The Loews Jersey has its original 1929 lighting board restored and in use backstage. It is a massive board, and fully working, complete with 10 presets (state-of-the-art for the time). If you stop by on a Saturday morning (call first to make sure the volunteers are there 201-798-6055), you might be able to sneek a peek at the board backstage. Colin Egan might be able to help you. He’s the heart and soul of this magnificent theatre, and the reason that the Loew’s Jersey has never been better. (And this coming from a volunteer that has been intimately involved with the project since 1998.
The Loew’s Jersey’s acoustics are incredible. I’ve told you guys about interesting things about the Jersey in earlier posts here, but I can also tell you that I can stand in the last row of the balcony, and hear people talking in normal conversation on the stage… clearly!
I’ll check it out… just give me a few days until I get back to the Jersey… but I really do distinctly recall a 7-year stretch (1929-1936). However, let me do my homework. I’ll copy down everything the Jersey has for the final five weeks of the stage shows.
Vincent… the Loew’s Jersey actually held onto their Full Stage Show/Movie bill until 1936. We have plenty of records to this effect. I can grab the date of the final stage show, and I recall it being shy of the seven-year mark (of September, 1936). It might be in June, 1936 that the Loew’s Jersey stopped stage shows.
I’ll look it up next time I’m over at the Jersey.
I can tell you that the last stage show was actually a little different. It was announced as the WOR Barn Dance. I’ll copy down the final five weeks and print them here when I can.
I was ushering last night at the Jersey, and I had a woman tell me she had never seen Ben-Hur until she saw it last night at the Loew’s Jersey. She’s watched it four times on TV, but she has never “seen” it like last night. It really was a beautiful print, and the audiences keep getting larger. (Keep telling/bringing your friends!!!)
Another couple last night told me their first date was with each other in the Loew’s Jersey in 1940, and they were there for Ben-Hur. Older couple on the center aisle about half-way down.
Please excuse the non-operation of our beloved mechanical “St. George at the Dragon” clock. It needs constant care, and is quite problematic at the moment. We expect it in full operation again in the springtime.
Hello, I’m a volunteer with the Friend’s of the Loews. On the Loew’s Jersey’s naming… the then owners of the Loew’s Jersey in 1986, Hartz Mountain Industries (the ones that purchased the theatre from the Loew’s Corp. never took “Loew’s Jersey” off the building. Loew’s didn’t remove it, because the theatre was scheduled for demolition. Why bother with the expense. Hartz Mountain didn’t bother with paying for the removal of the lettering either for the same reason. Why bother if the building is meeting the wrecking ball… but… Friends of the Loew’s saved the theatre, and convinced the City of Jersey City to purchase the theatre, which they did. Guess what was still on the theatre when we took over? The name Loew’s Jersey.
There’s a little known law that states something to the effect that, upon transfer of ownership of a building, the previous owners must remove the name off the building, or the new owners may continue to use the name. We’re the new owners… We’re the Loew’s Jersey.
You’ll notice some of the other Wonder Theatres have had their names removed… 175th, Kings…
Loew’s absolutely knows us. They recently donated 70mm projectors to us from a theatre they were closing in Washington D.C. We’ve got a display in our lobby with our dismantled projectors (until we can carry everything up to the projection booth… no elevator in the Jersey…).
You’re getting “Paradise” and “Wonder Theatre” confused. The Loew’s Paradise was one of the five Loew’s “Wonder Theatres” built 1929-1930 in the New Jersey/New York area. Only the one in the Bronx is called the Paradise. The other Loew’s Wonder Theatres are the Valencia (Queens), Kings (Brooklyn), Jersey (Jersey City), and the 175th (Manhattan).
This is sort of a touchy subject… I’ll give you my best take on it. It wasn’t the wrecking company, for they never made it on the premises. The theatre was boarded up to keep people out when it closed, and… certain people that were in the company that bought the building removed items, including two ultra-huge mirrors that used to grace the far wall of the Grand Foyer. (Where the entrance to the Auditorium is). We received one light fixture back when the theatre was saved.
Vandals DID get in once when we were actually there! At this time, there were no lights operating inside the theatre. (This was also pre my involvement with FOL). They (vandals) were carting off the original brass handrails that ran up the center of the grand staircase. That’s the one on the left as you come in. (There’s no center handrail on the right, overflow staircase). We have removed the entire handrail and placed non-original posts where the originals were mounted. Fear not, for we still have the entire handrails somewhere in the theatre. There were kept in the Assistant Manager’s office right next to the stairway, but we made that into an ADA-accessable bathroom and cleaned everything out of there. We have it, though, somewhere in the Theatre.
