22. Embassy Theater

The Embassy Theater opened on August 26, 1925 as an experiment by Loew’s Inc., which was a 556-seat movie theater meant for an exclusive high-class audience. As in the style of the previous theaters listed before this, it was known for its beautiful architecture, designed by Thomas Lamb.

In 1929, the theater reopened after being acquired by Guild Enterprises, and it became the first theater in the United States to have an all-newsreel format. By the 1950s, patronage began to decrease and the theater had to go back to a first-run movie theater showing feature films. In 1987, the Embassy was designated a New York City Landmark. Despite its notoriety, the theater closed in 1997, only to reopen in 1998 as the Times Square Visitor’s Center.