The horseshoe sign missmelbatoast made reference to says Billiards and Pool on it, so it wasn’t a movie theater at the time that photo was taken. That isn’t to say that it couldn’t have been converted to one later, though. Most early nickelodeons were in converted storefronts.
The Lange-Family Theatre was mentioned in the February 21, 1925, issue of The Reel Journal, though with its name misspelled:
“J. Bucklin has taken over the management of the Lang Family Theatre, 5118 Shaw avenue, St. Louis. He formerly was manager of the St. Louis Exhibitors Supply Company.”
Property Shark says the building was built in 1914. That could be about right. The style of the building fits the period. It’s even possible that it was built as a movie theater, though I’ve been unable to find any references to it in the early trade journals.
A 1929 issue of the Monticello Republican Watchman (with no date visible) carries an ad for the Royal Furniture Company located at 128 Pike Street, Port Jervis, with the tag line “Opposite Strand Theatre.” As there were no other theaters opposite 128 Pike, Strand must have been an aka for the State Theatre.
I’ve found nothing on the Internet or in any publication of the period indicating that the New Theatre at 129-135 Pike Street ever met with any disaster, so that, too, must have been an aka for the State at 131 Pike.
The State Theatre was either opened as a house called the New Theatre or it was built on the site of the New Theatre. This page from the Minisink Valley Historical Society says “The New Theatre was at 32 Sussex St. and the Palace Theatre was as at 69 Fowler St. The New Theatre would later move to its location at 129-135 Pike Street.”
The New Theatre was listed in the 1913-1914 Cahn guide as a ground floor house with a stage 38x75 feet, and over 1,000 seats; 590 in the orchestra, 184 in the balcony, 300 in the gallery, and 6 boxes. As I don’t know the year the house moved from Sussex Street to Pike Street, I don’t know which of the two locations the Cahn listing described.
The caption of a photo on page 69 of Port Jervis, by Matthew M. Osterberg, says that the State Theatre had once been called the Strand Theatre. As we have a Strand Theatre listed here, but located on Sussex Street, and I’ve found references to both the State and the Strand being in operation simultaneously in the 1970s, we are dealing with two different theaters.
The Strand and the Ritz are the only Port Jarvis theaters that were advertised in the Monticello Republican Watchman in the early 1930s (the Palace closed in 1927 and reopened as the Royal in late 1932.) It’s possible that the New Theatre on Pike Street did operate as the Strand before becoming the State, and that the Strand on Sussex Street opened after the Pike Street house was renamed the State.
Royal Theatre was an aka for the Palace Theatre. The Middletown Times Herald of November 21, 1932, said that the Palace Theatre in Port Jervis, closed for almost five years, would reopen as the Royal Theatre on November 23. The renovated house was to be operated by Aurora Amusement Company.
The address of the Palace/Royal Theatre was 69 Fowler Street. Property Shark says that 69 Fowler Street is a two-story building of 8,712 square feet built in 1920. Google Maps has no street view, but Bing Maps has a bird’s-eye view.
Advertisements for the architect in issues of the Monticello Republican Watchman spell his name Emil Motl. The NRHP listing for the Rialto uses the spelling Motel, though. It’s possible that he eventually Americanized his name, but as late as 1940 the census lists an Emil Motl, age 53, living in Monticello, New York.
This comment by dw438 on a Cinema Treasures news post says that the Town Theatre was down the block from the Glen Cove Theatre, beyond a McDonald’s, and was torn down and replaced by shops in the 1970s. The front store in the strip mall north of McDonalds is the Wild Fig restaurant, which has an address of 157 Glen Street. As the Town Theatre is gone, that’s probably the closest we’ll get to its address until an old directory listing shows up. The Glen Cove Theatre building is still standing, occupied by a Dollar Tree Store.
This comment by potato222 on a Cinema Treasures news post tells us where the Glen Cove Theatre was located. It was converted to a CVS pharmacy which has since relocated to a new building next door.
Judging from Street View, the Glen Cove Theatre building is now occupied by a Dollar Tree store. The Internet says that the Dollar Tree is at 217 Glen Street, ergo that must have been the address of the Glen Cove Theatre. The building has the late Midcentury Modern look one might expect from a theater built around 1960.