In our theatre we call it a “Napoleon” marquee, as in Napoleon’s hat. (The curved shape). I was trying to answer all the questions, I must have thought that everyone must have known what that was… (Might be a Loew’s Jersey thing!)
The original draperies are beautiful, aren’t they? The entire theatre was built fireproofed. Even the “wood” paneling in the Men’s Smoking Lounge (which is now a Men’s NO-SMOKING Lounge) is plaster made to look like wood.
The draperies will remain, and are in surprisingly good condition, save for one or two up in the closed-off balcony level that will have to be restored after years of nicotine.
I can tell you what’s been talked in the coming months/years.
-The GSTOS will be finishing up on our beloved “Wonder Morton” organ. This will be a sold-out night when the organ rises out of the Orchestra Pit in all its restored glory for the first time in years.
-Fire Exit door restoration/replacement, along with reinforcing fire staircases on the outside.
-Securing original matching seating for the front of the auditorium.
-Stabilizing loose plaster in the auditorium. Replacing missing plaster elements in Auditorium.
-Cleaning years of nicotine from the Auditorium and Grand Foyer, and color matching the original colors on these surfaces where missing. (Will require scaffolding in both areas. One of the MAJOR jobs in the future).
-Installation of seating in the Loge, Mezzanine, and Balcony areas. (Can’t tell you how many people want to sit up there and relive memories from long ago…)
-Eventually re-create missing light fixtures taken from the Loew’s Jersey when it was to be demolished. When Friends of the Loew’s managed to save the theatre from the wrecking ball, only a VERY FEW items were given back to the theatre. These, alas, were one-of-a-kind items that must be recreated from photographs on hand.
-Modernizing the backstage areas, including the Dressing Room levels. (this is being done now) This will ensure performing groups that perform at this historic venue will have modern facilities at their fingertips (including showers). The theatre-goer will not see these modernizations, only the original 1929 “look” will they experience. (The entire theatre, as large as it is, has ONE shower in it for ALL of the performers!!!)
-Eventually restoring the marquee to match the original. It was a Napoleon-type, much like the New York Paramount. The HUGE vertical marquee, removed in the 1960’s, will not be restored. That actually put major stress on the building’s structure.
We do not have the original furniture from the theatre, save for a few pieces. They were either sold off long ago, or brought to hotels owned by the Loew’s Corp. also long ago. We DO have photos of the theatre in our archives of where everything was, even names of artwork and statuary.
Thank you Porter. I would be happy to entertain questions if anyone has any. (Nothing political – dealing with the City, please. We have others in “Friends of the Loews” that are doing an excellent job within this area!!!).
Like some of the other Wonder Theatres, the Orchestra Pit at the Loew’s Jersey was also boarded over to provide extra rows of seating. This number I have written down at the theatre, but I do not have it at home right now.(I believe it is 3,214, if memory serves…).
Also, the Loew’s Jersey is unlike any other theatre that I’ve ever been in as it’s not the usual “L” shape. Look at the theatre from a distance straight on (say, from the PATH station across the street), and you’ll see that the actual theatre is built on a curve! It’s deceiving to the eyes when you enter. You will keep walking ever-so-slightly to the right as you walk through the entire length of the theatre. It’s actually built on the cliffs of the PATH tracks. (Must have been an architectual nightmare to design a theatre of this size in such an awkward area.)
The chandelier in the Grand Foyer was restored by hand by members of Friends of the Loew’s in 2001. It’s original cost was $65,000 (1929 dollars), and is made of Pre-war Czekloslovokian (sp) crystal. Takes two members about 45 minutes to lower it to floor level, and three members an hour to raise it. I believe it has 127 lights.
The Orchestra Pit lift, and Piano lift work just fine. The organ lift is being restored while members of the GSTOS are readying the re-installation of our Wonder Morton Theater Organ on the lift. The organ console is actually entered facing the audience. The lift is also a motorized turntable, and has to be turned around so the organist’s back is to the audience before it is raised into position.
Thanks for the info, Warren. Rechecked the books today, and we DO have articles about the Valencia’s opening. I believe I was reading about the Kings, perhaps. (four of the five theatres would then have been correct now, wouldn’t it?)
