Good morning. It’s Friday. Today we’ll find out about an ornate 1920s movie palace that will be open for the first time in a long time tomorrow. We’ll also have the details on the surprisingly quiet end to a two-year battle over the Pierre, a storied building with apartments and a hotel on the Upper East Side.
Scott Perrin said that seeing the Paradise Theater in the Bronx right now is like seeing the “before” photo in a “before-and-after” sequence.
“The doors have been closed for a very long time,” said Perrin, part of a team that is looking to raise $50 million to turn the faded movie palace into a performing arts center.
But the doors will be open tomorrow afternoon as part of Open House New York Weekend, the annual event that promises a peek at places you might not know are there: a seltzer factory in Brooklyn, for example, or a barge from the days when such vessels transferred cargo from ships in New York Harbor to railroad freight cars. Or a recording studio, with an emphasis on how architecture and acoustics influence the way music is recorded.
Open House New York, a nonprofit, has been promising an insider’s look at the city since the first Open House New York Weekend in 2003, which gave access to 85 spaces, from back-of-house areas at the Waldorf Astoria to the top of the High Bridge Water Tower in Washington Heights. But Scott Lauer, the founder, said later that the city was still on high alert that year — the Sept. 11 attacks were still so fresh in the city’s consciousness — that some people were reluctant to let strangers in.
Last year, 50,000 people took part. They came from all over, the group says — 89 percent of the city’s ZIP codes were represented, along with other states and countries. As in the past, most of the 300-plus sites this year do not require advance registration. But some do. The Open House New York website lists what’s what, where and when.
Loew’s Paradise Theater on the Grand Concourse opened in September 1929, six weeks before the stock market crashed. The first movie that the projectionist cued up was “The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu,” with a cast that featured Jean Arthur, who later starred opposite Jimmy Stewart in “You Can’t Take It With You” and “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.”
Perrin said it is the second-largest theater in New York after Radio City Music Hall. “In the same way that Radio City had the Rockettes, the Paradise had the Birds of Paradise, women with feathers in their hair and costumes doing a whole live floor show before the feature film,” he said. “That was the thing they used to do.”
But as Bronx neighborhoods came to be dominated by despair and desolation, the theater was later used as a church, and in the early 2000s, promoters scheduled rock concerts and boxing matches to fill the seats, or try to. The exterior was designated a city landmark in 1997 and the interior in 2006, after an earlier restoration.
Perrin — a theatrical producer who is part of a management team that also includes Peter Martin, an owner of the Triad Theater on West 72nd Street, and Charles Piazza, who has long experience in commercial real estate and building management — is working on a restoration plan after signing a 32-year lease with an option to buy.
But even now, the Paradise is something to see. The New York Times once called it called “the city’s gaudiest example of the pseudo-Renaissance architecture popular in cinemas of the late 1920s.” And the “A.I.A. Guide to New York City” described it as “an extravaganza of ornament, ornament and more ornament” with “a deep blue ceiling over the auditorium, twinkling stars and projected moving clouds.”
Perrin said the lightbulbs that twinkled in the ceiling are the originals. “They’re 97 years old,” he said. “Our electrician is sourcing LEDs.”
What about the clouds? How were they projected on the ceiling when the Paradise was new?
“We have no idea what the technology was,” he said.
Weather
Expect showers and a possible thunderstorm and a high near 77. Rain will continue tonight as temperatures fall near 50.
ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING
In effect until Nov. 1 (All Saints’ Day).
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“When a tenant in a taxpayer-subsidized building is defrauded, every taxpayer gets defrauded.” — Aaron Carr of the Housing Rights Initiative, a nonprofit that accused a real estate company run by former Gov. Eliot Spitzer of overcharging tenants at a waterfront apartment building in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Carr said the tenants could be owed $30 million.
The latest New York news
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Protesting Mamdani: Anger toward Mayor Zohran Mamdani from within the pro-Palestinian movement illustrates the challenge the left faces in dealing with its insurgents. Hundreds of people shouted at the mayor from across a police barricade in Union Square on Oct. 7, “traitor, traitor, come on out!”
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Mamdani calls Blakeman a “bad apple”: Mamdani’s first campaign video for Gov. Kathy Hochul, in which he attacks her Republican rival, Bruce Blakeman, reflects the mayor’s conundrum: He’s trying to fulfill his role in ensuring Hochul’s re-election despite their ideological differences.
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Assaulted by transit workers: Kyle Taylor, 53-year-old Brooklyn school aide who is Black, is accusing the M.T.A. of unfairly targeting people of color. He was tackled by four transit workers who questioned whether he had paid the $3 bus fare.
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An angry faculty: A day after the Cornell University president banned parties at fraternity houses, he faced a largely hostile faculty senate that was considering a vote of no confidence against his administration. Some faculty members said they were not swayed by the policy changes he had announced. The vote is scheduled for Oct. 28.
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What we’re watching: On “The New York Times Close Up,” Jeffery C. Mays talks with two Metro reporters, Emma G. Fitzsimmons and Maria Cramer, about Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s efforts to strengthen police oversight and why some of his supporters want him to replace Commissioner Jessica Tisch. The program is broadcast on CUNY TV at 7:30 p.m. Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.
The fight over the Pierre ends quietly
The two-year battle for control of the Pierre appears to have ended — quietly, with a loss for the Saudi investor whom President Trump’s commerce secretary had found and helped with a pitch for the building.
The prospective buyer, Motasem Khashoggi, missed the deadline to deliver a $100 million deposit on his proposed $2 billion purchase of the building, just off Fifth Avenue at 2 East 61st Street. Khashoggi had announced grand plans to renovate the faded landmark that would have required everyone in the building to move out.
Now the future of the century-old building is in question. It needs work: Engineering studies have found that leaks have penetrated the apartments and the infrastructure. The pipes are old and corroded. And the fire safety systems are antiquated and potentially dangerous.
My colleagues Michael Rothfeld, Maggie Haberman and Maureen Farrell write that the commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, had been a driving force behind the deal. Lutnick, who owns the penthouse — a triplex — would have been one of the biggest winners if the deal had gone through, netting a profit of $60 million on the sale of the apartment. Newmark Group, a real estate firm that Lutnick used to run and that two of his sons are now involved with, would have been paid a $30 million fee as an adviser.
But the deal faced resistance from a group of older apartment owners and from famous residents, including the singer Art Garfunkel and the fashion designer Tory Burch. The potential sale had also put the Pierre’s more than 400 employees’ jobs at risk. The Pierre, which has about 70 apartments, doubles as a hotel with rooms for overnight guests.
“I am relieved,” said Tina Beriro, one of the most vocal opponents, who has lived at the Pierre for more than 20 years and turns 86 today. “A group of old lady widows and divorcées — look what we did! And without us, we would have been gone.”
METROPOLITAN diary
Not so uniform
Dear Diary:
A nun stood outside our high school, St. Vincent Ferrer on the Upper East Side, every morning to check our uniforms: skirts past the knees, tie in place, beret on head.
She had come to New York from Indiana and found the city to be a strange place.
One morning, just as the bell rang, one of the girls from Queens walked up the street wearing a single loafer.
“Where’s your other shoe?” the sister asked.
“Someone stole it at 59th Street,” the girl replied.
— Monica Coffey
Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Tell us your New York story here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.
Glad we could get together here. See you Monday. — J.B.
Davaughnia Wilson and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at [email protected].
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The post This Weekend, See an ‘Extravaganza of Ornament’ in the Bronx appeared first on New York Times.
