Nearly a century after it first invited the Bronx to dream beneath a sky full of stars, Paradise is getting another act.
There are theaters.
And then there are theaters that make you stop talking when you walk inside.
The Paradise is the second kind.
You enter expecting a building and discover that somebody apparently decided architecture needed a little drama.
Gilded balconies. Chandeliers. Ornate details. A sweeping staircase. And above it all, the great atmospheric ceiling that once transformed an evening at the movies into something closer to an evening somewhere in another world.
Because that was the idea.
When Loew’s Paradise opened on the Grand Concourse in 1929, you weren’t simply going to see a movie.
You were going to Paradise.
And nearly a century later, the Bronx is preparing to do it again.
Once Upon a Time on the Grand Concourse
Let’s go back to 1929.
The Grand Concourse was still relatively young, the Bronx was growing rapidly, and New York was in the middle of its great movie palace era. The Paradise had been conceived as one of Loew’s legendary Wonder Theatres, an extraordinary collection of movie palaces designed to make an ordinary night out feel like an occasion.
Then came architect John Eberson.
Eberson had a rather extraordinary idea about what a movie theater could be.
Why sit inside a theater when you could feel as though you were sitting outside in an Italian garden?
So he created an atmospheric theater.
The Paradise was designed to make you forget the city for a few hours. Its ceiling suggested an evening sky. Electric stars twinkled overhead. Clouds appeared to drift across the blue expanse. Architectural details evoked a Mediterranean courtyard.
In other words, someone in 1929 looked at the concept of going to the movies and said, “What if we made this fabulous?”
And fabulous it was.
The Paradise opened in September 1929 with a program combining film and live entertainment, complete with an orchestra and organ. The stage welcomed performers including Cab Calloway, Eddie Cantor, George Burns and Bob Hope. A 25-piece orchestra led by Don Albert helped make the Paradise part of New York’s major entertainment circuit.
The Bronx wasn’t getting a second-rate version of Manhattan.
It had arrived at the party with its own invitation.
And apparently, everyone wanted to come.
The Paradise became a major cultural destination on the Grand Concourse, drawing capacity crowds even during the Great Depression.
Think about that for a moment.
People were living through one of the most difficult economic periods in American history, and the Paradise was still giving them somewhere to go, somewhere to gather, somewhere to imagine.
That may be one of the most important things about theaters.
They don’t eliminate reality.
They give us a place to breathe before we return to it.
Then New York Changed
Of course, New York has never been particularly sentimental about keeping things exactly as they are.
Television arrived.
Suburbs grew.
Multiplexes appeared.
The movie business changed.
And by the 1960s, the Paradise was beginning to feel the pressure.
Its once magnificent interiors were deteriorating. Programming changed. The theater began showing multiple films. By the early 1970s, the great auditorium was subdivided.
And that is where the story could have ended.
Except it didn’t.
The Paradise proved to have something that New York’s best cultural institutions possess.
Stubbornness.
In 1973, the auditorium was divided into multiple screens. By the 1980s, much of the original interior was concealed. Then, in January 1994, the movie theater closed.
For a building that had once been designed to inspire awe, the future suddenly looked painfully ordinary.
There were proposals to repurpose the property. There were preservation battles. There was deterioration. There was even a devastating fire in 1996.
But Bronx residents, preservationists, elected officials and advocates refused to let the story disappear.
In 1997, the exterior was designated a New York City landmark.
Then came another battle.
Because saving the outside of the Paradise was not enough.
The soul was inside.
The Fight to Bring the Magic Back
Restoration began in earnest in the late 1990s, with efforts to remove the subdivisions and return the auditorium to its original grandeur.
It was not easy.
Historic restoration rarely is.
There were financial complications, delays, ownership changes and years of uncertainty.
But eventually, the Paradise opened again.
On October 29, 2005, it returned as a live event venue.
And in 2006, the interior itself received landmark designation.
The building had survived.
But history, as we know, has a funny way of asking the same question twice.
What are you going to do with this now?
Enter Paradise, Chapter Three
Which brings us to today.
The Paradise Performing Arts Center is preparing for a new chapter as a nonprofit performing arts center, with a mission that reaches far beyond preserving beautiful architecture.
The vision is not simply to restore a landmark. It is to make the landmark useful again.
Concerts.
Film.
Comedy.
Dance.
Family programming.
Immersive theater.
Education.
Community events.
A rooftop garden and performance space.
A restaurant overlooking the Grand Concourse.
A lobby lounge.
A storytelling booth.
And the possibility of bringing back the atmospheric experience of sitting beneath a star-filled Paradise sky.
Because a beautiful theater that nobody uses is a museum.
A beautiful theater filled with people is a living institution.
And the Paradise’s next act has the potential to be about much more than what happens onstage.
The Bronx Deserves Its Paradise
There is something wonderfully New York about the Paradise’s next chapter.
The theater sits at 2403 Grand Concourse, in the heart of the Bronx, and its future vision positions it as a destination for Bronx residents as well as visitors from across New York and beyond.
That matters because cultural tourism isn’t just about convincing people to visit a neighborhood.
It is about giving them a reason to stay.
Come for the performance.
