Apollo Theatre
180 S. New York Avenue,
Atlantic City,
NJ
08401
180 S. New York Avenue,
Atlantic City,
NJ
08401
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Howard B I wonder if we knew each other as we grew up the same tim ein Atlantic City. I saw some of the same movies you mention in a 2005 posting.
This theater was the site of Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman’s disastrous 1930 first out-of-town tryout for their eventual smash hit comedy Once in a Lifetime, their first collaboration.
Many thanks residents for the above URLs and informative posts. I’d like to share with site visitors a web page regarding one European (actually German) vaudeville act called the Six Rockets that passed through Atlantic City on a couple of occasions. The page here: View link links up many vintage photos from the Act’s two visits there, although sadly none are from inside any theatre itself and rather reveals what an act was up to when not on the stage.
However, I would like to take this opportunity to enquire whether CT readers may know whether some theatres more than others among Atlantic City’s vaudeville houses may have hosted German or European acts (if that’s a possibility at all). A number of the city’s residents claimed German ancestry, so would some houses like the Apollo perhaps have catered rather more for the German speaking community? From the German Programm that the girls can be seen reading here: View link it would appear so.
Any suggestions or thoughts are more than welcome. Thank you very much in advance and I trust this post is useful to visitors.
From the early 1900s a postcard showing a very large group of people crowding the street in front of Nixon’s Apollo Theatre in Atlantic City.
Here is a 1953 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/2b3cw7t
The Apollo can be seen at the bottom of this postcard:
http://tinyurl.com/24lqfza
Here is another vintage photo:
http://tinyurl.com/2c4r4lq
Here is a larger version of the postcard linked in January 2008:
http://tinyurl.com/273z6az
Here is the 1977 photo posted in November 2008:
http://tinyurl.com/ye4xryb
it is mentioned here that “Birth of a Nation” kicked off the summer season at the Nixon in July 1915. Obviously Memorial Day was not the start of summer as that holiday hadn’t been invented yet.
http://tinyurl.com/y9o2dva
An ad with no graphics.
This is from Boxoffice magazine in June 1958:
ATLANTIC CITY-“High School Confidential”, first Albert Zugsmith film for MGM release, opened here May 29 to considerable fanfare. Zugsmith is a native son of Atlantic City and he and Jan Sterling, Charles Chaplin Jr., Jackie Coogan and DIane Jergens, stars of the film, received a rousing welcome.
The opening at the Apollo Theatre was for the benefit of the United Cerebral Palsy Fund. There was a motorcade parade, testimonial lunches and dinners and an address by Zugsmith at Atlantic City High School.
Renewing link.
No. I went to the Beach Theater once on Atlantic Avenue when I was a teenager, to see an adult film, but I never had the nerve to try this place.
No problem. Did you catch any flicks there?
That’s the place. Boy does that bring back memories. Thanks for the photo.
This is a 1977 photo of an Apollo Theater in Atlantic City. Is it a photo of this theater?
I don’t remember the hippie place. The burlesque place that I referred to on 9/3/05 was actually on the ground floor of the Morton.
The theatre on Virginia between Pacific & the BW, may have been the Quarterdeck? I went there in 1970 & it was a teenage (hippie) dance club called “Phaze II”. In 1971 I remember some kind of a stage show on the marquee: “What Is Life?”. I can still see the nearby Morton Hotel.
Saw “The Five Pennies” there in the summer of 1959. I remember thinking the Apollo was less distinctive than most of the other Atlantic City moviehouses of that era. – Ed Blank
Among the movies that played the Apollo was “The Five Pennies” in the summer of 1959. – Ed Blank
Was W.H. Lee the original architect of the Apollo, or just the architect in charge of the extensive interior “modernization” that took place in 1934? If there’s sufficient interest, I’ll post “before” and “after” photos that were published at the time.
I believe that it was the same person Ron. Here is an article that makes the connection between Joseph F. Fralinger the saltwater taffy king and his involvement with the Apollo Theater.
Note that in TC’s 1966 postcard there is a billboard advertising “Fralinger’s Salt Water Taffy”. Seems likely that this was the same Fralinger who was involved in the construction of the Apollo Theatre.
1966 postcard:
View link