An in-depth Providence Journal article on this drive-in appeared in the newspaper on July 13, 2007. The print edition has more photos than the online version and even takes us into the projection booth. LINK TO THE ARTICLE
A very attractive framed photograph of the nearby Community Theatre (later Campus Cinema) in 1942, can be seen in the lobby of the Narragansett Theater. Pi Patel, who owns (owned?) the Narragansett, also owned the Campus Theatre in Wakefield. That one closed in 2003, after the opening of the multiplex Entertainment Cinemas on Route 1 in South Kingstown. The Narragansett continues to operate with first-run features. In 2004 a Providence Journal article said that the theatre was due to be closed permanently, but that has not happened.
A very attractive framed photograph of this theatre in 1942, when it was known as the Community Theatre, can be seen in the lobby of Pi Patel’s nearby Narragansett Theater.
From the South County Independent in July 24, 2003:
Movie house to shut down
By Alicia Korney/Independent Staff Writer
WAKEFIELD – Campus Cinema will close its doors after tonight’s movie screenings, but owner Pi Patel said he still hopes shows – whether in the form of dinner theater or art house flicks – eventually return to Columbia Street.
“It breaks my heart to do this,” said Patel, who bought the theater in 1998 and added a third screen. “After a while it became a foregone conclusion. I kept hoping the losses would stop but they didn’t.”
The Wakefield theater already has lost $70,000 through this year, according to Patel, and his three-screen Narragansett Theater in the Pier Marketplace has lost an additional $60,000 to date.
Patel said the trend dates back over the past three years, long before his theaters had to compete with the eight-screen Entertainment Cinemas that opened last summer in South County Commons on Route 1.
“I was losing money before they got here,” Patel said. “I’ve supported the community for three years in a row, investing more than a million dollars. It’s not the quality of the product or service – the movies just got overbuilt in South County. There’s not enough business to support 14 screens.”
Patel said he is formulating a new business plan and may try to bring dinner theater to the building at 17 Columbia St. He closed his Park Cinema in Cranston earlier this year and after receiving a liquor license from the state and Town Council reopened it to dinner theater.
“A similar concept may work here,” Patel said. Beyond the installation of a stage and lighting, he said he would need a liquor license from the town of South Kingstown to make the dinner theater realistic financially.
In many ways, Patel’s backup plan would be a return to the roots of the location.
First known as Wright’s Hall, the barn-style building opened in 1882 and became known as the Wakefield Opera House six years later. The hall was part of the village center that belonged to another time, long before council members and residents grappled with what continued development in South Kingstown would mean to the fate of the small businessman.
In 1978’s “A Stroll Through Memory Lane,” South County historian Oliver H. Stedman remembered that the theater got its start after the burning of Columbia Hall in the summer of 1882. After a few months of reconstruction, the hall opened to traveling minstrels and stock productions before the birth of “moving pictures.
“Ten, twenty and thirty cents were the prevailing prices, the center of the hall being the thirty cent section where one felt obliged to sit while having an evening out with wife or sweetheart,” Stedman recalled.
John W. Miller of Narragansett was the longest owner of the theater, buying the building in 1915 and making plans to rebuild after a serious fire in 1918 as he prepared to head off to France to serve in the Army during World War I. Miller continued to lease out the theater until his death in 1965, when his wife took over, rebuilding after a 1968 fire and continuing to lease the building until her own death in 1979.
John W. Miller Jr. of Narragansett said the family finally sold the sometimes-literal hot spot in 1981. Miller remembered how the hall was used for dancing after the much shorter movies of the early 1930s and said he’s not surprised the theater is closing, especially with the competition on Route 1.
“I naturally feel a little nostalgic and sentimental about the whole thing,” Miller said. “I just hope something good can come out of this for the public.”
Patel said he will continue to operate the Narragansett Theater to see whether the closing of the Wakefield location buoys business. Far from laying blame, Patel said he hopes Entertainment Cinemas sees a stronger business for the community’s sake, so people can still enjoy movies in South County.
Chet Dowling,
Are there any photos of the Olympia that you know of? I have never seen even one image of this theatre. Was the Olympia across from the Rialto? Your personal knowledge of this and other area theatres you have posted on are very interesting and valuable. I hope there is much more to come.
From the 1990s booklet The Center – Downtown New Bedford in the 1950s by Carmen Maiocco:
“The State Theater showed movies in the Center for almost 60 years, and then, in the earky 1980s, came within a whisker of being reduced to a parking lot. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Back in the early 1920s, a young fellow named Barney Zeitz and his family decided to build a grand entertainment palace on Purchase Street to attract the brightest stars of vaudeville to downtown New Bedford. Construction commenced in 1922, and in April, 1923, the Zeiterion Theater opened with a comedy review entitled The Troubles of 1922, starring George Jessel. The uncommon elegance and beauty knocked New Bedford on its ear, with its Italian marble lobby, its sparkling crystal chandelier, and its golden Grecian dancers cavorting arond the walls high above the audience. Every seat, over a thousand of them, was filled on opening night. The theater was packed again shortly thereafter, when the film star Rudolph Valentino and his wife Natasha, came to town to dance the tango. The women of New Bedford came in droves, ignoring warnings from their priests and pastors to avoid such sinful spectacle. Vaudeville gave way to silent pictures, which in turn ushered in talkies. The Zeiterion was quickly renamed the State Theater.