The nomination form for the Chapel Street Historic District says that the entrance to the College Theatre was not moved to College Street until 1933:
“With the Shubert Theater and the Roger Sherman both fronting on College Street, this block became the core of the New Haven theater area. In 1929 the Crown Theater was constructed around the corner on Crown Street and in 1933 the entrance to the Hyperion was moved from Chapel to College Street so that it could compete more readily with the Roger Sherman. The interior remodelling of the Hyperion emphasized the screen over the stage. Part of the reason behind this costly renovation effort was the growing popularity of movies, but also it was the result of competition.”
The nomination form also notes that the building that became the new entrance to the theater was an existing structure built in 1915:
262-264 College St. (1880; facade 1915). Loews Theater (Carll’s Opera House/Hyperion Theater/College St. Theater). 3-story brick theater with early 20th-century Neoclassical Revival terra cotta facade. One bay wide. Theater marquee shelters a recessed entrance.“
The College Theatre was still standing when the nomination form was written in 1984.
Andrew Craig Morrison’s Theaters says that the Carll’s Opera House/Hyperion/College Theatre was at 1030-1032 Chapel Street. So does This plan of Carll’s. A 1921 New York Times article about the fire at the Rialto Theatre on College Street also says that the Hyperion Theatre was located “…around the corner from the Rialto, in Chapel Street….”
Sometime after 1921, the entrance was reoriented to College Street. This article (which Lost Memory linked to in an earlier comment) about the partial collapse of the Hyrperion Theatre in 1998 indicates that the theater had already been condemned and that preparations for demolition had been begun at the time of the collapse. The auditorium is gone, but the 1920s College Street entrance built for Loew’s is still there.
The article I linked to in my previous comment says that the Hyperion Theatre was located “…around the corner from the Rialto, in Chapel Street, and the roofs of the theaters come close together.” That means the Rialto must have been in the 200 block of College Street, just south of Chapel Street. The article also notes that the Rialto was across the street from and north of the Shubert Theatre, which is still standing at 247 College Street.
This photo of the Rialto in ruins shows the side wall and stage house of the Hyperion Theatre behind it. When the Hyperion was rebuilt as Loew’s College Theatre, its entrance was moved from Chapel Street to College Street. The new entrance was most likely built on part of the site of the Rialto, so the Rialto’s address must have been very close to that of Loew’s College, which was at 262 College Street.
The Almo Theatre did not last very long. It is listed in the 1914-1915 city directory, and it is mentioned a few times in The Moving Picture World in 1916, but it does not appear in the 1920 city directory. The 1920 directory lists only two theaters in Rocky Mount: the Palace, at 228 S. Main (this address was later changed to 238 Main SW) and the Opera House at 143 N. Main. Because some addresses on Main Street were shifted a bit sometime during the 1920s, it’s possible that the modern address of the Almo’s building would be different than the 210 N. listed in the 1914 directory.
John and Charles Arrington, operating as Arrington Bros., dominated the movie theater business in Rocky Mount during the 1910s and beyond. At various times they controlled the Almo, Grand/Palace, Cameo, and Lyric Theatres, as well as the Opera House. Charles H. Arrington, the younger brother, eventually served as President of the regional MPTOA affiliate, Theater Owners of North and South Carolina. Charles Arrington was still operating the Cameo Theatre at least as late as 1948.
The April 13, 1929, issue of Motion Picture News had this item:
“W. E. Armstrong, operator of the Manhattan, Rocky Mount, N. C, expects to open his new house there in the next sixty days with sound.”
I believe this new house was the Savoy-Booker T Theatre.
The Manhattan Theatre was listed in city directories at 118 W. Thomas Street. The address was listed as vacant in the 1930 directory, but the Manhattan Theatre was listed there in the 1934 and 1936 directories. The Manhattan must have closed for a while after the Savoy was opened. The Ritz first appears in the 1948 directory, but at 133 W. Thomas (I think this might have been an error, as the Ritz is listed at 120 W. Thomas beginning with the 1950 directory.)
