Broadway Billboards corner 47th/7th

[TheaterBoy7777]

I was walking to work today and noticed all of the billboards were down on the corner of 47th st. Such a strange sight, I had to snap a picture. Perhaps they are just putting up fresh billboards?

[Jordan Catalano]

Whoa. That's really awesome! And strange.

[bwayphreak234]

wohaa

[Smaxie]

The building is coming down. What you are seeing there are the remains of the old Panasonic sign that was there for much of the 70s and 80s.

[ucjrdude902]

Wait, the WHOLE building is coming down?

[TheatreFan27]

Wow! That's shocking. If the whole building is coming down, I wonder what will go up? Strange because those billboards have become so iconic to Broadway over the past two decades.

[TheaterBoy7777]

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=202008

[macnyc]

Great photo, Smaxie! I think I see myself!

[Jordan Catalano]

I hope it's a Duane Reade.

[RippedMan]

I wonder what goes in that building? Considering there are like no windows for anyone. Must be a very hum-drum place to work.

[Tag]

Well it looks like there are windows behind the billboard. Maybe some light gets in??

[DEClarke]

That looks absurd... It looks... WRONG!

[WOSQ]

There is lots behind that billboard--the remains of the last Times Square movie/vaudeville palace for starters. It was a theatre called variously the DeMille, Mayfair and Forum II, II, & IV probably among others. (The Forum I being across Broadway.)

It has/had a full stage house with fly space and probably sat 1500 give or take, when it was one theatre.

When it was a single screen (in the DeMille days) it was a roadshow film house, and that billboard was a single with the film playing sprawled all over it. Before that, in the Mayfair period, first-run films like Psycho played there again with the billboard going with the film.

The theatre got divided with the front of the orchestra becoming the Forum II and the mezz-balcony split into two long narrow cinemas, the II and IV.

The rear orchestra is part of one of those restaurants in the b&w photo, the Brew Burger. By now I think the front orchestra and stage house is a retail space fronting on W.47th St, and the entrance on 7th Avenue which was always narrow is also retail.

It was only in the 80s maybe that the billboard space was divided. The theatre was dark for a period back then.

The offices above I think are empty, but the space is narrow and there are windows that look out onto the theatre roof.

[jnb9872]

At least as of a couple of years ago there was no permanent tenant in the office space on the top floor, as I once attended a party in that corner office space and was quite taken with the view of Times Sq from the unusually close angle.

And TheaterBoy, thanks for the pics and link to the Skyscraper Forum. I had seen this myself the other day and was floored by it, glad to have more information!

[TheaterBoy7777]

Sure! Thank you to the amazing all-knowing Smaxie! I wouldn't have known to look for the article if he hadn't said it was coming down.

[ucjrdude902]

So will the Broadway billboards go back up?

[jnb9872]

...given everything said and shown in the thread prior to your question, it seems rather unlikely, wouldn't you agree?

[ucjrdude902]

Well that sad, those billboards have become a staple.

[Pammylicious]

Never mind the billboards WHAT ABOUT TAD'S? It's gone forever.

[RippedMan]

I'm sure it will be some boring glass building put up. Ugh. Modern architecture is so boring.

[jnb9872]

If "modern architecture" is to include Frank Gehry and I.M. Pei and the lot... "boring" seems an unlikely epithet.

[Wishing Only Wounds]

How sad. That could've made a great Broadway museum...

[Mr Roxy]

I was in it many times. During the roadshows you could relax in the sumptuous lounge. Pity the old girl is going down. Another part of Times Square history gets pounded to dust in the name of progress.

[PalJoey]

Where do the ghosts go when a theater is destroyed?

[Mr Roxy]

Dollypops house.

[CapnHook]

What were the final shows to be on that billboard? Is there a recent pic?

I know WICKED and PHANTOM were two...