Colonial Theater
123 N. Main Street,
Elmira,
NY
14901
123 N. Main Street,
Elmira,
NY
14901
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The Colonial Theater was listed in a 1917 Elmira, NY business directory at the address given above. A Link theater organ size 2/6 was installed in the Colonial Theater in 1928.
The Colonial Theater was remodeled in 1941 to the plans of architect Michael J. DeAngelis. It operated until at least 1980. If you have any further information on the Colonial Theater please post it here.
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Lost Memory
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Recent comments (view all 18 comments)
In 1941, the Colonial got a complete Art Moderne makeover, inside and out, designed by architect Michael J. DeAngelis. There are photos in Boxoffice of February 21, 1942.
Joe: Once again, the Boxoffice photos of this theatre are wonderful to see. And again, the half moon windows in the front doors that make full circles when closed are exactly like the door/window design in my hometown former theatre. If you find any other theatre designed by DeAngelis, please notify.
This one is listed as “closed”, but I just wonder how many of the 19 DeAngelis theatres listed on his architect link as “closed” are actually “demolished”? The Granada is listed as “closed” at the moment, but will be listed as “closed/demolished” soon as demolition was sadly begun on December 30, 2009.
And after viewing a photo from the 40’s and then a photo from the 80’s I see the doors were changed just like was done to my hometown theatre. Amazing! Need to know if this theatre is still at 123 Main.
After comparing a photo of this theatre in Box Office Magazine I also see that an exterior art piece was either removed or covered over. Hope this theatre is open now.
Joe Vogel: I looked at the Boxoffice Feb. 21, 1942 issue and couldn’t find the Colonial article with photo though I did find the Colonial article in the April 26, 1941 issue. Thanks for the Boxoffice website information as I visit it often now.
All the old links to Boxoffice articles that were posted at issuu.com are dead, and I’m gradually updating them as I come across them. Archived issues of Boxoffice are now in a section called The Vault at the magazine’s own web site.
I’ve noticed that a lot of the old links have the wrong issue dates or wrong pages. Either I made a lot of mistakes, or the magazines at issuu.com were different editions than the ones now available at The Vault (Boxoffice published a national edition and multiple regional editions, and the content didn’t always match up.)
The magazine has also set up The Vault in a way that makes it inaccessible to search engines, so I can’t always find the new locations of the articles I cited in earlier comments. The article about the Colonial is one of those I can’t find, but I have found the drawing of the proposed redesign of the theater, at the upper right corner of this page of the April 26, 1941, issue.
Sadly, this theater had been allowed to fall into disrepair, & eventually was demolished to make way for the hockey arena.
Here’s a new link to a 1941 article on the Colonial’s “modernization”: boxofficemagazine
It is a shame that the Colonial is now a bank, but more importantly that its beautiful interior was changed “back then”…in the “boxofficemagazine” article one can see the elegant interior with the corner organ!