Paradise Theater

Description

The Paradise Theater is located at 2403 Grand Concourse in the Fordham neighborhood of the Bronx in New York City, New York. The theater was one of five Loew's Wonder Theatres in the New York City area, along with the Jersey Theatre in Jersey City, the 175th Street Theatre in Manhattan, the Valencia Theatre in Queens, and the Kings Theatre in Brooklyn. The Paradise and Valencia, along with the Lane Theater on Staten Island, are the only atmospheric theaters in New York City designed by John Eberson. Similarly to the Valencia Theatre, the Paradise is decorated in a Spanish style. The Paradise was also one of the last atmospheric theaters to be built.

The site covers about 39,000 square feet (3,600 m2). It measures 225 feet (69 m) along the Grand Concourse to the east, 215 feet (66 m) along Creston Avenue to the west. The depth between the Grand Concourse and Creston Avenue facades is variously cited as 174 feet (53 m) or 175 feet (53 m). The structure is divided into a three-story lobby section at the northeast corner of the site; a two-story retail section on the eastern edge of the site, south of the lobby section; and a three-story auditorium section on the western half of the site. The site is close to the Fordham Road station of the New York City Subway's Concourse Line (served by the B and ​D trains).

Facade

On the Grand Concourse, the lobby section is accessed by a wide doorway, and there are storefronts on either side of the doorway. The doors are recessed from the street, and there is an open-air vestibule in front of the doors. The vestibule has marble walls with sign boards, in addition to a coffered ceiling. Above the wide doorway, a marquee formerly showed the names of films that were being screened at the Paradise. At the time of the theater's construction, zoning restrictions prohibited Loew's from adding a vertical sign there.

Above the doorway is a two-story-high Baroque–style frontispiece. The frontispiece is made of architectural terracotta, which is mostly cream-colored with blue and salmon-pink accents, and is topped by a curved pediment. The frontispiece includes a blue-and-cream panel with a sunburst motif and the words "Loew's Paradise Theater" in all-capital neon letters. On either side of the frontispiece are engaged pilasters in the Corinthian order, which separate the frontispiece from the side bays. Each of the side bays has a window with a balustrade, engaged columns, and a segmentally-arched pediment; there is also a cartouche with a flagpole above the pediment. Above the third story, there is a cornice, which consists of a parapet above the frontispiece and balustrades above the outer bays. The parapet has pedestals with urns, as well as a niche above the center bay. The niche includes a mechanical Seth Thomas clock. There was originally also a sculpture of Saint George on horseback, fighting a fire-breathing dragon; the Saint George sculpture moved every hour, slashing the dragon's neck. The sculptures of the dragon and Saint George have since been stolen, but Saint George's horse remains intact. There is air-conditioning equipment on the lobby section's roof.

To the south (left) of the lobby section is the two-story retail section, which is divided vertically into six bays and has a terracotta facade. The first-floor opening of the southernmost bay leads to an emergency stairway; there are corbels at both of the top corners of that opening. The rest of the first-floor openings have storefronts. In addition, there are ornamental marble panels above the first-story bays. On the second story of the retail section, each bay has a triple window, which is surrounded by a cream-colored terracotta frame with blue and salmon-pink accents. There are brackets flanking each window opening, which are decorated with bellflowers, jesters' heads, and swags. These brackets support cornices above each triple window, and there is a broken pediment above the central pane of each triple window. In addition, the bays are separated by pilasters, and there are cartouches with protruding shells and swags at the top of each pilaster. A cornice with dentils, as well as a parapet, run horizontally above the second story.

Interior

The Paradise Theater's interior spaces cover roughly 45,000 square feet (4,200 m2) and have an L-shaped layout. There are four levels; the ground story, the second story (at the bottom of the auditorium's balcony), the third-story mezzanine, and the top of the balcony. The interiors are designed in an Italian Baroque style, although Eberson was not inspired by any specific building. In general, the interior spaces are decorated in a red color palette, and they use woodwork extensively. Eberson had decided to use the Baroque style because, when the theater was being developed, it was supposed to be known as the Venetian.

