Mayfair Theatre
7300 Frankford Avenue,
Philadelphia,
PA
19136
7300 Frankford Avenue,
Philadelphia,
PA
19136
8 people
favorited this theater
Showing 26 - 50 of 123 comments
While most people would identify that as a movie palace auditorium in today’s world, I never saw it that way in all the years I was growing up. To us it was just our local theater and very much an everyday — and you could even say “ordinary” — thing in our lives in that regard, just to really drive home what Philadelphia was like over all back then. I mean, we all loved it, but we never thought of it as being special beyond what it was to us personally. So it truly is an eye opener when you look at that photo now.
Auditorium from 1937 The Exhibitor trade magazine:
View link
Jack, when the Mayfair Theatre was at its height, which is how I best remember it when I was a child, that theater was on very solid footing, while I see absolutely no good reason why it couldn’t have continued on that way. But let us not kid ourselves that there was no major shift in politics from when that theater went from its absolute height to the demise it met with later. And on the topic of this theater so far we’ve heard from you, who only knew it during its last days, but not a word from those who ran it before, when it was at its height. And as for those previous operators, what became of them? You yourself most likely don’t know, but somebody must. And from my point of view it’s just a simple straight forward question, and one that shouldn’t evoke any sort of anger I wouldn’t think. What became of the previous operators? Who were they, where did they go to once they were gone? Why did they go?
Of course the community of Mayfair itself has always had an odd history. Once the vast country estate of the great 19th century stage actor Edwin Forrest, after his passing he wanted in his will for it to become home for retired actors. Though it was all so very long ago and few know it now, following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln by stage actor John Wilkes Booth, for a very long stretch of time actors in general were very much hated in this country. And it was Forrest’s aim to try to offset that somewhat by pledging his estate on their behalf. Trouble was, in his last days he had marital troubles and was on the brink of divorce right before he died. After his passing, his wife became executer of the will, and perhaps out of spite she botched up his last will and testament. In any event, Forrest’s final aim never came to pass and Mayfair was born instead, named for the London theater district where Forrest spent most of his career — due to hostilities in this country towards actors following Lincoln’s assassination.
However, the creation of Mayfair, historically one of the first suburbias on record or first attempts at creating suburbia, proved very very successful, and for a very long stretch of time at that. Yet the whole time atop a type of land swindle which Forrest’s widow had been a party to. Or that’s one version of the story at least.
In any event, Mayfair worked. Or for a long time it did. Back when I was a kid everybody loved Mayfair! Or at least everyone up here did. But then things changed. And today Mayfair is quite a far different place from what it had gotten to be for a time. And when this downward transition is questioned today we’re told it’s just as it should be here and now. Still, I wonder what became of those who ran Mayfair so well before — a wondering which evokes inexplicable, mysterious anger in some, most particularly when the Mayfair Theatre itself is brought up.
Like that day back in the early 1990s when I took my word processor for repair to Steck Typewriter across the street from the Mayfair Theatre, and the Steck guy acted very angry when I said how sad it was that it wasn’t a theater anymore, hoping the reasons why were all totally innocent and that maybe he could’ve shed some light on that. I certainly didn’t expect anger! At the same time keep in mind this was after the city’s heavily industrialized areas farther south had fully collapsed. And what do people do when it comes to surviving? What won’t they do? Or at least the prouder ones?
Umm…maybe because in a democratic, capitalist country business owners are permitted to use their property in a commercially reasonable (i.e. profitable) manner?
Let me see if understand your underlying principles:
1. The profitability of a business venture is not a proper consideration as to whether that business should continue.
2. When a desirable (in the eyes of the enlightened class) business is closed, there must be a conspiracy involved.
3. Before a commercially zoned property can be changed from one business type to another, there should always be a public hearing, with final approval to only be made by enlightened politicians.
4. An owner of a desirable but unprofitable business must use his own dollars to continue that business. The failure to do so should result in criminal sanctions.
5. Tax dollars should be taken from the citizens that refuse to patronize an unprofitable, but desirable, business so that all can enjoy that business in the future.
