Penway Theatre
1800 State Street,
Harrisburg,
PA
17103
1800 State Street,
Harrisburg,
PA
17103
2 people
favorited this theater
Showing 1 - 25 of 43 comments
Correction: My Paxtonia dates are actually 1953/1959.
David - This is way late, but I lived in Paxtonia from 1953 until I went off to college in 1956. My parents sold their home there around the late 1960s. The building at 5806 Jonestown Road had been owned by my grandfather who was a Justice of the Peace. He lived in Linglestown. It was a large older three-level building which had housed my grandfather’s office, a restaurant, and later a barber shop. It was next to Miller’s Feedmill. It was later razed, I’m not sure when. The Harrisburg Drive-In was up the road on route 22.
Ross, in what years did you live in Paxtonia? The Creasons lived on Jonestown Road, across the street from what is now the post office. Also on that block lived Michael Korn, a reclusive kid who later became a famous classical musician.
OMG, I lived in Paxtonia (Jonestown Road)! I wish I’d have known. Strange coincidence to find out so many years after the fact. The Penway was my neighborhood theater when we still lived in Harrisburg city, just off State St. My lifelong love of movies started there, attending with my parents.
By the early 1960s, the Penway was owned by the Creason family, who lived in Paxtonia. Joanne Creason, who died last year at the age of 98, was a tremendous amateur golfer, and she ran the theater. She had a large family, and I was friends with her sons Johnny and Richie. Through them, I got to explore the whole theater, including the projection area.
Art deco was a main architectural design theme in Harrisburg in the first half of the 20th century, and the Penway and Senate theaters were two notable examples.
Reading the comments already posted brings back so many memories— the Penway, Roxy, and the other neighborhood theatre operations were a family operation. This includes the VALLE in Mechanicsburg, where I saw most of the movies I attended when I was a kid—later apprenticed there and got my projectionists license and went on to run porn at the STAR and martial arts pics at the Colonial as a union projectionist! Some years later, the Valle was operated under the name Christian Arts Theatre and I had the dubious job of managing it— we tried to initiate a classic repertory cinema program, which worked for a while but kinda petered out in the long haul. Still the Valle— and that family run movie chain brings back great memories. l weigard
Penway14…Let me ask you, why isn’t the Penway on your list of favorites?
What goes round comes round. Sometimes……
I drove past the Penway today. The building is for sale. Would make for a great movie theater.
foureyes..where have you gone?
First page of an article on Harrisburg theaters:
View link
Foureyes…great to hear from you!!!
foureyes,aka Barbara Herman had trouble signing in and gave up. I asked Jan if she had old photos, but she must have frgotten. I’ll remind her. Her husband ushered at the Penway in the late 1940’s.
My sister Natalie Corkle, married Walt Levinsky a very successful musician-composer-arranger. His big swing band played The White House, toured Europe and Japan. He worked on films for Woody Allen who liked Walt’s clarinet(Walt played all the woodwinds) Google Walt for his long bio! His obit was on the front page of the N.Y. Times Dec.1999. My nephew Ken is also a musician(keyboard for “Classic Rock Cares” for John Entwhistle sp?) Ken plays in the pit on
Broadway ,composes,arranges, and plays piano. Both father and son were in “Radio Day’s”, that has a great scene in the NYC movie
theater at Rockefeller Center..I think?
Penway14…I as well would like to know what happen to foureyes.
What’s happened to Foureyes?????
Foureyes – Yes, I remember neighbors named the Hibners and Flossie.
My parents were also friends with a couple named John and Addie down the street. I always thought Addie was an odd name, probably a nickname.
Our backyard faced some of the backyards on 17th St. We also used to visit neighbors who lived on 17th, about two or three houses down from Liberty. I remember they had rather large front porches.
My relatives, the Kings, lived on Miller St., a small street, almost an alley, about half a block over from State and a half block down from the Penway.
I write a lot about film music and composers. I’d be interested in who Natalie married?
Also in more photos of any Harrisburg theaters.
I’d really be interested in an interior shot of the Penway. These are rare or impossible I know. I remember large mural-type illustrations on the inside wall of the auditorium.
Foureyes…have your friend Jan contact me at I would like to talk to her about her pictures.
PENWAY,State St.– Liberty St. Martins lived at 17th & Liberty. I remember a little boy,3 houses from us. Ross Care and a brother perhaps, in the first house behind Martin’s. Next to Dalrymple,… next Hibners who had a little girl Flossie, and Corkle’s lived next to them. Jeff Corkle was 5 yrs. in 1949. Kay 11, Barbara(me)16. Natalie 21 married a musician-conductor-composer directer of scores for films, Woody Allen to Jacque Cousteau, Roman Polanski.
When The Penway let out, people walked home past Jan’s front porch where we spent the evenings,…watching Greyhound buses off to exciting destinations I saw in the movies.
I’ll email my friend in Halifax for any postcards from their collection of theaters.
It was a great neighborhood. State St. was rather elegant.
But I remember many neighborhoods in the city being very nice when I was growing up and in elementary school.
Before the malls took over there were several shopping districts beyond downtown, 13th & Market, and around the Broad St. market uptown. Most had neighborhood movie theaters.
I was back in Harrisburg some years ago and my old house on Liberty looked very much the same. It seemed to be a middle-class African American neighborhood then and well-maintained.
Actually I felt like I was back in 1948! Don’t know what it’s like now.
But most (all?) of the theaters I knew, both neighborhood and downtown, are now gone.
My dad’s family lived at 1408 Liberty Street in the 1930s. My mom and dad were married in 1938 at the Methodist Church on State. They moved to Paxtang in the early 1940s. His mother lived on Liberty Street until she died in the late 40s. My dad liked that entire neighborhood and one time said that when he was a young man he thought it would be wonderful to own one of those grand houses on State Street. That was quite a classy neighborhood back in the day.
I lived at 1624 Liberty St. It was the last house in a row but not quite on the corner of 17th. There was a church with a big lawn almost across the street (at 17th & State).
It was my first home in Harrisburg until (before I was in 1st grade) we moved across State to Hoerner St. So I was still able to walk to the Penway. I also used to ride my bike up State to see the lobby cards and posters in the two display windows under the marquee.
I assume Peffer’s was the drug store. I remember the round tables. Didn’t they have glass tops? There was also a great soda fountain and magazine rack.
I had relatives named King. They lived on that small street, almost an alley, that ran up from Liberty (actually 17th) to the side of the theater.
See above: on the third comment down there is a link to a photo my dad took of the Penway.
I contributed the entry on the Penway, the first theater I attended (and loved). My mother and I are at the end of the line in the photo.
Foureyes….I would be interested in seeing Jan’s pictures of the Penway if she has some…Would you please forward her my email… Thank you.
Jan Seidel will really enjoy reading this description and the great commnets about The Penway. I certainly did ! The 2 of us went regularly. (She married an usher, Nelson Hardy.I think it was the usher uniform that attracted her! LOL) Ushers wore UNIFORMS.
From mid 40’s to mid 50’s I lived at 1618 Liberty. Jan lived at 1618 State St. We still send emails several times a week.! Saturday matinee was 12 cents. Ice cream Sundaes at Peffer’s were great… triangular chair seats fit under the round ice cream tables.) George King was a Sodajerk for awhile. There was a place to park our bikes
at the Penway too.
…..Maybe Jan has some photos of the Penway marque?
gfradar..drop me an email..I would like to talk with you more about the Penway and the Valle. Email me at
Thank you gfradar. I would be interested in seeing those pictures. I would really like to see a picture of the Penway. I really like your story. Please tell us some more.