The Paradise Theater (formerly the Loew's Paradise Theatre) is a theater at 2403 Grand Concourse in the Fordham neighborhood of the Bronx in New York City, New York. Designed by John Eberson as a movie palace, it opened on September 7, 1929, as one of five Loew's Wonder Theatres in the New York City area. Although the building is no longer in use as a movie theater, its facade and interior are preserved as New York City designated landmarks.
The Paradise Theater is composed of a lobby wing and a retail wing facing the Grand Concourse to the east, as well as an auditorium wing facing Creston Avenue to the west. The theater has an ornate terracotta facade on the Grand Concourse, with a multicolored Baroque–style frontispiece. The main facade originally also included a mechanical Seth Thomas clock and a sculpture of Saint George fighting a fire-breathing dragon. The other facades are simpler and made of brick. There are an outer lobby, foyer, and main lobby on the ground level, which are decorated with murals and sculptures. On the second story are a promenade, lounges, and balcony lobbies. The auditorium has 3,855 seats on two levels, with an elaborately decorated proscenium arch, walls, and ceilings. Like the other Wonder Theatres, the Paradise Theater featured a "Wonder Morton" theater pipe organ manufactured by the Robert Morton Organ Company, though the organ has since been removed.
A subsidiary of Paramount-Publix first acquired land for the theater in 1925, and Loew's Theatres took over the site in 1927. The Paradise Theater originally presented films and live shows. but the live shows were discontinued within five years of the theater's opening. The theater slowly declined after World War II, and the auditorium was subdivided three times in the 1970s and 1980s, becoming a multiplex with four screening rooms. The Paradise Theater closed in 1994 and was shuttered for over a decade. Following an unsuccessful renovation attempt led by Richard P. DeCesare, the theater was sold in 2003 to Gerald Lieblich, who completed the renovation. The theater reopened in 2005 as an event venue, and it was sold twice in the next four years. The Paradise was then leased in 2012 to the World Changers Church International New York, a local congregation, which vacated it in 2020. Plans to convert it to an arts center were announced in 2026.
Description The Paradise Theater is located at 2403 Grand Concourse in the Fordham neighborhood of the Bronx in New York City, New York. The theater was one of five Loew's Wonder Theatres in the New York City area, along with the Jersey Theatre in Jersey City, the 175th Street Theatre in Manhattan, the Valencia Theatre in Queens, and the Kings Theatre in Brooklyn. The Paradise and Valencia, along with the Lane Theater on Staten Island, are the only atmospheric theaters in New York City designed by John Eberson. Similarly to the Valencia Theatre, the Paradise is decorated in a Spanish style. The Paradise was also one of the last atmospheric theaters to be built.
The site covers about . It measures along the Grand Concourse to the east, along Creston Avenue to the west. The depth between the Grand Concourse and Creston Avenue facades is variously cited as or . The structure is divided into a three-story lobby section at the northeast corner of the site; a two-story retail section on the eastern edge of the site, south of the lobby section; and a three-story auditorium section on the western half of the site. The site is close to the Fordham Road station of the New York City Subway's Concourse Line (served by the ).
Facade
Grand Concourse On the Grand Concourse, the lobby section is accessed by a wide doorway, and there are storefronts on either side of the doorway. The doors are recessed from the street, and there is an open-air vestibule in front of the doors. The vestibule has marble walls with sign boards, in addition to a coffered ceiling. Above the wide doorway, a marquee formerly showed the names of films that were being screened at the Paradise. At the time of the theater's construction, zoning restrictions prohibited Loew's from adding a vertical sign there.
Above the doorway is a two-story-high Baroque–style frontispiece. The frontispiece is made of architectural terracotta, which is mostly cream-colored with blue and salmon-pink accents, and is topped by a curved pediment. The frontispiece includes a blue-and-cream panel with a sunburst motif and the words "Loew's Paradise Theater" in all-capital neon letters. On either side of the frontispiece are engaged pilasters in the Corinthian order, which separate the frontispiece from the side bays. Each of the side bays has a window with a balustrade, engaged columns, and a segmentally-arched pediment; there is also a cartouche with a flagpole above the pediment. Above the third story, there is a cornice, which consists of a parapet above the frontispiece and balustrades above the outer bays. The parapet has pedestals with urns, as well as a niche above the center bay. The niche includes a mechanical Seth Thomas clock. There was originally also a sculpture of Saint George on horseback, fighting a fire-breathing dragon; the Saint George sculpture moved every hour, slashing the dragon's neck. The sculptures of the dragon and Saint George have since been stolen, but Saint George's horse remains intact. There is air-conditioning equipment on the lobby section's roof.