6. Desirable properties should be taken over by the government since private ownership of land results in so many problems.
Your “sane, civilized society” has already been tried and it failed, comrade.
Guess I should get ready to be flamed.
Although it’s very obvious the Mayfair Theatre as any sort of entertainment venue can never be again, why it met the demise it did from having been the great neighborhood movie theater it once truly was — if the actual reasons for this demise could somehow be brought to light — it might go a long long way in revealing what is so terribly wrong about Northeast Philadelphia today and who all’s behind it.
At this Mayfair Theatre page we’ve heard from Jack Ferry, who worked for the Mayfair in its last days as a theater. But what became of all those who were involved with the Mayfair Theatre prior to then? That is, those who ran it really well, the way I remember it being as a child?
One thing many people don’t realize is how well removed Northeast Philadelphia is from the rest of the city, how this especially became the case when the heavily industrialized areas of the city — between Northeast Philadelphia and Center City Philadelphia — fell into a state of total collapse from the late 1970s onward. Prior to this the city of Philadelphia throughout was very much one city. But after that industrial collapse cut the city in half, Northeast Philadelphia became very much isolated, a remote backwater of sorts.
A whole new array of politicians arose up in Northeast Philadelphia during that time period and not so good things started to happen, and with nothing to stop it.
And as for why the Mayfair Theatre met its demise during that time period, well yes, we can say it couldn’t compete with television, multiplexes and so on. Certainly all valid sounding reasons. But I would be very hesitant to say those were the biggest reasons. For in the Mayfair Theatre’s case in addition to all that it got a push. A push that, in a sane, civilized society, would be describable as nothing short of criminal. And in all the many years since the Mayfair Theatre’s closing this has never been investigated.
Now I myself, I wouldn’t have any objections if such an investigation were conducted here and now, with the Mayfair Theatre’s mysterious folding put forth as “Exhibit A.” But others would. And the big question is, why? Why? WHY?!
Although such an investigation couldn’t bring the Mayfair Theatre back again, especially after the major number Republic First did on it when it converted it to a bank, it could bring certain attention to certain people who are apparently still around today who obviously don’t want that certain attention brought to them. And again, of course, the big question is why? Why? WHY?!
For simple mistakes in judgement are excusable. Ignorance at the time certain decisions were made can be excusable. But when there was criminal deliberation behind these things, that I can understand certain people not wanting to get out. But now was that the case with this theater? For short of an investigation it suuuuure looks that way! And if it was me sitting on the hot seat I would say, hey, let’s bring on that investigation! But others get angry at such idea. Why? Why? WHY?!
And has its grimy, slimy paws in everything else, too, I would imagine. Talk about creepy!
For the record, First Republic Bank is now in the theatre space as of August 2006.
In Holmesburg? Hmmmm…
Ah! I know what you’re referring to now, as my great grandfather worked there when it opened circa 1894 and it was all new and state of the art. And I’ve often said I’d like to see it reopened so we could finally have someplace to put all those outsider folks who come to Holmesburg seeking to do it harm, to reopen it as a real Bastille kind of thing, as in “Off with their heads!” (Uh, not that anyone who wishes Holmesburg harm has one.) Meantime, to all you reading this who haven’t a clue what Howard and I are talking about, just rent the movie “Up Close & Personal” starring Robert Redford and Michelle Pfeiffer and it will all come ringing home, or “Holme” I should say. And by the way, Howard, Redford loved Holmesburg when he was here. And that state of the art playground across the street from what you’re referring to was his parting gift to it.
Meantime, since the Mayfair Theatre is off the table — at least for now, and other than what remains of it in great memories — shouldn’t this discussion move to Cinema Treasures' Holme Theatre page? The link for that is: /theaters/9141/
I meant another famous “rent free” place now closed but still there. I have practiced many fields of law.