The auditorium proper is accessed by three separate spaces: the outer lobby, foyer, and main lobby. The lobbies are oriented east to west, with the entrance to the east, and the main lobby to the west and perpendicular to the auditorium. Because the auditorium was located at the western or rear end of the site, on Creston Avenue, this freed up space for storefronts to the east, along the Grand Concourse. Each of the spaces uses different materials and decorations. Proceeding from east to west, the lobby spaces progressively become narrower. Exit-only stairs and passageways lead from the auditorium to either Creston Avenue or the Grand Concourse.

The entrance on the Grand Concourse leads directly to a rectangular, double-height outer lobby. The outer lobby's floor is made of rubber and is covered with mats, while the plaster walls are painted orange. The east wall has six pairs of doors leading to the Grand Concourse, above which is a loggia with five arches supported by intertwined pilasters and columns. The outer lobby's north and south walls are each three bays wide, and there is a railing on the north wall. The center bay on either wall has a display case made of brass, above which is a balcony and a portico, while the outer bays have stone decorations. The west wall has five pairs of doors leading to the foyer, above which is a portico with shells and twisted columns. The coffered ceiling is made of plaster and is painted in a green and brown-red color scheme; a chandelier hangs from the ceiling. There are three statues on the east, south, and west walls, and a bust of Benjamin Franklin on the south wall. The statue in the entrance lobby are likely inspired by a niche in Rome's Santa Maria della Vittoria.

The lower foyer is located between the outer lobby on the east and the main lobby on the west. The space is rectangular, with painted-plaster walls, in addition to doorways with wood moldings. The south wall includes a door to the easternmost aisle of the auditorium's orchestra level, which is topped by statues of a man and woman. The north wall has an elevator and staircase ascending to the promenade and upper foyer on the second story. The lower foyer has a low wooden ceiling decorated with moldings, as well as an oval mural at its center, which was painted by David Jermann in 1999. The lower foyer leads to the main lobby, another double-height space, to its west. A pair of pillars separate the lower foyer and main lobby.

History

Movie palaces became common in the 1920s between the end of World War I and the beginning of the Great Depression. In the New York City area, only a small number of operators were involved in the construction of movie palaces. These theaters' designers included the legitimate-theater architects Thomas W. Lamb, C. Howard Crane, and John Eberson. By the late 1920s, numerous movie palaces were being developed in outlying neighborhoods in New York City; previously, the city's movie palaces had been concentrated in Midtown Manhattan. The five Wonder Theatres were developed by Loew's Inc., which at the time was competing with Paramount-Publix. In 1927, Loew's president Nicholas Schenck agreed to take over five sites from Paramount-Publix, in exchange for agreeing not to build competing theaters in Chicago; these five sites became the Wonder Theatres.

Development

The Hewitt Place Corporation, a subsidiary of Paramount-Publix, first acquired land on the Grand Concourse in late 1925 with the intention of developing a theater there. At the time, there were several other theaters nearby. The corporation claimed that the new theater would bring a piece of "Broadway to the Bronx". Hewitt bought several two-story houses at 2398–2406 Creston Avenue, immediately to the west, in February 1926. The company initially intended to erect a nine-story apartment building there. In March 1927, Paramount-Publix announced that it would build a theater near Fordham Road and the Grand Concourse. The theater was one of nine that Paramount-Publix planned to develop in outlying New York City neighborhoods, though the company later dropped plans for four of the other theaters. John Eberson, who was hired to design the theater, reportedly spent one year planning the interior.