“The Zeitz family was a major player in the New Bedford entertainment scene for over half a century. The family name can be traced to Kopel and Fannie Zeitz, two natives of nineteenth century Russia. The Zeitzes immigrated to the United States sometime around the turn of the century, and raised a large famil, including five sons: Barney (the oldest), Harry, Fisher, Jacob, and Morton. By 1918, Barney Zeitz had a hardware store at the foot of Union Street and a wrecking company on Acushnet Avenue. In 1922, Barney established the Zeitz Realty Company, and set into motion the construction of the Zeiterion Theater. In everything he did, Barney Zeitz worked closely with his brothers. At one time or another the Zeitzes operated, in New Bedford, the State, the Empire, the New Bedford, the Olympia, and the Capitol Theaters, as well as others in Fall River (the Academy), Newport [the Paramount] and Maine. The Zeitzes introduced the people of New Bedford to talking movies n 1927. Zeitz Theaters hosted world premieres of the silent film classic Down to the Sea in Ships (1924), the talking version of a movie of the same name Down to the Sea in Ships (1949) starring Lionel Barrymore and Richard Widmark, and the most famous ofg them all Moby Dick (1956) starring Gregory Peck. In the 1940s and 1950s, some people remember a dance hall above the theater. By 1980, the State Theater was owned by the Penlar brothers, James, Robert, and John, who operated Paragon Travel. The Penlars planned to demolish the theater to make room for a parking lot behind the travel agency. The local preservation society, the Waterfront Historic Area League, WHALE, got wind of the possible demolition and began to negotiate with the Penlars to rescue the theater. The last movie to be shown at the State was a forgettable offering entitled The Watcher in the Woods, on Wednesday evening, October 14, 1981. For the next few weeks the fate of the old theater teetered on a razor’s edge. People like John Bullard, the Agent for WHALE, and Tony Souza of the New Bedford Office for Historic Preservation, and Sarah Delano, the president of WHALE, all worked tirelessly and heroically to prevent the bulldozers from rolling. And it worked. In November, 1981, the Penlar brothers, in an act of generosity and public-spiritedness that ought never to be forgotten, donated the theater to WHALE. The State Theater was saved.
“Not all preservation stories have such happy endings. In neighboring Fall River, the glorious Durfee Theater on North Main Street tragically fell, because there was no Sarah Delano to step in front of the wrecker’s ball, no Penlar brothers to put community before personal gain. A massive renovation of the State Theater was initiated almost at once. Well over a million dollars was pumped into the restoration, much of it from the state; some of it raised by WHALE from local donations. In September, 1982, the new Zeiterion had its grand reopening. Actress Shirley Jones, of movie (Elmer Gantry, Oklahoma) and television (The Partridge Family) fame, performed a musical review that brought the 1,300 patrons to their feet by the end of the evining. The ‘Z’, the Zeiterion Performing Arts Center, has been playing to large, enthusiastic crowds ever since.”
From the 1990s booklet The Center – Downtown New Bedford in the 1950s by Carmen Maiocco:
“Another downtown landmark that bit the dust was the Olympia Theater at 833 [other sources give 883] Purchase Street. When the Olympia was demolished people all over New Bedford fell silent when they heard the news, remembering the good times they had known in the old theater. Folks still reminisce about the Saturday Morning Kiddie Shows. When Olympia manager Maurice Simms inaugurated the special Saturday morning matinee in the mid -1940s, he had no idea the event would become so popular. Thosands of screaming kids jammed the theater watching cartoons and serials and live acts and feature films. They consumed more popcorn and juggiebeans and soda than can ever possibly be recorded. Regular shows were offered in the afternoon. Movie theaters in the 1940s and 1950s were much more elaborate than the utilitarian, shoebox mall movie theaters we know today. These were entertainment palaces with chandeliers hanging from the ceiling and plush padded seats. At the Olympia uniformed doormen took your tickets, and ushers with flashlights led you to your seat. (They expected a tip, of course.) Wednesday was Dish Day, a promotional device that attracted armies of old ladies all jostling for that coveted teacup or creamer that would complete the set. The Olympia Theater was built in 1916 and thereafter dispensed live entertainment and flickering magic for almost 60 years. One of the first stars to perform there was Will Rogers in 1921. The Zeitz family purchased the Olympia in 1962. At the time they already owned two Center movie houses, the Empire and the State, as well as the Capitol in the North End. As a last hurrah of sorts a national touring company came to the Olympia in 1966 and staged the Neil Simon/Mike Nichols smash comedy hit Barefoot in the Park. Every one of the 2,300 seats was occupied for the show. That’s how the Olympia should be remembered – filled with laughing happy people. The Olympia shut the lights for the last time in 1971. The theater was knocked down the following year.”
From the 1990s booklet The Center – Downtown New Bedford in the 1950s by Carmen Maiocco:
“When the New Bedford Theater on Union Street was torn down in 1968, an awful lot of history disappeared with the building. The first talking motion pictures ever viewed in our city were shown at the New Bedford Theater. Originally the site was the home of the Old Grace Church. When the congregation outgrew the building and the Grace moved west to County Street to its current location, the former church was remodeled and opened as the New Bedford Opera House. That was 1882. Sarah Bernhardt tread the stage here. So did George M. Cohan and Edwin Booth. In 1896, the old church was demolished and the New Bedford Theater people remember was built. For a while, around the turn of the century on Union Street, evening gowns and tuxedoes were the order of the day, as the city’s gentry packed the house to see the likes of Lionel Barrymore and other theatrical stars of the era. By World War I, silent movies had largely replaced live performances. In 1926 the Zeitz family acquired the property. It was the Zeitzes who introduced the ‘talkies’ to the people of New Bedford. When Al Jolson belted out ‘Mammy’ in The Jazz Singer, it was standing room only at the New Bedford Theater. During the ‘30s, '40s, and '50s, the downtown movie palaces boomed. The movies provided cheap, clean fun for people of all ages. Think of it: in 1950, in the Center alone, there were four movie theaters within walking distance of each other: the Olympia, Empire, State (Zeiterion), and the New Bedford Theater. These houses had a capacity of approximately 7,000 seats – and much of the time, all those seats were filled. (I recently read an article that argued the key to rejuvenating center cities is to reintrocuce movie theaters back into the downrtowns. I think it’s a good idea.) Today, all that remains of the New Bedford Theater is a couple of store fronts along Union Street, and a flat black parking lot.
