Mayfair Theatre
301 Lake Avenue,
Asbury Park,
NJ
07712
301 Lake Avenue,
Asbury Park,
NJ
07712
3 people
favorited this theater
The 1,800-seat Mayfair Theatre was opened on August 5, 1927 with “Blood Ship”. It was part of the Walter Reade Theatres chain, they closed it on September 8 1974 with Walt Disney’s “Alice in Wonderland & "Fantasia”. The building was demolished in November/December 1974.
Contributed by
Michelle O'Brien
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Recent comments (view all 42 comments)
Doorman:
Found some info on your grandfather and emailed it to you.
My family and I spent several summers in Bradley Beach in the early 60s. We went to Asbury Park many times—via the boards from Bradley and through Ocean Grove or by car, traveling down Main Street and making the right turn onto Lake Avenue. Anyway, I remember going to the Mayfair once to see El Cid with my mother and brother. They loved big epics. I spent most of my time looking all around the theater. I especially remember the ceiling—it was painted to look like the evening sky, complete with stars!! Reminded me of the ceiling in the Hayden Plantetarium. To a kid, an old theater like this was a magic place. Wish I could remember more about it. tragedytragedy
I found some other info about the Mayfair. Believe it or not, there was a 10-tone Carillon installed in one of the towers! I’ll bet the stupid politicans who let this place get torn down didn’t know that.
Also, I found an article about a church in Laurelton, NJ that used a couple of steel beams that had been in the Mayfair Theater when the church was undergoing a renovation. If true, it’s nice to know that at least a small part of the Mayfair lives on.
You guys might be interested to know a guy in Philadephia that owns a company “Urban Artifacts” has a lot of Mayfair artifacts that a guy named Eric Von Grimmenstein III from Indianappolis bought to restore. He has build a small replica home theatre in his house to look like the MayFair. There is an article about it in June/July/August edition of Sound and Vision magazine. If anyone wants it let me know.
I saw a postcard of the Continental Hotel in Asbury Park online and there appears to be a theater next to the building. Does anyone know the name of the theater?
Have you seen this article? Apparently, this guy got a lot of architectural salvage out of the Mayfair and had it reconstructed, in his house! Unless I had too much wine tonight and got it wrong. But the photos are amazing!
View link
Yes I posted that above. Pretty cool that he could do that. I had the original magazine article.
Great information. Thanks!
DEFG, do any of the Walter Reade documents you have reference the Paramount in Asbury Park? If so we would love to see them. Philip LaDue Assistant Technical Director Paramount Theater of Asbury Park
I was there the day that Mr. Lurch of Lurch demolition jumped into the crane and hit the main beam with the recking ball and the whole place came down. It even blew out window in the town across the lake.