San Toy Theater
North Front Street & West Green Street,
Reading,
PA
19601
North Front Street & West Green Street,
Reading,
PA
19601
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The San Toy Theater opened around 1914. The San Toy Theater is listed in the 1930 Film Daily Yearbook with 1,000 seats. It is not listed in the 1935 edition.
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Lost Memory
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Recent comments (view all 7 comments)
There was also a San Toy Theater in Lonaconing MD; it’s CT # 20934. Around 1900, there was a hit musical show “San Toy” which played in both London and New York.
When I was trying to find information about this theater I saw an article about the Chinese musical “San Toy”. I don’t know if the naming of this theater was influenced by the musical or not. There is also a town named San Toy in Ohio which might have been named after the musical.
The website for San Toy, OH says that the musical show “San Toy” was a “flop”, but it was a huge hit in London, and then opened in New York at the New York Theater (which was part of the Hammerstein complex on the east side of Times Square, and later renovated into a Loews movie theater, demolished circa-mid-1920s). James T. “Jimmy” Powers was the star, and the show played for 168 performances, which was not a bad run in those days. It opened in NY on Oct. 1, 1900. It probably toured for 2 or 3 seasons afterward. Source: “American Musical Theatre” by Gerald Bordman, Oxford, 2001.
The San Toy in Reading was located adjacent to the busy railroad tracks in Reading. This proved a problem once sound was introduced as the trains going by not only made it difficult to hear the sound. This in one reason the theatre did not survive long.
A Moller organ opus 3087 was installed in the San Toy Theater in 1921.
Muviebuf, could this be the building that became the Ritz Theater in the 700 block of Penn St.? I know that was just a couple of doors north of the railroad.
OK, if it was at Front and Green Sts., then it would have been right next to the Reading Railroad’s Lebanon Valley Branch. I’m sure they got lots of train noise.