“One memorable event that occurred at the New Bedford Theater was the world premiere of the movie Moby Dick on Wednesday evening, June 27, 1956. The film version of Melville’s famous novel of the hunt for the great white whale, starring Gregory Peck, and produced and directed by John Huston, opened simultaneously at three downtown movie houses: the State, the Empire, and the New Bedford Theater. Everybody wanted to get in on the act. And no wonder. The city was caught up in a Moby Dick frenzy for three solid days of non-stop celebration. When Peck, and his co-star Friedrich Ledebur, who played the tattooed harpooner Queequeg, led a parade in an open car along Purchase Street, 50,000 spectators jammed the sidewalks to catch a glimpse. Costumes of the whaling era were all the rage, with gentlemen sporting top hats, and ladies in bonnets and hooped skirts. All over the city men grew beards and entered the Captain Ahab Beard Contest. Herbert M. Souza won the cash prize of $100 and a $25 savings bond. Arthure Hood came in second. The festivities included a big bash attended by 400 guests at the Wamsutta Club, a costume ball at the Whaling Museum, and block parties up and down the waterfront. New Bedford had hosted other film premieres in the past: the original silent Down to the Sea in Ships in 1922, and a later version of the same title in 1949, starring Richard Widmark; but neither of these events compared to the opening of Mody Dick in 1956,”
From the 1990s (?) booklet The Avenue – Memories of Acushnet Avenue, by Carmen Maiocco:
“The Strand Theater offered many different kinds of entertainment, under a variety of names, during its 85 years of existence. Vaudeville, silent movies, Hollywood blockbusters, foreign films, strip shows, and finally X-rated movies. Cordelia Vien built the theater just north of Coggeshall Street in 1905, and named it after herself – The Vien Theater. It was live shows in that era – comedians, singers, acrobats, ‘exotic dancers.’ Many of the performers lodged across the Avenue at the notorious Waverly Hotel, later called the Touraine. The Viens sold the theater to the Marcus Loew chain in 1923. Loew renamed it the Strand, and for three decades or so the cinematic great ones lit up the screen: Bogart and Bacall, Tracy and Gable – you get the picture. In 1950 the theater was treated to a major renovation and given a new name, the Center. (One old gent in his eighties told me when he was a boy all his friends called the Strand ‘The Scratch’ because the place had fleas.) In the 1950s the Center tried a different format for a while, foreign films, kicking off the new approach with Gina Lollobrigida in Bread, Love and Dreams in 1956. During that period, class and culture were all the rage, with the New Bedford Art Group diusplaying paintings and sculpture in the lobby. By the mid 1960s, the Center took a different turn. One fellow reports he once visited the Center to see a well-endowed lady take a bubble bath in the middle of the stage. He says he stood in line to get her autograph. This lovely was probably ‘Kitten Natividad,’ a porn star who came to the Center in 1982 to promote her latest film Titillation. By the 1980s, the Center was strictly X-rated. In 1990, the theater was the victim of a major fire and has remained boarded up since then, a sad symbol of the decay that has blighted this stretch of the Avenue in recent years.”
From the 1990s (?) booklet The Center – Downtown New Bedford in the 1950s by Carmen Maiocco:
“The Empire Theater in Elm Street was demolished in 1969. The theater opened in 1922 on the site of a former horse stable that burned down in 1914. At first, live entertainment – music, dancing, comedy, and such, was offered at the Empire. Then, in 1932, the Zeitz family acquired the property and they turned the place into a moviehouse. Before, during, and after World War II, Bogart, Hepburn, Brando, and the like, packed them in. In the 1950s, features included Gigantis, the Fire Monster and Teenager from Outer Space. The last movie ever shown at the Empire, in 1964, was My Fair Lady. The next year the traveling show Those Wonderful Days of Burlesque, appeared on the stage. It was the theater’s final performance, and it was fitting. The Empire started and ended with live entertainment. Today the site is a parking lot. One little story. In 1956, five teenagers were arrested in the Empire for hooting and hollering while waiting to see Jailhouse Rock starring Elvis Presley. As they were being led to the clink, one of the lads was discovered to be carrying a 15 inch rubber hose. When the miscreants were hauled into court charged with disorderly conduct, the judge went easy on them. Six months probabtion, His Honor ordered, along with an admonition to ‘Go straight!’”
The 1990s (?) booklet The Avenue – Memories of Acushnet Avenue, by Carmen Maiocco, doesn’t say anything about the Rialto Theater. But there is a hand-drawn map of the Weld Square area. It indicates that the theater was across from the old Weld Square Hotel and next to the police station and library in 1960. Weld Square is where Acushnet Avenue meets Weld Street.
