Times Square had its premiere at the Ziegfeld Theater at 141 West 54th Street (which was still there when I first wrote this entry, but joined most of the locations in the movie when it closed its doors for the final time on January 29, and was gutted the next day. It had been, hands down, the best place to see a movie in New York City), followed by a party at Tavern on the Green in Central Park at West 66th Street (which closed in 2009, but reopened under new ownership in 2014, so it still exists) (Tavern on the Green, not Central Park) (I mean, Central Park does still exist, but it wasn’t closed for a five year stretch) (let’s get back to the subject, shall we?).
In attendance were a slew of celebrities with more or less tenuous ties to the production, such as Robert Stigwood, Lou Reed, Carly Simon, Irene Cara, Meat Loaf, Rick Derringer, Lorna Luft, Andy Warhol, and Abbie Hoffman. Allan Moyle gave the event a miss, but Trini Alvarado and Robin Johnson were there.
I believe copies of the white label soundtrack sampler were handed out at this event, but I can’t find my reference for that. It’s possible that there was another premiere and party in Brooklyn at which the records were given out, between this one and the official opening of the film the next week; my notes on this are not clear because I frankly didn’t realize I’d be writing about this, ever.
The image above is an edit of a digitization made by me from a 35mm slide I purchased in 2013 from an eBay seller of movie memorabilia who no longer has an account. I have notes indicating I believed the photographer to be Ed Geller, but I didn’t note down why I thought that. It’s very similar to the photos of the event taken by Ron Galella and licensed (for more money than I can spare) through Getty Images, which join the full screenplay, the complete sheet music, and the complete movie among the items I won’t be sharing here. The picture above is an image I made of a physical object in my possession, and doesn’t appear among Getty’s photos of the premiere, which you can see here.
Times Square Premiere, 14 October 1980 (color slide, AAT ID: 300128366), Trini Alvarado and Robin Johnson; 2 in (H) x 2 in (W) (incl. mount) (work);
1080 px (W) x 917 px (H), 96 dpi, 248 KB (image)
The Ziegfeld Theater was a Brutalist concrete cube in the middle of 54th Street. Inside, it was New York City’s last great movie palace. Times Square played there for two weeks starting October 17, 1980. The Tuesday before that, the movie had its world premiere there, followed by a gala party at Tavern on the Green.