Cascade Picture Palace

After having spent a number of years researching this topic, I thought I would share some information I have learned. Youngstown had 20 moving picture theaters in 1907, so the Warners decided to open their’s in New Castle where there was little to no competition. Their first theatre, the Cascade Theatre, was located at 15 S. Mill in a store front that was once part of the Knox Inn. It opened February 2, 1907. A second theatre opened by the Warner Bros., the Bijou, was located two doors away at 11 S. Mill and opened within 30 days later. It was short lived and was closed by the end of August 1907. A third theatre, the Cascade Vaudeville, was opened by the Warners above the Cascade at 15-17 S. Mill on November 19, 1907. The Warners sold their interests in both theaters in New Castle to Dan Robin’s upon the opening of the vaudeville theater. They left the area in November 1907 to run their distribution business in Pittsburgh and Norfolk. When they were forced out of business by the Edison Trust, they sold it and returned to Youngstown. It was then that they took over the Old Grand in the summer of 1910 for vaudeville and photoplays. Using money from the sale of their distribution business Harry bought his parents a large grocery store at 323 E. Federal. In December 1911 Harry Warner and David Robins (Dan’s brother) built the Rex Theatre at 135 W. Federal Youngstown and used films left over from the distribution business. The Bijou, 4 W. Federal, in Youngstown was originally owned and built by George Olnhausen in 1907. In 1911 the Robins Brothers purchased it from the then owners Paul Fitch and Walter Hanitch. Harry and Dan Robins owned the Lyric for a few years at 277 W. Fed. from at least 1909-1911.The Dome was built by Christopher W. Deibel (as well as four successive theaters also named the Dome). The last one he built was in 1912. (He also owned the Liberty.) David M. Robins had taken over the Dome by 1926 and it was one of three of the first theaters in the US wired for sound in 1928. In 1921 Ben Warner (the boy’s father) was operating the Roma Theatre in Youngstown. Then of course the Warner Theatre opened in Youngstown in 1931.

Looks like Warner Film Center let the domain name lapse and it has been taken over by a spam site.

If you will go yo the Youngstown page, you will find that there were movie theaters here as early as 1906, and as was stated earlier, the Warner brothers were involved in at least the first two to show movies, one of which was the Grand Opera House hardly a store front movie. they were also involved financially in at least three other downtown theaters before building the Warner Theater. Now I do not wish to come off as a snob, or throw cold water on the people of New Castle, but facts are facts … the Warner family was from Youngstown … the family owned businesses in Youngstown … and the brothers were deeply involved in Youngstown’s theater live long before they opened their little theater in New Castle.

The Warnere Film Center / Cascade Picture Palace Theatre is now on Facebook and Twitter in addition to the website: www.warnerfilmcenter.org. Everyone is invited to check out and share these links with other cinema fans.

Jack, whether the Cascade has a shot at having been the first twin theater or not depends on now early in 1907 it opened. The Twin Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia, opened in February, 1907. It’s the earliest two-screen house I’ve come across so far, but there might have been earlier ones. As many early movie theaters were located in converted store buildings, and the larger of those were often divided by supporting columns, the idea of partitioning the space into two rooms could have occurred to a number of theater operators.

Movie Memories, Part 5: Once upon a time, the city was filled with nickelodeons Dan Irwin 05/24/2013 9:12 AM

At least three of New Castle’s earliest movie theaters were ravaged by fire. But if you were a patron in those days, smoke might not have been the only smell to send you running into the streets. A fog of perfume might have done the trick as well. During the first couple decades of the 20th century, the city’s movie theaters were more aptly termed “nickelodeons.” “People would come in, and the entire program would only last about 20 minutes,” explained Jack Oberleitner, a New Castle native and owner of Oberleitner & Associates, a cinema consulting firm. “So people would come in, pay a nickel – maybe on Saturday night it went up to a dime – and they would watch anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes of film. “Then management would do whatever they could to get the people out.” Why? So they could sell the seats again for the next show. “At the Cascade (the Mill Street theater that was the Warner Brothers’ first), they had Jack Warner, who was the youngest, go up front and start to sing – which he couldn’t do,” Oberleitner said. “In The Dome (on East Washington Street), the manager would start spraying perfume. At the Nixon (later the Victor, also in East Washington), they were renowned for telling the projectionist to start speeding up the film so people would get disgusted and walk out. Then they could sell more nickel tickets.”