From the 1990s (?) booklet The Avenue – Memories of Acushnet Avenue, by Carmen Maiocco:
One of my friends tells a funny story about the Capitol Theater. When he was a young fellow in the 1960s, he went there to see a double feature: Way Way Out * with Anita Ekberg, and The Fantastic Voyage with Raquel Welch. Noting that both these starlets were voluptuous women, he says he remembers that night’s cinematic experience as “an evening of booberama.” The Capitol Theater was erected in 1920 as part of a block-long structure created by the development team of Allen-Charette, who emblazoned their names for posterity on the brick facade just below the roof-line. The name Capitol is also still etched in stone above what used to be the theater entrance, although the glittering marquee is long gone. Built on the site of the Old Timothy Coffin estate, the Capitol passsed through the hands of numerous owners, including the Zeitz family of Zeiterion fame. One lady remembers a dapper gentleman named Butch at the Capitol, a short man in a soft hat who did double duty as usher and ticket taker. By the late 1960s, the films being shown at the Capitol got a little ragged, such as one high-browed offering entitled I Spit on Your Grave. In the 1970s there were rock concerts and other special events. Sometime around 1980, the lights came down at the Capitol Theater for the final time.*
From the 1990s (?) booklet The Avenue – Memories of Acushnet Avenue, by Carmen Maiocco:
A gentleman named Arcade Marcoux, Sr. opened the Baylies Square Theatre in 1922. The premiere offering was a silent feature called “Cops” and starring Buster Keaton. By the late 1930s, the motion picture industry was boooming while its predecessor, vaudeville, was on the ropes. Arcade Marcoux decided to buck the trend. Beginning in 1938, he brought in the best vaudeville had to offer. Every Saturday and Sunday night, during the 40 week vaudeville season that ran from fall to spring, comedians and dancers and French troupes down from Montreal lit up the stage. Throughout the 1940s, over 3,000 live acts appeared at the Baylies Square, with names like the Harmonioca Rascals, the Radio Rogues, and Sid Graumann’s Musical Stairs. The orchestra, which included a Hammond Organ, was directed by Pat Healy. People remember “Bank Night” at the theater where you could win cash prizes as part of a lottery, or “Dish Night” where the proprietors passed out dinner plates and sugar bowls – everybody tried to collect a complete set. In 1960, the Baylies Square underwent a major renovation and was renamed the Arcade. The first show in the reopened theater was Mike Todd’s Around the World in 80 Days starring David Niven. Throughout the sixties, hits like Spartacus and State Fair*and * The Fugitive Kind [i]packed them in. By the seventies the theaters at the malls had pretty much drained all the customers out of the cities. The Arcade suffered the ignominy of showing X-rated films. In February 1977 the Arcade Theater burned to the ground. The former Baylies Square Theater, New Bedford’s northernmost entertainment center, kept them rolling in the aisles for 55 years, and then was no more. There’s an A1 Express Lube station on the site today.
I decided to write a few lines about Arcade Marcoux simply because the man had an interesting name. Arcade Marcoux – is that a terrific French name, or what? Mr. Marcoux was born in St. Paul, Canada, in 1880. He came to America in 1922 and promptly opened the Baylies Square Theater. Soon thereafter Arcade Sr. was joined in the business by Arcade, Jr. The father and son team also operated a bowling alley just to the west of the theater, and at one time or another they ran a laundry, a package store, and an establishment called Champ Raceway. Both men were avid fishermen. Marcoux the elder died in 1956. Marcoux the son passed away in 1969.[/i]
From the 1990s (?) booklet The Avenue – Memories of Acushnet Avenue, by Carmen Maiocco:
There’s still quite a few people out there who remember Allen’s Theater, which stood on the east side of the street between Phillips Avenue and Coffin Avenue. The little theatre – it boasted only 620 seats which was very small by the standards of the time – had a brief but violent life. The theater was built in 1909, and was named after George W. Allen, Jr., who operated a number of theaters in New Bedford in the early part of the century. In 1933 the place was bombed – for what reasons I have never been able to determine. Then in November, 1940, a raging fire leveled the Allen’s Theater and all the businesses surrounding it. After the fire, a one-story stretch of buildings was constructed, anchored on the Coffin Avenue end by an A&P. When this A&P closed in 1976, it was the last of the famous supermarket chain to leave the city.*
A Providence Journal article of 6-2-07 wrote of Richard Rose, federal prosecutor in the case that sent major Vincent “Buddy” Cianci to prison on a racketeering conviction:
[i]When Rose was 16, he was a truant who spent a lot of time hanging out in downtown Providence, then a wasteland of dying department stores, adult bookshops and X-rated movie theaters. When the Paris Cinema, where Rose liked to watch kung fu movies and films like Superfly, also switched to porn movies, in the spring of 1975, Rose and a friend collected 1,500 signatures on a petition.
The dynamic new mayor, Buddy Cianci, who had visions of transforming downtown, was appearing on a television broadcast in Burnside Park, in front of the federal courthouse where Rose would prosecute Cianci years later. Rose went downtown, and tried to present the mayor with his petition, but was unable to.
The young Rose told a Providence Journal reporter at the time: “The mayor is trying to get people into the city. These movies aren’t helping.â€[/i]
A Mary Pickford wannabee standing in front of the Opera House entrance in Newport in 1919. The movie being shown is the 1919 western Sally Burke of the U-Bar-U, with Louis Bennison.
The sepia “faded-color” version of Reflections in a Golden Eye, mentioned in the above comments, also played the Providence area at East Providence’s Four Seasons Cinema, now the Patriot Cinemas. I distinctly remember seeing it there.
Found. An OLD TATTERED PROMOTIONAL POSTCARD of the Eckel Theatre from 1919. Printed text on message side:
[i]ANNIVERSARY WEEK—-THANKSGIVING—-1913-1919.
Mary Pickford in “The Hoodlum"
ENTIRE WEEK BEGINNING SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 23rd.
Miss Pickford Appearing in an Altogether Unusual Role,
Unique in the Annals of Films.
FOREMOST IN PICTURES— ECKEL THEATRE— ALWAYS A GOOD SHOW
Six years ago, Thanksgiving Day, 1913—-to be exact—-the Eckel opened its doors as Syracuse’s Foremost Pictureplay House. It offered then, as it does now, the best there was in Pictures; pictures that were different. This policy has been more than maintained—-it has been made perfect. Remember the last Mary Pickford picture “Daddy Long Legs?” Well, Mary is here to help celebrate Anniversary Week, beginning Sunday, November 23rd, in her very latest picture “The Hoodlum.” We expect you too.
Very truly yours,
ECKEL THEATRE.[/i]
Ronnie D.,
They don’t show movies regularly here but feature an assortment of events including plays, the RI International Film Festival, and currently, for three weeks, the first American showings of Michael Corrente’s Brooklyn Rules. Last summer members of the Theatre Historical Society of America visited the place and went gaga over it, as with PPAC.
