So Mike, do you know whether the pit elevator was actually in working order at that time? And was there a real live orchestra in the pit for “Carmen”? What about the Hammond organ? Was it still there at the time? (This was c. 1983, right?). I would love to have been able to explore all parts of the Miller when it was in good shape. I never got backstage (I got close once, but didn’t have the nerve) or the basement, dressing rooms, projection room (the Holy Grail!) etc. I assume that entry to the pit was from under the stage. What about that staircase next to the manager’s office—-where did that go?
I have experienced the same acoustical richness in other theaters: the higher up, the better sound. Here in Allentown, the best seat in the house IMO for hearing the Symphony is the center seat in the last row of the balcony of Symphony Hall (formerly the Lyric Theater, a McElfatrick-designed house). Those balcony seats are located under an acoustical dome. The builders knew what they were doing back in the day. OTOH, any seat under an overhang, as in a mezzanine, is generally not good for sound, as you observe. Your comment about the box seating added to the ET at renovation reminds me that this vestige of European privilege generally did not survive here in the U.S. The oldest concert hall in the country, Philadelphia’s beautiful Academy of Music (1857), designed by Napoleon LeBrun, has only four boxes, two on each side of the stage. And those box seats provide the absolute worst view of the stage! “Go figure,” as they say.
Well, evidence would be hard to come by at this late date:–) We’ll agree to disagree, but I don’t consider it to be an earth-shaking matter. BTW, Brayer indulges in a bit of speculation in ch. 30 (“My Work is Done”) of the Eastman biography, with documentation. I can’t attest to the thoroughness of her research due to of my ignorance of her sources, but since I’m no longer constrained by the rules of academe I’m willing to take her at her word.
Interesting to have your take, as a performer, on ET acoustics. That is the problem with a hall of that size and configuration. I played there a number of times in orchestra and wind ensemble, and sitting on the stage it was difficult to hear the other performers because a lot of the sound went up into the fly loft (in those days there was no shell, such as there is today, or at best there was a rudimentary one), and a lot of sound was absorbed by the audience bodies and the empty seats ;o} But visually it was a most impressive space. When Mercury Records made their legendary “Living Presence” recordings, on special Ampex 35mm tape machines, in the ET in the 1950s and ‘60s, they took great care with the three-microphone placement, which is why those recordings come off so well even by (or maybe especially by) today’s standards. I understand that the Mercury recording engineers eschewed the kind of electronic gimmicks that have become so commonplace in today’s environment. I have a number of the original LPs as well as some CD reissues, and they sound terrific (esp. the LPs).
Jeff, Eastman’s “plan to bring classical music to the people” did NOT “fail,” not even in “small part,” and I didn’t mean to suggest that it had. The Eastman Theatre and the Eastman School of Music stand as testimony to his generosity and foresight, which has continued down through the years thanks to Eastman Kodak. George Eastman generously endowed the School, which for almost 90 years has been producing countless performing musicians, teachers of music, and many other creative practitioners of the art of music. I am one of them, a graduate of the School, classical musician, and college professor of music for many, many years. But the Eastman Theatre, as a showcase for “photoplays” (movies), was not ultimately a success, due to technological and economic factors beyond George Eastman’s control. One might debate, for example, the business acumen, or lack thereof, in erecting a 3,000+seat movie house in a medium-sized city like Rochester! Where were the audiences supposed to come from, and keep coming from, to fill this outsized house to anywhere close to capacity? In fact, the recent renovations of the hall, now known as Kodak Hall, have reduced the number of seats by several hundred, as if to acknowledge that the original plan resulted in an overbuilt house. Consider also that the Theatre had local competition from Loew’s and Paramount, among others, for the movie business.
I did not mean to say or imply that all these were the direct, or indeed the only, reasons for his suicide, but I will maintain that they were contributing factors. Interestingly enough, Eastman’s suicide was one of the best kept secrets at the School. I walked the halls of Eastman for five years as a student, and had long since left Rochester for a career elsewhere, before I learned of it, and then only by reading it in Elizabeth Brayer’s 1996 biography. (The first edition of that work contained a number of editorial howlers, corrected, I hope, in the second, which I have not seen.) In the almost 80 years since Eastman’s death, his vision has been fulfilled many times over.
