Comments about Montauk Theatre in Passaic, NJ

2ndward on September 1, 2006 at 9:43 pm

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.

Ed Solero on August 29, 2006 at 12:49 pm

Thanks again, Ken, for yet another great series of photographs.

Ken Roe on August 29, 2006 at 12:16 pm

A photographic tour around the exterior of the Montauk Theatre…..

2ndward on August 29, 2006 at 8:44 am

The news from Passaic this week is very bad.

Politicians just hate that scene in the movie Frankenstein.
Where the villagers (voters) grab their pitchforks and ignite
their torches and give the Herr Doctor in his castle a bum's
rush. When the people get so fed up that they refuse to
take it any longer.

It is every politician’s worst nightmare to have his
constituency turn off their TVs, get off their butts, and
come after him to throw the bum out of office.

Every politician has a staff of flunkies whose job it is to
tell him when the torches are being lit back home in his
district, and to ward off the pitchforks meant for him.

Well, Andrew Schwab is the political flunky of Assemblyman
Gary Schaer, D-Passaic, and they must recognize the problem
that they have in Passaic. And I do not mean just the
blistering problem of the flagging Montauk Theater.

Since the immigration policy of the United States was
changed for the worse in the early 1960s, Passaic has been
moronically mutilated into America’s gargoyle.

The new immigrants brought their “umbrella men” with them
to Passaic. Passaic did not wear out. Passaic was knifed
in the back with a switchblade, and then Passaic was
stomped out.

This weekend I was looking for America on the New Jersey
Turnpike when I went out of my way to stop at Rutt’s Hut
in Clifton.

(The good news from Clifton this week is that Rutt’s Hut
has not replaced hot dogs with chimichangas on their
menu … yet.)

I also wanted to see for myself what is going on with the
Montauk Theater on Main Avenue in Passaic.

(I would have preferred two or three kosher hot dogs with
mustard and sauerkraut, and an ice-cold celery soda, at
Rice’s Delicatessen. Alas, Rice’s is no longer there on
Howe Avenue, right around the corner, just across the
street, from the Montauk Theater.)

We definitely need some boots on the ground in order to
have any impact at all on the fate of the Montauk. The
politicians are just pulling our chains until the
elections are over and they can forget about this again.

I wanted to talk to the homeless man, who was very
obviously sleeping something off in the filthy arcade
under the Montauk’s monumental marquee, but he looked
much too comfortable resting there
…
like an infant in a cardboard crib
without a care in the world
…
a blight, within a blight, within a blight.

I wanted to welcome him to America, but as I do not
speak Spanish I guess that classifies me as an
illiterate in my own hometown.

I did not disturb that homeless man who was

like a lot of us are

waiting for the box office of the Montauk Theater
to re-open in Passaic, New Jersey.

But I do want to wake YOU up.

The bad news from Passaic this week is that
…
nothing is being done to save the Montauk Theater,
nothing is being done to save Passaic, and
nothing is being done to save America.

Luis Vazquez on July 4, 2006 at 4:45 pm

So What’s the latest? Is the demolition on or has it been saved?

Also, there are so many posts above and yet not one photo of the interior or exterior! If anyone has photos please post!

Ed Solero on March 9, 2006 at 9:39 am

It almost restores my faith in the Democratic process! Kudos to all involved in steering the plans in this new direction and I hope with all my heart that it actually comes to fruition.

dave-bronx™ on March 9, 2006 at 9:00 am

…and they could put performing arts related classrooms in the hotel, of course after the place is thoroughly fumegated and scrubbed.

dave-bronx™ on March 9, 2006 at 8:56 am

Finally, someone over there is actually using their brain – it can be used for something other than porn….

BobFurmanek on March 9, 2006 at 6:16 am

From yesterday’s Bergen Record:

PASSAIC — One of Passaic’s stately movie houses in the 1920s, the
Montauk — now a shuttered pornographic movie theater — could see at least one more reincarnation as a performing arts space for budding drama students and musicians.

City and state officials met Tuesday to start planning possible
educational uses for a downtown site that encompasses the Main Avenue
theater and the Hotel Passaic around the corner on Henry Street.

Andrew Schwab, a spokesman for Assemblyman Gary Schaer, D-Passaic, said officials developed a tentative plan to renovate the theater for Passaic art students, instead of demolishing it for a new school. However, state and local officials did not determine a plan for the Hotel Passaic, a flophouse that school officials associate with prostitution and drug use.