I don’t know if the address of the building was shifted from 118 to 120 sometime between 1936 and 1950, or if the Ritz was actually next door to the site of the Manhattan. There are currently no adjacent buildings.
In any case, the modern address of the theater is 150 W. Thomas, as can be seen in Street View. This web site has a brief history of the neighborhood and has short videos of the Booker T and Manhattan Theatres, showing photos of the buildings before and after the recent renovations.
This weblog post at Malls of American has a December 2, 1970, newspaper ad for the Bucks County Mall. It was located at the southeast corner of Bustleton Pike and Street Road. The Colonial Theatre was listed among the forty-odd businesses then at the mall, but the ad doesn’t call it a twin. I suspect that it might have opened as a single-screen house whenever the mall opened, probably sometime in the 1960s.
The long string of comments on the post include a few that mention the Colonial Theatre. It was closed by the early 1990s, according to one anonymous comment which has this to say about it at that time:
“And to the left of that gift store was the Colonial Theater – all closed up.
“The people that ran the gift store had keys to the Colonial Theater as it was used as a massive storage room then. I remember going in and it was like going back in time. Beautiful red plush seating and walls. Plush carpeting. The candy counter still stood with the hint of art deco decor. The rest of the theater was ruined as a main water pipe had burst due to lack of heat however it was still neat nonetheless!”
Several comments say that the once-enclosed mall has been rebuilt (or “…turned inside out….” as one commenter puts it.)
Current owners of the mall are Korman Commercial Properties, who have re-branded it as Bucks Crossing. From aerial views it looks like much of the original structure might still be there, but extensively altered to accommodate different sorts of tenants than the original mall had. The space the theater occupied might or might not still be there.
DocSouth’s Going to the Show lists the Cameo Theatre as operating from around 1925, but not at 180 SE Main. They list it at at 184 N. Main. City directories 1930 to 1958 consistently list the Cameo at 184 Main Street NW.
The modern address of the Booker T Theatre is 170 W. Thomas Street. Historic city directories consistently place the Savoy/Booker T Theatre at 130 W. Thomas, but the renovation of the area has apparently lead to renumbering of the lots.
This web site has information about the history of the buildings on the block and about the renovations. There are brief videos featuring before-and-after photos of both the Booker T and Manhattan Theatres.
This house is listed as the Savoy Theatre in the 1934 directory, and as the Booker T in the 1936 directory.
DocSouth lists the Grand Theatre at 238-240 Main Street SW from about 1914 to about 1920. Around 1920 it was renamed the Palace Theatre. It was still listed as the Palace in the 1930 city directory, but the 1934 directory lists it as the Carolina Theatre.
In this photo from Wisconsin History, the Strand Theatre building was being used as a newspaper office. The date is probably around 1970, judging from the cars in the photo.
The Strand operated at least into the 1930s. The January 18, 1931, issue of The Film Daily said that the house had been leased by W. L. Uglow, who intended to remodel and equip the theater with sound.
This page has a couple of photos of the Doty Theatre building after it had been converted into a tavern called the Doty Palm Garden. The text says this happened in the 1930s.
The building was built in 1912, and the Doty Theatre had an instrument called the Bartola, which was the predecessor of the Barton theater organ. The theater was in operation by June 26, 1912, the date on which, according to the January, 1913, issue of Insurance Engineering, the house suffered damage caused by movie film catching fire. No dollar figure was given for the loss, so it must have been minor.
By 1914, the Doty Theatre, operated by John H. Herziger, had competition in the form of the Idle Hour Theatre, operated by P. J. Droske. Both houses were mentioned in the January 3 issue of The Moving Picture World.
The University of Wisconsin Digital Collections has photos of the Neenah Theatre, but offers nothing resembling a working link, let alone a permalink, to any of them. Go to their web site and paste the following into the search box (with quotes included):
“Theaters—Wisconsin—Neenah”
Three of the five photos the search fetches will be of the Neenah Theatre. The caption of one photo showing the house under construction in 1902 says that the first performance at the house took place on December 26, 1902.
The Neenah Theatre was listed in the 1906-1907 Cahn guide as a ground floor house with 908 seats and a stage 37x60 feet.
