Loew's Fairmount Theatre

The Loew'sFairmount Theatre was one of the largest Loew’s theatres in the Bronx, opening on September 12, 1928, a full year before it was eclipsed by the Loew’s Paradise Theatre. Designed by architect Joseph Orlando, the Loew’s Fairmount Theatre was in French Renaissance style. The auditorium was semi-Atmospheric style, with patches of dark blue sky peeking through the latticed ceiling, but without floating clouds or twinkling stars. It was equipped with a Robert-Morton 3 manual 19 ranks organ.

The Loew’s Fairmount Theatre opened with vaudeville and movies, but after the Loew’s Paradise Theatre’s debut, it went to straight movies and playing them two weeks after that Grand Concourse showplace. Loew’s dropped the Fairmount Theatre in the late-1950’s, but it struggled on under “indie” ownership until conversion into a Hispanic cultural center and museum.

Then, in a surprising development, realty developer Greg Morris took over the building in 1986, with plans to convert it to a movie fourplex, retaining as much as he could of the original auditorium. In the end it was converted into a triplex operating as Fairmount Cinemas. It was closed in February 1991. A recent photo of the site on the internet shows most of the building being used for a supermarket.

Recent comments (view all 14 comments)

Luis Vazquez on December 12, 2006 at 10:51 am

Has all of the internal ornamentation been lost? Are there drop ceilings protecting the original ceiling?

APK on January 24, 2008 at 1:54 pm

Loew’s Fairmount
708 East Tremont Avenue

Bronx, New York 10457

The 1928 Robert-Morton theatre pipe organ was disassembled some time prior to 1985 and is now installed in the studio of Paul van der Molen of Wheaton, Illinois.
The organ was described as having “18 ranks, 6 tuned percussions,” and “a toy counter for special effects.”

There is at least one recording of the organ: a two-cassette collection* of hymns entitled “Glory Sounds” played by organist Tom Hazleton. The set was issued by:

Wheaton-Fox Productions
O North 468 Witlow Road
Wheaton, Illinois 60187

(*spotted at a used-book store outside Cedar Rapids, Iowa)

TLSLOEWS on February 11, 2010 at 11:45 am

Looks like the old LOEWS marquee with the Loews ripped off.

RyanB on September 18, 2014 at 9:26 am

I am a fireman who works In This neighborhood, my firehouse is on Tremont avenue in between the lowes fairmont theater and the RKO Chestertheater that was on Boston road, do any of you have any

original pics of any of these theaters in their glory days, my company often performs safey inspections on These buildings and we would love to see some pictures of the inside of these buildings in their hay day.

michaelkaplan on January 24, 2017 at 12:11 am

The theater was located a few blocks from my grandmother’s apartment in the Bronx, and I went once in 1953 to see “King of the Khyber Rifles” with Tyrone Power. I was obsessed with CinemaScope films and this was an early one. I remember very little about the theater, except that it was a rather small one by Loew’s standards.

dan_blue on January 24, 2017 at 7:37 am

What’s the interior look like now? Is it being used?

moviebuff82 on July 3, 2017 at 6:57 pm

How far was it from Yankee Stadium?

Joseph Angier on October 10, 2017 at 8:50 am

The Fairmount was about 2 to 3 miles northeast of Yankee Stadium. I lived equidistant between them

50sSNIPES on April 16, 2022 at 11:20 am

According to the New York Times, the Fairmount did converted did try to convert into a quad, but the papers said that it converted into a triplex. For a short time, it was known as Fairmount Cinemas, and was operated by Lesser. The theater operated as a first-run/second-run triplexish until February 1991 as latest.

jwmovies on December 29, 2022 at 11:40 pm

Should be 3 screens instead of one. Please update.