State School Construction Corp. officials said their agency would work with the schools and the city to develop a plan for new or renovated facilities in that area, but they would not commit additional funding above the $166 million already approved to build four schools in the district.

“It’s rethinking a lot of things that exist and talking about creating new [space],” schools Superintendent Robert H. Holster said. “It’s not just about the issue of the drama and theater program. It’s a lot bigger than that.”

Outside of the possible student drama space in the Montauk, there were very few details on what was envisioned for that area. The theater is owned by Gloria Terminello, who won a 2005 appeals case to reopen the theater.

The meeting participants will meet again in two weeks to review
feasibility and traffic studies on the Montauk site.

They will also discuss the Hotel Passaic, which sits across the street from the proposed Henry Street Elementary School, one of the four school projects already approved.

Last week, school and city officials were shocked to learn that the SCC would not knock down the hotel and theater for a parking lot as part of the Henry Street school project. The SCC backed off after the local outrage reached Trenton officials.

The redevelopment of the Montauk Theater district for new school
facilities depends on approval from the state Department of Education, and the SCC reaching an agreement with the owners of the buildings.

If no agreement is reached, the state could take the property by
eminent domain.

Schwab added that when students were not using the theater space,
community and senior groups could hold events in the renovated Montauk.

bigal1970 on March 8, 2006 at 10:33 pm

I do not think the Montauk movie theater is the biggest problem the city of Passaic has. The city of Passaic as well as her sister city of Paterson have been on a steady decline for decades. I grew up in Paterson and spent time in Passaic before moving west years ago. The Fabain theater in Paterson is a prime example of the decline over the decades. Lou Costello premiered many of his motion pictures at the Fabian. Now it is slated for the recking ball. An exploited shell of her once grandness. I remember the Capital theater on Monore street. My godmothers mother worked the ticket booth at the Capital in the 60’s. The Montauk went porn I believe in the 70’s. These place’s represent the past of the former inhabitants of the area. The new generation of inhabitants I guess want their own. So it is a good thing there are forums such as this so old dinasaurs like I can relieve and share some of our past. Thank you.

dave-bronx™ on March 6, 2006 at 4:17 pm

The politicians CAN straighten out Passaic if they wanted to, and New York City is an example. For decades in NYC we put up with do-nothing mayors (several of whom I voted for) and other pols who moaned and cried “There’s nothing we can do about all the murder, drugs and crime!”, and the city continued to degenerate. Then we got Guiliani and he plowed through all the B.S. got the job done and worried about what some hack judge or the New York Times would say later. The hypocritical New York Times would constantly lament that the muggers and dope dealers rights were being violated by Guiliani, while at the same time their employees were being mugged daily on 43rd St. in front of the Times' building. Guiliani proved that all these previous mayors and city council people were just a bunch of windbags, only there to get their face in the papers and feed at the public trough. I didn’t agree with everything that Guiliani did here, but overall he was good for the city and brought it back from the brink of the abyss. Passaic New Jersey is at the brink right now, and the good citizens of Passaic need to find their own Rudy Guiliani and put him in the mayors office before it’s too late.

2ndward on March 6, 2006 at 12:41 pm

Politicians are clever, not dimwitted.
Follow the money. Who owns Passaic now?
Banks or absentee landlords. Passaic is
only a dozen miles from Manhattan. Passaic
is potentially very valuable land. Passaic
is purposely distressed so that slumlords
can charge high slum rents to illegal immigrants
but pay low slum taxes with a little extra on
the side for the politicians. The tragedy of
Passaic is that it is economically convenient.

dave-bronx™ on March 6, 2006 at 11:23 am

I would agree that it is sad for the good long-time or former residents of Passaic to have to watch their town disintegrate before their eyes. My contempt is for the polititions of Passaic – they are responsible for not enforcing zoning codes, not forcing people to maintain their property, not enforcing laws against prostitution, dope dealing and vagrancy for so long that the place has deteriorated to such a state that now appears to be unrecoverable. With all the problems that the City of Passaic has, all they seem to focus on is this theatre. I would not want to see school children wandering through this neighborhood, but not because of the theatre. They can knock down the theatre and after it’s gone the various vagrants, whores, riff-raff and other trash will still be hanging around there. And they are the ones that the dimwit polititions should be trying to protect the school children from.