To the south (left) of the lobby section is the two-story retail section, which is divided vertically into six bays and has a terracotta facade. The first-floor opening of the southernmost bay leads to an emergency stairway; there are corbels at both of the top corners of that opening. The rest of the first-floor openings have storefronts. In addition, there are ornamental marble panels above the first-story bays. On the second story of the retail section, each bay has a triple window, which is surrounded by a cream-colored terracotta frame with blue and salmon-pink accents. There are brackets flanking each window opening, which are decorated with bellflowers, jesters' heads, and swags. These brackets support cornices above each triple window, and there is a broken pediment above the central pane of each triple window. In addition, the bays are separated by pilasters, and there are cartouches with protruding shells and swags at the top of each pilaster. A cornice with dentils, as well as a parapet, run horizontally above the second story.
Other elevations
Behind the retail wing, the third story of the auditorium's eastern elevation is visible. The facade is clad with ocher and buff brick laid in Flemish bond, and there are quoins made of terracotta. There is a blind opening with a terracotta frame on the wall, in addition to a cartouche with swags, a cornice made of terracotta, and a parapet with urns and balustrades. The southern wall of the lobby section has a cream-colored terracotta facade, while the northern wall of the lobby section has a red-and-ocher brick wall.
On Creston Avenue, the first floor of the auditorium has an ocher-and-buff-brick facade laid in Flemish bond; the bricks are laid in a pattern resembling a rusticated stonework facade. Above the first story is a horizontal band course made of terracotta. The upper stories are also made of ocher-and-buff brick and are divided into five bays. Three of the bays have blind arches with terracotta frames; the bricks in these archways are laid in a diaper pattern, with protruding bricks that form diagonal lines. The spandrels, above the corners of each arch, have roundels made of marble. The other two bays each consist of three rectangular panels, the perimeters of which contain protruding bricks. The center panels of either bay have terracotta cartouches with swags and jesters' heads, as well as acroteria above the roofline. Atop the Creston Avenue facade is a terracotta band course with dentils, as well as a brick parapet.
Interior The Paradise Theater's interior spaces cover roughly and have an L-shaped layout. There are four levels; the ground story, the second story (at the bottom of the auditorium's balcony), the third-story mezzanine, and the top of the balcony. The interiors are designed in an Italian Baroque style, although Eberson was not inspired by any specific building. In general, the interior spaces are decorated in a red color palette, and they use woodwork extensively. Eberson had decided to use the Baroque style because, when the theater was being developed, it was supposed to be known as the Venetian.
The auditorium proper is accessed by three separate spaces: the outer lobby, foyer, and main lobby. The lobbies are oriented east to west, with the entrance to the east, and the main lobby to the west and perpendicular to the auditorium. Because the auditorium was located at the western or rear end of the site, on Creston Avenue, this freed up space for storefronts to the east, along the Grand Concourse. Each of the spaces uses different materials and decorations. Proceeding from east to west, the lobby spaces progressively become narrower. Exit-only stairs and passageways lead from the auditorium to either Creston Avenue or the Grand Concourse.
Ground-story spaces The entrance on the Grand Concourse leads directly to a rectangular, double-height outer lobby. The outer lobby's floor is made of rubber and is covered with mats, while the plaster walls are painted orange. The east wall has six pairs of doors leading to the Grand Concourse, above which is a loggia with five arches supported by intertwined pilasters and columns. The outer lobby's north and south walls are each three bays wide, and there is a railing on the north wall. The center bay on either wall has a display case made of brass, above which is a balcony and a portico, while the outer bays have stone decorations. The west wall has five pairs of doors leading to the foyer, above which is a portico with shells and twisted columns. The coffered ceiling is made of plaster and is painted in a green and brown-red color scheme; a chandelier hangs from the ceiling. There are three statues on the east, south, and west walls, and a bust of Benjamin Franklin on the south wall. The statue in the entrance lobby are likely inspired by a niche in Rome's Santa Maria della Vittoria.
The lower foyer is located between the outer lobby on the east and the main lobby on the west. The space is rectangular, with painted-plaster walls, in addition to doorways with wood moldings. The south wall includes a door to the easternmost aisle of the auditorium's orchestra level, which is topped by statues of a man and woman. The north wall has an elevator and staircase ascending to the promenade and upper foyer on the second story. The lower foyer has a low wooden ceiling decorated with moldings, as well as an oval mural at its center, which was painted by David Jermann in 1999. The lower foyer leads to the main lobby, another double-height space, to its west. A pair of pillars separate the lower foyer and main lobby.