Mayfair Theatre

In 1927, the J.C. Deagon Company installed a 10 tone bell at this theater. Of the 425 or so worldwide installations, only 2 were at theaters: this one & a 20 tone bell at the Roxy in NY. Pretty impressive company!
Both bells were demolished with their respective theaters.

Vincent;
Local citizen’s formed a committee to save the Mayfair and offered to buy the theatre from the Walter Reade organisation. However after lengthy negotiations, all offers were rejected. The asking price was reported to be $300,000. City officials said that the Mayfair owed over $45,000 in back taxes as well as the adjacent St James Theatre, also operated by Walter Reade, which was also included in the demolition plans. It was reported that the St James Theatre was not as old or attractive as the Mayfair and there had been no move by citizens to preserve that theatre.

I am presuming that both theatres were demolished at the same time.

The Mayfair Theatre opened in 1926, closed in September 1973 and was demolished in 1974.

The balcony was already closed when I was here, and a drop ceiling over the orchestra, with no access to the ceiling that I could find. I would have loved to have seen the atmospherics, or what may have been left of them.

Checking out the site 70mm in NY it looks like My Fair Lady was at the St James and not the Lyric like I thought(they were only a block apart.) So what was playing at the Lyric in this summer of ‘65?

“I was amazed to read that the Lyric is still standing(it was playing My Fair Lady when I was a boy in ‘65 at $4.00 a seat!!I know that because my aunt went to see it there as it was the only thing they could get tickets to that evening. No wonder.) It is called the Park and is now a porno house.”

Sorry to report that this too is closed and it looks like demolition is at hand. The neighboring Palace Amusements building is now a pile of rubble, and this theater’s exit doors are boarded up.

I visited this last summer, and many architectural elements and posters advertising old Asbury Park cinemas were still visible inside.

In the above link, reprinted here, http://www.asburyboardwalk.com/pic/mayfair/m1.htm you can see the Lyric in the bottom image, directly to the right of the Mayfair. It still looks the same, but with marquee and signage.

If you want an in-person look you’d better hurry because its days seem numbered.

Thanks very much Asbury Park though it would be heartbreaking to take this virtual tour. I can’t tell you how beautiful this town still was in the 60’s(Atlantic City too, the Traymore was beyond belief.) The Asbury politicians of the 70’s should face criminal prosecution.

There is a beautiful vintage postcard of the Mayfair at night. It would be great if somebody could find it and post it. The Mayfair was located near though not on the boardwalk. It was situated next to the Saint James and a block away from the Lyric. These were all elegant first run theaters.I saw Cinderella at the Mayfair and later I saw Hello Dolly at the St. James. I returned to Asbury Park in the late ‘70s and it was a ghost town by then(what was it with the '70’s?) and the Mayfair and the St. James had become parking lots. I was amazed to read that the Lyric is still standing(it was playing My Fair Lady when I was a boy in '65 at $4.00 a seat!!I know that because my aunt went to see it there as it was the only thing they could get tickets to that evening. No wonder.) It is called the Park and is now a porno house. What about it Asbury Park? Does anyone want to save one of the few splinters left of its devastated history?