Penway Theatre
1800 State Street,
Harrisburg,
PA
17103
1800 State Street,
Harrisburg,
PA
17103
2 people
favorited this theater
Showing 26 - 46 of 46 comments
Jan Seidel will really enjoy reading this description and the great commnets about The Penway. I certainly did ! The 2 of us went regularly. (She married an usher, Nelson Hardy.I think it was the usher uniform that attracted her! LOL) Ushers wore UNIFORMS.
From mid 40’s to mid 50’s I lived at 1618 Liberty. Jan lived at 1618 State St. We still send emails several times a week.! Saturday matinee was 12 cents. Ice cream Sundaes at Peffer’s were great… triangular chair seats fit under the round ice cream tables.) George King was a Sodajerk for awhile. There was a place to park our bikes
at the Penway too.
…..Maybe Jan has some photos of the Penway marque?
gfradar..drop me an email..I would like to talk with you more about the Penway and the Valle. Email me at
Thank you gfradar. I would be interested in seeing those pictures. I would really like to see a picture of the Penway. I really like your story. Please tell us some more.
I was born in 1951 AFA related to Coghland, That name is not familiar. AFA McClintock I am not sure, unless they had Martin, Handley, Creason or Yhost somewhere in there heritage. When I was little mid 50’s I remember my mom, my aunt, my grandmother and another lady doing the Tickets at the Penway theater. My mom and grandmother (Yhost) had dark hair with reddish tint. My aunt had silver hair. My dad and Uncles took the Tickets and managed inside. cousins and others manned the candy and popcorn. We moved out of the upstairs apartment about 1956.
I appreciated the photo. I tried to upload one of my own but the website won’t allow right now. Something about a new upgrade. I also wanted to place photos of Valle, Grand & Roxy theaters. Have to look thru some OLD photo albums of Mom’s for decent pictures. You know how it is, where you live and work is usually ignored and all the pictures are of vacations etc.
My fondest memory, was of playing hide & seek during summer afternoons with friends, while mom worked in the office. Theater was so dark you couldn’t see your hands in from of your face and only light was from the office. It was cool in there. There weren’t to many places that were air conditioned then.
The Penway was my grandfathers Pride-n-joy. He died in late 50’s early 60’s and my grandmother took over then.
Gfradar – Do you remember an attractive red-haired lady who sold tickets at the Penway, probably late 1940s?
I used to watch parades on State when I lived on Liberty St. (one block down from the Penway).
It was the first theater I attended and one of my all-time favorites. Did you see the photo on my blog?
Gfradar….I liked reading your posting….Then you were related to Mel McClintock and Margaret Coghland?
My Mom’s step father owned all of them (Yhost enterprises) He started with the Paramount in Mechanicsburg and my entire family, Aunts, Uncles, and cousin’s lived, worked and played in all of them. This was a real family operation. I never went into the Roxy or Grand but lived near them later. We lived above the Penway (the way to Penbrook) along with my mom’s step parents in the 50’s. My mom real mother was the sister of her step mom and she lived above the Valle in Mechanicsburg and the projectionist at the Penway was Dort Koffhold. I think he started in the 1940’s but know the 50’s, 60’s and into the 70’s and probably earlier. The Drugstore was Ray Peffers. It had a small soda fountain. My dad had one of the businesses in the office space on the other side in the 50’s and 60’s “Martin & McMillan Insurance”. I remember standing on that Marque watching a circus parade down State St. Running thru the Projection room to go downstairs to get popcorn. The Penway also had what we called “a peep hole” from our apartment upstairs into the theater where we could watch the movie from the comfort of our dining room. I also remember sitting on the Marque of the Valey watching Parades. They were my childhood in the 50’s and 60’s and even into the early 70’s. I still go to the neighborhood theater near me (West Shore in New Cumberland) on almost a weekly basis. It still has the family atmosphere I remember from the Penway & Valle of my childhood. Many many found memories!
If my memory is correct. The entrance doors leading from the outside into the Penway were solid wood doors. Much like the doors on the Valle in Mechanicsburg.
Chuck you can email me at
We all miss Jim,,, Chuck my e-mailk is ask anything I will gladly help if I can, even Pittsburgh, theatres and alot all over the Country…. Norelco
I can help you to Chuck, I was a projectionist at every one of them, one more thing the Valle and the Penway were pretty much laid out the exact same way, lobbys auditoriums, seats and projectors were identical, Standard Simplex and Peerless Magnarc lamps RCA Mono sound. When we took over the Grand there was a standard Simplex head in the booth, nothing else just the head… And that was also set up the same as the other 2 lobbies, and auditoriums…
Chuck, I have added my e-mail address to my profile. I don’t have time to do write-ups myself but I’m always happy to add what information or thoughts I have to someone else’s.
That is really cool Chuck..Do you happen to have any pictures of those theatres?
Thanks for all of your contributions Chuck and for keeping Jim’s work alive. I miss him.
Seating at the Penway was 812 according to a 1955 Film Daily yearbook in my collection, which sounds more accurate than 512. I remember how attractive the marquee of this theater was at night, even into the 1970s. Sadly, it really got beat up and ugly toward the last. The Penway ran black exploitation films, some first-run, in the 70s. It’s last gasp was running Christian films. I remember seeing a newspaper ad for it. No theater name. It just said “Christian Movies,” and the current feature was “The Grim Reaper.” (I wonder if the candy counter stocked Red Devils during that one? Ha-ha.) I don’t think the Christian format lasted long and in 1986 it was made into a CVS drug store. Today it houses a social service organization called Rejoice Inc. The marquee is completely gone but if you know what you’re looking for you can see that it was once a theater, one of the nicest neighborhood houses in the area.
Chuck 1800 State sounds right.
Yellow neon as well I do think.
John, yes, that is my mother and I at the end of the line. I was about six or seven when my dad took this photo. This is looking up State St. towards Progress.
There is a caption under the blog photo that gives some more details about it and the Penway.
You can see the frame for the poster display window to the left of the picture.
I do seem to remember purple neon. Wish I had a color photo.
Photo of the Penway:
View link
Ross..I looked at your blog and seen the picture of the Penway..I take it that is you and your mom at the tail end of the line?
Ross, thank you for your posting. The building is still there, used for offices of some kind. Let me jog your memory..The marquee, didn’t it have some purple neon on it?