I am one of the volunteers with “Friends Of The Loew’s”, the organization responsible for saving the Loew’s Jersey from demolition from 1986 – 1993, when the City purchased the building from the developer that bought it from Loews. I can answer some of the above questions…
Restrooms. On the original blueprints for the Loew’s Jersey City, which we own, there WAS planned a lower lounge in the basement which included telephones, a second coat room, mens and ladies restrooms, and a drinking fountain, in addition to the usher’s rooms. For some reason, the facilities were never built. The service stairs down to the basement leads to a HUGE open area, which is where the lounge would be. It is quite odd, for the foundation for the lounge was built, and butts up against the plenum under the orchestra, but this was left open. Usher’s rooms and their bathrooms were built in and around this area. There are no other public bathroom in the Balcony Lounge, just a water fountain was placed up there. We have placed a ADA bathroom in what used to be the Assistant Manager’s office right off the Grand Foyer.
The same blueprints have sound equipment hastily added. (We have quite a few different incarnations of the working blueprints). Other items not added were a set of lights directly above the orchestra, in front of the procenium arch, which shone down on the orchestra pit. There are controls on the board backstage to turn these on, and wires actually exist up to where they would be, but no holes were opened in the ceiling, and no fixtures were ever installed.
Chandelier. There was never a chandelier in the auditorium. No fixture exists, or wires.
There are still ladders hidden behind walls, from when the theatre was being built, that have been hidden since 1929! One such ladder is behind an auditorium wall halfway down on the left side (near where the balcony line is).
Seating. The seats in front of the balcony were taken out after the 1974 triplexing, since no one could sit “down front” anyway. To see anything on the main screen, you had to sit in the balcony. (Our best guess is that people would toss garbage down there, and it made it easier to clean if the seats weren’t there, not to mention using the seats for parts. Original opening day seating was 3,168. Later upped to 3,189 when 21 seats were added to fill in two rows leading to the fire exit on the right side. (The slight indentation in the floor in front of the exit is still there.) We filled in the two front middle sections with seating that we have found from a Jehova’s Witness Hall in upstate New York. Confortable and practical, it is good for now. Seats were left off the front end sections until we finish with the walls (restoration). The same seating from the Loew’s Jersey is in the Loew’s Kings. A deal fell through to allow us to replace the missing seats with the same seats from the Kings. (Remember when they were going to make a megaplex out of the Kings? Magic Johnson… They were going to gut the seating, and we were interested… but it fell through).
There are 10 dressing rooms on two levels (Full stage shows were part of the show from 1929 through 1936 at the Loew’s Jersey), as well as the female dancers dressing room (for the in-house Chester Hale Girls), a full rehearsal studio, and a pinochle (sp) room for the musicians in between shows.
In the air conditioning room, sometime after the theatre opened, both of the two HUGE air conditioning compressors had to be replaced. The floor was opened up in front of where the compressors sat, and they were dropped inside, down to the sub-basement, on the dirt, where they both sit today, painted bright red.
The Loew’s Jersey closed on Thursday, August 21, 1986.
The opening of the Loew’s Valencia was September 29th, 1929. We hold the Loew’s theatre information ledgers from that time period, which are from the Loew’s Jersey. Furthermore, there are no newspaper articles listing any of the five Loew’s Wonder Theaters before September 7th, 1929.
Which newspaper is your article from that claims the Valencia opened? What is the date of the newspaper? Can you provide a scan of the article/advertisement to back this up? (We find this incredulous because the foundations for four of the five “Wonder Theaters” were being poured in January, 1929…
The Loew’s Valencia, one of the 5 Loew’s “Wonder Theaters” in New Jersey and New York, opened on September 28th, 1929. It was actually the 4th of the five theaters to open. Loew’s Paradise and Loew’s Kings were the 1st and second Wonder Theaters to open, both on the same day, September 7th, 1929. The Beautiful Loew’s Jersey was the third Wonder Theater to open, on September 28th, 1929. The Valencia opened the next day, on the 29th. Loews 175th was the last and final Wonder Theater theater to open, in 1930.
…and it wasn’t the LAST of the 5 Loew’s Wonder Theatres built in New Jersey/New York. The last one was the Loew’s 175th Street in Manhattan.
