The 55th Street Playhouse—periodically referred to as the 55th Street Cinema and Europa Theatre—was a 253-seat movie house
at 154
West 55th Street,
Midtown Manhattan,
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
, that opened on May 20, 1927. Many classic art and foreign-language films, including those by
Jean Cocteau
Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau (, , ; 5 July 1889 – 11 October 1963) was a French poet, playwright, novelist, designer, filmmaker, visual artist and critic. He was one of the foremost creatives of the s ...
,
Sergei Eisenstein
Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein (russian: Сергей Михайлович Эйзенштейн, p=sʲɪrˈɡʲej mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪtɕ ɪjzʲɪnˈʂtʲejn, 2=Sergey Mikhaylovich Eyzenshteyn; 11 February 1948) was a Soviet film director, scree ...
,
Federico Fellini,
Abel Gance,
Fritz Lang
Friedrich Christian Anton Lang (; December 5, 1890 – August 2, 1976), known as Fritz Lang, was an Austrian film director, screenwriter, and producer who worked in Germany and later the United States.Obituary ''Variety'', August 4, 1976, p. 6 ...
, and
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter, known for his innovative work in film, radio and theatre. He is considered to be among the greatest and most influential f ...
, were featured at the theater.
Later,
Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the Art movement, visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore th ...
presented many of his notable films (including ''
Flesh
Flesh is any aggregation of soft tissues of an organism. Various multicellular organisms have soft tissues that may be called "flesh". In mammals, including humans, ''flesh'' encompasses muscles, fats and other loose connective tissues, but ...
'' (1968) and ''
Lonesome Cowboys
''Lonesome Cowboys'' is a 1968 American Western film directed by Andy Warhol and written and produced by Paul Morrissey. The film is a satire of Hollywood Westerns, and was initially screened in November 1968 at the San Francisco Internationa ...
'' (1968) and others) in this building (as well as in other area theaters, including the
New Andy Warhol Garrick Theatre
The Garrick Cinema (periodically referred to as the New Andy Warhol Garrick Theatre, Andy Warhol's Garrick Cinema, Garrick Theatre, or Nickelodeon) was a 199-seat movie house at 152 Bleecker Street in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower ...
) in the late 1960s. Other notable films were also shown at the theater, including ''
Boys in the Sand'' (1971) and
''Him'' (1974).
History
Originally, the theater was built to be a
horse stable
A stable is a building in which livestock, especially horses, are kept. It most commonly means a building that is divided into separate stalls for individual animals and livestock. There are many different types of stables in use today; the ...
in 1888 by
Charles T. Barney, a banker who later became president of the
Knickerbocker Trust Company
The Knickerbocker Trust was a bank based in New York City that was, at one time, among the largest banks in the United States. It was a central player in the Panic of 1907.
History
The bank was chartered in 1884 by Frederick G. Eldridge, a frie ...
. The upper stories were rented out as The Holbein Studios,
and were occupied by artists, such as
John Singer Sargent, impressionist painter
Childe Hassam
Frederick Childe Hassam (; October 17, 1859 – August 27, 1935) was an American Impressionist painter, noted for his urban and coastal scenes. Along with Mary Cassatt and John Henry Twachtman, Hassam was instrumental in promulgating Impressioni ...
, and portrait artist
Cecilia Beaux
Eliza Cecilia Beaux (May 1, 1855 – September 17, 1942) was an American society portraitist, whose subjects included First Lady Edith Roosevelt, Admiral Sir David Beatty and Georges Clemenceau.
Trained in Philadelphia, she went on to study ...
.
Later, in the late 1920s, the stable building was converted into a movie theater.
Warhol years
![Andy Warhol by Jack Mitchell](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2b/Andy_Warhol_by_Jack_Mitchell.jpg)
As an
advertisement illustrator in the 1950s, Warhol used assistants to increase his productivity. Collaboration would remain a defining (and controversial) aspect of his working methods throughout his career; this was particularly true in the 1960s. One of the most important collaborators during this period was
Gerard Malanga
Gerard Joseph Malanga (born March 20, 1943) is an American poet, photographer, filmmaker, actor, curator and archivist.
Early life
Malanga was born in the Bronx in 1943, the only child of Italian immigrant parents. In 1959, at the beginning of ...