RonnieD,
That’s the only currently known picture of the Darlton, and it was published in the Providence Journal at the time of the theatre’s closing. There must be more photos out there.
An in-depth Providence Journal article on this drive-in appeared in the newspaper on July 13, 2007. The print edition has more photos than the online version and even takes us into the projection booth.
LINK TO THE ARTICLE
A very attractive framed photograph of the nearby Community Theatre (later Campus Cinema) in 1942, can be seen in the lobby of the Narragansett Theater. Pi Patel, who owns (owned?) the Narragansett, also owned the Campus Theatre in Wakefield. That one closed in 2003, after the opening of the multiplex Entertainment Cinemas on Route 1 in South Kingstown. The Narragansett continues to operate with first-run features. In 2004 a Providence Journal article said that the theatre was due to be closed permanently, but that has not happened.
A very attractive framed photograph of this theatre in 1942, when it was known as the Community Theatre, can be seen in the lobby of Pi Patel’s nearby Narragansett Theater.
From the South County Independent in July 24, 2003:
Movie house to shut down
By Alicia Korney/Independent Staff Writer
WAKEFIELD – Campus Cinema will close its doors after tonight’s movie screenings, but owner Pi Patel said he still hopes shows – whether in the form of dinner theater or art house flicks – eventually return to Columbia Street.
“It breaks my heart to do this,” said Patel, who bought the theater in 1998 and added a third screen. “After a while it became a foregone conclusion. I kept hoping the losses would stop but they didn’t.”
The Wakefield theater already has lost $70,000 through this year, according to Patel, and his three-screen Narragansett Theater in the Pier Marketplace has lost an additional $60,000 to date.
Patel said the trend dates back over the past three years, long before his theaters had to compete with the eight-screen Entertainment Cinemas that opened last summer in South County Commons on Route 1.
“I was losing money before they got here,” Patel said. “I’ve supported the community for three years in a row, investing more than a million dollars. It’s not the quality of the product or service – the movies just got overbuilt in South County. There’s not enough business to support 14 screens.”
Patel said he is formulating a new business plan and may try to bring dinner theater to the building at 17 Columbia St. He closed his Park Cinema in Cranston earlier this year and after receiving a liquor license from the state and Town Council reopened it to dinner theater.
“A similar concept may work here,” Patel said. Beyond the installation of a stage and lighting, he said he would need a liquor license from the town of South Kingstown to make the dinner theater realistic financially.
In many ways, Patel’s backup plan would be a return to the roots of the location.
First known as Wright’s Hall, the barn-style building opened in 1882 and became known as the Wakefield Opera House six years later. The hall was part of the village center that belonged to another time, long before council members and residents grappled with what continued development in South Kingstown would mean to the fate of the small businessman.
In 1978’s “A Stroll Through Memory Lane,” South County historian Oliver H. Stedman remembered that the theater got its start after the burning of Columbia Hall in the summer of 1882. After a few months of reconstruction, the hall opened to traveling minstrels and stock productions before the birth of “moving pictures.
“Ten, twenty and thirty cents were the prevailing prices, the center of the hall being the thirty cent section where one felt obliged to sit while having an evening out with wife or sweetheart,” Stedman recalled.
John W. Miller of Narragansett was the longest owner of the theater, buying the building in 1915 and making plans to rebuild after a serious fire in 1918 as he prepared to head off to France to serve in the Army during World War I. Miller continued to lease out the theater until his death in 1965, when his wife took over, rebuilding after a 1968 fire and continuing to lease the building until her own death in 1979.
John W. Miller Jr. of Narragansett said the family finally sold the sometimes-literal hot spot in 1981. Miller remembered how the hall was used for dancing after the much shorter movies of the early 1930s and said he’s not surprised the theater is closing, especially with the competition on Route 1.
“I naturally feel a little nostalgic and sentimental about the whole thing,” Miller said. “I just hope something good can come out of this for the public.”
Patel said he will continue to operate the Narragansett Theater to see whether the closing of the Wakefield location buoys business. Far from laying blame, Patel said he hopes Entertainment Cinemas sees a stronger business for the community’s sake, so people can still enjoy movies in South County.
Chet Dowling,
Are there any photos of the Olympia that you know of? I have never seen even one image of this theatre. Was the Olympia across from the Rialto? Your personal knowledge of this and other area theatres you have posted on are very interesting and valuable. I hope there is much more to come.
History of the Zeiterion Theatre.
From the 1990s booklet The Center – Downtown New Bedford in the 1950s by Carmen Maiocco:
“The State Theater showed movies in the Center for almost 60 years, and then, in the earky 1980s, came within a whisker of being reduced to a parking lot. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Back in the early 1920s, a young fellow named Barney Zeitz and his family decided to build a grand entertainment palace on Purchase Street to attract the brightest stars of vaudeville to downtown New Bedford. Construction commenced in 1922, and in April, 1923, the Zeiterion Theater opened with a comedy review entitled The Troubles of 1922, starring George Jessel. The uncommon elegance and beauty knocked New Bedford on its ear, with its Italian marble lobby, its sparkling crystal chandelier, and its golden Grecian dancers cavorting arond the walls high above the audience. Every seat, over a thousand of them, was filled on opening night. The theater was packed again shortly thereafter, when the film star Rudolph Valentino and his wife Natasha, came to town to dance the tango. The women of New Bedford came in droves, ignoring warnings from their priests and pastors to avoid such sinful spectacle. Vaudeville gave way to silent pictures, which in turn ushered in talkies. The Zeiterion was quickly renamed the State Theater.