EARLY SHOWS While longtime New Castle residents no doubt have pleasant memories of such former downtown theaters as the Penn, the Victor or the Vogue, few, if any, remain to recall the heyday of early 1900s movie houses like the Cascade, the Coliseum, the Opera House or the Dome. Enter Jack Oberleitner. Oberleitner’s been in the movie business since 1959, when he took his first job as an usher in the now-defunct Victor Theater, which his father managed. Though he’ll soon be retiring from his consulting firm, he’s joined the board of directors of a group attempting to recreate the Warner Brothers’ theater, even making a $100,000 donation to the effort. But it was that first job at the Victor that enabled Oberleitner to begin acquiring a wealth of knowledge about New Castle movie theaters that had come and gone before most of today’s residents were born. “A lot of the people who owned and managed the theaters were people that (my father) knew, so it was almost a social event whenever we would go to a movie,” Oberleitner said. “It was obligatory at that time that you always had to stop and talk with the manager, compare notes and ‘How’s business?’ and, of course, business was always lousy. You could have a full house and they’d still say it was lousy. “In the late ’50s, there were still a lot of old projectionists and stage hands that had been around in the glory days of the ’20s and ’30s. And I routinely used to go to them and pick their brains about what it was like to work at the Coliseum Theater, or the Opera House or the Capitol Theater, which were pretty big deals at one point.” Indeed, Oberleitner recalled, in the days before Internet, television and even radio, movies themselves were a sensation. “Almost every Saturday there was a parade of people that used to start at The Diamond and walk up one side of Washington Street and visit all the theaters, going up to the Vogue Theater looking at the pictures of the posters and such,” he said. “At any given time, there were probably a couple thousand people making the circuit.”

ORIGINAL SCREEN SCENE Given that the Cascade is part of the foundation of the Warner Brothers empire — and that efforts to restore it have been afloat for some time now — it undoubtedly is the most talked-about theater that none of those having the conversation ever saw. The Warners actually began showing movies in the back room of a funeral parlor further along East Washington Street. At various points it was called the Bijou and the Pioneer. When other nickelodeons began to open along East Washington Street, the Warners opened the Cascade Movie Palace on Mill Street in 1907, a few doors down from the funeral home. The theater lasted a few years before the Warners moved on to other interests. However, Oberleitner notes, New Castle did have other theaters operating at the same time, such as the Acme — which, ironically, was right next door to the Warner Brothers. Also nearby were the Coliseum, the Opera House and others. “The Acme was like a penny arcade that had a little room to show seven-, eight-, nine-minute long featurettes,” Oberleitner said. “The Coliseum was more or less across the street on Mill Street. It actually had a couple thousand seats. It was built like an indoor arena, thereby the name. “It was an open floor area that had bleacher-style seats. They put on a circus, they put on polo matches, vaudeville acts, they showed movies – anything they could get to draw in a crowd. At one point, they even flooded the place and had water polo.” One block west on South Mercer Street, the Opera House opened circa 1900 in a remodeled, second-floor public meeting room. A wooden structure, it eventually was damaged by fire, Oberleitner said, after which a full-fledged movie palace – The Capitol – opened on the same site in the early 1920s. It boasted between 1,200 and 1,500 seats, Oberleitner said, and presented a combination of films and vaudeville acts. The latter included an appearance by a then-relative unknown by the name of Bob Hope. “It was a really lavish theater, very pretty – sort of a smaller version of The Cathedral,” Oberleitner said of the Capitol, which like the Opera House, closed for good following a devastating blaze. “And an interesting bit of trivia,” Oberleitner notes, “was that the movie they were advertising as ‘coming next’ on their marquee was ‘Fireman Save My Child.’ ” Oberleitner believes that the Moravia (1903 to 1906) may have been New Castle’s first theater. “(It) was one of many makeshift nickelodeons that sprang up everywhere around the turn of the century,” he said. “As told to me by a pioneer projectionist, the Moravia Theatre was constructed out of sheet metal which made the building very vulnerable to both heat and cold. The auditorium consisted of a single crank projector and a screen of sorts on the opposite wall. “Barely more than a sideshow attraction, the projectionist would shuffle through a few travelogues or novelty reels, each lasting five to seven minutes.”