. Malanga assisted the artist with the production of silkscreens, films, sculpture, and other works at "
The Factory
The Factory was Andy Warhol's studio in New York City, which had four locations between 1963 and 1987. The Factory became famed for its parties in the 1960s. It was the hip hangout spot for artists, musicians, celebrities and Warhol's superstar ...
", Warhol's
aluminum foil
Aluminium foil (or aluminum foil in North American English; often informally called tin foil) is aluminium prepared in thin metal leaves with a thickness less than ; thinner gauges down to are also commonly used. Standard household foil is typ ...
-and-silver-paint-lined studio on 47th Street (later moved to Broadway). Other members of Warhol's Factory crowd included
Freddie Herko
Frederick Charles "Freddie" Herko (February 23, 1936 – October 27, 1964) was an American artist, musician, actor, dancer, choreographer and teacher.
Early life
Born in New York City, Herko's father was a diner manager and his mother wa ...
,
Ondine,
Ronald Tavel
Ronald Tavel (May 17, 1936 – March 23, 2009) was an American screenwriter, director, novelist, poet and actor, best known for his work with Andy Warhol and The Factory.
Early life and career
Born in Brooklyn, New York, Tavel graduated fro ...
,
Mary Woronov
Mary Woronov (born December 8, 1943) is an American actress, published author and figurative painter. She is primarily known as a " cult star" because of her work with Andy Warhol and her roles in Roger Corman's cult films. Woronov has appeared ...
,
Billy Name
William George Linich (February 22, 1940 – July 18, 2016), known professionally as Billy Name, was an American photographer, filmmaker, and lighting designer. He was the archivist of The Factory from 1964 to 1970. His brief romance and subsequ ...
, and
Brigid Berlin
Brigid Emmett Berlin (September 6, 1939 – July 17, 2020) was an American artist and Warhol superstar.
Early years
Berlin was born on September 6, 1939 in Manhattan in New York City. She was the eldest of three daughters born to socialite parent ...
(from whom he apparently got the idea to tape-record his phone conversations).
[Colacello, Bob (1990), p. 67.]
During the 1960s, Andy Warhol groomed a retinue of
bohemian
Bohemian or Bohemians may refer to:
*Anything of or relating to Bohemia
Beer
* National Bohemian, a brand brewed by Pabst
* Bohemian, a brand of beer brewed by Molson Coors
Culture and arts
* Bohemianism, an unconventional lifestyle, origin ...
and
counterculture
A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Hou ...
eccentrics upon whom he bestowed the designation "
superstars", including
Nico
Naftiran Intertrade Company limited (NICO) is a Swiss-based subsidiary of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC). NICO is a general contractor for the oil and gas industry. NIOC buys the vast majority of Iran's gasoline imports. NICO is a key pl ...
,
Joe Dallesandro
Joseph Angelo D'Allesandro III (born December 31, 1948) is an American actor and Warhol superstar. Having also crossed over into mainstream roles such as mobster Lucky Luciano in the film '' The Cotton Club'', Dallesandro was a sex symbol of g ...
,
Edie Sedgwick
Edith Minturn Sedgwick Post (April 20, 1943 – November 16, 1971) was an American actress and fashion model, known for being one of Andy Warhol's superstars.Watson, Steven (2003), "Factory Made: Warhol and the Sixties" Pantheon Books, pp. 210& ...
,
Viva,
Ultra Violet
Ultraviolet (UV) is a form of electromagnetic radiation with wavelength from 10 nm (with a corresponding frequency around 30 PHz) to 400 nm (750 THz), shorter than that of visible light, but longer than X-rays. UV radiation i ...
,
Holly Woodlawn
Holly Woodlawn (October 26, 1946 – December 6, 2015) was a transgender Puerto Rican actress and Warhol superstar who appeared in the films ''Trash'' (1970) and '' Women in Revolt'' (1971). She is also known as the Holly in Lou Reed's hit glam r ...
,
Jackie Curtis
Jackie Curtis (February 19, 1947 – May 15, 1985) was an American actress, writer, singer, and Warhol superstar.
Early life and career
Jackie Curtis was born in New York City to John Holder and Jenevive Uglialoro. She had one sibling, half-b ...
, and
Candy Darling
Candy Darling (November 24, 1944 – March 21, 1974) was an American actress, best known as a Warhol superstar and transgender icon. She starred in Andy Warhol's films ''Flesh'' (1968) and '' Women in Revolt'' (1971), and was a muse of The Velve ...