My sincere apologies for using the word “failure.” Probably “disappointment” would have been a better word choice on my part..
WHP, I have to add this: your statement about the first electric eye door openers agrees with my own memory, and also the escalator. Note the singular: the escalator was only on the “up” side; the “down” side was still stairs! This may have changed later.
Thanks, WHP! Yes, I should have remembered that it was Bowen Brothers hardware (the brothers were Dudley, Sr., father of my grammar school chum, and Charles, IIRC)—-apologies for the brain fart, it’s been a long time since those happy years! Was that furniture store called Haverty’s, or was that somewhere else along Broad?
I attended the University of Rochester and studied at its Eastman School of Music during the period 1959-64. Opened in 1922 “For the enrichment of community life,” as carved into its façade, the Theatre was George Eastman’s gift to the community where he had built his empire and made his fortune. In the pit was an orchestra to accompany the silent films of the era. Many of the orchestra members also taught at the adjoining Eastman School of Music. One of Eastman’s purposes was to train musicians to play in the pit orchestras of the silent movie palaces. George Eastman’s dream lasted exactly ten years; the Eastman Theatre showed its last regularly scheduled motion picture in 1931, having become part of the Paramount-Publix chain. The orchestra was long gone, a victim of the talkies and the Depression. Today, I’m happy to report, the Eastman Theatre has been meticulously restored and tastefully altered (adding stage appurtenances, side box seating areas, and expanding the always inadequate lobby space), and still serves the Rochester community and the Eastman School, as home to the Rochester Philharmonic and concert hall for the School. For current interior and exterior views, see View link Drill through the site and click on the many buttons there and you’ll gain a rather complete idea of the Theatre as it exists today. As for George Eastman, the failure of his dream was evidently more than he could bear; he committed suicide in March 1932, in his mansion on East Avenue (today the home of the International Museum of Photography).
The “local firm” that bought the Loew’s Rochester site, and erected their world headquarters thereon, was Xerox! The Xerox Tower now stands where I saw “Ivanhoe” back in the early ‘60s when I was in college. The theater was very ornate, as I dimly recall, with a red and gold scheme; it was a center-aisle design, less popular than the more traditional center-section, side-aisle plan. As for its being “the ugliest” and “most unfortunate looking,” don’t you wish we had it back??? I know I do!! (Somehow, Xerox just ain’t got the ol’ magic for me….)
The burned out shell of the Dreamland stood for several years, well into the ‘50s. Only the walls and dirt “floor” remained. Bowen’s Hardware, later a TV studio, stood a few doors away. I was a frequent visitor to Bowen’s Hardware, which was owned by the family of Dudley Bowen, my William Robinson grammar school chum. Judge Bowen later served as a Federal judge in Augusta. After becoming interested in photography, I bought my first camera at Bowen’s; it was a Kodak Pony 135. They also had a seasonal display of Lionel trains in their basement toy department. Bowen’s was a great place for a kid in those days! (Of course, I also took in a movie or two while I was downtown!) It has been 61 years since I lived in Augusta, although I visited every summer while my grandparents were living. My brother still lives in Augusta but I don’t get back very often nowadays, and when I do I don’t like what I see, but I could say the same about every city I’ve lived in (eight so far).
I went to the Daniel Village Theater a few times when I would visit relatives in Augusta in the 1960s-70s. It was completely forgettable in every way, totally indistinguishable from a zillion other “shopping center” movie houses (“screening rooms” would be a much better name for these shoeboxes). It’s painful to think that such as these were a prime cause of the demise of our treasured downtown theaters like the Modjeska and the Miller, and countless other movie palaces across the nation. I’m absolutely delighted to learn that it’s gone. And I really deplore the loss of the Augusta Airport (Daniel Field) terminal building/control tower, which stood nearby on the other side of Wrightsboro Rd. Here was an Art Moderne gem to rank with the Miller, and it was demolished, for no good reason that I ever heard. “What fools we mortals be.”
