Olden Theatre

In the early 1970s, they tried running old films such as 1930s Warner Brothers musicals. We were in the lobby of the theater one evening when a fight broke out and one unhappy person threw the large floor ashtray against the wall mirrors and shattered it. You knew things were going downhill at that point. As I was a young boy at the time. I think that was the last time we saw a movie there although we continued to eat pizza at Maruca’s Pizza next door. The neighborhood was changing.

When I was a boy in the 1950s, I lived at 107 Garfield Ave, one street over from Olden Ave. From my bedroom window, I would look out directly at the marquee of the Olden Theater. Each week (Fridays, I believe) I would watch the worker change the letters announcing the new movies. My friends and I would attend Saturday serials and cartoons at the Olden and the Greenwood. My first tomato pie was at Maruca’s, and I used to go to the bowling alley upstairs. I remember the boys doing the pin setting. The photo is just like I remember it, with Maruca’s down the street. Great memories. Thanks for this.

I showed the first porn film at the Olden. It was called, “I am Curious Yellow”. They charged (I think) over $5 per ticket and during the first week we sold out all 834 seats three times. The line went around the block twice. The film was awful. It was sooo bad that the fellow that spelled me had placed reel 2 and 3 in reverse order in the rack. I played it that way the following night and didn’t realize it until I went to rewind the third played reel. No-one noticed, and of course I didn’t volunteer. At the time I was working for a defense contractor that had a strict policy, if you were arrested, for any reason other than a traffic violation, you were fired on the spot. At that time in Trenton, both the Theatre Manager and Projectionist could be arrested. I actually had a one inch thick rope tied to the rewind table. The rope had large knots every foot or so. The Candy Girls had a “trouble” button behind the counter. They were going to ring it three times to signal me that we were being raided. My plan was to climb down the rope into the audience. I really needed my day job.

The last movie I ever saw at the old Greenwood Theatre was Moonraker. Does anyone know what the last movie was ever played there was?

Thanks

Hi stillwagon. I was 19 years of age in 1971. I showed “Patton” at the Greenwood on my birthday in June of ‘71. I will be 56 next week. My memory is a little fuzzy after 35+ years. I remember the E-7’s, & the Amprex penthouses. The operator was a fairly young guy who wore glasses? He did call the machines “cameras”. One of the soft-core films was “Borlelro” or something like that. I think that it was the final Friday night in November, 1971.

Is there a Trenton Times newspaper archive to see what was playing? I’m very sorry if I offended you. The Olden was non-union at that time. That I do know.

U cab renenber DeMore’s Hobby Shop and had many a pizza (ca;;ed a
tomato pie in Trenton at at Marucas in my teens. Unlike anything you can find called a pizza anywhere else. It was fantastic and much better tasting for some reason). I believe that the Maruka family also operated a pizza concession on the Boardwalk (notice the word is capitalized) in Seaside Park.

I also have a sense of sadness when I visit Trenton and see what’s happened to the neighborhoods. Thank you for your thoughtful response.

Hey! I was the Chief Projectionist at the Olden Theatre and in fact trained there on the E-7s under the tutelage of a projectionist in the union for over 55 years. I knew the only other projectionist at the time and none of the three of us ever called the projectors “Cameras”. I worked for the late Jack Kosharek (PhD) during that time and when the theatre began the soft porn. It was a steady slide down hill from that point. The theatre had 854 seats down from 1410 before the re-build. It featured a private viewing room for parents with small babies. It had a balcony at one time. The booth was made for the days of explosive film with lead sheets and reinforced concrete to contain the blast should one occur. The booth had its own lavatory as many did at the time. The house properly used a curtain for all shows and never allowed a customer to see the screen without a picture being projected upon it.

The only bad thing about the projection system was the heads/lamps were placed upon a post mount and if someone ran into the machine, it could be turned so that the movie would show on the wall. (Not good).

The theatre was the first in the Trenton, New Jersey area to show 3D movies (with the cardboard glasses) and I think the first film was “The Fall of the House Of Usher” with (who else) Vincent Price.
The theatre was originally called the Gayety and it was connected via a tunnel under the stage to the Gayety night club in the other building. It was a bordello I understand in the 30s. The tunnel was for rapid escape from a raid. At one time the theatre log recorded 80 people on the payroll as the Gayety including seamstresses, carpenters, stage hands, and etc. It housed a theatre organ that eventually was installed in the Eastman Theatre in Rochester New York. There were Dressing Rooms, shops, and rehearsal rooms under the stage. It had three Voice of The Theatre speakers on platforms behind a genuine Cinemascope screen that was properly installed so the geometry of the screen matched the curvature of the Anamorphic Lenses.

It was one of the first to have the Cinemascope system installed complete with the perfectly installed aluminized screen and stereo surround sound (Ampex system).

We ran a good house then. The projectors were kept immaculate and the booth was kept very clean (helps preserve the film quality). You could read a newspaper in the booth from the light radiating back from the screen. We had a 100 foot throw just like the Roxy in New York. Jack Kosharek (Mgr) was adamant that we should use as much of the carbon rods as possible without welding the butt savers into each other.

There were many very nice people working at the Olden Theatre. Often we would share pop corn bags with the Greenwood Theatre on Greenwood Avenue about a block away. I miss them all to this day.

I visted the Olden booth in November of 1971. They were showing soft core X or art pictures. The projectors were Simplex E-7 and the carbon arc lamps were Peerless Magnarc’s. Thay had Amprex magnetic sound heads. and Altec tube sound. The non-union operator kept calling the projectors “cameras” & refered to the 35mm film as “tape”. I was apalled and I was only nineteen. LOL.
Maruca' s Tomato Pies, (don’t call it pizza), was on of my favorite hang outs before starting the show at the Greenwood, right around the corner. (22.00 per shift)!

The entrance was situated on the corner (SW) of Walnut and Olden. The lobby ran west along Walnut while the auditorium faced south along the alley with the screen on the “Greenwood Avenue” end. It was a popular neighborhood theater into the 1970s. It is completely gone. The Olden featured a large vertical sign in addition to the v-shaped marquee.

A Moller organ, opus 4451, was installed in the Gaiety Theatre in 1926.

The Olden Theater was completely razed sometime around 1986. I wrote a feature article on the razing of the once-popular theater for the Trenton Times. It was the Gaiety Theater before a makeover around 1950. It showed movies into the 1970s, sometimes revivals of old films like 42nd Street. It later ran x-rated films. The Olden Theater Complex was not completely attached to the theater building. Only the entrance of the theater (on the corner at Olden Avenue) was physically attached to the rest of the complex. There was a bowling alley in the other building and the popular Maruca’s Tomato (pizza) pies. I removed the ticket grinder.

Olden Avenue is the correct name of the street. As recently as a couple years ago the USPS online zip code listings contained a dedicated nine-digit zip for “Olden Theater Bldg”. It’s a brown brick two-story building with what looks like terra-cotta trim; appears to be used for retail and maybe apartments upstairs.