. These people all participated in
the Factory
The Factory was Andy Warhol's studio in New York City, which had four locations between 1963 and 1987. The Factory became famed for its parties in the 1960s. It was the hip hangout spot for artists, musicians, celebrities and Warhol's superstar ...
films, and some—like Berlin—remained friends with Warhol until his death. Important figures in the New York underground art/cinema world, such as writer
John Giorno
John Giorno (December 4, 1936 – October 11, 2019) was an American poet and performance artist. He founded the not-for-profit production company Giorno Poetry Systems and organized a number of early multimedia poetry experiments and events, inc ...
and film-maker
Jack Smith, also appear in Warhol films (many presented at the 55th Street Playhouse and the
New Andy Warhol Garrick Theatre
The Garrick Cinema (periodically referred to as the New Andy Warhol Garrick Theatre, Andy Warhol's Garrick Cinema, Garrick Theatre, or Nickelodeon) was a 199-seat movie house at 152 Bleecker Street in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower ...
) of the 1960s, revealing Warhol's connections to a diverse range of artistic scenes during this time. Less well known was his support and collaboration with several teen-agers during this era, who would achieve prominence later in life including writer David Dalton,
photographer Stephen Shore
and artist Bibbe Hansen (mother of pop musician
Beck).
Controversy
In June 1970, the 55th Street Playhouse began showing ''Censorship in Denmark: A New Approach'', a
film documentary study of
pornography, directed by
Alex de Renzy
Alexander de Renzy (August 13, 1935 – June 8, 2001) was an American director and producer of pornographic movies.
Born in New York City, de Renzy served in the United States Air Force as a Survival Instructor. Back in the United States, ...
.
According to
Vincent Canby
Vincent Canby (July 27, 1924 – October 15, 2000) was an American film and theatre critic who served as the chief film critic for ''The New York Times'' from 1969 until the early 1990s, then its chief theatre critic from 1994 until his death in ...
, a
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
film reviewer, the narrator of the documentary noted that “pornography is more stimulating and cheaper than hormone injections” and "stresses the fact that since the legalization of
pornography in Denmark
The first country in the world to legitimize pornography was Denmark in 1967. That year, the country legalized pornographic literature. Subsequently, on July 1, 1969, Denmark became the first nation in the world to legalize pictorial and audiovisu ...
,
sex crimes
Sex and the law deals with the regulation by law of human sexual activity. Sex laws vary from one place or jurisdiction to another, and have varied over time. Unlawful sexual acts are called sex crimes.
Some laws regarding sexual activity are ...
have decreased."
Nonetheless, on September 30, 1970, Assistant District Attorney,
Richard Beckler, had the theater manager, Chung Louis, arrested on an
obscenity charge, and the film seized as appealing to a
prurient interest in sex. The presiding judge, Jack Rosenberg, stated, “
he film
He or HE may refer to:
Language
* He (pronoun), an English pronoun
* He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ
* He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets
* He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...
is patently offensive to most Americans because it affronts contemporary
community standards relating to the description or representation of sexual matters.”
Current use
The 55th Street Playhouse building was partly rebuilt in the 1980s,
and the ground floor, at 154 West 55th Street, was altered to be a truck entrance.
See also
*
Blue Movie
*
Golden Age of Porn
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Spam-whitelist/Archives/2018/01#Another_Worthy_Journal_Article_on_Wordpress --->
The term "Golden Age of Porn", or "porno chic", refers to a 15-year period (1969–1984) in commercial American porno ...
(1969–1984)
*
New Andy Warhol Garrick Theatre
The Garrick Cinema (periodically referred to as the New Andy Warhol Garrick Theatre, Andy Warhol's Garrick Cinema, Garrick Theatre, or Nickelodeon) was a 199-seat movie house at 152 Bleecker Street in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower ...
*
The Factory
The Factory was Andy Warhol's studio in New York City, which had four locations between 1963 and 1987. The Factory became famed for its parties in the 1960s. It was the hip hangout spot for artists, musicians, celebrities and Warhol's superstar ...
Notes
References
External links
Images: 55th Street Playhouse
{{Authority control
Andy Warhol
Cinemas and movie theaters in Manhattan
Theater District, Manhattan