Montauk Theatre
715 Main Avenue,
Passaic,
NJ
07055
715 Main Avenue,
Passaic,
NJ
07055
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Showing 76 - 100 of 181 comments
I hope this link works… I finally got around to uploading these photos. I know it’s been a while, but better late than never. There are numerous photos throughout the theater, including backstage. Enjoy!
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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