42nd Street

"42nd Street", a pre-code musical directed by Lloyd Bacon, featuring the choreography of Busby Berkeley. Songs composed by Harry Warren (music) and Al Dubin (lyrics).

Movies and the Great Depression had already brought changes to 42nd Street by the time this film was released in 1933. 

The area eventually became known as the Deuce. The once elegant theatres reduced to grind houses. The Urban Dictionary providing the fellowing definition:

The Deuce

42nd Street in New York City (the southernmost part of Times Square). Back in the day, a center of total depravity, especially between 8th and 9th Avenue, but currently Disneyfied. 

Each Monday, Baghdad on the Subway takes a musical look at the City.

Cezar Del Valle is the author of the Brooklyn Theatre Index, a three-volume history of borough showplaces. The first two volumes chosen 2010 OUTSTANDING BOOK OF THE YEAR by the Theatre Historical Society. Final volume published in  September 2014.

He conducts a series of popular theatre talks and walking tours.

Now selling on Etsy.

Sheridan Theatre

Hopper-Self Portrait 1906 (Wikipedia)

Edward Hopper

July 22, 1882 – May 15, 1967

It was a short walk from Hopper's home on Washington Square to the Loew's Sheridan at  West 12 Street in Greenwich Village and from there to the Crawford Lunch (one of the inspirations for Nighthawks).

He loved going to the films. For Hopper, as for so many others, it was a place of refuge, an escape from the everyday.

“When I don’t feel in the mood for painting I go to the movies for a week or more. I go on a regular movie binge!"
--Edward Hopper, quote from the New York Times

Edward Hopper, Sheridan Theatre, 1937, from Artpedia

Cezar Del Valle is the author of the Brooklyn Theatre Index, a three-volume history of borough showplaces. The first two volumes chosen 2010 OUTSTANDING BOOK OF THE YEAR by the Theatre Historical Society. Final volume published in  September 2014.

He conducts a series of popular theatre talks and walking tours.

Now selling on Etsy.