“The Zeitz family was a major player in the New Bedford entertainment scene for over half a century. The family name can be traced to Kopel and Fannie Zeitz, two natives of nineteenth century Russia. The Zeitzes immigrated to the United States sometime around the turn of the century, and raised a large famil, including five sons: Barney (the oldest), Harry, Fisher, Jacob, and Morton. By 1918, Barney Zeitz had a hardware store at the foot of Union Street and a wrecking company on Acushnet Avenue. In 1922, Barney established the Zeitz Realty Company, and set into motion the construction of the Zeiterion Theater. In everything he did, Barney Zeitz worked closely with his brothers. At one time or another the Zeitzes operated, in New Bedford, the State, the Empire, the New Bedford, the Olympia, and the Capitol Theaters, as well as others in Fall River (the Academy), Newport [the Paramount] and Maine. The Zeitzes introduced the people of New Bedford to talking movies n 1927. Zeitz Theaters hosted world premieres of the silent film classic Down to the Sea in Ships (1924), the talking version of a movie of the same name Down to the Sea in Ships (1949) starring Lionel Barrymore and Richard Widmark, and the most famous ofg them all Moby Dick (1956) starring Gregory Peck. In the 1940s and 1950s, some people remember a dance hall above the theater. By 1980, the State Theater was owned by the Penlar brothers, James, Robert, and John, who operated Paragon Travel. The Penlars planned to demolish the theater to make room for a parking lot behind the travel agency. The local preservation society, the Waterfront Historic Area League, WHALE, got wind of the possible demolition and began to negotiate with the Penlars to rescue the theater. The last movie to be shown at the State was a forgettable offering entitled The Watcher in the Woods, on Wednesday evening, October 14, 1981. For the next few weeks the fate of the old theater teetered on a razor’s edge. People like John Bullard, the Agent for WHALE, and Tony Souza of the New Bedford Office for Historic Preservation, and Sarah Delano, the president of WHALE, all worked tirelessly and heroically to prevent the bulldozers from rolling. And it worked. In November, 1981, the Penlar brothers, in an act of generosity and public-spiritedness that ought never to be forgotten, donated the theater to WHALE. The State Theater was saved.
“Not all preservation stories have such happy endings. In neighboring Fall River, the glorious Durfee Theater on North Main Street tragically fell, because there was no Sarah Delano to step in front of the wrecker’s ball, no Penlar brothers to put community before personal gain. A massive renovation of the State Theater was initiated almost at once. Well over a million dollars was pumped into the restoration, much of it from the state; some of it raised by WHALE from local donations. In September, 1982, the new Zeiterion had its grand reopening. Actress Shirley Jones, of movie (Elmer Gantry, Oklahoma) and television (The Partridge Family) fame, performed a musical review that brought the 1,300 patrons to their feet by the end of the evining. The ‘Z’, the Zeiterion Performing Arts Center, has been playing to large, enthusiastic crowds ever since.”
From the 1990s booklet The Center – Downtown New Bedford in the 1950s by Carmen Maiocco:
“Another downtown landmark that bit the dust was the Olympia Theater at 833 [other sources give 883] Purchase Street. When the Olympia was demolished people all over New Bedford fell silent when they heard the news, remembering the good times they had known in the old theater. Folks still reminisce about the Saturday Morning Kiddie Shows. When Olympia manager Maurice Simms inaugurated the special Saturday morning matinee in the mid -1940s, he had no idea the event would become so popular. Thosands of screaming kids jammed the theater watching cartoons and serials and live acts and feature films. They consumed more popcorn and juggiebeans and soda than can ever possibly be recorded. Regular shows were offered in the afternoon. Movie theaters in the 1940s and 1950s were much more elaborate than the utilitarian, shoebox mall movie theaters we know today. These were entertainment palaces with chandeliers hanging from the ceiling and plush padded seats. At the Olympia uniformed doormen took your tickets, and ushers with flashlights led you to your seat. (They expected a tip, of course.) Wednesday was Dish Day, a promotional device that attracted armies of old ladies all jostling for that coveted teacup or creamer that would complete the set. The Olympia Theater was built in 1916 and thereafter dispensed live entertainment and flickering magic for almost 60 years. One of the first stars to perform there was Will Rogers in 1921. The Zeitz family purchased the Olympia in 1962. At the time they already owned two Center movie houses, the Empire and the State, as well as the Capitol in the North End. As a last hurrah of sorts a national touring company came to the Olympia in 1966 and staged the Neil Simon/Mike Nichols smash comedy hit Barefoot in the Park. Every one of the 2,300 seats was occupied for the show. That’s how the Olympia should be remembered – filled with laughing happy people. The Olympia shut the lights for the last time in 1971. The theater was knocked down the following year.”
From the 1990s booklet The Center – Downtown New Bedford in the 1950s by Carmen Maiocco:
“When the New Bedford Theater on Union Street was torn down in 1968, an awful lot of history disappeared with the building. The first talking motion pictures ever viewed in our city were shown at the New Bedford Theater. Originally the site was the home of the Old Grace Church. When the congregation outgrew the building and the Grace moved west to County Street to its current location, the former church was remodeled and opened as the New Bedford Opera House. That was 1882. Sarah Bernhardt tread the stage here. So did George M. Cohan and Edwin Booth. In 1896, the old church was demolished and the New Bedford Theater people remember was built. For a while, around the turn of the century on Union Street, evening gowns and tuxedoes were the order of the day, as the city’s gentry packed the house to see the likes of Lionel Barrymore and other theatrical stars of the era. By World War I, silent movies had largely replaced live performances. In 1926 the Zeitz family acquired the property. It was the Zeitzes who introduced the ‘talkies’ to the people of New Bedford. When Al Jolson belted out ‘Mammy’ in The Jazz Singer, it was standing room only at the New Bedford Theater. During the ‘30s, '40s, and '50s, the downtown movie palaces boomed. The movies provided cheap, clean fun for people of all ages. Think of it: in 1950, in the Center alone, there were four movie theaters within walking distance of each other: the Olympia, Empire, State (Zeiterion), and the New Bedford Theater. These houses had a capacity of approximately 7,000 seats – and much of the time, all those seats were filled. (I recently read an article that argued the key to rejuvenating center cities is to reintrocuce movie theaters back into the downrtowns. I think it’s a good idea.) Today, all that remains of the New Bedford Theater is a couple of store fronts along Union Street, and a flat black parking lot.
