Calderone Theater

The Calerone Theatre was a large 2436 seat, well constructed and beautifully equipped, there was no need to economize in any manner. The front is of face brick with a huge triangular marquee dominating a business block. Entrance lobby and novel cantilevered boxoffice are faced with blue cream colored marbles trimmed with aluminum. With Herculite glass doors give entrance to a wider and higher inner lobby equipped with an escalator to the balcony level and dominated by huge mosaic murals by Max Spivak.
Ten aluminum doors open to the orchestra. Above a wood veneer wainscot, the walls are a series of architectural planes, each in a clear, bright tone of green, red, yellow or blue and indirectly lighted by strip coves. The proscenium arch is a huge frame with
a brillant yellow screen curtain. On the rear wall of the balcony a colorful plaid fabic covers the acoustical material. Seats are spaced at 38-ich row intervals for a maximum of leg room. All lounges, power room, restrooms boast of modern furniture with specially woven upholstery fabrics. Modern paintings adorn the walls and all equipment is the best obtainable. Here is a superior theatre, out of the usual commercial lanes of the current time in both investment and objective.
The Calderone Theatre opened Tuesday evening of June 21st 1949.
The architect was William Lescaze for the Skouras Theatres Corp. chain. The owner was Erone Corp.

I managed this theater from 1973 until it closed in 1974. By far the best theater here on Long Island. Its too bad that the origional plans could not be completed on this building due to a water problem under it. It was to have a large stage with all the magic of Radio City. The origional plans were to have stage and screen shows using the same format as the Music Hall. During construction of the stage area, a stream under the building could not be relocated and after about a year, the decision was made to close up the stage wall and have the theater used for movies only. This will help explain the size of this theater. However, the Calderone did very well during the 1950 up until about 1967 when a riot in the theater happened during the showing of the Planet of the Apes. Much damage was done to the lobby and the front glass. The theater was closed for a couple of days. The Calderone suffered from this riot and business fell off. United Artists did not renew its lease with the Calderone family and AIT took over the theater in the early 70's. In 1974, I put the key in the door and we walked away from it. Several stage shows followed on a platform stage that was added but nothing worked well enough. Parking and the area were both against the Calderone. It stayed closed for many years until it was made into 7 theaters. That also did not work and now I understand a church has taken it over. Good luck to them !!!

The Calderone originally had an escalator to whisk patrons from the lobby to the upstairs seating. It was reported to be a "first" for any movie theatre in the New York City-Long Island area.

I was suprised that the 7-plex did not work out here. It is a very busy area and no other theatres are close to it. Was it a shoddy plexing that did it in?

I can't begin to tell you how this saddens me. The Calderone was indeed a beauty. I remember it fondly as the location of my High School graduation. Guess it fell to the ravages of the town and the radical changes Hempstead saw beginning in the 60's. The same thing happened to my old high school as they burned it to the ground. It was destroyed as the entire town has been. Hempstead had been a thriving high class beautiful historic town which now is in ruins.It all began with blockbusting-- living proof of what a segment of the population can do to a place. How sad I now have to be so ashamed of my almamater.

The address of the Calderone Theater wa listed as:

145 N Franklin St
Hempstead, NY

Was this the biggest (in terms of seats) theatre Long Island ever had?

If you consider Long Island separate from Brooklyn and Queens, the Calderone was probably the largest movie theatre on LI, and certainly the largest built after WWII. Don't forget that the population boom in Nassau and Suffolk Counties didn't start until after the war. Prior to that, there was no need to build theatres with 2,000 seats or more.

Thanks Warren, I send my team trivia questions every morning and wanted to use this as one of them.

http://www.hofstra.edu/Libraries/LISI/LISI_collections.cfm

This site has a picture of the grand opening of the Calderone. It seems Hofstra Library has all of the Calderone Circuts papers there.

Hofstra has also published a paperback book, "The Calderone Theatres on Long Island," by Miriam Tulin, which has numerous B&W photos, including the one of the Calderone's grand opening. There is also a photo of the Calderone's auditorium and a view of the grand lobby's spectacular mosaic mural by Max Spivak. Other auditorium photos show the Hempstead Theatre, Cove Theatre, and Mineola Theatre.

The father of my late husband was William Lescaze. I have a color sketch by Max Spivak of the mural for the Calderone Theatre. On the back is written in Lescaze's handwriting, "Max Spivak first sketch for the mosaic mural at the Calderone Theatre."