NAME CHANGES Some other early New Castle theaters eventually morphed into entities that some folks today may still remember. The Park, for instance, opened on East Washington Street near The Diamond around the turn of the 20th century, “a small, live theater with about 500 seats,” Oberleitner said. It was remodeled and renamed The Regent in the mid- to late 1920s, according to cinematreasures.org, and showed mostly “B westerns and pictures by companies like Republic and Monogram,” Oberleitner said. At the other end of East Washington was The Dome, built in 1907. It transformed multiple times, becoming the Paramount in the 1940s, the Vogue in the 1950s and the New Vogue in the 1960s. It was then closed for several years before it was remodeled and reopened in 1968 as The Cinema. Other early movie theaters about which little information exists include The Baltimore Strand, on Long Avenue; The Theatorium at 114 E. Washington; The Star at 120 E. Washington; and Dreamland, 15 S. Mill St. (Email: )

Movie Memories, Part 3: The Hi-Lander and Cinema theaters were the last two New Castle movie houses to go darkDan Irwin 05/22/2013 3:52 AM

Although the downtown once was dotted with movie theaters, one of the last to close was well up the North Hill. The 750-seat Hi-Lander opened in 1952, the result of a joint effort by two pairs of area drive-in owners: Al Tate and John Wincek (Highway 51 near Darlington, and John Favorite and Joe Glorioso (Blue Sky near Zelienople). It was one of just three New Castle theaters — the others being the Penn and the Regent — equipped to project 3D movies, according to Richard Kalata, a New Castle native and former local projectionist now living in New Jersey. “It was very modern for the time, with a 12-seat smoke room on the left side of the projection room and a baby cry room on the right side,” recalled Kalata, who also worked projection rooms at the Hi-Lander and various other local theaters. “The theater was the only local one to have a curtain,” Kalata said, as well as “a giant, panoramic screen and four-track magnetic stereo sound with surround.” However, he noted, the latter was not often used “because of extra rental cost and availability of magnetic prints.” Kalata recalled movie star Aldo Ray visiting the Hi-Lander in 1955 to promote one of his films, as well as a “giant trailer” being placed outside the theater as a tie-in with the 1953 Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz comedy “The Long Long Trailer.” Meanwhile, Kalata’s cousin, Dave — also a former projectionist — recalled a rather obscure “world premiere” that took place at the Hi-Lander on May 10, 1967. The film was called “Conception 3,” and one of its stars was a Bia Corisss. Neither the movie nor the star pops up in almost any Internet search you care to try. The movie’s male lead, Edson Stroll, can be found in connection with other roles he inhabited — such as crewman Virgil Edwards on TV’s “McHale’s Navy” and Prince Charming in the film “Snow White and the Three Stooges” — but not linked to anything by the name of “Conception 3.” Nonetheless, the event featured appearances by WIIC (now WPXI) personalities Bill Cardille and By Williams, as well as Corisss herself. “The basis (of the film) was a young Amish man leaves to see what the real world was like and he gets into a lot of trouble,” recalled Dave Kalata, who was working as a Hi-Lander usher and candy seller at the time. “They only ran it one time, and I don’t think it ever was released, and I’ve never seen anything on it.” North Hill resident Leo Mickey, the Hi-Lander’s final manager, said that as the theater approached its end, some thought was given to converting it to a multi-screen cineplex, but those plans were scrapped when it was discovered that the cost would have been prohibitive. Today, the velvety red seats — which slid back when you sat down — remain in the Hi-Lander’s dark, musty auditorium, looked down upon by a tattered screen and twinkles of light squeezing through rusting double doors and a perforated rear wall. The concession stand — including the popcorn machine — is still in place, and 1950s-era signs remain to mark the former restrooms and the cry room. On what were once exterior walls flanking the now-missing box office, movie posters in glass wall cases still exhort nonexistent customers to consider buying boxes of candy or Cinemette Theaters gift certificates.