This weblog post from Preserving York has a pre-1915 postcard view of the York Opera House and Auditorium, which were actually two distinct theaters. The text says that they were located on the east side of South Beaver Street, between West Mason Street and West King Street, and a comment says that they were on the site of the York Telephone and Telegraph Building. The telephone company apparently occupied two buildings: an Art Deco structure on the corner of Mason Street and a Colonial Revival building next door to the south.
I’ve set Street View to replicate as near as possible the vantage point of the early postcard view. A couple of small buildings intervened between the Auditorium and Mason Street, so the Auditorium occupied the southernmost part of the parcel the telephone company’s Art Deco building now occupies. The Opera House must have been entirely on a portion of the site of the Colonial Revival building. The passageway between the two theaters must have been about where the entrance and first bay of windows in the Colonial Revival building are now.
An item in the May 1, 1926, issue of Motion Picture News reveals that the two theaters were still standing at that time, but the Auditorium had apparently been renamed the Orpheum Theatre. The theaters had just been purchased by Nathan Appell, who intended to demolish them and replace them with a new theater, but that project was obviously never carried out:
“The historic York Opera House and the
Orpheum Theatre adjoining, in the heart of the business section of York, Pa., are to become the site of a new theatre that will have a seating capacity of 3,000 and the construction of which will be started next spring. The announcement of the enterprise was made on April 13 by Nathan Appell, head of the Nathan Appell Theatre Enterprises, which controls a number of motion picture, vaudeville and legitimate theatres in York, Lancaster and elsewhere in Pennsylvania.”
The York Preservation post also says that the Opera House was designed by the Dempwolf family. John August Dempwolf began his practice in York around 1880, so the Opera House must have been one of his first projects. I’m not sure when his brother Reinhardt joined the firm.
The address of the York Telephone and Telegraph Building I found on the Internet is 31 S. Beaver Street, but the theater addresses were a bit higher. I found a historic address of 33-35 S. Beaver for the Orpheum, so the Opera House must have been somewhere between 37 and 41.
The May 1, 1926, issue of Motion Picture News had an item about the purchase of the York Opera House and the Orpheum Theatre at York by Nathan and Louis Appell. Appended to the end of the item was this paragraph about the Jackson Theatre:
“The Jackson Motion Picture Theatre, York, Pa., went under the control of the Nathan Appell Theatre Enterprises on Monday, April 19, the deed for the sale of the property for $205,000 having passed from Mr. and Mrs. John A. Jackson, of York, to Nathan and Louis Appell in April.”
I have found that R. C.Jackson died in 1910, after which time the operation of R. C. Jackson & Co. was carried on by his sons.
The September 24, 1926, issue of Motion Picture News had an article about the openings of the Mark-Capitol Theatre in Everett and the Quincy-Strand Theatre in Quincy. Here are the parts about the Capitol:
“THE Stanley-Mark Strand interests have opened two new theatres in Massachusetts, the Quincy-Strand at Quincy and the Mark-Capitol at Everett. The former seats about 1,800 and the latter 2,300, thus adding 4,100 seats to the Stanley-Mark interests within a week.
…
“Opening of the Mark-Capitol, Everett, was more elaborate, with remarks by Mayor Lester B. Chisholm and officials and by officers of the corporation. Moe Mark personally supervised the finishing touches to the completion of the theatre.
“As in the case of the Quincy house, the Everett playhouse is simply but richly furnished. The orchestra seats 1,600 and the single balcony 700 more. The projection room is beneath the front centre of the balcony and on a level with the screen and is equipped with Simplex projectors, spots, stereopticon, etc.
“The playhouse is a combination of Egyptian and Roman architecture and the corridors, lobby, etc., are of ample capacity to handle capacity audiences. Both theatres are heavily carpeted. The seats are by the American Seating Co. and an Austin organ is used. A ten-piece orchestra is also used. The policy is straight pictures, with changes of program Mondays and Fridays. The theatre is on Broadway at the upper end of Everett Square, with streets on both sides and parking space is provided for 200 autos in charge of a theatre attendant and without charge to the patrons.