Eberson submitted plans to the New York City Department of Buildings in May 1927 for a $1.8 million movie theater and office building facing the Grand Concourse and Creston Avenue, near 184th Street. The structure was to be erected by the Hewitt Place Corporation and Crestwood Realty Corporation. Publix hired Maurice Muller and William Russell Root to operate the 4,000-seat theater there. The venue was tentatively known as the Venetian during planning, and its facade was designed in a Venetian Gothic style. Due to the residential zoning on Creston Avenue, Publix had contemplated constructing an apartment building there. The city government denied Publix permission to construct the theater that June, following protests from local residents. Hewitt acquired a property at 2403 Grand Concourse from Samuel Kronsky and the Herman A. Acker Corporation in December 1927. Loew's subsidiary Concourse Realty Corporation decided to buy Hewitt's entire assemblage later the same month.

Loew's announced in early 1928 that it would begin constructing four of the theaters, including the theater on the Concourse. Work on the theater began in April 1928, after N. Masem and Son was hired as the general contractor. Within a month, Loew's competitor Keith-Albee-Orpheum decided to develop a competing theater on a site on Fordham Road that had been vacant for four years. One local real-estate developer characterized the theater's construction as one of several improvements to "this great thoroughfare of the Bronx", the Grand Concourse. Eberson's son Drew, an apprentice in the Eberson firm, laid out the theater's stars and configured its cloud machine. The Architectural Plastering Company, led by Eberson and his wife Beatrice Lamb, may have designed almost all of the ornamentation inside the theater. In total, the theater had cost $4 million.

Use as movie theater

Visitors initially paid between 25 cents and one dollar per ticket. The cheapest tickets were for the orchestra and upper-balcony seats during weekday mornings, while the most expensive tickets were the lower balcony during weekend and holiday evenings. In addition to films and live shows, the Paradise was used for high-capacity public gatherings, such as graduation ceremonies. The Paradise was a frequent hangout for couples, many of whom kissed in the balcony. A New York Times writer said that the theater "was an indelible part of the mythic Bronx childhood".

The Loew's Paradise presented first runs of films along with stage shows when it opened. Initially, the Loew's Paradise presented stage shows that had already been performed at the Capitol Theatre in Manhattan. Frank Rieger was hired as the theater's first chief engineer, Dave Schooler was the initial master of ceremonies, Don Albert was the inaugural conductor, and Jerry de Rose was the first manager. Schooler led the theater's 25-piece band, which could play popular or classical music. In its first several days, the Paradise was often filled to capacity, although the Wall Street crash of 1929 occurred six weeks after the Paradise's opening. The nearby Loew's Grand Theatre began screening second runs of films that had been screened at the Paradise for two weeks. Overflow crowds from the theater usually visited the nearby RKO Fordham Theatre, a competing venue that also screened first runs of films, while patronage at the Grand Theatre had declined.

In late 1929, the orchestras at the Paradise and Loew's other theaters began performing at alternating Loew's theaters. Loew's then installed a Trans-tone wide screen at the Paradise Theatre in January 1930. Later that year, stage shows at the Paradise were temporarily halted before resuming. The theater's stage shows were rescheduled in 1931 so that they opened on Fridays, rather than on Saturdays as they previously had. Among the performers who appeared in the Paradise's stage shows were the jazz musician Cab Calloway, the actor Eddie Cantor, the jazz musician Ben Bernie, and the entertainers George Burns and Bob Hope. Loew's also began hosting five-act vaudeville shows at the Paradise in 1932. Nearly two dozen sticks of dynamite, enough to destroy the theater, were discovered in the projection booth that September; three thousand people were in the theater when the bomb was detected, and the bomb did not detonate only because it had a defective fuse. Disgruntled film operators were accused of planning the attempted bombing. With the onset of the Great Depression, the Paradise reduced ticket prices in 1934, and the most expensive tickets were decreased to 75 cents.

