Wilbur Palace Theatre

teecee on April 6, 2007 at 1:42 pm

`As to the nickelodeons, I can't forget the one labeled theTin Dump' due to the outer sheathing of corrugated tin sheets. It featured blood and thunder' westerns starring the likes of Buck Jones, Hoot Gibson, Tom Mix, Dustin Farnum, et al. Actually, its formal name was the Wilbur Palace, but no one called it other than theTin Dump.‘ Moments of high drama at showings of these westerns often soured badly. Impish kids would race up and down on the outside of the theater trailing sticks across the ridges of the corrugated sheathing, giving off rat-tat-tat sound effects. On the inside it overpowered the piano player’s frenzied renditions of the William Tell Overture.

excerpt from “The sounds of city’s theater organs long silent” The Times of Trenton, June 4, 2000