“Erection of the playhouse was under the supervision of Moe Silva, personal representative of Moe Mark in New England, and Allen B. Newhall. Roy Eraser, who was an assistant to Mr. Newhall at Lynn, Mass., is house manager. The ushers were uniformed in tuxedo effects and were carefully trained for their work. The theatre represents a cost of about $300,000.
“One of the most unusual features of the policy is the scale of prices, all seats being 20 cents for matinees and 25 and 30 cents for the evening shows.
“The personnel of the theatre is : President, Moe Mark; treasurer, Joseph M. Levenson; assistant treasurer, Moe Silva; directors, the officers and Max L. Levenson, Nathan Sallinger, Samuel Waxman, Morris Sharaf and Allen B. Newhall. Messrs. Newhall and Silva will have personal supervision of the theatre.
“Both theatres are equipped with ample stages so that full stage productions or vaudeville may be presented at any time. Roth houses have eleven exits and both are of first class construction.”
The September 24, 1926, issue of Motion Picture News had this item:
“Fred B. Murphy has named his new theatre at Chestnut and Maple streets, Quincy, the Quincy-Strand. Orders have been placed for his marquee and electric sign and the opening will be within the next three to four weeks.”
The September 11 issue of the same publication ran this update:
“Fred S. Murphy’s new theatre in Quincy, Mass., opens for the first time on Labor Day with a program of pictures and vaudeville. It seats approximately 1,500.”
The September 25 issue carried a longer article about the openings of the Quincy-Strand and the Mark-Capitol Theatre at Everett, Massachusetts. Here is the portion dealing with the Quincy-Strand:
“THE Stanley-Mark Strand interests have opened two new theatres in Massachusetts, the Quincy-Strand at Quincy and the Mark-Capitol at Everett. The former seats about 1,800 and the latter 2,300, thus adding 4,100 seats to the Stanley-Mark interests within a week.
“The Quincy-Strand was erected by ex-Mayor William A. Bradford and leased for a long term of years to the Quincy-Mark Strand Co., of which Fred B. Murphy, who is active manager of the house, is president; Joseph B. Levenson is treasurer and Morris Sharaf, vice-president. The theatre is located at Hancock and Chestnut streets, Quincy Square. The American Seating Co. did the seating, a Wurlitzer organ is installed. Simplex projection machines are used and Ray Stewartson’s Broadcasting orchestra supplies the musical numbers. The house is of first-class construction throughout, seating 1,000 on the floor and 800 in the single balcony.
“There was no formal opening of the new theatre and a ten-year-old boy, Edward Pearlin, of Quincy, who stood in line six hours and went without his supper, had the honor of getting the first ticket. There were no speeches and the management’s announcements were made on the screen. The policy is straight pictures, continuous performance from 1.30 to 10.30 p.m. daily.
“Both theatres are equipped with ample stages so that full stage productions or vaudeville may be presented at any time. Roth houses have eleven exits and both are of first class construction.”
Although the article doesn’t give the opening dates for either theater, this comment by barrygoodkin on our page for the Capitol Theatre in Everett cites a reliable source for the opening of that house on September 6, 1926, so they both opened on the same day.
The horseshoe sign missmelbatoast made reference to says Billiards and Pool on it, so it wasn’t a movie theater at the time that photo was taken. That isn’t to say that it couldn’t have been converted to one later, though. Most early nickelodeons were in converted storefronts.
The Lange-Family Theatre was mentioned in the February 21, 1925, issue of The Reel Journal, though with its name misspelled:
Property Shark says the building was built in 1914. That could be about right. The style of the building fits the period. It’s even possible that it was built as a movie theater, though I’ve been unable to find any references to it in the early trade journals.A 1929 issue of the Monticello Republican Watchman (with no date visible) carries an ad for the Royal Furniture Company located at 128 Pike Street, Port Jervis, with the tag line “Opposite Strand Theatre.” As there were no other theaters opposite 128 Pike, Strand must have been an aka for the State Theatre.
I’ve found nothing on the Internet or in any publication of the period indicating that the New Theatre at 129-135 Pike Street ever met with any disaster, so that, too, must have been an aka for the State at 131 Pike.
