Post #356447 by donhonyc on Mon, Jan 21, 2008 10:28 PM

On 2008-01-21 21:20, sneakyjack wrote:
Seattle Cafe has 2 doors like the still from the youtube clip - _ I'm no architect but maybe that was the entrance with the name painted on it?

A complete guess - I was over that way today and looked around really nothing worth noting - if you could get up on the Marquee that was once Cats there maybe some remnants - but I currently know nobody around there with access... time will tell!

I'm no architect either (and neither is George Costanza..haw haw) but the building that is there now is not an old building. I've seen it tons of times and it looks like any other generic brick structure that went up during the beginning of the, um...'renovation'...of Times Square 10-15 years ago. The building that Hawaii Kai was in is more than very likely, long gone. It probably went the way of the Capitol and Rivoli Theaters that were in that same area of Broadway. So just for yucks kids, let's say it's the summer of 1968 and you just walked out of Hawaii Kai after Happy Hour. You're all buzzed and happy and the sun isn't going to set until about 8 in the evening. You walk out the doors of the HK and this is what you would have seen across the street directly in front of you on Broadway...

Yep...that's the Capitol. Not sure when it was bulldozed, but now in it's place is the Paramount Building.....a place with offices. YAWN!

Or how bout you walk out of the Hawaii Kai, and it's night. Your facing the same direction toward the Capitol, but look left and here's what you would see about a half block down.

Here's what it looked like if you walked down that half block, and crossed the street

Here's a better view if you walked down a little more (and it was about 23 years earlier than the above picture)

Was a pretty cool neighborhood, right? The Hawaii Kai and all that too, and that was only the start. There were TONS of theaters in Times Square (pre-porn). Now? None. When they closed the Loews State a year or two ago it was the first time in like...I don't know..70 maybe 80 years, no exaggeration, that there are NO movie theaters in Times Square. None..nada...zilch. There are a few on 42nd St. but none in Times Square.

[ Edited by: donhonyc 2008-01-21 23:00 ]