Family Theater
24 Jackson Street,
Batavia,
NY
14020
24 Jackson Street,
Batavia,
NY
14020
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Built in 1912, the American Motion Picture Directory, 1914-1915 edition lists a Family Theater in Batavia. In the 1941 edition of Film Daily Yearbook, the Family Theater is listed with 1,000 seats and is operated by Warner Bros. Circuit Management Corp. By 1950 it is listed with 987 seats.
It was demolished in April 1965.
Contributed by
Ken Roe
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Recent comments (view all 4 comments)
A Wurlitzer theater organ opus 722 style “D” special was installed in the Family Theater on 10/29/1923. Status: Sold.
The construction news column of the August, 1912, issue of The Lather, a trade union journal, said that a three story theater was to be built at Batavia. The architect was Leon H. Lempert.
Given the timing, and the restrained classical style of the Family Theatre’s facade, so characteristic of Lempert’s designs during that period, it seems very likely that the project listed in The Lather was this theater. The earliest mentions of the Family Theatre I’ve found in Batavia newspapers are from early 1914.
This weblog post from The Daily News says that demolition of the Dipson Family Theatre began on April 21, 1965. It also says that the Family Theatre had been built in 1912. The house was one of the first buildings to be destroyed for Batavia’s first urban renewal project.
In a partial list of work by Leon H. Lempert & Son, Ranjit Sandhu says that the Family Theatre was rebuilt in 1923 with the design done by Leon Lempert, Junior.
Lempert Senior went into semi-retirement in 1906 and died in 1909, so Lempert, Jr. must have been the architect for the original Family Theatre design of 1912 as well.
Despite Senior’s death in 1909, the firm name Leon H. Lempert & Son still appeared on a list of architecture firms in New York that was published by the new York Society of Architects as late as 1922. I’ve found the firm name used in announcements about current projects appearing in trade publications as late as 1920.