Loew's Jersey Theatre

Correction regarding above post (show times TBA):
May 9th: “A Clockwork Orange” (1971)
May 10th: “Blade Runner: The Final Cut” (2007 [1982])

CLASSIC COMEDY WEEKEND exact days and times…
Fri. April 25th
8 p.m.: Marx Bros. in “Duck Soup” (1933) plus two Three Stooges shorts!
Sat. April 26th
4 p.m.: Laurel & Hardy in “Our Relations” (1936) plus one Three Stooges short!
8 p.m.: W.C. Fields double feature: “Never Give a Sucker an Even Break” (1941) —
“The Bank Dick” (1940 – Universal’s only surviving 35 mm print of this movie will be shown).

Here is a really terrific picture of the Loew’s Jersey lobby all done up for an event. View link

How did the movies turn out this weekend? Sounded like lots of good films. The Red Balloon is always fun.

Frankie’s right – the “Baby Jane” show was so much fun. It was a full circle show for me because I saw it across the street at the Stanley 46 years ago, when it broke all Jersey City attendance records. My dad was shocked that all tickets were $2 each (including children, who were usually 50 cents) for this special engagement only:

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I forgot about the Blue Ribbon, but I had some excellent hot dogs at Boulevard Drinks.

Bonus: The “Wonder Morton” organ will be put through its paces during the “Bette Davis weekend”, playing pre-show “entrance music”, as movie-goers enter the auditorium before each screening.

More upcoming classic film events…

March 28th & 29th (Fri. & Sat.): FRENCH AND FANTASY

“La Belle et la bête” (“Beauty and the Beast” – French, 1946)
“Le Ballon Rouge” (“The Red Balloon” – French, 1956) & “Crin Blanc” (“White Mane” – French, 1953)
“The Princess Bride” (USA, 1987)

April 12th (Sat. evening): Special Screening of “ALL ABOUT EVE” (1950)
Featuring a live guest appearance by film star Celeste Holm!
(Rescheduled from its original date of March 23rd, 2007.)

Totally agree. That is a wonderful restaurant. Lots of atmosphere there and the food is good too. I also highly recommend it. I’ve been going there for years—since it was the Summit House. I like how you used Google Maps to show where the restaurants are located around “The Square.” When I was a kid we used go to White Castle, but that was another time in my life. Newark Ave. is getting to be a fun place these days! Lots of nice street activity and very interesting stores and restaurants.

The easiest way to get to the Blue Ribbon from the Loew’s on foot is through the PATH Center. Just go downstairs to the concourse and walk straight on through to Magnolia Ave. Follow Magnolia one short block to Summit Ave. and the Blue Ribbon is right there, directly across the street.

New York Paramount and the Loew’s Jersey — a very short comparison (since the two theatres were built by the same architects and are about the same size):

Marquee:

View link
http://www.leonardmaltin.com/LoewsJersey.jpg

Organ console:

http://lostprovince.com/PTOS/CentII.jpg (NY Paramount)
View link

Auditorium:

View link
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To GabeDF…I grew up with The Valencia so I too know what its like to have an emotional favorite. The reality is that all FIVE of these theaters make up an incredible collection of theater architecture and history and should be left to subsequent generations as an example of a way of life that no longer exists. For 4 out of the 5 Wonder Theaters, I think that will happen. I believe the futures of The Jersey, the 175th Street, The Valencia and The Paradise are assured. Like you, my overriding concern is the Kings. We’ve lost so many grand theaters of the past; The Roxy, the Capitol, The Flushing RKO Keiths, The Brooklyn Fox, Loews Pitkin, I could go on and on. It is very important that we keep what is left.

I’ve been following the saga of The Boyd theater in Philadelphia with dismay at how close that city is to losing its one remaining movie palace. This is the only one left in the 6th? largest city in the country! What a shame. While we in New York complain a lot about our losses, the reality is that we still have an enviable amount of theaters remaining. Besides the Wonder Theaters we have Radio City, The Hollywood, The New Amsterdam, The Beacon, The St. George. Others are now fully restored houses of worship like The Hollywood in Times Square, The Metropolitan in Brooklyn, The Elmwood in Queens and of course, The Stanley in Jersey City. Still others are tantalizing in the possiblities of restoration like the Brooklyn Paramount and The Richmond Hill RKO Keiths. There are still many others around the city.

