00:10Well, Ben, thank you for coming up to Washington Heights.
00:12We are in one of the jewels of New York City, the United Palace Theater.
00:18I couldn't believe this place existed.
00:20You feel the nostalgia from floor to ceiling.
00:24This is a palace.
00:26Yeah, it really is.
00:27I don't know if they still do movies here, but it would be great to see.
00:29Do they?
00:30Oh, my God, it would be amazing to see a movie here.
00:33It's really one of the most incredible theaters we have, and it's kind of a New York secret.
00:47The United Palace opened then as the Lowe's 175th Street Theater on February 22nd, 1930.
00:53You were going to come in, pay your 25 cents for a ticket, and get some sort of live musical
01:00production on stage, vaudeville comedy, newsreels, maybe a cartoon or a short, and then the main attraction for the day.
01:10This is one of five wonder theaters that were built by the Lowe's Corporation between 1929 and 1930.
01:16Each one of these wonder theaters was about the same size, about 3,500 seats.
01:21Each one was just a temple to entertainment, with cinema being the pinnacle of what entertainment was back then.
01:28Just talking about opening day alone, it was kicked off with a huge parade that filled Broadway, led by a
01:33thousand Boy Scouts.
01:34It was a banner day for New York City.
01:36The street was just filled with human beings.
01:40And then the main feature that day was actually a film called Their Own Desire, starring Norma Shearer and a
01:45young Robert Montgomery.
01:46Haven't you any heart at all?
01:48It really was the idea of total entertainment for 1930, when there really wasn't any other entertainment to speak of.
02:00The architecture certainly captures everybody's imagination.
02:04You walk in and you feel special just because you're in this building.
02:08It was done by architect Thomas Lamb, one of the foremost theater architects of the time.
02:13Also did the Ziegfeld Theater, now Ballroom in Times Square.
02:16And Harold Rambush was the interior decorative specialist for all five of these theaters.
02:20And he also worked on the original Roxy Theater in Times Square and the Waldorf Astoria Hotel.
02:24Most folks think this is called a wonder theater because it is big and grand and beautiful and wonderful.
02:30And those things are true.
02:31But it's actually really called a wonder theater because it houses a Robert Morton wonder organ built into the architecture
02:38that's currently being restored.
02:39Altogether, there are about 1,800 pipes and 30 sound effects.
02:43The wonder organ was, at the time, one of the most elaborate contraptions that humankind had ever created.
02:49And that was really the secret behind the Lowe's Wonder Theaters.
02:53Let's create a spectacle when the audience first walks in, they forget there are worldly troubles, they're at the threshold.
03:02And then their imagination is ripened for whatever they're going to experience once they get inside and see that light
03:09hit the screen.
03:12Because this theater has been around 95 years, it's seen a lot of history.
03:18This really thrived as a Lowe's Wonder Theater from 1930 all the way until 1969 when it was actually threatened
03:25to be potentially demolished.
03:26The factors that really played into the demise of the golden age of cinema.
03:32One, you had that thing called television.
03:34It was also the Supreme Court ruling that broke up the studio's monopolies.
03:38That was the advent of the multiplexes.
03:41The fate of the United Palace kind of hung in the air.
03:44We have 3,400 seats and you certainly weren't getting anywhere near that number of people coming to see whatever
03:49that week's release may have been.
03:54One of the last screenings here as a Lowe's was actually Stanley Kubrick's 2001 A Space Odyssey.
04:00And fortunately for this building, in the audience of one of the last three screenings here was a very popular
04:05televangelist named Reverend Ike.
04:07Frederick Ike Rencoder.
04:08And he was watching the movie and he was enchanted with the space and he decided it was the perfect
04:15environment for his church.
04:17He, with his church, saved the building from demolition, did the first stage of restoration after being 40 years of
04:24a wonder theater, and then thrived as sort of a megachurch for a few decades.
04:29Of course, restoration's been going on since 1969 when it changed hands from the Lowe's.
04:34When I first moved to Washington Heights, I found out about the United Palace opening its doors for the local
04:39arts community, and it made all the sense in the world to bring that effort and mission into these walls.
04:44It has been reborn as not only a church, but also this cultural center and community center for our neighborhood.
04:53Our good friend and patron Lin-Manuel Miranda and his family really helped kickstart the movie program here.
04:59I ran Luis Miranda's community newspaper called the Manhattan Times, and with that came Luis Miranda's son, Lin-Manuel Miranda.
05:09My wife's grandmother used to bring her to church here when it was Reverend Ike's church, but I never came
05:14into this building until 2013 when it sort of became a cultural center again.
05:20So when I started here at the United Palace, it happened to be the five-year anniversary of when In
05:27the Heights debuted.
05:28We brought in Lin and his father to see the space.
05:31The first time I walked in here, I just couldn't believe I'd been walking by this jewel all my life
05:36and never gone inside.
05:37We did the five-year anniversary concert of In the Heights, and a few days later, I said, Lin, you've
05:44got this theater in your neighborhood.
05:45What do you want to do?
05:46And Lin said, let's return the movies to the United Palace.
05:50And so we started running a movie series.
05:56What we try to do with the movies is really have the movies come alive for folks.
06:02Every year, we pick five or six movies.
06:04I go and find a guest, and we've had everyone from Steven Spielberg to Spike Lee.
06:08We try to reinvent going to the movies like they did back in 1930 and through the 40s and into
06:14the 50s, where there's a little bit more entertainment than just the main feature.
06:18And we do that many different ways.
06:20We always have a live element to a screening because we want to honor that past.
06:24So maybe it's a little musical production that somehow ties into the movie.
06:28And those are free screenings to the community.
06:30So it's a way of just having another community gathering and using this incredible theater for what it was made
06:36for to show incredible films.
06:39You can watch anything you want on any size screen that you want.
06:43You can't feel a movie until you're in a theater like this, shoulder to shoulder in the dark with strangers
06:49who find a common connection with you in the moment of getting lost in a movie.
06:54There is something special about seeing movies at the palace.
06:58Everyone comes here because they want to see this on the big screen.
07:02We watch so many films at home these days.
07:04So to have a communal experience is a joy.
07:06The fact that we have this world-class theater in our neighborhood is incredible.
07:12Everybody is welcome.
07:13Everybody can find their story in the movies.
07:16That means a lot to feel like you've got a special space where you're welcome and see yourself reflected in
07:23your friends and neighbors.
07:24I think of the quote from Ghostbusters when Venkman casually says, oh, they don't make them like they used to.
07:30And Dan Aykroyd's like, no, they never made them like this.
07:33That's how I feel about the United Palace Theater and incredibly lucky that it's in our neighborhood.
07:40And I think of the fact that it's a new one that I've been waiting for for the day that
07:41it's worth it.
07:41You
07:41You
07:46You
07:46You