The Loews Jersey has its original 1929 lighting board restored and in use backstage. It is a massive board, and fully working, complete with 10 presets (state-of-the-art for the time). If you stop by on a Saturday morning (call first to make sure the volunteers are there 201-798-6055), you might be able to sneek a peek at the board backstage. Colin Egan might be able to help you. He’s the heart and soul of this magnificent theatre, and the reason that the Loew’s Jersey has never been better. (And this coming from a volunteer that has been intimately involved with the project since 1998.
Colin Egan lives and breathes the Loew’s Jersey… he, Pattie, and all of us think of this as our (very large) baby….. just needing a LOT of changing.
The Loew’s Jersey’s acoustics are incredible. I’ve told you guys about interesting things about the Jersey in earlier posts here, but I can also tell you that I can stand in the last row of the balcony, and hear people talking in normal conversation on the stage… clearly!
The Loew’s Jersey closed on Thursday, August 21, 1986.
I’ll check it out… just give me a few days until I get back to the Jersey… but I really do distinctly recall a 7-year stretch (1929-1936). However, let me do my homework. I’ll copy down everything the Jersey has for the final five weeks of the stage shows.
Vincent… the Loew’s Jersey actually held onto their Full Stage Show/Movie bill until 1936. We have plenty of records to this effect. I can grab the date of the final stage show, and I recall it being shy of the seven-year mark (of September, 1936). It might be in June, 1936 that the Loew’s Jersey stopped stage shows.
I’ll look it up next time I’m over at the Jersey.
I can tell you that the last stage show was actually a little different. It was announced as the WOR Barn Dance. I’ll copy down the final five weeks and print them here when I can.
I was ushering last night at the Jersey, and I had a woman tell me she had never seen Ben-Hur until she saw it last night at the Loew’s Jersey. She’s watched it four times on TV, but she has never “seen” it like last night. It really was a beautiful print, and the audiences keep getting larger. (Keep telling/bringing your friends!!!)
Another couple last night told me their first date was with each other in the Loew’s Jersey in 1940, and they were there for Ben-Hur. Older couple on the center aisle about half-way down.
Please excuse the non-operation of our beloved mechanical “St. George at the Dragon” clock. It needs constant care, and is quite problematic at the moment. We expect it in full operation again in the springtime.
Hello, I’m a volunteer with the Friend’s of the Loews. On the Loew’s Jersey’s naming… the then owners of the Loew’s Jersey in 1986, Hartz Mountain Industries (the ones that purchased the theatre from the Loew’s Corp. never took “Loew’s Jersey” off the building. Loew’s didn’t remove it, because the theatre was scheduled for demolition. Why bother with the expense. Hartz Mountain didn’t bother with paying for the removal of the lettering either for the same reason. Why bother if the building is meeting the wrecking ball… but… Friends of the Loew’s saved the theatre, and convinced the City of Jersey City to purchase the theatre, which they did. Guess what was still on the theatre when we took over? The name Loew’s Jersey.
There’s a little known law that states something to the effect that, upon transfer of ownership of a building, the previous owners must remove the name off the building, or the new owners may continue to use the name. We’re the new owners… We’re the Loew’s Jersey.
You’ll notice some of the other Wonder Theatres have had their names removed… 175th, Kings…
Loew’s absolutely knows us. They recently donated 70mm projectors to us from a theatre they were closing in Washington D.C. We’ve got a display in our lobby with our dismantled projectors (until we can carry everything up to the projection booth… no elevator in the Jersey…).
You’re getting “Paradise” and “Wonder Theatre” confused. The Loew’s Paradise was one of the five Loew’s “Wonder Theatres” built 1929-1930 in the New Jersey/New York area. Only the one in the Bronx is called the Paradise. The other Loew’s Wonder Theatres are the Valencia (Queens), Kings (Brooklyn), Jersey (Jersey City), and the 175th (Manhattan).
Edward:
This is sort of a touchy subject… I’ll give you my best take on it. It wasn’t the wrecking company, for they never made it on the premises. The theatre was boarded up to keep people out when it closed, and… certain people that were in the company that bought the building removed items, including two ultra-huge mirrors that used to grace the far wall of the Grand Foyer. (Where the entrance to the Auditorium is). We received one light fixture back when the theatre was saved.
