Top photo via DCMNY
Ephemeral New York checks in today with a post on the Loew's Avenue B Theater, which held forth on the SW corner of Fifth Street and Avenue B from 1913 to the late 1950s. (The top photo is from 1917.)
The theater held an incredible 1,750 people, and it was one of the many grand theaters around the city owned and operated by Marcus Loew.
Per ENY:
Throughout the early decades of the 20th century, Loew operated a chain of luxurious, fantastical cinema palaces from Delancey Street to Times Square to Harlem, all designed to satisfy New York City's obsession with this new form of mass entertainment.Loew's name still graces movie theaters today, though most of his early palaces have, sadly, long been demolished.
The structure sat empty for 10 years before it was demolished in 1968.
The lot later became Cabrini Nursing Center, which developer Ben Shaoul purchased and shut down in 2012, forcing the relocation of people who had grown up in the neighborhood to find cost-effective facilities in the outer boroughs.
Shaoul opened luxury rentals here, selling the building for $85 million in 2018.
Loew was born in a squalid tenement on Fifth and B, which he had demolished with others to make way for the theater, according to Cinema Treasures.
The theatre cost $800,000 to build. In an opening night speech, Loew said, "This is the most pretentious of the houses on our string, because my better judgment was over-balanced by my sentimentalism and my longing to do something better here than I ever did before."