Stay for dinner.
Explore the Grand Concourse.
Meet friends.
Bring the children.
See another show.
Tell somebody about it.
Come back.
That is how cultural destinations are created.
And that is how historic buildings become part of contemporary life rather than merely reminders of another era.
The Paradise’s vision also emphasizes partnerships with Bronx-based businesses and community organizations, connecting the theater’s revival to the economic life around it.
Which feels right.
A theater this grand should not exist on an island.
It should spill into the neighborhood.
The Next Generation Is the Real Grand Opening
Here’s the part that makes me especially excited.
The Paradise isn’t just talking about performances.
It is talking about education.
And that may ultimately be the most important piece of the entire revival.
Because imagine a child walking into the Paradise for the first time.
Maybe they’ve never seen an opera.
Maybe they’ve never sat through a symphony.
Maybe they’ve never watched a ballet.
Maybe they have never looked up at a historic ceiling and thought, “Someone built this for people like me.”
Then imagine that child seeing a performer walk onto the Paradise stage.
Suddenly the arts aren’t something happening somewhere else.
They’re happening here.
In the Bronx.
In their neighborhood.
In their city.
In their lifetime.
That is how cultural institutions create audiences.
Not by waiting for people to discover them.
By inviting people in.
A historic theater can preserve the past, but its future depends on the people who walk through its doors next. Young people who discover a love of music. Families who make a performance part of their tradition. Students who see a stage and begin to imagine themselves on it.
That is how a building becomes more than a landmark.
It becomes a home for possibility.
And Then There Is 2029
Now, if you are going to make a comeback, New York, you might as well give yourself a deadline.
2029 will mark the Paradise’s centennial.
One hundred years.
That is not a birthday.
That’s an event.
And it gives the Paradise something every great institution needs: a destination on the calendar.
Imagine what the next three years could look like.
New productions.
New audiences.
School partnerships.
Community programs.
Artists.
Musicians.
Actors.
Dancers.
Film.
Food.
History.
Bronx businesses.
Archival photographs.
Stories from people who remember the old Paradise.
And a new generation creating memories of its own.
The Paradise’s archive and memory-gathering efforts offer an opportunity to preserve photographs, films and personal stories, keeping the experiences of the people who know the theater alive for future generations.
Which brings us to perhaps the most beautiful idea of all.
The Paradise is not just preserving its history.
It is inviting people to add to it.
Because Paradise Was Never Really About the Building
This is where I think the story gets bigger.
Yes, the architecture is extraordinary.
Yes, John Eberson was a visionary.
Yes, the Paradise is one of the surviving Loew’s Wonder Theatres, a remarkable group of movie palaces built around the New York metropolitan area in the late 1920s and early 1930s.
Yes, the photographs are spectacular.
And please believe me, you are going to want to see the photographs.
But the Paradise was never really about plaster, chandeliers, balconies or a ceiling full of electric stars.
It was about what happened underneath them.
People met there.
They fell in love there.
Families went there.
Children became fascinated by movies there.
Artists performed there.
Communities gathered there.
New Yorkers celebrated there.
For almost a century, the building has been collecting human memories.
That is why saving the Paradise matters.
Not because New York needs another old building.
New York already has plenty of old buildings.
It matters because New York needs places where people can still make new memories.
And perhaps that is the secret to a successful restoration. You do not bring a place back to life by asking everyone to remember what it used to be. You bring it back by giving people a reason to imagine what it could become.
The Paradise has the architecture. It has the history. It has the stories.
Now comes the next chapter: filling those magnificent spaces with people, performances, conversations, discoveries and the occasional standing ovation.
So, Is Paradise Ready for Its Close-Up?
I think the better question is:
Are we?
Because the Paradise is preparing for a return that could be much bigger than a reopening.
It could become one of the great cultural destinations in the Bronx.
A place where the history of the Grand Concourse meets the future of New York performance.
A place where a child can discover the arts.
Where an artist can find a stage.
Where a family can spend an evening.
Where visitors can experience something they cannot get from a screen at home.
And where the Bronx gets to say something that New York should never have forgotten:
We have our own grand stages.
The Paradise has already survived a lot.
The Depression.
Changing technology.
Changing neighborhoods.
Subdivision.
Closure.
Fire.
Financial uncertainty.
Restoration.
And time itself.
Now, nearly one hundred years after its first curtain, Paradise is preparing for another act.
And perhaps the most fitting thing about the story is this:
The theater was designed to make people believe they had entered another world.
Nearly a century later, the goal may be even more wonderful.
To create a place where people can come back to this world…
and find a little more wonder in it.
Welcome back, Paradise.
We’ve been waiting.
Question of the Day
If you could step back in time and experience one legendary night at the Paradise Theatre, what would you want to see, hear, or experience?
Stay in the Mood
Some places hold history. Others make history feel alive. The Paradise Theatre has done both. As the Bronx prepares for the next chapter of this extraordinary landmark, the question isn’t whether Paradise will return. It’s what kind of memories we’re going to make there next. Here’s to grand stages, big dreams, and leaving a little room for wonder.
Mood Magazine. Mind. Body. Spirit. Culture. Harlem to the world.
