In the 1920s and 1930s, painter Reginald Marsh depicted scenes from the seedy side of the city: burlesque-show floozies, Bowery bums, and life’s other bit players—including these characters hanging around the Lyric Theater on 42nd Street.
“20 Cent Movie” dates back to 1936. Marsh was also drawn to Coney Island; he painted a number of carnivalesque beach and boardwalk scenes similar to this one.
Tags: " 1930s painters, "20 Cent Movie, 1930s New York painters, Ashcan School, Lyric Theater, Reginald Marsh, Social Realism painters
Ephemeral New York 
November 7, 2009 at 1:17 pm |
Can just imagine what went on inside with people sitting next to each other, ooo la la…
November 9, 2009 at 4:24 am |
My dad’s in his 80s, and he remembers when movies were 10 cents. He said there was nearly a riot when movie palaces like the Loews and the Stanley in Jersey City, NJ raised their prices to 11 cents!
November 9, 2009 at 4:34 am |
And I think for 10 cents you got a feature and a bunch of shorts too. Quite a bargain!
November 9, 2009 at 3:26 pm |
including warner brothers cartoons – on the big screen!
March 5, 2010 at 3:47 pm |
[…] had a thing for the seedy side of New York, like this Times Square theater scene he painted in […]
June 18, 2012 at 5:13 pm |
[…] paintings typically feature the city’s marginalized Depression-era outcasts. ”What interested Marsh was not the individuals in a crowd, but the crowd itself … In […]
May 21, 2018 at 4:40 am |
[…] Reginald Marsh shot these images. He’s better known as an artist of the 1920s to 1940s who was drawn to the city’s seedy underbelly along the Bowery, at Times Square, and on Coney Island. […]