, "Give me the
quarter". I just kept walking and he said, "Give me the quarter or
I'll kill you"!
I kept walking, and he said, "I am going to wait right here, and
whenever you come out, I will kill you."
I went in and watched the movie, and the whole time I kept thinking
of that guy. When it was over I went out, and he was nowhere to be
seen. If that was the present day, I would give him the quarter!
Bruce
On Sat, Jun 20, 2009 at 7:47 AM, Claude Litton <twoni...@aol.com> wrote:
I have seen them all since I was 17 years old. I went to college
and law school in New York City and have spent my working life
there. I have walked the streets of NYC for over 50 years and
have always been thrilled with everything. I have been involved
with NYC real estate all these years and still love it. I went to
NYU in Greenwich Village and my friends and I used to peek in at
the old burlesque theaters (before we got kicked out) and got to
the movies in virtually every theater already mentioned in other
emails (so I wont repeat them). I remember all the old decrepit
Times Square theaters before they cleaned up the area. The police
used to walk 4 abreast because the area was so dangerous and I am
speaking about daylight hours, not just at night.
I remember going to the theaters on 57th street when one of them
was an art theater and the other was showing xxx films. I
remember Deep Throat and the Devil In Miss Jones playing for many
years as a double bill. The Paris Theater showed art films for
many, many years before the real estate got too valuable and
getting old movies on VHS destroyed the market for these theaters.
My office is at 295 Fifth Avenue across from the Empire State
Building and if anyone is in NYC they are welcome to visit. I have
over 50 movie posters framed in my office suite including 6 of my
Chan 3 sheets. Joe Bonelli stopped in last year and we had a great
time. Just email me in advance to make certain I am in because I
don't work as many hours as I did when I was younger. I stopped
going to work on Fridays 9 years ago and leave at 2 pm.
Claude Litton
In a message dated 6/20/2009 3:06:34 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
ghostsandghoul...@verizon.net writes:
I was lucky enough to be in NYC when HORROR OF DRACULA had just
opened at the Marfair Theater so I got to see the hugh Times Square
wrap-around billboard poster above the theater. I also got to see
the display of the fiends (in a hugh fish tank) from FIEND WITHOUT
A FACE located right in front of the theater in Times
Square. Anybody else in our group see these fantastic
advertising displays???? Larry Springer
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