Vandals DID get in once when we were actually there! At this time, there were no lights operating inside the theatre. (This was also pre my involvement with FOL). They (vandals) were carting off the original brass handrails that ran up the center of the grand staircase. That’s the one on the left as you come in. (There’s no center handrail on the right, overflow staircase). We have removed the entire handrail and placed non-original posts where the originals were mounted. Fear not, for we still have the entire handrails somewhere in the theatre. There were kept in the Assistant Manager’s office right next to the stairway, but we made that into an ADA-accessable bathroom and cleaned everything out of there. We have it, though, somewhere in the Theatre.
In our theatre we call it a “Napoleon” marquee, as in Napoleon’s hat. (The curved shape). I was trying to answer all the questions, I must have thought that everyone must have known what that was… (Might be a Loew’s Jersey thing!)
The original draperies are beautiful, aren’t they? The entire theatre was built fireproofed. Even the “wood” paneling in the Men’s Smoking Lounge (which is now a Men’s NO-SMOKING Lounge) is plaster made to look like wood.
The draperies will remain, and are in surprisingly good condition, save for one or two up in the closed-off balcony level that will have to be restored after years of nicotine.
I can tell you what’s been talked in the coming months/years.
-The GSTOS will be finishing up on our beloved “Wonder Morton” organ. This will be a sold-out night when the organ rises out of the Orchestra Pit in all its restored glory for the first time in years.
-Fire Exit door restoration/replacement, along with reinforcing fire staircases on the outside.
-Securing original matching seating for the front of the auditorium.
-Stabilizing loose plaster in the auditorium. Replacing missing plaster elements in Auditorium.
-Cleaning years of nicotine from the Auditorium and Grand Foyer, and color matching the original colors on these surfaces where missing. (Will require scaffolding in both areas. One of the MAJOR jobs in the future).
-Installation of seating in the Loge, Mezzanine, and Balcony areas. (Can’t tell you how many people want to sit up there and relive memories from long ago…)
-Eventually re-create missing light fixtures taken from the Loew’s Jersey when it was to be demolished. When Friends of the Loew’s managed to save the theatre from the wrecking ball, only a VERY FEW items were given back to the theatre. These, alas, were one-of-a-kind items that must be recreated from photographs on hand.
-Modernizing the backstage areas, including the Dressing Room levels. (this is being done now) This will ensure performing groups that perform at this historic venue will have modern facilities at their fingertips (including showers). The theatre-goer will not see these modernizations, only the original 1929 “look” will they experience. (The entire theatre, as large as it is, has ONE shower in it for ALL of the performers!!!)
-Eventually restoring the marquee to match the original. It was a Napoleon-type, much like the New York Paramount. The HUGE vertical marquee, removed in the 1960’s, will not be restored. That actually put major stress on the building’s structure.
We do not have the original furniture from the theatre, save for a few pieces. They were either sold off long ago, or brought to hotels owned by the Loew’s Corp. also long ago. We DO have photos of the theatre in our archives of where everything was, even names of artwork and statuary.
Thank you Porter. I would be happy to entertain questions if anyone has any. (Nothing political – dealing with the City, please. We have others in “Friends of the Loews” that are doing an excellent job within this area!!!).
Like some of the other Wonder Theatres, the Orchestra Pit at the Loew’s Jersey was also boarded over to provide extra rows of seating. This number I have written down at the theatre, but I do not have it at home right now.(I believe it is 3,214, if memory serves…).
Also, the Loew’s Jersey is unlike any other theatre that I’ve ever been in as it’s not the usual “L” shape. Look at the theatre from a distance straight on (say, from the PATH station across the street), and you’ll see that the actual theatre is built on a curve! It’s deceiving to the eyes when you enter. You will keep walking ever-so-slightly to the right as you walk through the entire length of the theatre. It’s actually built on the cliffs of the PATH tracks. (Must have been an architectual nightmare to design a theatre of this size in such an awkward area.)
The chandelier in the Grand Foyer was restored by hand by members of Friends of the Loew’s in 2001. It’s original cost was $65,000 (1929 dollars), and is made of Pre-war Czekloslovokian (sp) crystal. Takes two members about 45 minutes to lower it to floor level, and three members an hour to raise it. I believe it has 127 lights.
The Orchestra Pit lift, and Piano lift work just fine. The organ lift is being restored while members of the GSTOS are readying the re-installation of our Wonder Morton Theater Organ on the lift. The organ console is actually entered facing the audience. The lift is also a motorized turntable, and has to be turned around so the organist’s back is to the audience before it is raised into position.