It doesn’t mean that we should be complacent. We should continue to press to save and keep as many of these theaters as we can But we shouldn’t lose sight that in New York (and Jersey City) we’re fortunate to have as many as we do still standing and still in use.

Gabe, I’m very cynical about “Hollywood,” old or new. In the words of Vincent Price, “It was an evil place.” Yes, I agree with you it would be nice if the “Studios” would maintain the surviving Movie Palaces as something like museums and show fully restored, pristine prints of their old movies all the time. It would be wonderful, FABULOUS!!! But it ain’t gonna happen. And as for “Money is not God”… Oh, just call me Mr. Cynical.

Isn’t this thread about the Loew’s Jersey (and more broadly about movie palaces), Rory? I am strictly speaking of theatres that were built to show movies, and not converted vaudeville houses. The Loew’s Jersey Theatre was created specifically to show movies, with the 2nd purpose being vaudeville. The old Roxy Theatre in New York was also created to show movies, as were Broadway’s Rivoli and Rialto. If you should go to the Loew’s Jersey, you would see that this is obvious. Radio City is not strictly speaking a movie palace because it was created for a grander form of vaudeville. Similarly, the State Theatre (Jersey City) was not a movie palace, because it was a converted vaudeville house.

The Loew’s Jersey was/IS a MOVIE palace. Loew’s was a theatre chain that created/bought MGM to fill its theatres with “product.” After 1935, and while Loew’s still owned the Jersey Theatre, vaudeville was dead. So from 1935 to 1948 the parent company Loew’s showed their subsidiary company’s (MGM) movies in their movie theatres. So in this case, the theatre was intimately tied in with the studio.

Of course that’s in the past, and modern Hollywood has little to do with the old theatres, if anything. Yet modern Hollywood is more than happy to ride on the coat tails of old Hollywood, aren’t they? Don’t you think they owe old Hollywood something for that goodwill? Modern Hollywood (collectively, and even if they are just sub’s of major corporations) OWES old Hollywood and its theatres something. New Yorkers believed that the New York Central R.R. owed Grand Central Terminal something. The railroad wanted to tear it down and make a real estate killing. The battle went all the way to the Supreme Court. New Yorkers won, and Grand Central is still there. As it turns out, NY State actually restored the structure. So perhaps it will take government intervention to restore the best of the old movie palaces. If NJ were only more like Ohio in that regard. Have you ever seen the (Loew’s) Ohio Theatre in Columbus?! What a job the state did on that old theatre. Why can’t that be done in NJ?

Perhaps in 100 years, modern Hollywood will be defunct (thanks in no small part to its blown up video game comic book movies) and the existing movie palaces will still be here beautifully restored. They were certainly built to last forever. Call my views naive, tradition bound, or “European,” but these ideas are my opinions. Money is not God. People need culture too.

The movie studios, to my knowledge, didn’t create whatever surviving movie palaces there are. The vast majority of what where called “Movie Palaces” were old Vaudeville houses that were merely converted to movie theatres. Another thing that has to be remember is that the modern “studios” aren’t the same companies they were in the past. Mostly they’re now just logos that larger multi-national corporations now use to distribute motion pictures. 20th Century-Fox, for instance, has been sold and resold so many times that not only isn’t it the same corporation it was in the thirties and forties, it isn’t even the same company it was in the sixties and seventies! The modern incarnations of the film studios don’t feel they owe a thing to the past, believe me — they’d laugh you off whatever “lots” they got left, and in fact are only interested in preserving and restoring their old library titles because they, thankfully, still think there’s a buck in it. Get real! ; )

The new site is wonderful! I think you are doing a great job of combining the best of the old site with the updated elements and pages. The main page really grabbed my attention and it is faithful to the atmosphere of the theatre. I also like the Quicktime VR view. Perhaps you could do one of the auditorium as well, and perhaps the auditorium from the stage? Just a thought. All in all, the new web site is a very nice improvement!

BTW, I’m so glad you included that video of the interior. People should see this theatre in motion, so that they can get a spacial sense of the place.

Hollywood has a duty?!!! I guess you mean the modern corporate subsidiaries euphemistically know as “the studios.” Hell, it’s taken decades for them to wake up to caring about the film and sound elements in their vaults. Now you think they should also care about some old buildings scattered across the country? Sir, these are souless, bottom-line, don’t-do-nothin'-unless-they-smell-a-huge-profit creatures who probably won’t give you the correct time!