Though I myself am not a lawyer — obviously! — one of my best friends is, and I discussed with him the Mayfair Theatre’s potential to be brought hack as a classy community neighborhood when he was home from Italy last February (2006) to renew his bar license, or whatever you guys call it. He has both a brother and sister who live in Mayfair now, plus he himself grew up there, so he knows Mayfair very well. For he also was a committeeman there back when he was in college. And here’s exactly what he said: “There’s no reason why it couldn’t be brought back as a movie theater again except for the fact that there’s not enough good people living in Mayfair now to make it possible. And people get what they deserve.”
See, one real advantage you had with the Boyd, Howard, was that when its future became uncertain, a lot of good people stepped forward in defense of it, yourself included. But there was nothing like that with the Mayfair Theatre, other than me — my one lone voice — ranting and raving. And so given that, had I tried to force through what I would’ve liked to have seen happen there, then it would’ve been me in the Mussolini role. That is, I probably could’ve used the same sleazy tactics the bank did to get its way with that building. But for who? But for what? Just as it now is with that bank. In other words, I didn’t have that angle with the Mayfair Theatre that you had with the Boyd — a sizeable number of good people turning out to say they wanted to see it reopen as a theater once more. Of course, there wasn’t a sizeable turn out of people demanding it be made into a bank either. But that bank and me are two totally different creatures. That bank doesn’t care what people want. I do. That’s the fundamental difference.
As for the Liddenfield Housing Projects, which I assume is what your referring to up here in Holmesburg, this is not something that Holmesburg can be blamed for. Rather, it’s a leftover from past misinterpretations of what Holmesburg’s best potential is. People who had absolutely no regard for Holmesburg’s beauty and history pushed to have that thing built there. And it’s the same exact type of people keeping it afloat there now. And there’s absolutely no love or ideals that motivated the creation and the perpetuation of that housing project. This in no way is “noblesse oblige.” Rather, it’s a little concentration camp of sorts, to keep a certain group of people — namely those that are uneducated, unconnected and African American — in an ever ongoing cycle of always being down on their luck so that welfare bureaucrats can exploit them for selfish gain generation after generation after generation, squandering our taxdollars, of course, to do so.
But Howard, let me just ask you, if somebody takes a handful of mud and throws it at the Mona Lisa, are you in the habit of saying in response to such acts, “It’s not the Mona Lisa now, it’s just a lot of mud”? For as a Holmesburger I’m telling you what Holmesburg is, but to you the reality seems only to be that of the outsider mud-slingers, that is, those who don’t know squat about it. Obviously, and with Liddenfield being good proof of that.
I agree there are too many lawyers, though I don’t mind your being one. You at least care about something else, i.e. historic moviehouses. I usually encourage competition to move to Florida.
There are too many lawyers. I’m in favor of protectionism – once I passed the bar they should have closed all the law schools. (Although since Howard’s ID number is in the 44,000s and mine’s in the 75,000s, he’s got about 10 years more experience than me.)
I am a lawyer, so when I put an “s” on it, it’s because I am starting to spell Holmesburg due to a facility that used to provide “rent free housing” to clients in the past. That place is more locally famous than a theater that closed half a century ago.
Ah, you caught that, ay? It’s just I wasn’t too sure you knew that or not, Howard, because on several occasions now you’ve said “Holmes” with regard to the Holme Theatre rather than “Holme,” Thomas Holme being William Penn’s top surveyor when Philadelphia was planned out. And needless to say, Holmesburg, which is to the north east of Mayfair, and where the Holme Theatre building is located, was named after him, this being the land that William Penn granted him in exchange for his services. Mayfair, meantime, wasn’t named after anything. Back when my father was growing up here it had all been open farmland. Must’ve been really beautiful, as it had all been part of the sizeable estate of 19th century world acclaimed stage actor Edwin Forrest — who the Forrest Theatre down in Center City Philadelphia was named after.
Presumably you are telling the public rather than me who William Penn was.