Thanks for the info, Warren. Rechecked the books today, and we DO have articles about the Valencia’s opening. I believe I was reading about the Kings, perhaps. (four of the five theatres would then have been correct now, wouldn’t it?)
I am one of the volunteers with “Friends Of The Loew’s”, the organization responsible for saving the Loew’s Jersey from demolition from 1986 – 1993, when the City purchased the building from the developer that bought it from Loews. I can answer some of the above questions…
Restrooms. On the original blueprints for the Loew’s Jersey City, which we own, there WAS planned a lower lounge in the basement which included telephones, a second coat room, mens and ladies restrooms, and a drinking fountain, in addition to the usher’s rooms. For some reason, the facilities were never built. The service stairs down to the basement leads to a HUGE open area, which is where the lounge would be. It is quite odd, for the foundation for the lounge was built, and butts up against the plenum under the orchestra, but this was left open. Usher’s rooms and their bathrooms were built in and around this area. There are no other public bathroom in the Balcony Lounge, just a water fountain was placed up there. We have placed a ADA bathroom in what used to be the Assistant Manager’s office right off the Grand Foyer.
The same blueprints have sound equipment hastily added. (We have quite a few different incarnations of the working blueprints). Other items not added were a set of lights directly above the orchestra, in front of the procenium arch, which shone down on the orchestra pit. There are controls on the board backstage to turn these on, and wires actually exist up to where they would be, but no holes were opened in the ceiling, and no fixtures were ever installed.
Chandelier. There was never a chandelier in the auditorium. No fixture exists, or wires.
There are still ladders hidden behind walls, from when the theatre was being built, that have been hidden since 1929! One such ladder is behind an auditorium wall halfway down on the left side (near where the balcony line is).
Seating. The seats in front of the balcony were taken out after the 1974 triplexing, since no one could sit “down front” anyway. To see anything on the main screen, you had to sit in the balcony. (Our best guess is that people would toss garbage down there, and it made it easier to clean if the seats weren’t there, not to mention using the seats for parts. Original opening day seating was 3,168. Later upped to 3,189 when 21 seats were added to fill in two rows leading to the fire exit on the right side. (The slight indentation in the floor in front of the exit is still there.) We filled in the two front middle sections with seating that we have found from a Jehova’s Witness Hall in upstate New York. Confortable and practical, it is good for now. Seats were left off the front end sections until we finish with the walls (restoration). The same seating from the Loew’s Jersey is in the Loew’s Kings. A deal fell through to allow us to replace the missing seats with the same seats from the Kings. (Remember when they were going to make a megaplex out of the Kings? Magic Johnson… They were going to gut the seating, and we were interested… but it fell through).
There are 10 dressing rooms on two levels (Full stage shows were part of the show from 1929 through 1936 at the Loew’s Jersey), as well as the female dancers dressing room (for the in-house Chester Hale Girls), a full rehearsal studio, and a pinochle (sp) room for the musicians in between shows.
In the air conditioning room, sometime after the theatre opened, both of the two HUGE air conditioning compressors had to be replaced. The floor was opened up in front of where the compressors sat, and they were dropped inside, down to the sub-basement, on the dirt, where they both sit today, painted bright red.
The Loew’s Jersey closed on Thursday, August 21, 1986.
Loew’s Kings opened on September 7, 1929, not September 6, 1928.
The opening of the Loew’s Valencia was September 29th, 1929. We hold the Loew’s theatre information ledgers from that time period, which are from the Loew’s Jersey. Furthermore, there are no newspaper articles listing any of the five Loew’s Wonder Theaters before September 7th, 1929.
Which newspaper is your article from that claims the Valencia opened? What is the date of the newspaper? Can you provide a scan of the article/advertisement to back this up? (We find this incredulous because the foundations for four of the five “Wonder Theaters” were being poured in January, 1929…
The Loew’s Valencia, one of the 5 Loew’s “Wonder Theaters” in New Jersey and New York, opened on September 28th, 1929. It was actually the 4th of the five theaters to open. Loew’s Paradise and Loew’s Kings were the 1st and second Wonder Theaters to open, both on the same day, September 7th, 1929. The Beautiful Loew’s Jersey was the third Wonder Theater to open, on September 28th, 1929. The Valencia opened the next day, on the 29th. Loews 175th was the last and final Wonder Theater theater to open, in 1930.