I was also a manager for a short time at this theater. Trying to remember the year may have been in the 60's. I recall at the time I was there having to manage this and the Rivoli at the same time...

Faith Baptist Church, originally located at 145 S. Franklin St., has purchased the building and is still on "Phase One" of it's extensive renovations.

Here are three images taken during the 1949 opening night:
www.i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/129-2919_IMG.jpg
www.i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/129-2917_IMG.jpg

Here are two more interior images to add to my post of July 27, 2005. The first was taken from a point beneath the balcony:
www.i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/137-3732_IMG.jpg
www.i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/137-3734_IMG.jpg

I had asked this question once before but don't think anyone answered. What other Hempstead Theatre was advertised for awhile as Calderone #2? The original theatre was never plexed until the 90's?
Note this ad for the 1971 re-release of Lady & The Tramp
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a13/ChmnofBrd/Movie%20Ads/LadyTramp1971re-issue.jpg

UA in 1966
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a13/ChmnofBrd/Movie%20Ads/TheSleepingBeauty.jpg

what's up with this theatre now?

any decent theatres left on Long Island run independantly? What about closed ones that are just ripe to be re-opened?

I've been looking hard.

bettiepage

isip just closed this past labor day...listed islip triplex...

wally

Rockville Twin should be reopened

I was a kid in Hempstead in the sixties and I saw many a movie at the Calderone. Back in those days a nine-year-old kid could walk by himself, as I did, through downtown Hempstead and go to movies without much fear. I remember seeing "You Only Live Twice" and "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" at the Calderone when they first opened on Long Island there. My favorite though was "Planet of the Apes," which I first saw at the Wantagh and Levittown theatres in 1968, but saw again at the Calderone during the Memorial Day weekend of 1969 when it was double featured with "Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines." I also recall seeing a re-issue of "The Longest Day" at the Calderone. It was a nice, big theatre, but one thing I didn't like about it was that if you were a kid alone they made you sit in the "unaccompanied children" section on the right. I liked to sit in the center of the theatre and so I hated that, and I recall being turned away from the theatre once, I think for the John Wayne movie "The Undefeated," because the kid's usher took a sick day or something. Man, was I pissed! The last movie I saw at the Calderone before my family moved off the Island was "Beneath the Planet of the Apes" in late June 1970.

Saw Stanley Clarke here, he recorded a live album there.

Saw Frank Marino & Mahogany Rush May 28, 1978 there. Have a picture of the marquis, which included Stanley Clarke June 13 and Patti Smith June 14. Sound was great in every seat in the house. Great lobby and huge bathrooms.
Another great venue was My Father's Place in Roslyn. Saw an old Stephan Grappelli play with Les Paul.
Both shows kicked ass.
Too bad we don't have these "stylish" venues on L.I. anymore.

Here are new links to images described above on 7/27/05 and 9/3/05:
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/129-2919_IMG.jpg
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/129-2917_IMG.jpg
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/137-3732_IMG.jpg
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/137-3734_IMG.jpg

Here is a photo of the Calderone as a church.

Good thing I decided to save my text because once again I posted the message and was told I had to be logged in to post




I remember seeing a couple of concerts out there. The first time I was there I had to do a double take. The stage was so small it made the stage at the Capitol Theatre in Passaic NJ look like the stage at Radio City. I know they had some big acts playing in the 70's. I say that with a bit of bais since i worked at the NY Academy of Music. The Claderone stage area was so small that guests who had backstage access could not even be on the sidelines because of the space limitations. I seem to recall that Gracens Music store was sponsoring some of the shows there.

I was helping renovate the theater in 2007. It had already been split into several small theaters. But the upstairs projection booth was old as the hills, and it had a locker that featured stickers promoting the various films shown there as well as the various rock groups that played there. Stickers for Prudence and the Pill. And then rock promotion for Ten Years Later (formally Ten Years After). They had a ton of Carbon Arcs in the basement. The theater was down again by '99. It's one huge church now...

The Calderone was never intended to be more than a cinema, which is why the stage facilities were virtually non-existent.

That date I was doing the renovating in was 1997, not 2007, my mistake.

Are these pictures the Calderone?
http://americanclassicimages.com/Default.aspx?tabid=141&txtSearch=CATAdvancedSearch1%2c32%2c3%2c-1&catpageindex=93&ProductID=30825
http://americanclassicimages.com/Default.aspx?tabid=141&txtSearch=CATAdvancedSearch1%2c32%2c3%2c-1&catpageindex=93&ProductID=30826

They are definitely not pictures of either the Calderone or the Hempstead theater.