Montauk Theatre
715 Main Avenue,
Passaic,
NJ
07055
715 Main Avenue,
Passaic,
NJ
07055
9 people
favorited this theater
Showing 76 - 100 of 180 comments
Mikeymike, can’t wait to see your pictures too.
I went there last year, talked to a woman at the hotel next to the theater but didn’t got any information about its owner and how to get inside. Any help would be really nice !
Look forward to the interior pictures. Growing up in the 70’s, I was never inside as by that time they were only playing porn but I was always interested on th interior design of the theater. I bet it was something back in the day. Thanks Mikey
Is there no hope at all?
Thanks Mikeymike – looking forward to once again seeing the inside of the theater where I saw “Mary Poppins” in 1964.
I just came back from the INTERIOR of the Montauk. It is truly awesome and such a shame that it will be torn down in the upcoming months. I have plenty of pictures…. they will soon follow.
The last days
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I know in its last days it was a porno theatre, this is true. But still that building has so many features built into it you dont see anymore. What a waste to see yet another old palace turn into rubble. Lets hope somehow it gets a new lease on life.
Looks like the end is near:
http://www.northjersey.com/news/26216849.html
Reading that article is very depressing. Passaic sure has changed!
i agree with that luisV..and that one last clock thats still standing..its not working but its still there
i agree with that luisV..and that one last clock thats still standing..its not working but its still there
It appears that all of Passaic’s theaters (Except for the Palace) were within 2 blocks of each other in the downtown area. All of them were quite large. It must have been pretty impressive for a town of this size to have boasted of a downtown with this type of vitality. The city, though a shadow of it’s former self, would do well to try and preserve what little it has left and save the Montauk.
are there ANY interior shots of the Montauk…???
The Montauk has been known as a sleazy “adult theater” for nearly 40 years now. The people that would remember it as a prime theater for Warner Bros. films are long, LONG gone.
Sorry to say passaic kid, but as former New York City mayor Ed Koch said in 1978, “ it never was,” and that’s the sad truth. The people and politicians of this once great town do not think in terms as “it was”, only in terms of “how it can be”, wouldn’t you agree? And
“how it can be” , quite frankly stinks.
kenroe…sorry to say but the city is trying to buy the montauk and a few other buildings on that block and knock them down for new schools…hope it doesn’t happen…it would be nice to restore it..and make it like it was..
I enjoyed Be Kind Rewind. It was nice of Michel Gondry to
not only film his latest movie in Passaic but also, after
receiving a key to the City of Passaic, promise to return
and do it again. Before Sammy Rivera welcomes Michel
Gondry back to Passaic, however, the mayor ought to warily
check out Michel Gondry’s outlandish plans for a sequel:
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Michel Gondry is a whimsical magician, not a punctilious
reporter, so it really isn’t appropriate to parse his
movies. But I can’t help but have a quibble or two with
Be Kind Rewind. For one thing, the plight of the Montauk
Theater wasn’t even mentioned. Danny Glover’s character
should have headed off to Manhattan from the bus stop in
front of the barricaded Montauk, instead of from an
anonymous, antiseptic train station.
I cannot help but split hairs about Be Kind Rewind
because I was spoiled by the overindulgence of growing up
in Passaic right after World War II. In my lifetime, for
example, bustling Passaic rivaled nearby Times Square as a
cinema mecca. An urbane oasis of clustered, teeming,
oversize, overdone, metropolitan movie theaters, including
the Montauk. It was all only a safe ten-minute stroll
from my home or a hop on the bus from anywhere else in
North Jersey.
That was then. Last week, Be Kind Rewind — not only
filmed here but also set in Passaic itself, yet —
suffered the scandalous ignominy of having its first
public performance in Clifton (yuck!) because of the lame
excuse that even the Montauk has closed down.
Isn’t it obvious that Be Kind Rewind could have and should
have premiered in Passaic anyway, precisely because there
is not a designated movie house left in town. I hope it
was just a combination of the cold weather and a lack of
imagination, rather than avarice, that prevented Be Kind
Rewind from opening simultaneously in neighborhood
storefronts all across Passaic, in homage to the film's
concluding scene, which is an architectural revelation.
Another quibble, and one that everyone seems to share, is
that the entire “Fats” Waller thread in Be Kind Rewind
should have been left on the cutting-room floor. It was
so over-the-top condescending that it gave Be Kind Rewind
the feeling of a “drive-by movie,” and Passaic deserves
better than that. But once a propagandist, always a
propagandist, I suppose.
With Barack Obama running for the esteemed office of the
President of the United States, and doing so well, God
bless him, only a leftist European filmmaker like Michel
Gondry would regurgitate the cliche about American blacks
and jazz; on the other hand, at least there was not a
single watermelon in view.
