Loew’s Canal Street Movie Palace

Lower East Side

New York City

Art & Culture | History

Abandoned Landmark of Slumbering Cinematic Splendor

About Loew’s Canal Street Movie Palace

& why it made the Carpe City list

31 Canal Street seems to be little more than a shuttered electronics shop, but look up at the building itself…
- You’ll see an ornate white terra cotta facade in the Spanish Baroque style.
  - Maybe you’re thinking, hmm, that’s a little much for a busted electronics shop…
  - This isn’t just any failed 8-track purveyor…
  - This building was once the Loew’s Canal Street Theater, the second-largest movie palace in New York City.
The building is such a special spot because, in this development-mad metropolis, it’s a rare example of an abandoned landmark.
The theater, designed by Thomas W. Lamb, who was responsible for creating nearly 50 movie palaces throughout the five boroughs, opened in 1927, with seating for 2,270 people.
It was part of the Loew’s theater empire and catered to the massive crowds of the LES (at the time, the neighborhood was the densest in the nation, and also boasted the highest concentration of movie theaters in the country).
The people need entertainment!
- One of those people was the comedian Jerry Stiller (Ben’s dad), who grew up spending whole afternoons at the Loew’s Canal.
- Marcus Loew himself, who founded not only the Loew’s theater chain but also MGM studios, grew up on the Lower East Side (in 1913, he built the Loew’s Avenue B on the site of the tenement he was raised in).
The Loew’s Canal primarily showed B movies (since the higher-end fare was saved for swankier theaters in midtown), but it flourished well into the 1950s, before closing by the end of the decade.
The theater sold in October 1960 and the lobby became retail space, while the auditorium was turned into a warehouse.
Stunningly, since that time, the auditorium has survived as a warehouse, withering away in stately neglect, spending decades in decrepit and decadent disrepair.
And it will probably stay that way for quite some time.
The terra cotta exterior at 31 Canal was designated as an NYC Landmark in 2010.
- That year, the local Asian-American arts group Committee to Revitalize and Enrich the Arts and Tomorrow’s Economy (CREATE) undertook a feasibility study to turn the Loew’s Canal into a new cultural and performing arts center, dubbed, “The Lincoln Center of Chinatown.”
- The project had the support and financial backing of the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. but never came to fruition.
- Since then, the site has remained virtually abandoned, with an “X” sprayed on the electronics store signage, which, according to the FDNY, means “hazardous – enter at your own risk!”

Carpe City Trivia

You can find other Thomas W. Lamb theaters in Manhattan

Our favorites are:
- The 42nd Empire AMC in Times Sq. (once known as the Empire Theater)
- The former RKO 8 St., now the base of an apartment building, with a Staples on the terra cotta ground floor!