The space on the lower right of the Imperial façade housed Snappy’s, a hamburger joint. The burgers were small thin patties topped with fried onion, served on a small bun or roll. I remember them as being delicious; I ate them without any toppings, and they cost a dime! This was later raised to 15¢. In my memory, Snappy’s interior featured a lot of white tile accented with some black tile. You sat on the classic rotating stool at the counter and enjoyed your burger in anticipation of, or remembering, the current movie. The Imperial was well maintained and by no means run down or shabby in those days (the late ‘40s through '50s), but I didn’t go there too often because the Miller seemed to have more of the first run, quality movies. The photo link posted by Chuck1231 on April 12, 2009 shows the scene: http://tinyurl.com/45zg6qy
The Friends site confirms that there was indeed an elevator pit in the Miller; see this page http://www.friendsofthemiller.com/id4.html, scroll down the list of contractors to “Orchestra and Organ Lifts—-Constructed by Bruckner Mitchell, Inc.”
I never saw an orchestra in the Miller pit, and I doubt if there were many occasions in the working life of the theater when an orchestra would have been used. The “Carmen” performance in 1983 might have been one such. I would venture to guess that the lift had been inoperative for a long time. More and more when I see photos of the Miller interior I am reminded of Radio City Music Hall: the Arte Moderne styling, fabric covered walls, elevator pit, etc. Of course, Radio City holds 6,000 and the Miller “only” 1,500. As a working classical musician for 40 years, I have performed on stage and pit of many theaters, but none with a pit elevator.
I saw movies at all the Broad Street houses as a kid: Rialto, Modjeska, Imperial, Miller. The joke about the Rialto was that you took two sticks with you: one to sit on, and one to beat the rats off. It was a movie house pure and simple (“shoebox” design) and had no stage to speak of AFAIK. The others were real theaters. Vaudeville was staged at the Modjeska and Imperial before my time, but by the advent of the Miller that form of stage entertainment had pretty much vanished nationwide, a victim of the film industry. In corresponding fashion, the movie houses succumbed because of television, among other reasons.
BTW, there is one other surviving theater building in Augusta, the Palace (see http://www.friendsofthemiller.com/id6.html)) The building stands near the site of the late, lamented Union Station. (Why do we always demolish our most important structures? The concept of adaptive reuse has yet to penetrate the noodles of many of our real estate developer geniuses.)
By the way, the Miller opened on Feb. 26, 1940, and closed in 1985, according to its website http://www.friendsofthemiller.com/ The dates at the top of this page (1938, 1983) are incorrect and should be amended. When I attended the movies at the Miller the theater was only about ten years old, give or take, (same age as I at the time!) and it was scrupulously maintained. I can’t believe the ratty condition of the Miller in the photos; it makes my heart sink. But such is the fate of many old structures; they are real money pits for maintenance.
I grew up in Augusta in the 1940s, and was a regular summer visitor throughout the ‘50s, as my grandparents lived there. I saw many movies at the Miller and have many fond memories of this beautiful theater. Does anyone recall the Saturday Youth Review, sponsored by Sancken Diary, a half-hour program broadcast live on Saturday mornings from the stage of the Miller on radio station WGAC, which was located on the second floor of a building just down Broad St. (at the corner of 7th) from the theater. The Miller had a Hammond organ in the pit, and at the beginning of the program it came rising up with the program’s theme song “Smile, Darn Ya, Smile” being played by the organist, Jack——?, who also worked at WGAC. In fact, I believe that the entire orchestra pit was an elevator, not just the organ pad, which would make it most unusual for a small regional theater. Can anyone confirm this? In the years since childhood, I have lived in many cities, including New Orleans, New York, and Rochester, and lived through the Golden Age of Radio as well as the last glory years of the American cinema, but the Miller will always be my “home” theater, and my favorite of all.
