Palace Theatre
165 Main Street,
Danbury,
CT
06810
165 Main Street,
Danbury,
CT
06810
7 people
favorited this theater
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We were driving by the Palace today and they are doing lots of interior work for the CT Film Fest. They also installed a permanent heater which was great since last year it was cold during movies.
When we arrived at 3pm today, a crew member in a mask was hanging out by the stage door. Apparently, they are renovating the very holey stage and putting new wood in.
Hmmmmmm..
According to the local Vision Appraisal site for Danbury (http://data.visionappraisal.com/DanburyCT/findpid.asp?iTable=pid&pid=5010) the Palace’s appraised value is $4,472,200 and the assessed value (70% of appraised value) is $3,130,500).
Since I don’t live in the area, I don’t think I can make it down to Danbury, CT for First Night, but thanks.
The landlord is accommodating but if you’re in the area, try Dec. 31 from 4-8pm for First Night.
Hmmmm…How exciting to read and hear about the upcoming re-birth of a theatre! That’s a welcome breath of fresh air, with all the closings of theatres and disappearances of most of the graceful old movie palaces here in the United States and throughout the world. Is there a website containing photos of the interior of the Palace Theatre, btw? Just curious.
What a trip down memory lane with all these great posts. I think that I am probably one of the oldest readers here. I’ll be 85 years old next month (Jan 2009). I remember the early Palace days, when I as a youngster coming home from St Peter’s School, would stop and “sneak” into the theatre to catch a glimpse of the flickering wonderful images. Eventually, an usher would catch me, and lead me to the door! But in those early days I remember watching bits of Trader Horn, early-Astaire and Bing Crosby musicals. Still as a child, we attended Saturday matinees courtesy of the management. We received passes for distributing flyers on upcoming movies. Saturday afternoons, we kids would sing en-masse “Hail, Hail the gang’s all here, Mary Jane and Alice singing at the Palace” Then we would see the changing colors on the curtain finally part and we would watch never-ending serials, good-guy cowboy and mad-scientist movies. Through my high school days the Palace was there. It was there after I returned from WW2. I saw the decline start even before I moved away in 1960 – and the horrible conditions in subsequent years during my visits there. It would be great to see the Palace return to even a tiny bit iof its glorious past. Keep trying guys!
From today’s News-Times. “My goal is to keep the theater active until a full restoration and renovation has taken place.”
Palace Theater undergoes a rebirth
By Dirk Perrefort
09/22/2008
DANBURY — The Palace Theater, which opened 80 years ago this month during the tail end of the roaring 20s, is experiencing a rebirth.
Opened for the first time in years this past spring for the Connecticut Film Festival, groups can now rent the building for fundraisers and other events. A local women’s group will be the first to use the building next month.
LouAnn Bloomer, president of The Bridge To Independence and Career Opportunities, said her organization is looking forward to holding a red carpet awards ceremony at the theater Oct. 4.
“We’re just so excited to be the first organization that has the opportunity to have an event there,” she said. “It’s truly a beautiful building. It’s a real gem for the city.”
She added that the group plans to hold a movie-themed awards dinner complete with red carpet, buffet dinner, cafe tables and theater props.
“It’s going to be a great event,” she said. “For people to visit the Palace is like going back — it’s opening a piece of history that people remember from their younger years.”
Joseph DaSilva Jr., the owner of the Palace Theater on Main Street, said he is opening the building to any group or organization that wants to hold an event there. The building has seating for around 420 people, he said, and he is in the process of making projection equipment available for any groups that want to show movies as part of their event.
“Everything seems to be coming together,” he said. “My goal is to keep the theater active until a full restoration and renovation has taken place.”
DaSilva said he is in the process of developing a nonprofit organization that will operate the theater, which will open up a wealth of federal and state grants that can assist renovation efforts. Donations to the theater would also be tax-deductible.
“The work has already begun and hopefully in the near future we will be gaining the nonprofit status,” he said.
DaSilva is hoping the Palace will once again become a vibrant part of the city’s downtown with a variety of different events, including artist showings and performances from nationally known musicians.
“Once it’s completed I believe we can probably seat up to 1,800 people there,” he said. “It will be a multicultural and multi-use facility. This is the theater’s 80th anniversary and it’s being reborn.”
