Looks like it didn’t make it. Please update status to DEMOLISHED.
extracted from today’s nj.com
“Ever looking to help the Greater Bridgeton Area, Fisher toured the Laurel Theater demolition site Tuesday and found out the movie projectors are still there and will be bulldozed under.”
Article published Jun 15, 2005
Capitol Theatre grants work contract
By MATT KASPER
Staff writer
Construction on the Capitol Theatre ceiling is expected to take three to five months, or perhaps longer, said Downtown Chambersburg Inc. President Paul Cullinane.
Following weeks of uncertainty about the ceiling restoration, board members of DCI on Tuesday granted a construction contract to Novinger’s Inc., Middletown.
The total cost of the ceiling restoration is expected to be $315,000.
Construction is expected to begin this week. In addition to removing and replacing about 4,000 square feet of the 8,500 square-foot ceiling, the remaining 4,500 square feet â€" above and below the balcony and above and below the mezzanine â€" will be reattached and repaired, according to Steven Powers, the director of sales at Novinger’s.
Portions of the walls inside the theater will be inspected and plastered, if necessary, he said.
“We are going to do a complete replacement of the auditorium ceiling,” Cullinane said.
“How long it takes is really
hard to say,“ he said. "We’re not driving anyone toward a deadline.”
Linda Boeckman, theater operations manager, said no new shows have been scheduled for 2005 and the remaining shows have been relocated.
The theater at 159 S. Main St. has been closed since April 30 when a 4- by 10-foot section of plaster fell during a Saturday night performance.
A press conference is scheduled for today to introduce Novinger’s and announce that a $250,000 gift from the estate of Cora Grove will go toward the ceiling restoration, among other updates about the project.
Despite a $550,000 construction debt prior to the ceiling collapse, Cullinane said the contract was not awarded to the lowest bidder because public safety was the biggest concern for the board.
Novinger’s experience working on previous restoration projects, including being the plastering subcontractor on the Capitol building in Harrisburg and the Hershey Theatre, he said, convinced the board the company was the most qualified to do the restoration.
“Other contractors recommended Novinger’s,” he said.
Cullinane also said Novinger’s suggested approach of cutting portions of the ceiling into smaller sections to minimize dust and debris during the removal phase, went over well.
Waste Management of Chambersburg has donated trash bins for the construction project, he said, noting that the free services would be a “huge cost savings” on the project.
In the next two weeks, scaffolding will go up inside the theater.
A search for a painting contractor is under way, Cullinane said.
Besides a fresh coat of paint on the ceiling, “(theater-goers) won’t be able to tell the difference when it’s all said and done,” Boeckman said.
“It is a tragedy because people were injured and a historic theater lost its ceiling,” she said.
Additionally, the ceiling collapse made some theater-goers question safety.
Nevertheless, she said: “The reality is, when it opens, those questions won’t be there anymore.”
My initial guess would be that they were denied entry or had to sit in segregated seats …. but, the main description of this theater claims it was used exclusively for black audiences. If this is true, then I believe they were picketing the movie itself and its portrayal of black people. Look at the signs the people are carrying, they seem to be targeting the movie.
One would think that as more & more theaters get added and time passes it would be more difficult to find and add the theaters. We have proved this to be wrong as our rate of adding theaters is actually increasing with time! Congrats to all. I too can’t wait for the add-a-photo to return.
Picketing Gone With The Wind at the theater: View link
Courtesty of the Smithsonian.
Summary: Complete caption quoted above in ink on verso of print A. Print B is marked “Picketing at Lincoln Theater / late 40s”.
Scope and Content: The movie being picketed is “Gone with the Wind.” Several figures carry signs with messages such as “A dollar and ten ‘gone…with the wind”. Print is on resin-coated paper, so is probably a much later restrike print by Robert Scurlock, ca. 1970s.
Cite as: Scurlock Studio Records, ca. 1905-1994, Archives Center, National Museum of American History.
Subject-Topical: Civil rights
Civil rights demonstrations — Washington (D.C.) — 1940-1950.
Demonstrations — Washington (D.C.).
Picketing
Caption on back of this photo:
Marshall Murray, owner & operator of / the Dunbar Theater, 7th & T St., N.W. / only black owned cinema, featured Western / films
Jul 23, 2004 11:11 am US/Eastern
VINELAND, N.J. (AP) People in Vineland will get to do what no others have been able to do in New Jersey since 1991 Friday night – sit in their cars and watch a movie.
The Delsea Drive-In will open its gates for showings of “The Bourne Supremacy” and “Anchorman.'