The State Theatre was either opened as a house called the New Theatre or it was built on the site of the New Theatre. This page from the Minisink Valley Historical Society says “The New Theatre was at 32 Sussex St. and the Palace Theatre was as at 69 Fowler St. The New Theatre would later move to its location at 129-135 Pike Street.”
The New Theatre was listed in the 1913-1914 Cahn guide as a ground floor house with a stage 38x75 feet, and over 1,000 seats; 590 in the orchestra, 184 in the balcony, 300 in the gallery, and 6 boxes. As I don’t know the year the house moved from Sussex Street to Pike Street, I don’t know which of the two locations the Cahn listing described.
The caption of a photo on page 69 of Port Jervis, by Matthew M. Osterberg, says that the State Theatre had once been called the Strand Theatre. As we have a Strand Theatre listed here, but located on Sussex Street, and I’ve found references to both the State and the Strand being in operation simultaneously in the 1970s, we are dealing with two different theaters.
The Strand and the Ritz are the only Port Jarvis theaters that were advertised in the Monticello Republican Watchman in the early 1930s (the Palace closed in 1927 and reopened as the Royal in late 1932.) It’s possible that the New Theatre on Pike Street did operate as the Strand before becoming the State, and that the Strand on Sussex Street opened after the Pike Street house was renamed the State.
Royal Theatre was an aka for the Palace Theatre. The Middletown Times Herald of November 21, 1932, said that the Palace Theatre in Port Jervis, closed for almost five years, would reopen as the Royal Theatre on November 23. The renovated house was to be operated by Aurora Amusement Company.
The address of the Palace/Royal Theatre was 69 Fowler Street. Property Shark says that 69 Fowler Street is a two-story building of 8,712 square feet built in 1920. Google Maps has no street view, but Bing Maps has a bird’s-eye view.
Advertisements for the architect in issues of the Monticello Republican Watchman spell his name Emil Motl. The NRHP listing for the Rialto uses the spelling Motel, though. It’s possible that he eventually Americanized his name, but as late as 1940 the census lists an Emil Motl, age 53, living in Monticello, New York.
This comment by dw438 on a Cinema Treasures news post says that the Town Theatre was down the block from the Glen Cove Theatre, beyond a McDonald’s, and was torn down and replaced by shops in the 1970s. The front store in the strip mall north of McDonalds is the Wild Fig restaurant, which has an address of 157 Glen Street. As the Town Theatre is gone, that’s probably the closest we’ll get to its address until an old directory listing shows up. The Glen Cove Theatre building is still standing, occupied by a Dollar Tree Store.
This comment by potato222 on a Cinema Treasures news post tells us where the Glen Cove Theatre was located. It was converted to a CVS pharmacy which has since relocated to a new building next door.
Judging from Street View, the Glen Cove Theatre building is now occupied by a Dollar Tree store. The Internet says that the Dollar Tree is at 217 Glen Street, ergo that must have been the address of the Glen Cove Theatre. The building has the late Midcentury Modern look one might expect from a theater built around 1960.
The nomination form for the Chapel Street Historic District says that the entrance to the College Theatre was not moved to College Street until 1933:
The nomination form also notes that the building that became the new entrance to the theater was an existing structure built in 1915:The College Theatre was still standing when the nomination form was written in 1984.Andrew Craig Morrison’s Theaters says that the Carll’s Opera House/Hyperion/College Theatre was at 1030-1032 Chapel Street. So does This plan of Carll’s. A 1921 New York Times article about the fire at the Rialto Theatre on College Street also says that the Hyperion Theatre was located “…around the corner from the Rialto, in Chapel Street….”
Sometime after 1921, the entrance was reoriented to College Street. This article (which Lost Memory linked to in an earlier comment) about the partial collapse of the Hyrperion Theatre in 1998 indicates that the theater had already been condemned and that preparations for demolition had been begun at the time of the collapse. The auditorium is gone, but the 1920s College Street entrance built for Loew’s is still there.
The article I linked to in my previous comment says that the Hyperion Theatre was located “…around the corner from the Rialto, in Chapel Street, and the roofs of the theaters come close together.” That means the Rialto must have been in the 200 block of College Street, just south of Chapel Street. The article also notes that the Rialto was across the street from and north of the Shubert Theatre, which is still standing at 247 College Street.