So Mike, do you know whether the pit elevator was actually in working order at that time? And was there a real live orchestra in the pit for “Carmen”? What about the Hammond organ? Was it still there at the time? (This was c. 1983, right?). I would love to have been able to explore all parts of the Miller when it was in good shape. I never got backstage (I got close once, but didn’t have the nerve) or the basement, dressing rooms, projection room (the Holy Grail!) etc. I assume that entry to the pit was from under the stage. What about that staircase next to the manager’s office—-where did that go?
I have experienced the same acoustical richness in other theaters: the higher up, the better sound. Here in Allentown, the best seat in the house IMO for hearing the Symphony is the center seat in the last row of the balcony of Symphony Hall (formerly the Lyric Theater, a McElfatrick-designed house). Those balcony seats are located under an acoustical dome. The builders knew what they were doing back in the day. OTOH, any seat under an overhang, as in a mezzanine, is generally not good for sound, as you observe. Your comment about the box seating added to the ET at renovation reminds me that this vestige of European privilege generally did not survive here in the U.S. The oldest concert hall in the country, Philadelphia’s beautiful Academy of Music (1857), designed by Napoleon LeBrun, has only four boxes, two on each side of the stage. And those box seats provide the absolute worst view of the stage! “Go figure,” as they say.
Jeff,
Well, evidence would be hard to come by at this late date:–) We’ll agree to disagree, but I don’t consider it to be an earth-shaking matter. BTW, Brayer indulges in a bit of speculation in ch. 30 (“My Work is Done”) of the Eastman biography, with documentation. I can’t attest to the thoroughness of her research due to of my ignorance of her sources, but since I’m no longer constrained by the rules of academe I’m willing to take her at her word.
Interesting to have your take, as a performer, on ET acoustics. That is the problem with a hall of that size and configuration. I played there a number of times in orchestra and wind ensemble, and sitting on the stage it was difficult to hear the other performers because a lot of the sound went up into the fly loft (in those days there was no shell, such as there is today, or at best there was a rudimentary one), and a lot of sound was absorbed by the audience bodies and the empty seats ;o} But visually it was a most impressive space. When Mercury Records made their legendary “Living Presence” recordings, on special Ampex 35mm tape machines, in the ET in the 1950s and ‘60s, they took great care with the three-microphone placement, which is why those recordings come off so well even by (or maybe especially by) today’s standards. I understand that the Mercury recording engineers eschewed the kind of electronic gimmicks that have become so commonplace in today’s environment. I have a number of the original LPs as well as some CD reissues, and they sound terrific (esp. the LPs).
Jeff, Eastman’s “plan to bring classical music to the people” did NOT “fail,” not even in “small part,” and I didn’t mean to suggest that it had. The Eastman Theatre and the Eastman School of Music stand as testimony to his generosity and foresight, which has continued down through the years thanks to Eastman Kodak. George Eastman generously endowed the School, which for almost 90 years has been producing countless performing musicians, teachers of music, and many other creative practitioners of the art of music. I am one of them, a graduate of the School, classical musician, and college professor of music for many, many years. But the Eastman Theatre, as a showcase for “photoplays” (movies), was not ultimately a success, due to technological and economic factors beyond George Eastman’s control. One might debate, for example, the business acumen, or lack thereof, in erecting a 3,000+seat movie house in a medium-sized city like Rochester! Where were the audiences supposed to come from, and keep coming from, to fill this outsized house to anywhere close to capacity? In fact, the recent renovations of the hall, now known as Kodak Hall, have reduced the number of seats by several hundred, as if to acknowledge that the original plan resulted in an overbuilt house. Consider also that the Theatre had local competition from Loew’s and Paramount, among others, for the movie business.
I did not mean to say or imply that all these were the direct, or indeed the only, reasons for his suicide, but I will maintain that they were contributing factors. Interestingly enough, Eastman’s suicide was one of the best kept secrets at the School. I walked the halls of Eastman for five years as a student, and had long since left Rochester for a career elsewhere, before I learned of it, and then only by reading it in Elizabeth Brayer’s 1996 biography. (The first edition of that work contained a number of editorial howlers, corrected, I hope, in the second, which I have not seen.) In the almost 80 years since Eastman’s death, his vision has been fulfilled many times over.
