Park Theatre

Passed by this theater on my bike trip 2 weeks ago. It’s now boarded up as it was previously a Salvation Army. The weeds and ivy have grown substantially on the right side and the rear of the building.

The Park Theater I remember was only opened for a brief time in the 1940’s, after a fire severely damaged the Broadway Theater further down on Broadway (in 1943). When the Broadway was cleaned up, refurbished and reopened, the Park closed down again. I remember that “Yankee Doodle Dandy” had its premiere at the Park, where I saw it for the first time. A few of us oldtimers remember the Strand, down on Liberty Street South of Broadway, but I think that it must have closed down before I was old enough to see anything there.

This is still the Salvation Army store. Walking in you can tell where the former balcony is. How much of the balcony is intact, though, I am unsure of because I did not go upstairs.

The following comes from a Times Herald-Record article on Newburgh, New York movie theaters. In 1941 there were six movie theaters in Newburgh. They were the Academy, the Ritz, the Broadway, the Cameo, the Park and the Strand. The Cameo and the Strand were the smallest having around 500 seats. The Ritz was the largest of the six theaters. The Park theater was the first to close. It stopped operating by 1950. Earlier theaters in Newburgh, so called “storefront movie houses” were the New Palatine Theater and the Star Theater, both on Lander Street. And the Imperial theater on Colden St.

A Hillgreen-Lane organ Opus 639 Size 2/14 was installed in the Park Theater in 1921 at a cost of $5,500.