2ndward on March 6, 2006 at 10:20 am

Walt Disney created Disneyland to pay homage to his
own hometown. Disneyland is a 5/8ths reproduction
of wherever he grew up. Passaic has a small enough
footprint that you would think that an interested party
could simply buy it outright and restore it to vintage
1950 or thereabouts. I always thought that when I had
children I could always bring them back to Passaic for
a visit to play in the parks (and all of the other
play places such as the grounds of the Passaic General
Hospital or my own “100-acre woods” on Lafayette Avenue
between Wickham and Oak Streets), go to the movies, see
a football game at Passaic High School stadium, eat at
the great restaurants, spend an afternoon at the Forstmann
Library, etc. But that fantasy of mine is so completely
out of the question as to be ridiculous. Still, the idea
of Passaic as a gated condominium-community where your
family had to have deep roots there in order to buy in is
attractive. Then, it would make sense to restore the
Montauk Theater and whatever is left. Passaic-Land might
even be economically viable as a tourist destination.
There really was something really special about Passaic,
and it deserves a better fate than insult or extinction.

BobFurmanek on March 6, 2006 at 10:02 am

We have to Save the Montauk!

dave-bronx™ on March 6, 2006 at 9:57 am

The street-corners and back-alleys are where they “work” – they reside in the decaying houses, apartments and projects nearby.

ThePhotoplayer on March 6, 2006 at 9:39 am

Yes, I don’t think the street-corners and back-alleys count as residential areas…

dave-bronx™ on March 6, 2006 at 9:31 am

There’s a difference?

BobFurmanek on March 6, 2006 at 8:42 am

Downtown Passaic today is a far cry from what I remember in the late 60’s/early 70’s, and THAT was a far cry from what my parents remembered in the 40’s and 50’s. At one time, there were 3 huge theaters, and several smaller ones, all providing entertainment. Many of the biggest stars played the stage of the Central throughout the 1940’s.

Now I feel like I need to get a Passport when entering the city. If you speak English, you are certainly in the minority.

2ndward on March 6, 2006 at 7:15 am

One does need to distinguish between residents and occupiers.

dave-bronx™ on March 5, 2006 at 10:37 am

They’ve got it backwards – they need to get rid of the residents, then you will see the town improve – and they won’t need the new school.

2ndward on March 4, 2006 at 8:20 pm

The restoration, or even just the preservation, of the Montauk
Theater does not even register on the radar screen of the priorities
of the current residents of Passaic, who are struggling just to
survive economically. Besides, many of the immigrants of the last
40 years or so would actually take a great deal of satisfaction
from seeing the destruction of yet another relic of Passaic's
wonderful past which to them is just another embarrassing
benchmark of their own shortcomings. If the Montauk Theater is
to be saved it must be done by former residents of Passaic who
have fled for their lives. Curiously, there is at least one
superlative specimen of preservation/restoration in Passaic: the
Holy Rosary Roman Catholic (Polish) Church on Wall Street. I
happened to attend a recent mass at Holy Rosary on Ash Wednesday
and was overwhelmed by the fabulous interior of Holy Rosary.
At least some remnants of wonderful Passaic value church treasures
if not cinema treasures.

moviekid on March 4, 2006 at 5:28 pm

The Montauk Theater in its day was a wonderful single screen theater. I had been associated with the Central Theater because I operated the Rivoli Theater, Rutherford, same owners of both theaters. We, during this time, were all friendly with the operators of the Montauk as well as the Capitol.

Gerald A. DeLuca on March 4, 2006 at 11:48 am

A New York Times article today discusses the imminent razing of the Montauk.

BobFurmanek on March 3, 2006 at 1:12 pm

The city of Passaic has one of the last of the large single screen theaters in the state of New Jersey, and one of the oldest. It’s in remarkably good condition, and still has most of its original fixtures. The theater has been very well maintained for the past 30 years since they’ve been showing porno. It could serve as a wonderful performance venue for residents of this area.

The fact that they are so anxious to destroy it because of the association with X-rated material is astonishing. What about the theaters first 50 years as a prime movie house?

Montauk Theatre

715 Main Avenue, Passaic, NJ 07055

I did not disturb that homeless man who was

like a lot of us are

715 Main Avenue,
Passaic, NJ 07055