“One memorable event that occurred at the New Bedford Theater was the world premiere of the movie Moby Dick on Wednesday evening, June 27, 1956. The film version of Melville’s famous novel of the hunt for the great white whale, starring Gregory Peck, and produced and directed by John Huston, opened simultaneously at three downtown movie houses: the State, the Empire, and the New Bedford Theater. Everybody wanted to get in on the act. And no wonder. The city was caught up in a Moby Dick frenzy for three solid days of non-stop celebration. When Peck, and his co-star Friedrich Ledebur, who played the tattooed harpooner Queequeg, led a parade in an open car along Purchase Street, 50,000 spectators jammed the sidewalks to catch a glimpse. Costumes of the whaling era were all the rage, with gentlemen sporting top hats, and ladies in bonnets and hooped skirts. All over the city men grew beards and entered the Captain Ahab Beard Contest. Herbert M. Souza won the cash prize of $100 and a $25 savings bond. Arthure Hood came in second. The festivities included a big bash attended by 400 guests at the Wamsutta Club, a costume ball at the Whaling Museum, and block parties up and down the waterfront. New Bedford had hosted other film premieres in the past: the original silent Down to the Sea in Ships in 1922, and a later version of the same title in 1949, starring Richard Widmark; but neither of these events compared to the opening of Mody Dick in 1956,”
From the 1990s (?) booklet The Avenue – Memories of Acushnet Avenue, by Carmen Maiocco:
“The Strand Theater offered many different kinds of entertainment, under a variety of names, during its 85 years of existence. Vaudeville, silent movies, Hollywood blockbusters, foreign films, strip shows, and finally X-rated movies. Cordelia Vien built the theater just north of Coggeshall Street in 1905, and named it after herself – The Vien Theater. It was live shows in that era – comedians, singers, acrobats, ‘exotic dancers.’ Many of the performers lodged across the Avenue at the notorious Waverly Hotel, later called the Touraine. The Viens sold the theater to the Marcus Loew chain in 1923. Loew renamed it the Strand, and for three decades or so the cinematic great ones lit up the screen: Bogart and Bacall, Tracy and Gable – you get the picture. In 1950 the theater was treated to a major renovation and given a new name, the Center. (One old gent in his eighties told me when he was a boy all his friends called the Strand ‘The Scratch’ because the place had fleas.) In the 1950s the Center tried a different format for a while, foreign films, kicking off the new approach with Gina Lollobrigida in Bread, Love and Dreams in 1956. During that period, class and culture were all the rage, with the New Bedford Art Group diusplaying paintings and sculpture in the lobby. By the mid 1960s, the Center took a different turn. One fellow reports he once visited the Center to see a well-endowed lady take a bubble bath in the middle of the stage. He says he stood in line to get her autograph. This lovely was probably ‘Kitten Natividad,’ a porn star who came to the Center in 1982 to promote her latest film Titillation. By the 1980s, the Center was strictly X-rated. In 1990, the theater was the victim of a major fire and has remained boarded up since then, a sad symbol of the decay that has blighted this stretch of the Avenue in recent years.”
From the 1990s (?) booklet The Center – Downtown New Bedford in the 1950s by Carmen Maiocco:
“The Empire Theater in Elm Street was demolished in 1969. The theater opened in 1922 on the site of a former horse stable that burned down in 1914. At first, live entertainment – music, dancing, comedy, and such, was offered at the Empire. Then, in 1932, the Zeitz family acquired the property and they turned the place into a moviehouse. Before, during, and after World War II, Bogart, Hepburn, Brando, and the like, packed them in. In the 1950s, features included Gigantis, the Fire Monster and Teenager from Outer Space. The last movie ever shown at the Empire, in 1964, was My Fair Lady. The next year the traveling show Those Wonderful Days of Burlesque, appeared on the stage. It was the theater’s final performance, and it was fitting. The Empire started and ended with live entertainment. Today the site is a parking lot. One little story. In 1956, five teenagers were arrested in the Empire for hooting and hollering while waiting to see Jailhouse Rock starring Elvis Presley. As they were being led to the clink, one of the lads was discovered to be carrying a 15 inch rubber hose. When the miscreants were hauled into court charged with disorderly conduct, the judge went easy on them. Six months probabtion, His Honor ordered, along with an admonition to ‘Go straight!’”
The 1990s (?) booklet The Avenue – Memories of Acushnet Avenue, by Carmen Maiocco, doesn’t say anything about the Rialto Theater. But there is a hand-drawn map of the Weld Square area. It indicates that the theater was across from the old Weld Square Hotel and next to the police station and library in 1960. Weld Square is where Acushnet Avenue meets Weld Street.
1959 photo of the Capitol Theater when it was showing The Five Pennies and Tokyo After Dark.
