Paramount Theater, Manhattan

Demolished theater that was located at 229 West 43rd Street, Manhattan, New York City, New York, between the Paramount Building and the headquarters of The New York Times. The Paramount Theatre opened on November 19, 1926, with laudatory speeches by the mayor and other dignitaries. Attending the opening was Thomas A. Edison, who had invented the motion picture some thirty years earlier. The Paramount Theatre closed on August 4, 1964. The New York Times Company purchased the property for demolition and conversion into office space. The Paramount Theatre auditorium was the first movie palace in New York City designed in the "Chicago style". Despite its 3,664 seats, the auditorium was quite narrow and had only four sections of seats on the main floor, with additional seating in the mezzanine boxes and balcony. From 1926 to 1933, Jesse Crawford and his wife Helen Crawford performed as the theatre's organists. The Wurlitzer Organ built in 1926 for the Paramount Theatre was considered to be the company's masterpiece. Prior to the demolition of the Paramount Theatre, the organ was acquired by Richard Simonton of Los Angeles. In the 1970s, the organ was moved to the Century II Convention Center in Wichita, Kansas, where it is extant today. Also referred to as the "Times Square Paramount" and "The Paramount Theatre, New York".