New Jersey is credited with spawning the drive-in craze in 1933 when the first theater was built on Admiral Wilson Boulevard in Pennsauken. But television, multiplexes and videos killed the craze and the last drive-in closed in the Garden State in Hazlet in 1991.
A group of investors bought the Delsea Drive-In last year and planned to put a skate park and restaurant on the 17-acre property. They changed their minds when they realized the 120-foot screen was in good shape.
There is capacity for 700 vehicles and the audience will listen to the films on their F-M radios.
Instead of charging by the carload, ticket prices at the Delsea are six dollars for adults and three dollars for children.
“ Nearby at North Clinton Avenue and Meade Street stood “The Princess;†one of Trenton’s few neighborhood theaters (#392). Featuring decorative tilework and monumental metal cornice, the building has served as both The Princess Theater and The Holy Cross Church ”
It is just an educated guess. I just can’t fathom a theater named Olden on a street named Alden when there’s a main street in town named Olden.
(Did you follow that logic?)
This was a Walter Reade theater and was DEMOLISHED in February 2005.
Theater had been renamed the Park Theater.
Now There are Three
Lyric Theater in Asbury Park is demolished"
The Coaster, February 10, 2005
By Helen Pike
Another one of Walter Reade’s movie houses came tumbling down this week, leaving only the memories of area residents who can recall such live performances as the Kiwanis Kapers, the mogul’s foray into television, and countless celluloid reels that flashed across its screen, including the 1941 Oscar winner, ‘How Green Was My Valley’, starring Walter Pidgeon, Maureen O'Hara and Roddy McDowall.
Although it ended its last decades following 1970 as a pornographic film house, the theater wore its XXX rating with flair: the last public role for the renamed Park Cinema was its appearance in ‘City by the Sea’ with Robert DeNiro and the HBO series ‘The Sopranos’ for which its once classical exterior sported a bordello red coat of paint.
An intimate performance space, the originally named Lyric Theatre was dwarfed by the presence of Reade’s more ornate and imposing Mayfair and St. James theaters a block west on Lake and Cookman avenues, respectively. With movies still a novelty in those years before World War II, patrons ordered their tickets in advance for their choice of seating on either the orchestra or mezzanine levels, the latter’s balcony festooned wtih plaster cherubs powdered with faux gold dust.
Eventually Reade sold the theater’s dressing rooms to Gus Williams, the second owner of the Palace Merry-Go-Round and Ferris wheel, and Williams replaced the rear of the building with a one-story dark ride. Until the Palace Amusements closed*, it was not uncommon to listen to a movie in the Lyric, but hear the shrieks of children riding the Ghost Ride (also called the Haunted Mansion) as they filtered through the back wall.
In the 1950s, Walter Reade** switched to billing the Lyric as an art theater. He hired city resident and local schoolteacher Jan Leon for the role of Princess Jan to host a children’s theater series, featuring Disney films and cartoons along with live puppet shows and clowns which he televised on WRTV.
In the next decade he hired illustrator Ida Libby Dengrove of West Allenhurst to paint murals on the mezzanine level. Soon after, Dengrove, who had trained in Philadelphia, went on to gain national recognition as the country’s first courtroom television artist, a NBC network strategy used to counter the then-ban of cameras in courtrooms. Last fall, the Asbury Park Historical Society was able to save a portion of Dengrove’s Parisian-themed murals prior to the building’s scheduled demolition.
This brings the total to three of Reade’s theaters now gone from Asbury Park. The Mayfair and the St. James, both designed by well-known New York City architect Thomas Lamb, were torn down in 1974. The remaining theaters that once carried the Reade marquee are the Baronet on Fourth Avenue (listed for sale with Better Homes NJ; the Savoy, inside the Kinmouth Building on Mattision (the office/theater building is listed for sale at $3 million), and the Paramount Theatre overlooking Ocean Avenue (which the city of Asbury Park sold last year to Asbury Partners, the master redeveloper of the residential resort’s oceanfront).
Nice night photo from 1973 at this link (you must scroll to the RIGHT to find it):
View link
Listed in the 1951 FDY with 600 seats.
According to in70mm.com, “2001” opened in this theater on July 17, 1968 and ran for 36 weeks.
Wow – not exactly Academy Award material. Looks like a “B” theater to me.
Thanks for the post.
Looks like it didn’t make it. Please update status to DEMOLISHED.
extracted from today’s nj.com
“Ever looking to help the Greater Bridgeton Area, Fisher toured the Laurel Theater demolition site Tuesday and found out the movie projectors are still there and will be bulldozed under.”
