Garden Theatre

is this place still open? what is the experience like inside?

This is a photo of the Garden Theater in Pittsburgh.

A Hillgreen-Lane organ Opus 578 Size 3/23 was installed in the Garden Theater in 1919 at a cost of $5,000.

Is the organ is still there? Sounds like quite a large instrument for what appears to be a relatively small theater in the picture.

At least porn kept this theatre open, otherwise it would have been a Walgreens twenty years ago.

Here is a recent photo of the Garden theater in Pittsburgh.

Ross posted an article in today's Newsreel on the CT home page that involves this theater. Apparently, the owner (George Androtsakis) is the same person who owns the Montauk Theater in Newark, NJ, which is facing a similar situation due to the City's desire to build a grade school on the adjacent block. Androtsakis also owns the Fair Theater in Jackson Heights, NY, a former nabe that has been running porn for decades with little or no controversy.

Here is a link to the article on the Montauk.

The theater is still open. very, dark and seedy inside. That is all I'll say. ;)

Here is a recent night view of the Garden theater.

A girl I work with, who lives in the neighborhood tells me someone from New York owns the theater and will not sell it. He apparently is insistent on keeping it a porn theater. I'm just not sure how he can make a profit from it, but apparently he is. The whole block is kinda run down. I think they need to fix up that entire block and try to clean the theater up.

Rick... check my post from Mar 10th about the owner. He also has a porn theater in Newark, NJ and Jackson Heights, NY.

This is another recent night view of the Garden Theater.

Here is a 1927 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/qu8ut

Great picture!

Another recent photo of the Garden theater can be seen here.

That night view that Lost posted on Aug 20th is quite spectacular as well. What a remarkably well preserved neon-lit marquee and display!

According to this December 28, 2006 article, the X-Rated Garden Theater might become an opera house or other cultural venue.

My only fear is that PURA may demolish this beautiful building. Does anyone know if the pipe organ is still there?

This is a Feb 16, 2007 story about the Garden Theater being sold. In case the link expires, I'll post the text portion here.

"Legal Battle Over Garden Theatre Apparently Over

(KDKA) PITTSBURGH A legal battle over an adult theater that blocked development in a North Side neighborhood appears to be over.

The city's Urban Redevelopment Authority settled with the owners of the Garden Theatre for $1.1 million


The settlement comes more than a month after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled the URA was not infringing on the theater's First Amendment rights.

Last month, city and state leaders called for proposals to redevelop the Federal North area".

Has anyone heard if the theater is going to stay and be renovated? Hopefully so. Pittsburgh needs a decent concert hall.

Hopefully the New Granada and King's Court are next (maybe the Parkway in Stowe Twp. as well)

A friend informed me that the Garden has shut its doors.

Here is the latest the Pittsburgh Urban Redevelopement Authority is accepting RFPs on the redevelopement fo the theater. Here is a pdf link that includes a picture.

http://www.ura.org/pdfs/rfpFS-NA-Addendum.pdf

Here is an article in today's Post Gazette regarding the future of the Garden.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07101/776829-53.stm

Interesting story and glad to hear that this theatre is no longer showing porn movies...."X no longer marks the spot"! I hope the City of Pittsburgh and others restore this theatre's original beauty AND reputation!

And yes, is the organ still there?

I'd love to see it as a mid size concert venue. Since the Syria Mosque closed in the early 90s Pittsburgh concerts have not been the same.

Rick: Tell us more about the Syria Mosque and where does one go in Pittsburgh to hear the Pittsburgh Symphony?

I wish I could tell you more about the Syria Mosque's history (can't find anything, so I'll have to go by memory)

Formerly located in Oakland, the University of Pittsburgh bought the Syria Mosque and demolished it to make way for a parking lot (sad, I know). The shriners built a new Mosque in Cheswick, but does not handle concerts.

The Mosque had a main theater for concerts (I seen Great White there) and a ballroom downstairs (saw Don Dokken and Trixter there.)

The building was demolihed in 1991.

Wish I had more info.

The Pittsburgh Symphony currently performs at Heinz Hall.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage-Roadside-Syria-Mosque-PITTSBURGH-PA_W0QQitemZ150109873452QQcmdZViewItem

This site shows a postcard photo of this building. I can't believe it was demolished since it had a theatre and the new one doesn't have one.

Any info on the 3/23 Hillgreen-Lane organ Opus 578? Is it still there or has it been sold?

Great picture Patsy!

Check out some interior photos of the Garden here:

http://pittsburghdish.typepad.com/pittsburgh_dish/2007/05/inside_the_gard.html#more

Excerpts from an article that appeared in the Pittsburgh City Paper, May 9, 2007:

The Garden opened "without publicity" in 1915, according to a profile compiled as part of the Library of Congress' Historic American Building Survey. Its original owner was one David E. Park, a bank vice president. According to the NABS, the theater's name was chosen "as a pun on the name of the owner" so it wouldn't be confused with the Park Building Downtown.

Park passed away in 1917, and in 1924 his son sold the Garden to Bennett Amdur, who'd been managing the facility until that time. Amdur ran the Garden until his death in 1970, and left the interior essentially unchanged.

To be sure, Amdur made some concessions to the times. During the silent-film era, the auditorium was fitted out with a pipe organ — the first organ to be seen inside the the¬ater, but by no means the last. But the organ was later taken out, the HABS reports, and bestowed to a church. Amdur also later added amenities like central air conditioning.