THE CINEMA No such trappings remain of the Cinema, the East Washington Street theater that showed its first feature in 1968, closed in the late 1980s and was razed in 2007 — 100 years after the building first opened as The Dome in the silent film era. The theater changed several times after that, to the Paramount in the 1940s, then to the Vogue and New Vogue in the ’50s and ’60s, when it and the nearby Victor were run by the Fry family, according to New Castle native and cinema consulting firm owner Jack Oberleitner. Both theaters, Oberleitner said, were run “as 50 cent admission, double-feature, sub-runs, and both were closed in the early 1960s.” The Vogue, though, got one last chance to shine when the Penn Theater closed in 1968. “To maintain a first-run presence in New Castle after the well-known Penn Theater was closed, Associated Theaters of Pittsburgh bought and hastily remodeled the Vogue, once again changing simply to the Cinema,” said Oberleitner, owner of the cinema consulting firm Oberleitner & Associaties. “They completely gutted the old Vogue Theater and did a nice job of renovating a place that was pretty run down. The Vogue had the smallest screen in the city of New Castle — only seven feet wide. When they put in the Cinema, they put in a big screen.” The Dome also had lacked restrooms, which eventually were installed behind the screen. At the Cinema, though, patrons had to climb a flight of steps to the second floor, where the facilities were located across from the projection room. The Cinema held its grand opening Nov. 22, 1968, with the New Castle premier of “2001: A Space Odyssey.” According to an ad that day in the New Castle News, the theater featured “foam rubber seats spaced for adequate leg room … (the) last word in year round gas air conditioning and heating … Rich blue and green carpeting,” which was “wall to wall” and even “under the seats” … “inside modern box office (the Vogue’s box office had been outside the main doors)” … and “attractive restrooms” including a “comfortable ladies lounge (with) full-length mirror and dressing table.”

Movie Memories, Part 1: Victor one of many long-gone local theatersDan Irwin 05/20/2013 11:12 AM

If you ever found footprints on the toilet seat at the Penn Theater, blame Dave Kalata. Kalata, a New Jersey resident and New Castle native, once worked at as a projectionist at the now-defunct North Mercer Street cinema, as well as at others around the New Castle and Youngstown area. But before that, he was simply a kid who loved going to the movies. “I don’t know how many times I went into the Penn Theater for their Saturday morning cartoons,” Kalata said of the movie house that sat on lots now occupied by Huntington Bank’s drive-through. “They would normally empty out the theater before the main feature; maybe it was starting at 4 or 4:30, something like that. “I would tell a couple of the other guys I went with, ‘I’m going to stay and see the other show.’ ‘But it’s going to cost you 25 cents,’ or whatever it was. I said ‘It’s OK, let me see what I can do.’ ” At that point, Kalata would head to the restroom, enter a stall and stand on the toilet seat. He’d wait while an usher cleaned the facility and until he could hear people starting to enter the theater again. “Then I would walk out and walk into the auditorium with them,” he said.

MOVIE MEMORIES Chances are, if you were born anytime between the late 1920s and the 1990s, you, too, have memories of heading into downtown New Castle to see a film. It was an era that ended in 2003 with the closing of The Cinema, which stood next to the New Castle Beauty School on East Washington Street. Others that folks still alive today may recall include the Victor, the Vogue and Paramount (pre-Cinema theaters in the same building) and the Regent, all on East Washington. Theaters beyond the downtown area included the Hi-Lander (the building still exists on Highland Avenue), the State (on Long Avenue, now the New Castle Playhouse), the Crescent (at the corner of Liberty and Madison avenues in Mahoningtown) and even the auditorium of the Scottish Rite Cathedral. In Union Township, the Super Castle (where Walmart is today) and the Skyline (behind the Parkstown Restaurant) held sway with drive-in aficionados. Each had a personality nowhere to be found in today’s generic multiplexes. Take, for instance, the Victor.