I am not sure who “Fisher” is.
recent article on the theater:
View link
Another article:
View link
Article published Jun 15, 2005
Capitol Theatre grants work contract
By MATT KASPER
Staff writer
Construction on the Capitol Theatre ceiling is expected to take three to five months, or perhaps longer, said Downtown Chambersburg Inc. President Paul Cullinane.
Following weeks of uncertainty about the ceiling restoration, board members of DCI on Tuesday granted a construction contract to Novinger’s Inc., Middletown.
The total cost of the ceiling restoration is expected to be $315,000.
Construction is expected to begin this week. In addition to removing and replacing about 4,000 square feet of the 8,500 square-foot ceiling, the remaining 4,500 square feet â€" above and below the balcony and above and below the mezzanine â€" will be reattached and repaired, according to Steven Powers, the director of sales at Novinger’s.
Portions of the walls inside the theater will be inspected and plastered, if necessary, he said.
“We are going to do a complete replacement of the auditorium ceiling,” Cullinane said.
“How long it takes is really
hard to say,“ he said. "We’re not driving anyone toward a deadline.”
Linda Boeckman, theater operations manager, said no new shows have been scheduled for 2005 and the remaining shows have been relocated.
The theater at 159 S. Main St. has been closed since April 30 when a 4- by 10-foot section of plaster fell during a Saturday night performance.
A press conference is scheduled for today to introduce Novinger’s and announce that a $250,000 gift from the estate of Cora Grove will go toward the ceiling restoration, among other updates about the project.
Despite a $550,000 construction debt prior to the ceiling collapse, Cullinane said the contract was not awarded to the lowest bidder because public safety was the biggest concern for the board.
Novinger’s experience working on previous restoration projects, including being the plastering subcontractor on the Capitol building in Harrisburg and the Hershey Theatre, he said, convinced the board the company was the most qualified to do the restoration.
“Other contractors recommended Novinger’s,” he said.
Cullinane also said Novinger’s suggested approach of cutting portions of the ceiling into smaller sections to minimize dust and debris during the removal phase, went over well.
Waste Management of Chambersburg has donated trash bins for the construction project, he said, noting that the free services would be a “huge cost savings” on the project.
In the next two weeks, scaffolding will go up inside the theater.
A search for a painting contractor is under way, Cullinane said.
Besides a fresh coat of paint on the ceiling, “(theater-goers) won’t be able to tell the difference when it’s all said and done,” Boeckman said.
“It is a tragedy because people were injured and a historic theater lost its ceiling,” she said.
Additionally, the ceiling collapse made some theater-goers question safety.
Nevertheless, she said: “The reality is, when it opens, those questions won’t be there anymore.”
Recent article:
View link
My initial guess would be that they were denied entry or had to sit in segregated seats …. but, the main description of this theater claims it was used exclusively for black audiences. If this is true, then I believe they were picketing the movie itself and its portrayal of black people. Look at the signs the people are carrying, they seem to be targeting the movie.
A very young Bruce Springsteen played here in 07/29/66 – Loew’s 35 Drive-In, Hazlet, N.J. I believe his band was called the Castiles.
One would think that as more & more theaters get added and time passes it would be more difficult to find and add the theaters. We have proved this to be wrong as our rate of adding theaters is actually increasing with time! Congrats to all. I too can’t wait for the add-a-photo to return.
Another old photo courtesy of the Smithsonian:
View link
Exterior view, shows marquee advertising movie “Personal Property (1937)”, with Jean Harlow and Robert Taylor.
Picketing Gone With The Wind at the theater:
View link
Courtesty of the Smithsonian.
Summary: Complete caption quoted above in ink on verso of print A. Print B is marked “Picketing at Lincoln Theater / late 40s”.
Scope and Content: The movie being picketed is “Gone with the Wind.” Several figures carry signs with messages such as “A dollar and ten ‘gone…with the wind”. Print is on resin-coated paper, so is probably a much later restrike print by Robert Scurlock, ca. 1970s.
Cite as: Scurlock Studio Records, ca. 1905-1994, Archives Center, National Museum of American History.
Subject-Topical: Civil rights
Civil rights demonstrations — Washington (D.C.) — 1940-1950.
Demonstrations — Washington (D.C.).
Picketing
View link
Caption on back of this photo:
Marshall Murray, owner & operator of / the Dunbar Theater, 7th & T St., N.W. / only black owned cinema, featured Western / films
Courtesy of the Smithsonian
Thanks JBon. Can you add the Eric and the Coronet?
