Magic Lantern Theatre
North Main Street,
Suffolk,
VA
23434
North Main Street,
Suffolk,
VA
23434
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The Chadwick Theatre was operating from around 1924. In later years it was renamed Magic Lantern Theatre.
In around 1982, the Magic Lantern Theatre was destroyed by a fire, which was arson (said to be an insurance job!) The last movie screened was said to be “Friday 13th Part 3”.
Contributed by
Lost Memory, Daniel Perry
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Recent comments (view all 8 comments)
This website has an old photo of the Chadwick Theater. Its the third photo down from the top of the page. The photo appears to be from the late 1930’s.
Here is a website that mentions the Chadwick Theater. These are the two paragraphs concerning this theater:
“The Chadwick Theatre was a cornerstone of downtown and of every young person’s life. A classic single-screen theatre on Main Street, it was the place I saw A Hard Day’s Night, Viva Las Vegas, Bonnie and Clyde, Gone with the Wind, Romeo and Juliet, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Planet of the Apes, Easy Rider, and many more—-sometimes with my brother, sometimes with my friends, sometimes with a date”.
“The old downtown fell into pitiful disrepair, with few businesses able to hang in. The banks and churches survived, the banks with different names of course, but nearly every one of the old businesses on Main and Washington Streets disappeared except for G. S. Hobbs Ltd, a men’s haberdashery. The Chadwick was burned down in a failed arson-for-insurance attempt, Suffolk High School closed its doors in 1990, and the tennis courts became cracked and overrun by weeds and grass”.
I first saw downtown Suffolk about 1988.Still had a lovely big hotel and a Leggett dept.store.Saw a bldg that looked like a closed theater.But the place now is useless.As the peanut has lost importance for the area and other ravages,Suffolk has not had much good happening.
I only went to the Chadwick Theatre twice, once to see Hotel and another time to see Gunn (a movie spinoff of the Peter Gunn series). I was just a little kid and not even in school yet. Sorry to say, I can remember the movies but not the Chadwick Theatre itself.
Maybe if my elder siblings or anyone else has any recollections, I can pass them on.
A Wurlitzer theater organ opus 917 style “F” special was installed in the Chadwick Theater on 10/4/1924.
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171 north main street
THANKS
There was a newspaper story here when the theater burned down. Arson was suspected from the start because the expensive projectors were not found in the ruins