“Fats” Waller doesn’t resonate with Passaic, but I know
how he got into the screenplay of Be Kind Rewind.
The hearts and minds of Continental Europeans were in play
after the inconclusive quietus of World War II which left
dwindling American armies facing off in a Great Divide
versus ruthless Soviet occupation troops. Frank Sinatra
(another Jersey Boy) proved to be an effective
asymmetrical anti-Communist weapon as receptive Europeans
listened obsessively to his melodious singing voice on Voice
of America for the purpose of learning to speak “American"
among themselves.
Spy versus spy, an opportunist Communist fifth column in
Hollywood seized the high ground and skillfully employed
filmography to propagandize Europe regarding the plight of
blacks right here in our own backyard and continuing right
up until today. Moviegoers should have known that with
Danny Glover and Mia Farrow in the cast, Jack Black and Mos
Def were certainly not going to swede Ayn Rand’s hero,
Howard Roark, in a remake of The Fountainhead.
Tit for tat, the United States of America countered the
Communists' effective stratagem by sending prominent black
jazz musicians on flamboyant tours of France and other
Marshall Plan countries. Europeans understandably formed
the stereotype of jiving American blacks that survives to
this day in Be Kind Rewind.
Blame “Fats” Waller on Cold War I.
They will tear down one of the last surviving landmarks of the towns fabled past, all in the sake of “cleaning up” downtown.
The sad truth is that more people know it as a porno theater (nearly 40 years) than would ever remember it as a great theater in the Warner Bros. chain.
In the news today: Passaic mayor Sammy Rivera, city councilman Marcellus Jackson and former city councilman Jonathon Soto were, along with eight other NJ government officials, rounded up by the FBI and arrested on bribery charges. A porn theater should now be the least of their worries.
As for the wonderful citizens of Passaic… if they are so concerned about “cleaning up†their city, perhaps they should start at City Hall.
It’s no wonder that Passaic is such a dump.
This is a 1913 postcard of the original Montauk:
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The Montauk presents its “Great Holiday Show” for December, 1953:
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I had the mis-fortune to be in Passaic a few days ago. The Montauk looks exactly as it did a year ago: text still on the marquee and a iron gate pulled down across the entrance doors. Any news on this Passaic landmark?
Showing “The Devil in Miss Jones"
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I am a resident of Passaic, I attend Passaic High School. I believe they should fix the theater. Instead of bringing business to Clifton (Clifton Commons, Allwood Cinema and others) they should bring it to Passaic. The city is getting cleaner. Mayor Sammy Rivera (I don’t like him) But what can I say the city is getting better slowly but it’s getting better. I came across this web site looking for the name of a new movie being filmed in Passaic and I cam e across this. I am glad to see people interested in my home town. But think about it people if you care don’t talk about it do something about it. I have gone with a group of people to strike on the front of this nice theater because of the horrific acts this man has made with the theater. He got arrested for having prostitutes in the theater working for him (providing services) yet he still get out and now has it being renovated. I have never been inside but with the customers the theater receives I don’t really think all of the features that it had in the 1950’s are still there.
All the people that talks poorly of Passaic they are wrong this city is not bad it just need a big push economically and socially. There are gangs because there is nothing else to do to pass the time. My self I have my own recording studio in Passaic, I live in Passaic about 5 block’s from the theater. I go to school in Passaic, and I Plan have my kids here and raise them well. My uncle whom I adore ran for council man and mayor of Passaic about 13 years ago. It wasn’t late then to fix Passaic and it isn’t late now.
Stop talking bad about my town because yours is so perfect. I can bet you that Passaic Has More Potential than any of these towns around here.
Please don’t take this offensive I just love passiac
The filmmaking industry has a momentus centennial coming up in 2026.
The historic pre-Hollywood event happened right here in Passaic, New
Jersey. It would be fitting and proper to celebrate the occasion by
restoring the two remaining movie theaters in Passaic, the Montauk
and the Palace, and by renovating Passaic itself.
In 1963, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy energized America by
setting the end of that raucous decade as the date by which America
should go to the moon. At that time, the prospect of landing men on
the moon and bringing them back alive seemed like the height of
science fiction if not of actual lunacy.
At this time, getting Passaic back on its feet, and making Passaic
self-sufficient again, seems almost as unlikely as going to Mars.
But I believe the former can be done in twenty years or less. Every
journey begins with a single step. Passaic’s first step is to
remind America (and to remind itself) of why Passaic is so special.