From the 1990s (?) booklet The Avenue – Memories of Acushnet Avenue, by Carmen Maiocco:
One of my friends tells a funny story about the Capitol Theater. When he was a young fellow in the 1960s, he went there to see a double feature: Way Way Out * with Anita Ekberg, and The Fantastic Voyage with Raquel Welch. Noting that both these starlets were voluptuous women, he says he remembers that night’s cinematic experience as “an evening of booberama.” The Capitol Theater was erected in 1920 as part of a block-long structure created by the development team of Allen-Charette, who emblazoned their names for posterity on the brick facade just below the roof-line. The name Capitol is also still etched in stone above what used to be the theater entrance, although the glittering marquee is long gone. Built on the site of the Old Timothy Coffin estate, the Capitol passsed through the hands of numerous owners, including the Zeitz family of Zeiterion fame. One lady remembers a dapper gentleman named Butch at the Capitol, a short man in a soft hat who did double duty as usher and ticket taker. By the late 1960s, the films being shown at the Capitol got a little ragged, such as one high-browed offering entitled I Spit on Your Grave. In the 1970s there were rock concerts and other special events. Sometime around 1980, the lights came down at the Capitol Theater for the final time.*
From the 1990s (?) booklet The Avenue – Memories of Acushnet Avenue, by Carmen Maiocco:
A gentleman named Arcade Marcoux, Sr. opened the Baylies Square Theatre in 1922. The premiere offering was a silent feature called “Cops” and starring Buster Keaton. By the late 1930s, the motion picture industry was boooming while its predecessor, vaudeville, was on the ropes. Arcade Marcoux decided to buck the trend. Beginning in 1938, he brought in the best vaudeville had to offer. Every Saturday and Sunday night, during the 40 week vaudeville season that ran from fall to spring, comedians and dancers and French troupes down from Montreal lit up the stage. Throughout the 1940s, over 3,000 live acts appeared at the Baylies Square, with names like the Harmonioca Rascals, the Radio Rogues, and Sid Graumann’s Musical Stairs. The orchestra, which included a Hammond Organ, was directed by Pat Healy. People remember “Bank Night” at the theater where you could win cash prizes as part of a lottery, or “Dish Night” where the proprietors passed out dinner plates and sugar bowls – everybody tried to collect a complete set. In 1960, the Baylies Square underwent a major renovation and was renamed the Arcade. The first show in the reopened theater was Mike Todd’s Around the World in 80 Days starring David Niven. Throughout the sixties, hits like Spartacus and State Fair*and * The Fugitive Kind [i]packed them in. By the seventies the theaters at the malls had pretty much drained all the customers out of the cities. The Arcade suffered the ignominy of showing X-rated films. In February 1977 the Arcade Theater burned to the ground. The former Baylies Square Theater, New Bedford’s northernmost entertainment center, kept them rolling in the aisles for 55 years, and then was no more. There’s an A1 Express Lube station on the site today.
I decided to write a few lines about Arcade Marcoux simply because the man had an interesting name. Arcade Marcoux – is that a terrific French name, or what? Mr. Marcoux was born in St. Paul, Canada, in 1880. He came to America in 1922 and promptly opened the Baylies Square Theater. Soon thereafter Arcade Sr. was joined in the business by Arcade, Jr. The father and son team also operated a bowling alley just to the west of the theater, and at one time or another they ran a laundry, a package store, and an establishment called Champ Raceway. Both men were avid fishermen. Marcoux the elder died in 1956. Marcoux the son passed away in 1969.[/i]
From the 1990s (?) booklet The Avenue – Memories of Acushnet Avenue, by Carmen Maiocco:
The 1912 Italian silent spectacle Quo Vadis? opened at the Astor Theatre in early 1913. It was promoted as a “gorgeous $150,000 production.”
A Providence Journal article of 6-2-07 wrote of Richard Rose, federal prosecutor in the case that sent major Vincent “Buddy” Cianci to prison on a racketeering conviction:
[i]When Rose was 16, he was a truant who spent a lot of time hanging out in downtown Providence, then a wasteland of dying department stores, adult bookshops and X-rated movie theaters. When the Paris Cinema, where Rose liked to watch kung fu movies and films like Superfly, also switched to porn movies, in the spring of 1975, Rose and a friend collected 1,500 signatures on a petition.
The dynamic new mayor, Buddy Cianci, who had visions of transforming downtown, was appearing on a television broadcast in Burnside Park, in front of the federal courthouse where Rose would prosecute Cianci years later. Rose went downtown, and tried to present the mayor with his petition, but was unable to.
The young Rose told a Providence Journal reporter at the time: “The mayor is trying to get people into the city. These movies aren’t helping.â€[/i]
The first Old South Theatre appears on this postcard which was mailed in 1914.
A Mary Pickford wannabee standing in front of the Opera House entrance in Newport in 1919. The movie being shown is the 1919 western Sally Burke of the U-Bar-U, with Louis Bennison.
I think they do a commendable job here in employing some handicapped persons as ticket-takers.
The sepia “faded-color” version of Reflections in a Golden Eye, mentioned in the above comments, also played the Providence area at East Providence’s Four Seasons Cinema, now the Patriot Cinemas. I distinctly remember seeing it there.
Found. An OLD TATTERED PROMOTIONAL POSTCARD of the Eckel Theatre from 1919. Printed text on message side:
[i]ANNIVERSARY WEEK—-THANKSGIVING—-1913-1919.
Mary Pickford in “The Hoodlum"
ENTIRE WEEK BEGINNING SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 23rd.
Miss Pickford Appearing in an Altogether Unusual Role,
Unique in the Annals of Films.
FOREMOST IN PICTURES— ECKEL THEATRE— ALWAYS A GOOD SHOW
Six years ago, Thanksgiving Day, 1913—-to be exact—-the Eckel opened its doors as Syracuse’s Foremost Pictureplay House. It offered then, as it does now, the best there was in Pictures; pictures that were different. This policy has been more than maintained—-it has been made perfect. Remember the last Mary Pickford picture “Daddy Long Legs?” Well, Mary is here to help celebrate Anniversary Week, beginning Sunday, November 23rd, in her very latest picture “The Hoodlum.” We expect you too.
Very truly yours,
ECKEL THEATRE.[/i]
Ronnie D.,
They don’t show movies regularly here but feature an assortment of events including plays, the RI International Film Festival, and currently, for three weeks, the first American showings of Michael Corrente’s Brooklyn Rules. Last summer members of the Theatre Historical Society of America visited the place and went gaga over it, as with PPAC.
RonnieD,
That’s the only currently known picture of the Darlton, and it was published in the Providence Journal at the time of the theatre’s closing. There must be more photos out there.
July, 1963 program shared with the Seekonk “Art” Drive-In.