Looks very much like this 1904 postcard of the Empire Theatre on sale on eBay:
View link
Photo for sale on eBay:
http://i16.ebayimg.com/03/i/04/1b/18/36_1_b.JPG
Drive-In Theater Returns To New Jersey
Jul 23, 2004 11:11 am US/Eastern
VINELAND, N.J. (AP) People in Vineland will get to do what no others have been able to do in New Jersey since 1991 Friday night – sit in their cars and watch a movie.
The Delsea Drive-In will open its gates for showings of “The Bourne Supremacy” and “Anchorman.'
New Jersey is credited with spawning the drive-in craze in 1933 when the first theater was built on Admiral Wilson Boulevard in Pennsauken. But television, multiplexes and videos killed the craze and the last drive-in closed in the Garden State in Hazlet in 1991.
A group of investors bought the Delsea Drive-In last year and planned to put a skate park and restaurant on the 17-acre property. They changed their minds when they realized the 120-foot screen was in good shape.
There is capacity for 700 vehicles and the audience will listen to the films on their F-M radios.
Instead of charging by the carload, ticket prices at the Delsea are six dollars for adults and three dollars for children.
Old photo of the projectionist circa 1970 (last one at the bottom of the link):
View link
Old photos & ads:
View link
“ Nearby at North Clinton Avenue and Meade Street stood “The Princess;†one of Trenton’s few neighborhood theaters (#392). Featuring decorative tilework and monumental metal cornice, the building has served as both The Princess Theater and The Holy Cross Church ”
from trentonhistory.org
Looks like we are onto something. Here is another night photo of the marquee promoting a band in October 1972:
http://www.paulplumeri.com/hoochiecooch/
It is just an educated guess. I just can’t fathom a theater named Olden on a street named Alden when there’s a main street in town named Olden.
(Did you follow that logic?)
This was a Walter Reade theater and was DEMOLISHED in February 2005.
Theater had been renamed the Park Theater.
Now There are Three
Lyric Theater in Asbury Park is demolished"
The Coaster, February 10, 2005
By Helen Pike
Another one of Walter Reade’s movie houses came tumbling down this week, leaving only the memories of area residents who can recall such live performances as the Kiwanis Kapers, the mogul’s foray into television, and countless celluloid reels that flashed across its screen, including the 1941 Oscar winner, ‘How Green Was My Valley’, starring Walter Pidgeon, Maureen O'Hara and Roddy McDowall.
Although it ended its last decades following 1970 as a pornographic film house, the theater wore its XXX rating with flair: the last public role for the renamed Park Cinema was its appearance in ‘City by the Sea’ with Robert DeNiro and the HBO series ‘The Sopranos’ for which its once classical exterior sported a bordello red coat of paint.
An intimate performance space, the originally named Lyric Theatre was dwarfed by the presence of Reade’s more ornate and imposing Mayfair and St. James theaters a block west on Lake and Cookman avenues, respectively. With movies still a novelty in those years before World War II, patrons ordered their tickets in advance for their choice of seating on either the orchestra or mezzanine levels, the latter’s balcony festooned wtih plaster cherubs powdered with faux gold dust.
Eventually Reade sold the theater’s dressing rooms to Gus Williams, the second owner of the Palace Merry-Go-Round and Ferris wheel, and Williams replaced the rear of the building with a one-story dark ride. Until the Palace Amusements closed*, it was not uncommon to listen to a movie in the Lyric, but hear the shrieks of children riding the Ghost Ride (also called the Haunted Mansion) as they filtered through the back wall.
In the 1950s, Walter Reade** switched to billing the Lyric as an art theater. He hired city resident and local schoolteacher Jan Leon for the role of Princess Jan to host a children’s theater series, featuring Disney films and cartoons along with live puppet shows and clowns which he televised on WRTV.
In the next decade he hired illustrator Ida Libby Dengrove of West Allenhurst to paint murals on the mezzanine level. Soon after, Dengrove, who had trained in Philadelphia, went on to gain national recognition as the country’s first courtroom television artist, a NBC network strategy used to counter the then-ban of cameras in courtrooms. Last fall, the Asbury Park Historical Society was able to save a portion of Dengrove’s Parisian-themed murals prior to the building’s scheduled demolition.
This brings the total to three of Reade’s theaters now gone from Asbury Park. The Mayfair and the St. James, both designed by well-known New York City architect Thomas Lamb, were torn down in 1974. The remaining theaters that once carried the Reade marquee are the Baronet on Fourth Avenue (listed for sale with Better Homes NJ; the Savoy, inside the Kinmouth Building on Mattision (the office/theater building is listed for sale at $3 million), and the Paramount Theatre overlooking Ocean Avenue (which the city of Asbury Park sold last year to Asbury Partners, the master redeveloper of the residential resort’s oceanfront).