Alpine Theater
107 Pine Street,
Punxsutawney,
PA
15767
107 Pine Street,
Punxsutawney,
PA
15767
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Here is an item from the April 19, 1919 issue of The American Contractor: “Punxsutawney, Pa. -М. Р. Theater: $18,000. 1 sty. 40x150. Archt. H. S. Bair, Vandergrift bldg., Pittsburgh, Pa. Owner James Crivello, Punxsutawney. Sketches.”
If the project was still at the sketch stage in April, 1919, the house probably wasn’t opened for several months. Mr. Crivello didn’t get to run his theater for long, as ill health forced him to lease the Alpine to his rivals McCartney and Johnson about a year after the above notice appeared.
Thanks. I’m almost sure the Gem was the unnamed theater I added on Mahoning.
Seth, the April, 1911 issue of Motogrpahy notes the opening of the Gem Theatre at Punxsutawney, so if this address was a wooden house in 1912, the Gem was somewhere else.
The 2015 streetview shows the building vacant. At some point afterward, the brickwork on the upper part of the facade was covered in a slovenly coat of concrete.
This may have initially been the Gem, which is listed in the 1914-15 AMPD. The building first appears on the 1924 map, while the 1912 map shows a wooden house and some sort of outbuilding on the site. Like most of the rapidly dwindling downtown, this building is very grubby, and in disrepair. It appears to have been vacant for quite a while.
Opened before April 10, 1920, though I cannot find any evidence they exhibited motion pictures before that date.
The film did reference the Alpine, but the entire theater was actually the Woodstock Theatre in Woodstock, Illinois. That was back when the popular Woodstock Theatre was still a second-run twin-screen theater.
CosmicBraxton commented about Alpine Theater on Feb 2, 2025 at 1:14 pm (remove) Seen in the movie Groundhog Day..the sequence where the team initially drives into town. Also later the marquee is lit up in the background as they walk to see Phil make his prediction.
Shortly before it became a longtime Western Auto store, it was an office for a time. Harry Batastini and William Good both leased the building after closing the Alpine in 1969.
From Boxoffice magazine, May 1941:
PUNXSUTAWNEY, PA.-Alpine Theater has been acquired by Warner Brothers Circuit Management Corp. Transfer is from Harry Batastini. The Alpine was an independent theater, not affiliated with a circuit operated under that name. Warner has the Jefferson here which is managed by Mrs. Marietta McCartney.