THE VICTOR Originally The Nixon when it opened in 1918, the Victor – located next to the former Lawrence Savings & Trust Building on the north side of East Washington Street, between Mill and East streets – had no restrooms. That, Jack Oberleitner noted, was common in early 20th century nickelodeons, since programs generally lasted on about 30 minutes. Oberleitner owns a cinema consulting firm, Oberleitner & Associates, but his first job was as an usher at The Victor, which his father managed. The Dome – which opened in 1907 and ended up as The Cinema after incarnations as the Paramount, the Vogue and the New Vogue – also lacked comfort facilities, Oberleitner said. “That became a problem by the late 1920s and ’30s, when movies had become more like the full-length features we know today,” Oberleitner explained. “Now they needed restrooms. But these places were originally converted storerooms and they really didn’t have a place for restrooms. So both the Dome and the Victor put the restrooms in the same place: behind the screen. That was the only open space.” Signs on either side of the screen were revised to say “Exit/Men” or “Exit/Women” to point out the restrooms – which wasn’t always a good thing. “Routinely, some lady would be walking down the aisle and kids would start chanting, ‘We know where you’re going,’ ” Oberleitner said. “Eventually, they renovated the Dome, but the Victor was like that until the day it closed. So when the Penn Theater came along in the late ’20s and had restrooms in the lobby, and they were more than makeshift, that was a big deal.” Oberleitner said that the Victor never had a concession stand, either, until the 1950s. Its auditorium had the shape of a “squared off pork chop,” he added, with one section of seats having 10 to 12 more rows than the other. The Victor closed in 1951 for seven years before reopening with a concession stand and double- and triple-features of second-run films. “You could go there to see three science fiction pictures or three westerns for 50 cents for adults and a quarter for kids,” Oberleitner said. “It had the cheapest popcorn in town, a dime. Everybody else’s was 15 cents.” David Victor – who had purchased the Nixon and renamed it for himself – ran the theater from about 1930 to 1947. During that time, he also was running movies at the Scottish Rite Cathedral. When the Victor finally went dark in the early 1960s, downtown New Castle suddenly was a little less bright as well. “It had a three-sided marquee with hundreds of tiny bulbs,” Oberleitner recalled. “It was a beautiful nighttime feature on New Castle’s main shopping street.” (Tomorrow: Get your tickets for a visit to the State Theater)

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Fantastic News! The Cascade will be reborn in Feb. 2014! The Warner Film Center has reached agreement with the building owners on 3000 sq. ft. of space that will house two new cinemas a gift shop and a historically-accurate replica of the 1907 Warner Theater. The space is a donation from Dr. Andrew Matta and Refresh Dental Associates to the Warner group. The building will also house 2 restaurants and retail space on the first floor. It will be a must see for theater fans everywhere! Oberleitner Associates, www.cinema-consultant.com served as the chief negotiator for this project.

We won’t be able to get a good Google Street View, as it looks like the camera truck didn’t go down South Mill. Bing Maps has a decent Bird’s-eye view.

Many people in the community have refused to see the Cascade Picture Palace and its important part of movie history fade from memory. A non-profit, 501 c3 corporation is established and with it comes new efforts launcing to recreate the original Warner theatre along with a museum featuring ever-changing displays commemorating the Warner Brothers, New Castle and the development of the motion picture business. The site is now recognized as a national historic location. Through the efforts of the team of Trustees and advisers, WFC hopes to educate and entertain visitors to the Warner Film Center about the early ‘glory’ days of this unique community as well as the contribution the Warner family made to the area and the world. The WFC is currently soliciting memberships and corporate sponsors. They are also seeking photographs and memorabilia that might be used in the museum displays. This is a true labor of love! The current Board of Trustees include Jerry Kerns, President, John Meyer, Bill Zeiger Audrey Przybylski, all of New Castle, and Jack Oberleitner, www.cinema-consultant.com. of Dayton, OH.

The historical marker for the Cascade Theatre is at 11-15 S. Mill Street, according to this web page. I don’t know if that means the theater was at that exact address or not, but as it was a very small house it might well have been located in a storefront on the side street.

I think that is a side street that intersects with E. Washington Street. Although the Neisner Building, which housed the theatre, runs along Mill Street, it fronts on E. Washington Street. The restaurant at the same location was named The Mill Street Grill with a side entrance. So the question is: did the theatre front on E. Washington of on Mill Street to the side? Maybe someone else will know.