Writing, Photography, and the life lessons I learned from Street Academy
A collection of blogs regarding when and where a classic film played in Albany – and what other theaters in the area were showing at that same time.
Last night, I was doing some research on Albany history for an upcoming project. And as I whirred through miles and miles of old newspaper microfilm, something reminded me of an old blog post channel of mine. It’s called “When It Played in Albany.” This was a recap of various movies that played in Capital…
Read More[nggallery id=17254]Haven’t done the ‘When It Played in Albany” feature in a while, so this is a good time to restart. I’m going back to 75 years ago, when the Mercury Theater of the Air created a dramatic rendition of H.G. Wells’ classic War of the Worlds as a radio drama. Over those three-quarters of…
Read MoreEvery time the Times Union promotes a movie night under the stars – and this one is coming up this Tuesday downtown in Albany – I remember that films – in this case, Dirty Dancing – once appeared on motion picture screens around the Capital District. And that at the time, you saw the films…
Read MoreMy buddy Jay Pregent is going to lose his mind when he sees these. Jay and I go back a long ways, we were both part of the “Open Mike” crew that would do Wednesday night comedy routines at The Comedy Works. A few years ago, Jay was part of a group that purchased Albany’s…
Read MoreOkay, let’s get something square right now. The Beatles made four theatrical motion pictures during their time together. There was A Hard Day’s Night, there was Help!, there was Yellow Submarine and there was Let It Be. They also made Magical Mystery Tour, but that was for British television. And as far as anyone’s concerned,…
Read MoreThe Times Union blogging meet-up tonight – a viewing of “A Christmas Story,” with a post-movie get-together across the street at the Albany Brown Derby – should be a lot of fun. I’ve seen the list of bloggers and readers who will attend the event, and I think it will be a great time. Now…
Read MoreWell, actually it was last Friday night, so we can’t really say “long, long time ago.” I was playing Trivial Pursuit: Star Wars Edition. It was me versus a couple of RPI kids (essentially two on one, or as I like to call it, a “trivia fair fight.”). Some fair fight. They beat me six…
Read MoreAs I look forward to participating in “Mockingbird Marathon: To Kill a Saturday,” the public reading / fundraiser of Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” on November 6, 2010, I think back to when the 1962 Academy Award-winning film of the same name played in Albany. And so, on a chilly Saturday morning, I had…
Read MoreWe lost a lot of theaters in the Capital District over the past few decades. Several theaters were knocked down to make the Empire State Plaza. Several drive-ins were repurposed for the expansion of urban sprawl. The few regional theaters in the Capital District have been chopped up into multiplexes. There’s a building on Central…
Read MoreOf the dozens of movie palaces and theaters that populated the Capital District, from the beginning of silent film until the creation of shopping mall-based theaters, only three movie palaces have survived to today. The Spectrum on Delaware Avenue was once called the Delaware Theater, and is the oldest building that still shows films. The…
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Chuck The Writer 