Mayor Mark Boughton applauded DaSilva’s efforts in getting the theater up and running.
“He’s been very motivated in the last six months,” Boughton said. “I think the film festival earlier this year helped to ignite the spark. I would love to see the building restored to its original luster.”
Andrea Gartner, the executive director of CityCenter, said she first realized the role the Palace could play downtown when the theater opened its doors for a digital multimedia showing during the city’s New Years Eve celebration last year.
“To be outside on the library plaza and see people coming in and out of the Palace — it was then that I really understood the keystone that the theater is in downtown development,” she said. “Record crowds at the summer concert series and the Taste of Danbury shows there is an appetite for people in the community to come downtown for arts and multicultural entertainment. Danbury is the urban center for the Housatonic Valley region and we should be providing amenities people expect from an urban center such as a performing arts center.”
Really big? Great. Well, if you want to start the ball rolling, email me at and I’ll send you the pics.
Incredible finds! You ought to post this to some of the other RKO Stanley Warner/Proctor’s theaters mentioned…or at least make sure the guys in charge here are aware of it, so they can alert others somehow. This is BIG…really BIG!
Oh yeah, there’s now a sign in the lobby placed by DaSilva telling folks about the new campaign to turn the Palace into a cultural hub and Performing Arts Center and to pardon the appearance.
The bounty re: the daily performance sheet. Its headings are “B.O., Fday, Vend, Fday, Attend, and Remit.” It’s dated 3/26 and is a stapled top sheet for the theatres Merritt #1, #2, Cinema #1, #2, Palace #1, #2, #3 and Starrs #1, #2.
The second full sheet is dated 3/19-3/25 and it must be from 1979, since the first movie listed in Breaking Away/Little Darlings at the Bridgeport Merritt 1 (480 seats). Then A Force of One at the Merritt 2 (480 seats) All That Jazz (Danbury Cinema 1, 578 seats), Kramer vs Kramer Cinema 2, 563 seats), Coal Miner’s Daughter (Danbury Palace 1), Defiance and Force of One/Sensuous Nurse/[Sneak of]Changeling (Palace 2), Fifth Floor/Little Miss Marker (Palace 3), A Force of One/Cruising (Storrs College 1), American Gigolo/The Fog (Storrs College 2).
The attached stapled sheet has concessions for Bridgeport, Palace, Cinema and Storrs but the left side showing the theatres doesn’t match. It mentions the New Rochelle Proctors 1 (1014 seats), Proctors 2 (567 seats), Proctor 3 (589 seats) and New Rochelle Main St. (286 seats).
So now that the film fest is over and the last movie has shown, I’ll detail my explorations into the entire theatre that is off limits and my treasureful bounty!
It was Sunday evening and as the boring Lucie Arnaz movie showed, I thought I’d take a tour. Another film fest sponsor went with me and followed my lit cell phone. Basically, I gave him a history lesson about the architecture and it was his first time doing anything of the sort. That made it more fun for me to have a cohort. The left orchestra theatre was vastly different and was used as storage for all the week’s catering. So the seats were dusty, the walls were red and all the walls/ceilings were crumbly and beautiful. It was like a time warp. The original plush tapestries on the left wall were still there, but faded. The aisle carpet sunk as you walked on it so I don’t advise that. The pit looked fine.
I went through an open door to the left of the stage and we saw the very dangerous stage and went down the stairs into the darkness, investigating every dark room, there must have been at least 12, including the gigantic boiler room. Some rooms had water/oil puddles. We could look underneath the stage as well and underneath the screen on the left side where it was still playing at 6pm. We started up the stairs on the right side of the stage house.
The sunlight streaming through the window certainly helped quite a bit. The rooms were dusty and had original fixtures. My treasure came in the second room. A manual for projection equipment from 1976. The Xetron/C55PT/PTA Amplifier out of Cedar Knolls, NJ And strewn about on a random windowsill in one of the old bathrooms were cutouts (photocopied) onto a piece of paper, with 11 to a page, advertising “Danbury’s Newest Entertainment Center…Twin Cinema 1 & 2, RKO Stanley Warner Theatres…Danbury Shopping Center…748-2923…Free Parking.” I took a few of them. Then I found blank sheets of “Weekly Budget Performance” with the fields for Theatre and Location, category of staff, etc.
