Lyric Theater

This was a Walter Reade theater and was DEMOLISHED in February 2005.
Theater had been renamed the Park Theater.

Now There are Three
Lyric Theater in Asbury Park is demolished"

The Coaster, February 10, 2005
By Helen Pike

Another one of Walter Reade's movie houses came tumbling down this week, leaving only the memories of area residents who can recall such live performances as the Kiwanis Kapers, the mogul's foray into television, and countless celluloid reels that flashed across its screen, including the 1941 Oscar winner, 'How Green Was My Valley', starring Walter Pidgeon, Maureen O'Hara and Roddy McDowall.

Although it ended its last decades following 1970 as a pornographic film house, the theater wore its XXX rating with flair: the last public role for the renamed Park Cinema was its appearance in 'City by the Sea' with Robert DeNiro and the HBO series 'The Sopranos' for which its once classical exterior sported a bordello red coat of paint.

An intimate performance space, the originally named Lyric Theatre was dwarfed by the presence of Reade's more ornate and imposing Mayfair and St. James theaters a block west on Lake and Cookman avenues, respectively. With movies still a novelty in those years before World War II, patrons ordered their tickets in advance for their choice of seating on either the orchestra or mezzanine levels, the latter's balcony festooned wtih plaster cherubs powdered with faux gold dust.

Eventually Reade sold the theater's dressing rooms to Gus Williams, the second owner of the Palace Merry-Go-Round and Ferris wheel, and Williams replaced the rear of the building with a one-story dark ride. Until the Palace Amusements closed*, it was not uncommon to listen to a movie in the Lyric, but hear the shrieks of children riding the Ghost Ride (also called the Haunted Mansion) as they filtered through the back wall.

In the 1950s, Walter Reade** switched to billing the Lyric as an art theater. He hired city resident and local schoolteacher Jan Leon for the role of Princess Jan to host a children's theater series, featuring Disney films and cartoons along with live puppet shows and clowns which he televised on WRTV.

In the next decade he hired illustrator Ida Libby Dengrove of West Allenhurst to paint murals on the mezzanine level. Soon after, Dengrove, who had trained in Philadelphia, went on to gain national recognition as the country's first courtroom television artist, a NBC network strategy used to counter the then-ban of cameras in courtrooms. Last fall, the Asbury Park Historical Society was able to save a portion of Dengrove's Parisian-themed murals prior to the building's scheduled demolition.

This brings the total to three of Reade's theaters now gone from Asbury Park. The Mayfair and the St. James, both designed by well-known New York City architect Thomas Lamb, were torn down in 1974. The remaining theaters that once carried the Reade marquee are the Baronet on Fourth Avenue (listed for sale with Better Homes NJ; the Savoy, inside the Kinmouth Building on Mattision (the office/theater building is listed for sale at $3 million), and the Paramount Theatre overlooking Ocean Avenue (which the city of Asbury Park sold last year to Asbury Partners, the master redeveloper of the residential resort's oceanfront).

The Star Ledger
Farewell to Asbury Park ... again
Sunday, July 03, 2005
BY WALLACE STROBY

"By the 1970s, nearby malls had all but suffocated Asbury's once- thriving business district, leaving the town almost strictly an entertainment destination. Into the mid- '70s there were still six operating movie theaters in Asbury Park -- 1920s-era movie palaces such as the Mayfair and the Paramount, and smaller venues like The St. James, the Lyric, the Savoy and the Baronet. With the rise of the multiplexes, these too soon vanished. The Lyric was the only one to survive, eventually rechristened the Park, an adults-only grindhouse adjoining Palace Amusements that proudly advertised "matinees daily." The Park itself came down last year, along with the Palace."

A Marr & Colton organ was installed in the Lyric theater in 1926.

I believe that this pile of rubble was the Lyric (Park) which stood behind the Palace amusement building.
http://www.backstreets.com/palacedemo.html

Better history & pictures:

http://homepage.mac.com/peterlucia/noweverthen/asbury/ap1.2fold/ap1.22.html

Opening date was 1912.

Here is a recent photo for the Park Cinema:
http://www.pbase.com/image/26512897

Manager in the late 70s was Willie Plummer, according to this case:
http://tinyurl.com/yptttv

ASBURY PARK THEATRE FIRE; Flames in Lyric Cause $10,000 Loss

NY Times September 7, 1926

The Lyric Theatre, owned by Walter Reade, owner of a chain of theatres in the Eastern United States, was damaged to the extent of $10,000 early today by a fire of undetermined origin. The Lyric was the second Reade theatre here within a year to suffer fire loss. Last Spring the Main Street Theatre, worth $500,000 was destroyed by another fire, the cause of which was undetermined. The stage and the loft above were a roaring furnace and the flames ate through the roof causing the rear half of it to collapse.

"Murders in Monmouth: Capital Crimes from the Jersey Shore's Past," is a new book due in bookstores November 15, 2007, which mentions Elmer Vaughn, moving picture operator at Lyric Theatre before he was murdered in 1920. Vaughn also worked in the Ocean and Shubert Theatres in Asbury Park.

I was working there as projectionist the night Willie Plummer was shot during a robbery. Although shot in the face, he got off lucky and recovered fully.

What a night that was.

Elmer Vaughn was killed on 9-14-1920 during a robbery, and died of knife wounds. Age 34 years, 6 months, 25 days. He is buried at Mount Prospect Cemetery in Neptune, Plot #477. (His grandson requested info in this website, and I was president of Mount Prospect for many years, and my wife catalogued some 12,000 burials there)

Hi George.

I was working there as projectionist the night Willie Plummer was shot ?? mmmmmmmmmmmmm. Really???????

While researching Vaughn's murder in 1920, I found several advertisements for the Lyric Theatre and will try to post them to this websight. Vaughn showed silent movies to his audiences and the Lyric Theatre also offered matinees. Vaughn also worked for McDonough's Cafeteria on the corner of Kingsley Street and Second Avenue in Asbury Park, which offered live musicals during the 1920s. There should be a separate listing for McDonough's.

Just passed by this site yesterday. This site is a vacnt lot and the intro should be changed to demolished.