The distinguished cinema historian and discoverer of lost films,
Kevin Brownlow, informs us that he put off writing his magnus opus,
Behind the Mask of Innocence: Films of Conscience in the Silent
Era, until he confirmed the existence of the single silent film that
he considered to be absolutely indispensable.
That epochal film was made in Passaic. Many Passaic residents acted
in it. The eponymously named silent movie is The Passaic Textile
Strike of 1926. The film genres perfected by Ken Burns and Michael
Moore originated in Passaic, New Jersey, eighty years ago.
Please bear with me as I tell you a little bit about the history of
Passaic and then a little more about the historic full-length movie
ever made in Passaic.
In the 1880s and the 1890s, America wisely decided that it wanted to
stop importing foreign woolen textiles. Way back then, everyone
still wore woolens all year round, even to sleep. Woolen textiles
were a significant import item. Americans logically wanted those
wealth-generating manufacturing jobs for themselves, onshore. So
Congress raised wool tariffs high enough to persuade the large
German firms, who specialized in woolens and did most of their
business here in America anyway, to relocate to America.
The German industrialists went looking for a new manufacturing site
(a) just outside New York City,
(b) with cheap land,
© with abundant hydroelectric power, and
(d) with a swiftly flowing stream of clean, soft water.
Passaic fit the bill not only geographically but also because its
waterfront was still largely undeveloped, because it was largely
still owned by Alexander Hamilton’s quiescent Society for the
Establishment of Useful Manufactures.
Botany, Forstmann & Huffman, Gera Mills, and a handful of other
woolen manufacturers literally transported the world’s woolen
industry intact from Germany to Passaic (and it overflowed to a
lessor extent to Garfield, Lodi, and Wallington).
Earlier Germans had already settled in New Jersey in large numbers
and had already been acclimated to working on furious factory
floors. Those Germans got most of the good jobs in these new
Passaic mills primarily because of their prior work experience. It
probably also did not hurt that all of the Germans spoke German.
Botany, F&H, and the rest made huge capital investments for loom
machinery which they imported from England and Germany. But that
was before computerization so the looms were not automated. The
expensive wool-mill machines still needed a lot of skilled and
semi-skilled labor to operate them, to clean them, and to repair
them.
On Ellis Island, agents of the Passaic wool mill owners
tagged-and-bagged the best-looking prospects among the young,
strong, men and women who were in the legal process of immigrating
to America, primarily Poles right off the farm, and then shunted
them about ten miles west of New York City to Passaic. There the
Germans gave the Poles a job. And the Germans taught the Polish
farmers how to perform their jobs. And the Germans paid the Poles
enough to eat and to rent a place to sleep. That was precisely why
the Poles came to America. So what was the problem?
Things started going off-track in Passaic when the Passaic mills
over-expanded in order to meet the peak demands of the American
Armed Forces for overcoats, uniforms, and blankets. During the
world war the mill workers held sway because the German-American
mill owners did not want to fail to meet their government orders,
especially after some of the German-American mills (e.g., Botany)
were confiscated by the Alien Property Custodian. Moreover, F&H
had made such a fuss of insisting that the woolen textiles tariffs
not be lowered that it would have put F&H in an awkward political
position to be seen cutting American wages and firing American
workers while simultaneously benefiting from American tariffs on
imported woolens. So the Passaic wool-mill owners over-hired and
over-paid while they thought they could still afford it.
It was bad enough when the government orders evaporated right after
the war ended. But the mill owners kept right on producing as if
the war was still on and therefore they built up large unsold
inventories. But wool styles still ruled the fashion roost and
there was still enough monopoly profits to make do.
Things got worse when domestic competitors opened woolen textile
mills in New England where they employed casual laborers who either
worked on their farms when they could not find work or else they
took the winter off to go hunting, trapping, and lumbering. The New
England mills paid less than the Passaic mills paid, so New England
started to take away business from Passaic. There went Passaic's
monopoly. And a huge hunk of Passaic’s profits.
Then the bottom dropped out from Passaic when domestic wool textile
mills started opening in the former slave states too. The southern
mills not only employed cheap, casual laborers but they also had
absolutely no hygenic standards. The working conditions in the
south were incomparable to the working conditions in Passaic and
even in New England.
The Passaic textile mills were held hostage to declining markets,
higher wage scales, and higher expectations of humane working
conditions. Something had to give, so the Passaic textile mills
started cutting back on wages and began to stretch its workers to
tend more of the textile machines per person. After that, the
Passaic wool mills had to start firing workers as a last resort.
The Polish-American textile workers in Passaic were not casual
laborers. They did not have farms in America to fall back on. They
did not have any alternative sources of income. They were in a
pinch. Passaic felt their pain.