Subsequent use

The Paradise Theater was closed in January 1994. Though signs outside the theater proclaimed that it was closed temporarily for renovation, a Loew's spokesperson said that they had lost their lease to the theater. A New York Daily News reporter wrote that the theater's marquee had a telephone number for a leasing company, but that the company's president was unaware that their number was even on the marquee. Antiques dealers and decorators expressed interest in removing the decorations. In response, Bronx borough president Fernando Ferrer asked the LPC to again look into designating the theater's facade as a landmark. Despite the interior modifications, preservationists also asked the LPC to designate the interior. Chartwell defaulted on the theater's $4.8 million mortgage loan after the theater closed. As such, another Delaware corporation called ABI Property Partners took over the theater in June 1994; they were represented by the Eames Asset Management Corporation. ABI's plans called for converting the theater into a shopping mall, which would have entailed covering the plaster decorations in the auditorium and subdividing the space.

Ferrer organized the Loews Paradise Task Force in mid-1994 to devise plans for the theater's future, and the task force requested $70,000 for a feasibility study into the theater. The actor Tony Randall was among the supporters of the theater's restoration. At the end of the year, the Bronx Overall Economic Development Corporation opened a request for proposal for a study into the theater, and five consulting firms bid for the right to conduct the study. In May 1996, the stage was severely damaged by a fire. Trespassers began removing decorations from the building, prompting the LPC to again consider preserving the theater. The LPC, the New York Landmarks Conservancy, and Eames discussed the creation of an easement that would preserve the lobby spaces while allowing the auditorium and stage house to be converted to a mall.

In early 1997, the developer William Procida began soliciting bids for the Paradise's restoration on Eames's behalf. Procida received proposals from a variety of groups, including a city school district, retailers, and cinema operators. The facade was granted city-landmark status in April 1997, but the interior was not designated as a landmark at the time. By then, Procida had received around 100 requests for information from potential bidders. In the meanwhile, Eames considered turning the theater into a health club, entertainment complex, or school. Most of the interior was intact but had become dirty, with some water damage.

Impact

When the theater opened in 1929, the Brooklyn Times-Union wrote that the Paradise Theater had been described as "the most elaborate theatre outside of Manhattan", and the Brooklyn Daily Times wrote that Broadway venues paled in comparison to the Loew's Kings and Paradise theaters. Logan Billingsley, the chairman of the Bronx Chamber of Commerce, said that "in every detail it will equal the pretentious display of talent that has marked the downtown [New York City] Loew theatres". Architecture and Building praised the theater's design, saying that "decorative artifice is carried to the extreme" there.

In the 1970s, the New York Post characterized the Paradise as "one of the last truly splendid movie palaces in New York". A Times reporter wrote in 1997 that the Paradise had been "considered one of the finest examples of the grand movie houses built during the earlier half of the century", and another Times writer summarized the theater as "beyond rococo". A Newsday reporter described the theater as having "flamboyant art-deco sensibility". After the theater was subdivided, the journalist Joseph Lelyveld wrote in The New York Times in 1977 that "its glory days as a landmark in the Bronx can be only a memory", while Elliott Stein wrote for Film Comment that "Eberson's grand design is a shambles". Conversely, a New York Daily News film guide said that "the Paradise is a must on every moviegoer's list", despite the subdivision of the auditorium. A writer for The Wilson Quarterly said in 2000 that images of the abandoned theater prompted "mixed disbelief, laughter, and regret in just about equal measure", citing the poor condition of the "architecturally giddy" decorations.

When the theater reopened in 2005, a writer for The Journal News described the theater as feeling "more like a European opera house, with its elaborate baroque stylings, gilded surfaces and marble staircases". The New York Times's architectural critic Christopher Gray characterized the ground-floor spaces as a cross between a half-dozen palaces, and he described the auditorium as an "architectural atomic pile". Lloyd Ultan, the borough historian for the Bronx, said in 2012 that the Paradise was "a piece not only of theater history, but of architectural history as well". Yet another observer likened the Paradise Theater to "an outdoor baroque Italian garden". The architectural writer Judith Gura described the theater in 2015 as "an opulent escapist environment that could be enjoyed for as little as twenty-five cents" at the time of its opening. Reporters for the Bronx Times wrote that "the building screams vintage cinema", with its Baroque and Renaissance decorations.