My sincere apologies for using the word “failure.” Probably “disappointment” would have been a better word choice on my part..
WHP, I have to add this: your statement about the first electric eye door openers agrees with my own memory, and also the escalator. Note the singular: the escalator was only on the “up” side; the “down” side was still stairs! This may have changed later.
Thanks, WHP! Yes, I should have remembered that it was Bowen Brothers hardware (the brothers were Dudley, Sr., father of my grammar school chum, and Charles, IIRC)—-apologies for the brain fart, it’s been a long time since those happy years! Was that furniture store called Haverty’s, or was that somewhere else along Broad?
I attended the University of Rochester and studied at its Eastman School of Music during the period 1959-64. Opened in 1922 “For the enrichment of community life,” as carved into its façade, the Theatre was George Eastman’s gift to the community where he had built his empire and made his fortune. In the pit was an orchestra to accompany the silent films of the era. Many of the orchestra members also taught at the adjoining Eastman School of Music. One of Eastman’s purposes was to train musicians to play in the pit orchestras of the silent movie palaces. George Eastman’s dream lasted exactly ten years; the Eastman Theatre showed its last regularly scheduled motion picture in 1931, having become part of the Paramount-Publix chain. The orchestra was long gone, a victim of the talkies and the Depression. Today, I’m happy to report, the Eastman Theatre has been meticulously restored and tastefully altered (adding stage appurtenances, side box seating areas, and expanding the always inadequate lobby space), and still serves the Rochester community and the Eastman School, as home to the Rochester Philharmonic and concert hall for the School. For current interior and exterior views, see View link Drill through the site and click on the many buttons there and you’ll gain a rather complete idea of the Theatre as it exists today. As for George Eastman, the failure of his dream was evidently more than he could bear; he committed suicide in March 1932, in his mansion on East Avenue (today the home of the International Museum of Photography).
The “local firm” that bought the Loew’s Rochester site, and erected their world headquarters thereon, was Xerox! The Xerox Tower now stands where I saw “Ivanhoe” back in the early ‘60s when I was in college. The theater was very ornate, as I dimly recall, with a red and gold scheme; it was a center-aisle design, less popular than the more traditional center-section, side-aisle plan. As for its being “the ugliest” and “most unfortunate looking,” don’t you wish we had it back??? I know I do!! (Somehow, Xerox just ain’t got the ol’ magic for me….)
The burned out shell of the Dreamland stood for several years, well into the ‘50s. Only the walls and dirt “floor” remained. Bowen’s Hardware, later a TV studio, stood a few doors away. I was a frequent visitor to Bowen’s Hardware, which was owned by the family of Dudley Bowen, my William Robinson grammar school chum. Judge Bowen later served as a Federal judge in Augusta. After becoming interested in photography, I bought my first camera at Bowen’s; it was a Kodak Pony 135. They also had a seasonal display of Lionel trains in their basement toy department. Bowen’s was a great place for a kid in those days! (Of course, I also took in a movie or two while I was downtown!) It has been 61 years since I lived in Augusta, although I visited every summer while my grandparents were living. My brother still lives in Augusta but I don’t get back very often nowadays, and when I do I don’t like what I see, but I could say the same about every city I’ve lived in (eight so far).
I went to the Daniel Village Theater a few times when I would visit relatives in Augusta in the 1960s-70s. It was completely forgettable in every way, totally indistinguishable from a zillion other “shopping center” movie houses (“screening rooms” would be a much better name for these shoeboxes). It’s painful to think that such as these were a prime cause of the demise of our treasured downtown theaters like the Modjeska and the Miller, and countless other movie palaces across the nation. I’m absolutely delighted to learn that it’s gone. And I really deplore the loss of the Augusta Airport (Daniel Field) terminal building/control tower, which stood nearby on the other side of Wrightsboro Rd. Here was an Art Moderne gem to rank with the Miller, and it was demolished, for no good reason that I ever heard. “What fools we mortals be.”
