Westwood Cinema

teecee on June 9, 2005 at 5:38 am

The Record (Bergen County, NJ), Feb 4, 1997 pL1
PASCACK THEATER GETTING FACE LIFT; NEW PAINT, SOUND SYSTEM. (NEWS) Paul Rogers.
Full Text: COPYRIGHT 1997 Bergen Record Corp.

By PAUL ROGERS, Staff Writer

Ever since a spiffy crowd filed under its bright marquee to see “The Skyscraper,” starring William Boyd, on Aug. 30, 1928, the Pascack Theater has stood as a landmark in downtown Westwood.

Generations of moviegoers have lost themselves for an afternoon or an evening at the art deco cinema on Center Avenue, transfixed by giant images of the stars of the day, from Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford to Tom Cruise and Meryl Streep.

James Ransom, 84, remembers taking the woman who would become his wife, Ada Mead, to see shows there after graduating from Ridgewood High School in 1930: “That was a favorite spot back then for fellows to take their dates.”

Today, 12 years after it was converted from a single-screen theater to a modern “fourplex,” and nearly 70 years after it opened as a venue for vaudeville and film, the venerable Pascack is receiving a face lift.

Spiros Papas of North Arlington purchased the theater from United Artists in December and has begun to spruce it up. He has had the walls and bannisters painted pink and magenta, improved the sound system, and placed curtains at the sides of the screens to eliminate blank white borders.

Papas, who said he bought the brick movie house for $1.5 million, plans to adorn the now-undecorated lower marquee with the theater’s name, wraparound yellow lights, and a brass frame. He said he will replace a marquee above it with a new one that will list current showings.

Borough officials say they are pleased that the Pascack is being renovated. As a “gesture of goodwill,” the Parking Authority has reduced the amount it charges the theater for permitting customers to park in a metered, municipal lot a few doors away, said Administrator Charles Bellon. Papas will pay $200 for a six-month trial period, compared with the $500-a-month fee paid by United Artists.

Some Westwood residents, however, worry that the changes being made to the theater could destroy what few reminders remain of its earliest days.

“Nobody is denying that it’s got to be upgraded,” a longtime resident said. “But we are afraid that he doesn’t understand a lot of the interior – the art deco – and the history.”

But Papas, who owns a theater in North Arlington and one in Wayne, said the renovations will be made with the original architecture in mind. “We’d like to upgrade the theater but also keep it the way it’s supposed to be,” he said.

The theater was built at the end of the silent-film era, when ornate movie houses were being constructed across the country to meet the growing popularity of motion pictures. The Depression had yet to arrive.

“Theater owners made a lot of money during World War I, so they started investing it quite widely in those palaces in the early and mid-Twenties, and we see them being refurbished all over the country, if they haven’t been destroyed,” said George Stoney, a professor of film at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

In North Jersey, many old cinemas that became unprofitable have been demolished or converted to other uses. Among them are the Oritani in Hackensack, the Queen Anne in Teaneck, and the Sharon in Fort Lee.

Others remain, like the Pascack, the Highway in Fair Lawn, and the Bellevue in Upper Montclair.

More common these days are multiplex theaters, many of them in shopping malls, which account for about 90 percent of the state’s 800 movie screens, said Jesse Sayegh, president of the New Jersey chapter of the National Association of Theater Owners.

The challenges of operating a small theater – with five screens or fewer – can be steep, Sayegh said. If there is a massive theater within a mile or two, he said, film distributors may be more likely to have hit movies shown there than at the smaller cinema, which must find other, less popular films to run.

In the Pascack’s case, though, the nearest theaters, the Emerson Quad and the Washington Triple Cinema, are no larger than it is, and there are plenty of different films to be shown at each, Sayegh said.

In the eyes of many moviegoers, old, downtown theaters offer an ambiance absent in newer movie houses in the malls. Joe Vanore of Ridgewood, whose wife, Jinny, plays a Wurlitzer organ before Saturday evening shows at the Pascack, describes such nondescript modern theaters as “shoe boxes.”

“The older theaters had more architectural individuality to them, and the shoe boxes are nothing but concrete and cinder block walls covered with Sheetrock,” Vanore said. “It’s like sitting in a large, more or less overgrown living room.”

For all of its history, some old-timers say, the Pascack has retained only a limited amount of its early charm.

After dividing the theater into four screening rooms, United Arts covered over two murals on the original side walls with plaster and curtains. One showed a chariot scene reminiscent of “Ben-Hur”; the other depicted an Egyptian woman who could be Cleopatra being led down to the Nile.

Years ago, said Ransom, a past president of the Bergen County Historical Society, “you could sit down and see both side walls, the great lighting, and everything else. It’s far from being the same.”

Article CJ70747153

Doris on January 2, 2005 at 4:33 pm

The management and assistants were very unhelpful and very rude in dealing with the customers.

William on January 15, 2004 at 1:50 pm

The Pascack Theatre is located at 182 Centre Street and as of the mid 50’s it listed as seating 1691 people.