To make matters worst, the ILGWA went on strike in New York City.
That union transformed Passaic’s woolen textiles into Fifth Avenue
garments. The Passaic mills lost their primary customers there.
During the ILGWA strike, the fashion styles also changed from
woolens to many other fabrics, to add to Passaic’s doom. With
comrades like the ILGWA, who needs enemies?
The Passaic textile mills and their workers were caught in a perfect
storm, but the tabloids had neither the space nor the inclination to
explain the background of Passaic’s plight. Nobody told the public
that the mills in Passaic were hurting as badly as the mill workers
in Passaic.
This was right before, during, and after the Bolshevik Revolution in
Russia. Communism was in style here in America too. Especially in
Passaic. Communist language-federations were thriving in Passaic
and they wanted to participate in revolt too. In Russia, the
Bolsheviks had failed to spread Communism to Germany and the rest of
Europe as they had expected to. So they sort of hunkered down and
tried to build Communism first in Russia. Of course, they needed
trade with the nasty Captialists to make a go of Communism, so the
official Communist policy was not to make enemies in America such as
by agitating and organizing strikes. Particularly not in Passaic
where Communism had a high profile.
On the other hand, the Communist Party in America had factions and
autonomous zealots everywhere who simply would not shut up and sit
down. It was hilarious. One of those zealots was Albert Weisbord
who either independently or more likely covertly came to Passaic to
organize a strike of the Passaic textile workers.
The Workers (Communist) Party wanted to be able to plausibly deny
that Albert Weisbord had their backing. They did not lend Albert
Weisbord a hand because they did not want their hand to be chopped
off either figuratively here or literally in Russia.
To everyone’s suprise except Albert Weisbord, and against all odds,
Albert Weisbord developed a marvelous rapport with the Passaic
textile workers and led them on a strike of extraordinary
solidarity.
The strike organizers had the evil-genius to use the innocent
children of the strikers to gain widespread public sympathy for the
Passaic textile strike. They paid the cherubs dimes to throw
snowballs and worse at the Passaic policemen so that they could film
the provoked Passaic cops at their worst. (Sound familiar?) The
tabloids loved the graphics of women and children being hassled,
and they devoted pages and pages of copy to sob stories of the
strikers' children going without milk (which was not true). The
money poured in for strike relief in buckets, to everyone’s great
surprise. The Workers Party started sending in “helpers” to siphon
off the relief funds. The GRU also sent a team of secret agents to
redirect a large portion of the relief funds all the way to Moscow.
The Passaic textile strike turned out to be Communism’s cash cow!
Except in poor Passaic.
The strike organizers also had the evil-insight to see how effective
for fund-raising a propaganda film about the Passaic textile strike
would be. Hence, this seminal silent movie: The Passaic Textile
Strike of 1926. The first Communist-produced docudrama about the
first Communist-led strike in America. Early Ken Burns. Early
Michael Moore.
The film raised over a million dollars in 1927 dollars, back when a
dollar was backed with gold. That could have bought a couple of the
textile mills in Passaic. It was an extraordinary amount of
purchasing power. Imagine if that had been invested in Passaic
instead of in Communist headquarters in Chicago and Russia.
So here is the deal. The silent film, The Passaic Textile Strike of
1926, is on seven reels. There was apparently only one copy of it.
The original. Two of the seven reels are still missing. Before
2026, the two missing reels have to be found and restored.
The first reel is already available on DVD. I got mine. I
purchased a copy of it. The 18-minute-long prologue of The Passaic
Textile Strike of 1926 is like a Passaic time capsule. You too
should go out and purchase copies so that the four other reels that
have already been found and restored will also be offered to the
public on DVD.
Then re-open the Montauk and Palace theaters in Passaic with
fundraisers showing the orginal The Passaic Textile Strike of 1926.
Why stop there?
How about a re-make of the Passaic Textile Strike of 1926. There
has to be dozens of left-wingers in Hollywood who would work for
their union’s minimum rates to get parts in the film. How about
auctioning off the roles of Albert and Vera Weisbord on E-Bay?
Why even stop there?
While the strike and all that was going on in the 1st and 4th wards
of Passaic, history was also being made in the 2nd and 3rd wards of
Passaic: Prof Blood and the Wonder Teams won a world-record 159
high school basketball games in a row.
What a double whammy!
Passaic was the Center of the Universe between 1915 (when Ernest
Blood started coaching in Passaic) and 1926. How about also a movie
about Passaic’s winning streak. That fascinated America too.
My point is that Passaic has a lot going for it.
The self-abandoned history of Passaic is money in the bank.
Passaic could again be the Center of the Universe by 2026.