But for the most part, the struc¬ture retained its 1920s-era furnish¬ings, which Amdur had copied from a New York City theater. The Garden was built with an upstairs ice-cream parlor, elaborate lighting fixtures and its distinctive landmark marquee. To varying extents, all these features survive today. (Although the marquee outside was once even more elaborate; the original collapsed under a snowfall in January 1958.)

During his lifetime, Amdur insisted on showing only the most family-friendly entertainment. In a
1970 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article published shortly after his death, the Garden's acting manager said Amdur "kept a clean place and wouldn't even show Frankenstein." But three years later, the Garden was sold to "Penn-Ally Enterprises," which rechristened the build¬ing as the "New Garden Theater" and began showing adult films.

Adult theaters like the New Garden became common in 1970s since it was the only way many urban theaters could survive in the era of the suburban multiplex. During a 1999 hearing, Garden Theater manager Robert Caplan testified that the Garden had only two choices: Go X-rated, or go out of business. "We could no longer get [enough movies] to stay in business," the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review quoted Caplan say¬ing. But when the fare was adult films, they made money "all the time."

In the mid-1990s the Mattress Factory, a nearby art museum, proposed a redevelopment plan in which the Garden would be used as a meeting, exhibition and community center. The city tried to seize the building through eminent domain, but in 1997, the Garden's then-owner, George Androtsakis of New York City, fought the seizure in court. Androtsakis displayed impressive staying power: He owns numerous adult theaters in the Northeast, and he's fought against government seizures elsewhere as well. His decade-long legal battle ended in February. The theater is now shuttered pending redevelopment.

Found some good historic pictures in the Library of Congress page and can be seen at:

[url=http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=hhphoto&fileName=pa/pa0000/pa0052/photos/browse.db&action=browse&recNum=0&title2=Garden%20Theater,%2010-12-14%20West%20North%20Avenue,%20Pittsburgh,%20Allegheny%20County,%20PA&displayType=1&itemLink=r?ammem/hh:@FIELD(DOCID+@BAND(@lit(PA0052)))]

You may have to "copy & paste"

I found this old pic of the Garden from the 60s

http://www.jerryapp.com/arcv2d/ja-t438.jpg

Here is a 2/12/07 article from the Carnegie Mellon University newspaper:
http://tinyurl.com/ynwrum

This is a recent photo of the Garden Theater building.

An August 23, 1946 photo of the Garden with a PRY PCC Car in foreground is here:
http://images.library.pitt.edu/cgi-bin/i/image/image-idx?sid=811ac4beb5c7466d351063bc11cbc32b&g=imls&med=1&c=cp&q1=theater&rgn1=cp_all&ox=242&oy=283&lastres=1&res=1&width=750&height=490&maxw=3000&maxh=1963&subview=getsid&lasttype=boolean&view=entry&viewid=4675009C.TIF&entryid=x-715.4675009.cp&cc=cp&quality=2&resnum=19&evl=full-image&image.x=482&image.y=258

Here is another recent photo.

1999 article on microfilm at http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=iJsNAAAAIBAJ&dq=adult%20cinema&sjid=GHADAAAAIBAJ&pg=5960%2C1416247

This is a November 2008 photo.

Some locals suggest new names for the Garden, from an article of April 2007:
http://tinyurl.com/b62c32

i remember seeing Bambi there........Disney's Bambi

Fortunately, Ken Mc's recent 2007 article post indicates that they were only looking for a slogan, and not a new name for the Garden Theatre.

I would hope they keep the name and classic marquee as is, and only add Performing Arts Center or whatever.

There's also hope that the interior pics posted in 2007, where indicative of the theatre's relatively original state at that time. The original seat frames can be sand-blasted and repainted, etc. And what little view their was of the interior appeared to have never been mordernized.

As far as a new slogan, I'd go with: "A Garden Grows In Pittsburgh".

i also remember haveing a tooth extracted @ the dentist upstairs. can't remember his name, but have hated dentists ever since. lol

Here is a 1979 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/c8efk4

Here are some 1982 photos:

Photo1

Photo2

Photo3

Photo4

(The Valley Independent, Thursday, August 24, 1972)

X-rated films save Pittsburgh theatre closing

PITTSBURGH (AP)-Bambi, Snow White, King Kong and Godzilla are in trouble in Pittsburgh. The kids don't want to see them anymore, say the operators of a local theatre. Only X-rated films, low budget scorchers once found in tiny back-room theatres, saved the historic Garden Theater from closing its doors.

Lee Hoffman, who co-manages the theatre with her husband Bob, says the "kiddie" movies were lucky to draw 15 oe 20 children on a good day, not nearly enough to put food on our table. "We tried the X-rated movies and they really stimulated the gross," she said. "We had the choice of changing the policy or closing our doors."The Suckers," "The Adult Version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" and "Ribald Tales of Robin Hood" are some of the films which have replaced Walt Disney and other general attraction movies at the Garden.

Though the money is better, the newfound wealth is not understood by some. A small band of youngsters picketed the theatre earlier this week demanding "Kids' Power," hollering for films they could attend.
"We told them that we don't like these X pictures," Hoffman said.
“Look at these records," his wife declared. "I remember this one especially. We showed matinee of 'War of the Gargantuas' and 'Revenge of Godzilla.' Nothing. A few kids and five adults.
"I don't know where the children are going," Mrs. Hoffman continued. "It used to be different. I remember a few years ago we played 'King Kong vs. Godzilla' and we broke records. The theatre was packed. We sold 40 bags of popcorn.”

With the advent of VCRs, this had to be one of the last porno theatres anywhere.