Yes, the Mayfair Theatre building is a bank now, yet another in an area where there’s already too many, yet too few things to uplift and inspire people to let them know that they’re still human beings. All told, it’s all very surreal to those of us who vividly Mayfair back when it was great, and I myself won’t go anywhere near there now if I can help it, not even to pass through. Too depressing. Maybe at some future date, if Mayfair’s current direction fails, it will get another golden opportunity like it had last January (2006) to make the Mayfair Theatre come back to life as what it’s meant to be — a classy neighborhood movie theater. But that theater building has been so mutilized now that it would have to be restored almost completely from scratch. Which wouldn’t be completely out of the question. For I don’t know if you’ve ever been up to Pennsbury Manor in Bucks County, Howard, this being the historic estate of William Penn (who Pennsylvania was named after), but that was completely restored from scratch (the original having completely burned to the ground) and they did a beautiful job of it, just to show what can be done if intelligent thinking is brought into play and applied. Mayfair’s biggest movers and shakers right now, though, are all bent on proving that stupidity is king, and right now they have all factors working in their favor in that regard. It’s a real, “Mayfair today, tomorrow the world” kind of thing. It has a lot of Mussolini-like overtones to it. But while that’s taking shape I’m wondering what the potential is for building a very nice movie palace in Havana…
If you were paid by the word, you’d have the funding….
You do go so off point with all the politics, taxes, etc…
Did the Mayfair reopen yet, as a bank? Is that going to use the former auditorium space?
There are many factors working against trying to run a business of any kind successfully here in Northeast Philadelphia at the present time, whether it be a movie theater or anything else. And it’s been this way for a very long time now, though it wasn’t always the case. Now just to review the Devon Theatre a moment and why that failed, in looking over the expenses Gene Dinicolo had to grapple with each month, what jumps out at me most is what he had to pay each month in rent. For how, I wonder, was that $4,000.00 a month figure ever arrived to?! For the cost of rent must be in alignment with the business is capable of making each month, and it doesn’t appear that was ever given much thought to on the landlord’s part. For sure, the landlord can charge whatever he wants per month, but. If what he’s charging is far in excess of what that business can earn per month, then only a fool is going to rent this business from him and try to make a go of it. At the same time, not to come down too hard on the landlord, my guess is that he had little choice but to charge that much due to a combination of the especially high city property taxes on it plus Philadelphia’s “business privilege tax.” You have to remember that when Rizzo became mayor of Philadelphia he hit Philadelphia with the highest property tax hike in the city’s entire history. And since, that hike has never really been reversed. The only exception is that all new Philadelphia buildings get the 10-year property tax rebate, but, of course, that wouldn’t apply to the pre-existing Devon. But what I’m doing here, guys, is I’m following the money trail.
For let me put it to you this way: Any business can do well and flourish so long as it takes in more than what it has to pay out to stay in operation. But all parties involved have to work with that. I mean, you can’t have the government say, “This is what the property tax is, and that’s just the way it is.” For what the government collects in taxes from any business has to be fairly proportionate to what that business actually makes. Furthermore, it must use a sizeable portion of what it collects in taxes from that business to make things better for that business with regard to its earning potential. But the number one focus every party involved has to have is to make sure that business is in the black and not the red. And only in that way can the government be sure it’s not collecting too much in taxes.
Now in terms of Mr. Denicolo’s frequent complaints of not having enough customers, you have to look at when this occurred. For some idiot one day took a look at this city, which has a very sizeable blue collar population, and said hey, let’s phase out all the good-paying blue collar money making opportunities this city has (or that it once did have) and switch Philadelphia over to being a services based economy only. This in turn forced Philadelphia’s blue collar citizenry either into unemployment — which put them in a position of no longer being able to afford attending movie theaters regularly — or into service oriented jobs where they felt very much out of place and really weren’t the best cut out for. Take that Steck the typewriter repairman, for instance, who used to have his repair shop right across the street from the Mayfair Theatre. He probably was very good back when he worked in the manufacturing of typewriters down in Philadelphia’s Kensington section when industry was in full swing there. But as you could see in my post many many posts back, he clearly was not cut out for the services based industry at all. And if blue collar opportunities were brought back I’m sure he’d be the first to admit it.
