Proctor's Theatre

rdabrowski on December 23, 2004 at 7:13 pm

From the “Troy Evening Record”, September 5, 1929:

“Troy feels a sense of personal loss in the death of Frederick F. Proctor. Mr. Proctor came into this city many years ago and built one of the finest vaudeville houses ever constructed in the United States. He maintained it with a type of vaudeville similar to that which he was offering to his patrons in New York and other large cities. He showed a personal interest in the affairs of the community and was a frequent visitor here.

“Therefore his death, at the ripe age of 78 years, is more than the death of a theatrical king. It comes very near being the death of a successful Trojan, a man with large sums of money invested here, a man who made life in Troy happier and more metropolitan. His career reads like a romance—the Maine farm boy who, through the avenue of the showman, finally became a magnate himself. His personality was attractive and he had many friends. But Trojans will think of him in a civic way as one of themselves who achieved a lasting fame and passes into the unknown full of years and honor.”

CampbellCritter on June 18, 2004 at 9:28 am

I have also lived in troy my entire 34 years, and I also saw King Kong in Proctor’s Theater. The one thing that stands out in my head is the red velvet seats, this is really all I can remember of the interior of the building besides the balconies which I believe were closed when I was there. I feel it is a crime to let this beautiful building crumble into disrepair. I am a union painter (I. U. P. A. T.) and worked on the Palace Theater Project in Albany which seems to have been a great success. I would be willing to even donate my time to help revitalize this beautiful piece of architecture. Our union has an Apprenticeship Program, and they offer their services to nonprofit organizations, possibly we could work out some kind of arrangement with all the construction trades and their apprenticeship programs and have much of the work done (labor) at no cost, I know this will probably be difficult to accomplish but my brother & I would be willing to work very hard to make this happen. Somebody has got to do something! Mr. Mayor (Tutunjian) if you really want Troy to be a better place then you really need to take this seriously, because over the course of my lifetime here many of the things which made Troy such a Great City! are gone, the only thing left are the people who make this city so great but why should they stay if there is nothing left but ruins! I just feel it is a great sin to let the last Movie Palace of Troy crumble!

joemasher on May 2, 2004 at 6:39 am

The local college, RPI, has just purchased the theatre and has proposed to turn the office building portion of this complex into a boutique hotel. There has been no talk of auditorium restoration as of yet. I was last in the theatre, about 5 years ago, the place was not too bad. There was some major plaster damage, and the window in the back of the projection booth was smashed out allowing many, many pigeons to roost in the booth. The equipment is covered with pigeon droppings. The theatre features two balconies connected by a series of complex ramps, rather than stairs. On one of the landings I saw a vending machine that was still on, believe it or not, that dispensed soda. I decided to see if it worked. I dropped my quarter, the cup came down, no ice filled the cup, no syrup, and a few drops of water came down! There was also popcorn still in the popcorn warmer that was there since the theatre last closed in the 70’s! It has since been cleaned out. In the manager’s office, there were boxes and boxes of “FILM JORNAL INTERNATIONAL” magazines, some dumped on the floor. Most were from the 60’s & 70’s.