But then I found the mother load of artifacts – actualy pencil filled in fields of monetary numbers and earnings of the Palace and other nearby theatres, complete with film names, dates and seat numbers!!! I can send pics if anybody would like.
We did this for every floor and every room was empty of bounty, save for some light trash, all the way to the top and the open sliding metal door on every floor looking down at the stage got scarier as we got higher (he was 320 lbs, I am 170). The original curtain and ripped screen are still there.
We went down and back under the stage to the other stairwell. Nothing on the first two floors, but as we went higher, the concrete on the steps was very crumbly and you could see the screen it was attached to (don’t know the terms), but we decided our adventure would have to end, due to safety and nervousness. But bounty in the first 10 minutes is good enough for me. We exited as the movie let out and I showed my bounty to some friends.
Right. Channel 3 WFSB is supposed to air footage on Sunday night and the Courant will as well.
This is really a great story, one which I hope will receive wider press coverage. And the description of the Palace at the top should be updated as well — describing its status as “closed” and its future as “uncertain” now seems inaccurate.
Wow wow wow! I was at the press conference yesterday at 2pm for the Fairfield Weekly. It was locked, so I went around to the open door behind Democratic HQ. The cleanup crew was working 12-hour days and there must have been a dozen crew working very hard. New carpets, new paint, fixing the fixtures, buffing. Whew. The seats looked a glorious red as they had all been washed. It doesn’t look rushed at all, the time was taken. They had turned the original vents on so it was slightly cold and comfortable. The orchestra pit looked great and I walked around upstairs (balcony still blacked out) as well as going behind the stage and looking up the 5 floor stairwell of the dressing rooms. Oh yeah, the bathrooms are very spiffy looking. DaSilva’s head crew guy told me some stories when Trans-Lux owned it and how the kids would steal and mess up things. But he was very accommodating and asked if I was the “infamous shoeshoe14”.
Again, DaSilva will be converting it back to a single screen and I did dedicate one paragraph of my article to the Palace. Somehow said it all in one paragraph. I’ll post the link next Wednesday when it comes out.
I will also be volunteering a bit at the box office so go to www.ctfilmfest.com The Palace will be screening all week as well as the Heirloom Arts Theatre (formerly Empress Ballroom/Theatre).
I knew of her, but she left last year and I never met her.
Hey shoeshoe, if you write for Fairfield Weekly, do you know Lorraine Gengo? She used to be the editor, but I think she left. I’m an old friend of her mother.
I’m doing a piece on the Film Fest for the Fairfield Weekly as I write for them. I will be at the press conference today at the Palace along with other area papers and the Hartford Courant. Channel 3 will be airing some pics on Sunday night as I’m told.
I talked with DaSilva this morning and he assured me he will be converting it back into a single screen! Yes! Once the funding is in place for preservation and repairs, it will be used as a 2,000 seater for live theatre, concerts and movies.
Right now, like I said it will be the lower right orchestra and his crew has been busy painting and getting it ready. Digital projection of course.
Okay folk, stopped by City Center and Joe DaDasilva was there. Here’s the scoop. The film fest will open May 20 and the theatre that will be open will be on the orchestra, lower right, seating 420. The News-Times reporter will be there late morning for a story and pics. I asked if I could do the same and he said he’d let me know since it’s getting crazy, but most likely in the morning hours.
So SMF…will the film fest opening of Flyboys be in the Palace’s auditorium, or the balcony?
That’s great! Exciting stuff going on. It’s a Good Thing.
Nope, I was hoping to get comped seeing as I’m Location Manager and Production Coord. for an indie film. We start shooting on June 1 at Tarrywile. What do you say?
Yes, it is great to see the marquee all lit up. All you Danburians have bought your tickets for the Film Fest, right?! ;–)
http://www.ctfilmfest.com
Well, the marquee has changed since First Night for the CT Film Fest. It’s so great to see the marquee on all night and something new on there.
I think the reason this Joe DaSilva seems different that what you’ve heard is that he’s not the same Joe DaSilva that the city was unsuccessfully trying to negotiate with a decade or two ago. This the son, and after the father passed away, it took a few years for the family to decide who would control what. Joe “won” the Palace, much to Danbury’s good fortune.