But see, all this is just to show what was going on in Mayfair at the time the Devon closed. And these days Mayfair is overshadowed by Pennsylvania House Speaker John Perzel who makes more money per year (our taxes) then most business operators in Mayfair could ever dream of making, yet Perzel complains constantly that he’s still not making enough. So there’s that kind of breakdown in synchronization going on there right now. For everything has to be brought proportionately into the right balance, otherwise, no you can’t run a movie theater there. In fact, how many type businesses could hold up under that really? Which was why my whole angle with the Mayfair Theatre was to look for ways it could be run as a nonprofit. For at this point it is historic, and its architect ranks very high.
Thanks for sharing the interesting article.
I hope you can post the videotape of the Mayfair online and Dan can find photos.
Gene Denicolo’s experience in re-opening the Devon is pretty informative as to the economic realities involved here: View link
I’ve said that I don’t believe it is feasible to return the Mayfair to daily single screen status. I never suggested anyone should damage original historic details, exterior or interior including the murals. I also haven’t read any definitive account as to whether the Mayfair murals are in fact gone, and when so.
Although I understood your reference, I don’t think we need to bring in politics & religion here to understand why Art Deco ornamentation shouldn’t be destroyed.
Also, I have long gone long out of my way to enjoy movies in historic theaters, but there aren’t enough people like me to keep enough of those historic theaters alive, much less return too many that failed three decades ago or even half a century ago (Holmes).
No offence is meant to a dream, but if economics could revive single screen theaters, they’d be popping all over the place.
I’m pretty positive the last movie I ever saw at the Mayfair was “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” either in the winter of ‘69 or early in the spring of the following year. For I know that after that it was off to school in the Midwest for me, while others I grew up with and went to the theater that night with went on to their separate destinies as well. So for us it was very much a “The Last Picture Show” kind of thing, had that same exact kind of feeling. And oh was the theater run so classily well that night! Munching on the best tasting popcorn I ever had in my life while watching the images of Paul Newman showing off on that old bike to Katherine Ross to the tune of Burt Bacharach’s “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head” on that gigantic Mayfair Theatre screen is something I’ll always remember! And for this particular movie it seems there could not have been a better theater for it!
Meantime, to you, Howard, sorry about the delays in my replying to your commentary above, but when I was making the Taliban reference, I was thinking how it would feel to the artist who did the murals that once decorated the Mayfair Theatre’s auditorium as construction workers who don’t know any better sandblasted them away or chipped them away with jackhammers in the same manner that back early in 2001 members of the Taliban used bazookas to blow away the faces of those thousand year old Bhudha statues in north central Afghanistan. What I was getting at was “To be that unhuman, that un-alive.” For simply put, business doesn’t trump art and history, Howard. And if we do see this happening, every single one of us should be saying “Uh oh.” For at that point we’re not people anymore, we’re just worthless things taking up space and resources, that’s all. Do you get it now? For I think my comparison between the Taliban’s actions leading up to 9/11 and what they did to the Mayfair Theatre was very fair and right on target. And if you yourself don’t see that, you better take a hard hard look again. Re-check out that link Jack Ferry gave us above of that mural photo. For see, I come from an America where don’t do this, where we don’t destroy others great creations because we cannot do the same. And all your talk of business means nothing in relation to that, Howard.
Jack Ferry,
Abe was the only projectionist. Once in a while someone would come in a give him a night off. I was only sent to the Devon a few times, I think the guys name was Jack. Remy had such a beautiful blonde girlfriend that we were thrilled when he came by.
Will ck for pics, but I am not too confident..
Dan
Hi dan1aoh,
Thanks for your comments. So you dealt with Steve and Remy for 9 years? Were Abe and Leo the projectionists while you were at the Mayfair? Do you remember dealing with Jack Sherman at the Devon?
Hope you can find the old pics.
Hello, I was an employee of the Mayfair from November 1966 until Spring of 1975 I believe. I was an usher and then Assistant Manager of both the Mayfair and Merben Theaters. Even was sent to the Devon a few nights ( the Fox brothers were left all three from daddy Ben)
I remember my time at the Mayfair very fondly. We were a family there.
Jack Ferry – the green room / ushers lounge was used for MANY things in the late 60’s.
I will search for some old pictures..