This photo of the Rialto in ruins shows the side wall and stage house of the Hyperion Theatre behind it. When the Hyperion was rebuilt as Loew’s College Theatre, its entrance was moved from Chapel Street to College Street. The new entrance was most likely built on part of the site of the Rialto, so the Rialto’s address must have been very close to that of Loew’s College, which was at 262 College Street.
The Almo Theatre did not last very long. It is listed in the 1914-1915 city directory, and it is mentioned a few times in The Moving Picture World in 1916, but it does not appear in the 1920 city directory. The 1920 directory lists only two theaters in Rocky Mount: the Palace, at 228 S. Main (this address was later changed to 238 Main SW) and the Opera House at 143 N. Main. Because some addresses on Main Street were shifted a bit sometime during the 1920s, it’s possible that the modern address of the Almo’s building would be different than the 210 N. listed in the 1914 directory.
John and Charles Arrington, operating as Arrington Bros., dominated the movie theater business in Rocky Mount during the 1910s and beyond. At various times they controlled the Almo, Grand/Palace, Cameo, and Lyric Theatres, as well as the Opera House. Charles H. Arrington, the younger brother, eventually served as President of the regional MPTOA affiliate, Theater Owners of North and South Carolina. Charles Arrington was still operating the Cameo Theatre at least as late as 1948.
The April 13, 1929, issue of Motion Picture News had this item:
I believe this new house was the Savoy-Booker T Theatre.The Manhattan Theatre was listed in city directories at 118 W. Thomas Street. The address was listed as vacant in the 1930 directory, but the Manhattan Theatre was listed there in the 1934 and 1936 directories. The Manhattan must have closed for a while after the Savoy was opened. The Ritz first appears in the 1948 directory, but at 133 W. Thomas (I think this might have been an error, as the Ritz is listed at 120 W. Thomas beginning with the 1950 directory.)
I don’t know if the address of the building was shifted from 118 to 120 sometime between 1936 and 1950, or if the Ritz was actually next door to the site of the Manhattan. There are currently no adjacent buildings.
In any case, the modern address of the theater is 150 W. Thomas, as can be seen in Street View. This web site has a brief history of the neighborhood and has short videos of the Booker T and Manhattan Theatres, showing photos of the buildings before and after the recent renovations.
This weblog post at Malls of American has a December 2, 1970, newspaper ad for the Bucks County Mall. It was located at the southeast corner of Bustleton Pike and Street Road. The Colonial Theatre was listed among the forty-odd businesses then at the mall, but the ad doesn’t call it a twin. I suspect that it might have opened as a single-screen house whenever the mall opened, probably sometime in the 1960s.
The long string of comments on the post include a few that mention the Colonial Theatre. It was closed by the early 1990s, according to one anonymous comment which has this to say about it at that time:
Several comments say that the once-enclosed mall has been rebuilt (or “…turned inside out….” as one commenter puts it.)Current owners of the mall are Korman Commercial Properties, who have re-branded it as Bucks Crossing. From aerial views it looks like much of the original structure might still be there, but extensively altered to accommodate different sorts of tenants than the original mall had. The space the theater occupied might or might not still be there.
DocSouth’s Going to the Show lists the Cameo Theatre as operating from around 1925, but not at 180 SE Main. They list it at at 184 N. Main. City directories 1930 to 1958 consistently list the Cameo at 184 Main Street NW.
The modern address of the Booker T Theatre is 170 W. Thomas Street. Historic city directories consistently place the Savoy/Booker T Theatre at 130 W. Thomas, but the renovation of the area has apparently lead to renumbering of the lots.
This web site has information about the history of the buildings on the block and about the renovations. There are brief videos featuring before-and-after photos of both the Booker T and Manhattan Theatres.
This house is listed as the Savoy Theatre in the 1934 directory, and as the Booker T in the 1936 directory.
DocSouth lists the Grand Theatre at 238-240 Main Street SW from about 1914 to about 1920. Around 1920 it was renamed the Palace Theatre. It was still listed as the Palace in the 1930 city directory, but the 1934 directory lists it as the Carolina Theatre.
