Beekman Theatre (former)
About This Listing
Place Details
- Borough: Manhattan
- Neighborhood: Upper East Side
- Categories: Performance, Theater
Place Matters Profile
* The original Beekman Theater was demolished in late 2005 to make room for Sloan Kettering’s new breast cancer research center. The Beekman Theatre moved across the street to what was formerly Clearview’sN New York One and Two. They became Beekman One and Two until October 2008, when it became the Beekman Theatre. (Updated March, 2011)
Nominations
Michael Hirsch
A unique stand-alone movie theater that is threatened. Only theater in New York where you can see the film from the concession counter due to the split-level design. If there has to be new development here, why can’t they build over it or transfer development rights. Our predecessors hid the bulk of a movie theater behind commercial properties or individual merchants.
The organization Friends of the Upper East Side says this about the Beekman theater: “Deemed eligible as a National and State historic landmark when evaluated during the Second Avenue Subway Environmental Impact statement (EIS), the Beekman Theater and Block, one of the few remaining art-film house in Manhattan, faces eviction by June 2005, due to plans by landlord Sloan Kettering to demolish the block front to make way for a cancer treatment center.
The Beekman Theater was planned by the New York Life Insurance Company as a modern shopping center to supplement the ground-floor shops in Manhattan House across the avenue. International Style features include the horizontal orientation of the building, the glazed corner on East 66th Street, and the ribbon windows on East 65th Street. The International Style design is enlivened with a tilted glass facade and sloping streamlined lounge ceiling that refers stylistically back to the Moderne style of the 1930’s. A recent department of buildings permit from January 3, 2005 describes the removal of the existing stone veneer and glass façade windows, and the removal of the Beekman’s marquee.”
For more detail, go to www.friends-ues.org, then click on “Issues.”