The space on the lower right of the Imperial façade housed Snappy’s, a hamburger joint. The burgers were small thin patties topped with fried onion, served on a small bun or roll. I remember them as being delicious; I ate them without any toppings, and they cost a dime! This was later raised to 15¢. In my memory, Snappy’s interior featured a lot of white tile accented with some black tile. You sat on the classic rotating stool at the counter and enjoyed your burger in anticipation of, or remembering, the current movie. The Imperial was well maintained and by no means run down or shabby in those days (the late ‘40s through '50s), but I didn’t go there too often because the Miller seemed to have more of the first run, quality movies. The photo link posted by Chuck1231 on April 12, 2009 shows the scene: http://tinyurl.com/45zg6qy
Sorry about that dead link to the Palace Theater page. This may work better: http://tinyurl.com/5t5kmvs
The Friends site confirms that there was indeed an elevator pit in the Miller; see this page http://www.friendsofthemiller.com/id4.html, scroll down the list of contractors to “Orchestra and Organ Lifts—-Constructed by Bruckner Mitchell, Inc.”
I never saw an orchestra in the Miller pit, and I doubt if there were many occasions in the working life of the theater when an orchestra would have been used. The “Carmen” performance in 1983 might have been one such. I would venture to guess that the lift had been inoperative for a long time. More and more when I see photos of the Miller interior I am reminded of Radio City Music Hall: the Arte Moderne styling, fabric covered walls, elevator pit, etc. Of course, Radio City holds 6,000 and the Miller “only” 1,500. As a working classical musician for 40 years, I have performed on stage and pit of many theaters, but none with a pit elevator.
I saw movies at all the Broad Street houses as a kid: Rialto, Modjeska, Imperial, Miller. The joke about the Rialto was that you took two sticks with you: one to sit on, and one to beat the rats off. It was a movie house pure and simple (“shoebox” design) and had no stage to speak of AFAIK. The others were real theaters. Vaudeville was staged at the Modjeska and Imperial before my time, but by the advent of the Miller that form of stage entertainment had pretty much vanished nationwide, a victim of the film industry. In corresponding fashion, the movie houses succumbed because of television, among other reasons.
BTW, there is one other surviving theater building in Augusta, the Palace (see http://www.friendsofthemiller.com/id6.html)) The building stands near the site of the late, lamented Union Station. (Why do we always demolish our most important structures? The concept of adaptive reuse has yet to penetrate the noodles of many of our real estate developer geniuses.)
By the way, the Miller opened on Feb. 26, 1940, and closed in 1985, according to its website http://www.friendsofthemiller.com/ The dates at the top of this page (1938, 1983) are incorrect and should be amended. When I attended the movies at the Miller the theater was only about ten years old, give or take, (same age as I at the time!) and it was scrupulously maintained. I can’t believe the ratty condition of the Miller in the photos; it makes my heart sink. But such is the fate of many old structures; they are real money pits for maintenance.
I grew up in Augusta in the 1940s, and was a regular summer visitor throughout the ‘50s, as my grandparents lived there. I saw many movies at the Miller and have many fond memories of this beautiful theater. Does anyone recall the Saturday Youth Review, sponsored by Sancken Diary, a half-hour program broadcast live on Saturday mornings from the stage of the Miller on radio station WGAC, which was located on the second floor of a building just down Broad St. (at the corner of 7th) from the theater. The Miller had a Hammond organ in the pit, and at the beginning of the program it came rising up with the program’s theme song “Smile, Darn Ya, Smile” being played by the organist, Jack——?, who also worked at WGAC. In fact, I believe that the entire orchestra pit was an elevator, not just the organ pad, which would make it most unusual for a small regional theater. Can anyone confirm this? In the years since childhood, I have lived in many cities, including New Orleans, New York, and Rochester, and lived through the Golden Age of Radio as well as the last glory years of the American cinema, but the Miller will always be my “home” theater, and my favorite of all.