In this photo from Wisconsin History, the Strand Theatre building was being used as a newspaper office. The date is probably around 1970, judging from the cars in the photo.
The Strand operated at least into the 1930s. The January 18, 1931, issue of The Film Daily said that the house had been leased by W. L. Uglow, who intended to remodel and equip the theater with sound.
This page has a couple of photos of the Doty Theatre building after it had been converted into a tavern called the Doty Palm Garden. The text says this happened in the 1930s.
The building was built in 1912, and the Doty Theatre had an instrument called the Bartola, which was the predecessor of the Barton theater organ. The theater was in operation by June 26, 1912, the date on which, according to the January, 1913, issue of Insurance Engineering, the house suffered damage caused by movie film catching fire. No dollar figure was given for the loss, so it must have been minor.
By 1914, the Doty Theatre, operated by John H. Herziger, had competition in the form of the Idle Hour Theatre, operated by P. J. Droske. Both houses were mentioned in the January 3 issue of The Moving Picture World.
The University of Wisconsin Digital Collections has photos of the Neenah Theatre, but offers nothing resembling a working link, let alone a permalink, to any of them. Go to their web site and paste the following into the search box (with quotes included):
“Theaters—Wisconsin—Neenah”
Three of the five photos the search fetches will be of the Neenah Theatre. The caption of one photo showing the house under construction in 1902 says that the first performance at the house took place on December 26, 1902.
The Neenah Theatre was listed in the 1906-1907 Cahn guide as a ground floor house with 908 seats and a stage 37x60 feet.
This weblog post from Preserving York has a pre-1915 postcard view of the York Opera House and Auditorium, which were actually two distinct theaters. The text says that they were located on the east side of South Beaver Street, between West Mason Street and West King Street, and a comment says that they were on the site of the York Telephone and Telegraph Building. The telephone company apparently occupied two buildings: an Art Deco structure on the corner of Mason Street and a Colonial Revival building next door to the south.
I’ve set Street View to replicate as near as possible the vantage point of the early postcard view. A couple of small buildings intervened between the Auditorium and Mason Street, so the Auditorium occupied the southernmost part of the parcel the telephone company’s Art Deco building now occupies. The Opera House must have been entirely on a portion of the site of the Colonial Revival building. The passageway between the two theaters must have been about where the entrance and first bay of windows in the Colonial Revival building are now.
An item in the May 1, 1926, issue of Motion Picture News reveals that the two theaters were still standing at that time, but the Auditorium had apparently been renamed the Orpheum Theatre. The theaters had just been purchased by Nathan Appell, who intended to demolish them and replace them with a new theater, but that project was obviously never carried out:
The York Preservation post also says that the Opera House was designed by the Dempwolf family. John August Dempwolf began his practice in York around 1880, so the Opera House must have been one of his first projects. I’m not sure when his brother Reinhardt joined the firm.The address of the York Telephone and Telegraph Building I found on the Internet is 31 S. Beaver Street, but the theater addresses were a bit higher. I found a historic address of 33-35 S. Beaver for the Orpheum, so the Opera House must have been somewhere between 37 and 41.
The May 1, 1926, issue of Motion Picture News had an item about the purchase of the York Opera House and the Orpheum Theatre at York by Nathan and Louis Appell. Appended to the end of the item was this paragraph about the Jackson Theatre:
I have found that R. C.Jackson died in 1910, after which time the operation of R. C. Jackson & Co. was carried on by his sons.The September 24, 1926, issue of Motion Picture News had an article about the openings of the Mark-Capitol Theatre in Everett and the Quincy-Strand Theatre in Quincy. Here are the parts about the Capitol:
The September 24, 1926, issue of Motion Picture News had this item:
The September 11 issue of the same publication ran this update:The September 25 issue carried a longer article about the openings of the Quincy-Strand and the Mark-Capitol Theatre at Everett, Massachusetts. Here is the portion dealing with the Quincy-Strand:Although the article doesn’t give the opening dates for either theater, this comment by barrygoodkin on our page for the Capitol Theatre in Everett cites a reliable source for the opening of that house on September 6, 1926, so they both opened on the same day.