Majestic Theatre

Brighton Avenue,
Rochester, PA 15074

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GrandkidNo5
GrandkidNo5 on July 19, 2017 at 3:25 pm

W.F. Workman opened the Majestic Theatre in March 1908, initially as a stage theater for plays & vaudeville shows. Motion pictures were eventually added to the billing. In 1929 the Majestic was the second Beaver County theater to implement a sound system. (The first was Aliquippa’s Queen Theater.) The Oriental Theatre on Hinds Street opened on Labor Day weekend 1931 and the Majectic was delegated to showing second-run films. The Majestic closed in 1949, when Emil & Meyer Winograd opened the Family Theatre, across the street from the Oriental. The Majestic became office space and the retail location of Rochester’s Army & Navy Store. The Majestic’s building was destroyed by fire in the early 1980’s.

docatlas
docatlas on March 13, 2017 at 1:51 pm

I would love to know more about both the theater and the organ (I’m a life-long organist). It had ceased to be a theater long before I was born, but for a long time during my life the Army-Navy store was in the building. Even that is gone now.

Another old Rochester theater I would like to know more about is the Home Theater. The only thing I know about it was that it was on the lower end of New York Avenue. I don’t know if it was torn down when the four lane road (Ohio River Blvd) was put in, or before that.

I’ve just started getting involved with the local historical society, so I’ll have to ask around and see what I can dig up.

AndrewBarrett
AndrewBarrett on September 22, 2014 at 8:54 pm

Thanks to whomever created this page!

According to the “Encyclopedia of the American Theatre Organ”, pg. 631, the “Majestic Theatre” in Rochester, Pennsylvania, had a Seeburg-Smith theatre pipe organ installed in 1920.

The size of the organ (# of manuals/# of ranks) is not given in the book (not known), but they do have info on the blower, which was/is serial #H637, and was 1 and ½ horsepower, with an output of 10" of static wind pressure. Again, this was a Seeburg-Smith organ, meaning it was built in part of the Seeburg piano and orchestrion factory in Chicago under Smith’s supervision, during the time of the Seeburg-Smith partnership.

I’d love to know more about this theatre and/or organ, and if either exist today!