William Carlos Williams Center for the Performing Arts
1 Williams Plaza,
Rutherford,
NJ
07070
1 Williams Plaza,
Rutherford,
NJ
07070
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The Bergen County Film Commission is proud to call the Williams Center and “The Rivoli” its new home. This commission, created in late 2007 by the Bergen County Board of Freeholders, is an all volunteer commission patterned after the successful Fort Lee Film Commission. The Chair of the new commission is Nelson Page and the Executive Director Tom Meyers, both of the Fort Lee FIlm Commission. This commission has started, since January 2008, a series of retrospective film programs in the Rivoli through the use of a newly purchased digital projector. Film programs are scheduled throughout 2008 -visit www.bergencountyfilmcommission.org We hope to have 35MM capability in The Rivoli for the September 26-28 Reel Jersey Film Festival which will access all 5 screens of the Williams Center. The Bergen County Film Commission will assist Bergen County and the Williams Center Board in the renovation of The Rivoli.
Although the George Newman Theatre / Rivoli Theatre in Rutherford has a long way to go on its restoration project. A 17' x 30' movie screen was donated by Nelson Page and installed in January 2008 for the Silent film presentation of “Steam Bill Jr.” to be held on January 25, 2008 and a Conn electronic theatre organ has been donated to the Bergen County Film Commission for use in the Williams Center. even though the Conn organ is electronic it is the first “THEATRE ORGAN” to play in the Rivoli / Williams Center since the removal of the Wurlitzer pipe organ many years ago.
Check out the Rutherford forum at nj.com (http://www.nj.com/forums/rutherford). Then search for “Williams”. You’ll see lots of backlash against the cleanup and restoration of the center, which will cost taxpayers in Rutherford lots of money. This doesn’t affect the cinemas, as they are still open and will soon face competition from their next city neighbor East Rutherford, with the Xanadu megaplex opening next year.
I recently went to the Williams Center (2006) and the main theater is still needing restoration. The seating is much smaller than the Rivoli. Yesterday we sat in Palaces now we sit in boxes, that’s progress I guess.
update on the renovations:
The Record (Bergen County, NJ), March 18, 2005 pL02
Arts center given $750,000; Freeholders contribute to renovation of The Williams. (LOCAL) Zinnia Faruque; Special To The Record.
Byline: ZINNIA FARUQUE, SPECIAL TO THE RECORD
RUTHERFORD – The Williams Center for the Arts is getting a face-lift, with the help of the freeholders.
On Wednesday, the freeholders presented the board of trustees for the Williams Center with a $750,000 check, which will go toward the rehabilitation of the not-for-profit performing arts and cinema complex in downtown Rutherford.
“The Williams Center for the Arts is a historic site,” said Freeholder Chairwoman and Rutherford Mayor Bernadette McPherson.
“For many residents, it has been their first experience with culture … their first experience with seeing a movie. I know that can be said for my children,” said McPherson, who remembers taking her daughter to see the Disney-animated movie “Little Mermaid” at the Williams Center years ago.
Estimating the renovations at $3 million to $4 million, McPherson said the freeholders want to revamp the county-owned building, which has been neglected for many years.
In the past, capital improvements to the building were the responsibility of the not-for-profit center.
The first phase of renovation will begin in the summer to replace the roof. In the following months, new seats, carpeting and lighting will be installed for the two movie theaters.
The target date for reopening the theater will be mid-October, said McPherson.
The center’s board and the freeholders want to return the theater back to its glory days.
Named for the poet/physician William Carlos Williams, who lived two blocks away, the six-story center was originally constructed in the 1920s as The Rivoli, a live vaudeville theater.
The domed theater reverberated with the voices of Abbott and Costello, as well as the swing music of the Glenn Miller Orchestra.
Today, under a chandelier twinkling with 60,000 pieces of Czechoslovakian crystal, the live theater has recently staged opera performances, such as Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” and Verdi’s “Rigoletto” by the Hudson Opera Company.
Below the stage house, in the basement, are movie theaters that feature mainstream films, such as “Hitch” and “The Pacifier” this week.
Born in 1883, Rutherford native William Carlos Williams was inspired by encounters with his patients – the immigrants and natives of North Jersey. He found poetry in the everyday lives of working people. Williams won a Pulitzer Prize for his poetry in 1963, the year of his death.
Jane Fisher, executive director of the Rutherford Public Library, said the library is teaming up with the center and the town to hold a William Carlos Williams poetry symposium in the fall, which could include a performance of a Williams play at the center.
“It is the cultural gem of this town,” Fisher said of the center, which is across the street from the library. “We are so lucky that we have a performing arts center that is right there, smack in the middle.”
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PHOTO – KEVIN R. WEXLER / SPECIAL TO THE RECORD – Frank Covello, silhouetted at left, an architectural draftsman, and Bob Culek, architect for the county, reviewing a blueprint of the Williams Center for the Arts on Thursday at the historic Rutherford complex.
Article CJ130470422
In this ad, you can see that the Rivoli had its own theater organ, played on Friday and Saturday nights. I never heard the organ myself since I always went on Sunday afternoons. I went to the show in this ad – as described above, it was the first movie I saw by myself, at the age of 8. Times certainly have changed …
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Here’s an ad from when the Rivoli was showing a great film classic of the 1960’s:
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The main auditorium has been renovated but it was also made smaller. It doesn’t stretch as far back as it used to when it was the Rivoli. And, as far as I know, they don’t show movies in there (the biggest disappointment). At least the beautiful chandelier is still intact.
I went to a movie convention back in the 90’s that was held in the main auditorium. Is it still not renovated?
I was wrong about the year “The Sound of Music” played the Rivoli for many months. It was 1967, not 1966. Here’s a Bergen Record ad announcing the engagement:
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A Wurlitzer organ, opus 482, was installed in the Rivoli Theater on 12/12/1921.
I grew up about a mile away in Carlstadt and would walk to the Rivoli as a kid. Saw many films there including A Hard Day’s Night, Help, French Connection, Take the Money and Run, They Shoot Horses Don’t They?
My sister took ballet classes in studio above the theatre and I would have to go there and wait while she took her lessons. I was able to climb out the front window and stand inside the aforementioned pre-1966 marquee.
They had a great old-fashioned marquee which was hit by a truck sometime after 1966, when the theater featured the exclusive area showing of “The Sound of Music” for most of that year. They replaced the marquee with a smaller, abstract red one that didn’t hold any letters – a big disappointment compared to the one they had.
My family moved to Rutherford when I was 8, and I spent an incredible amount of time in the Rivoli. The first time I ever went to a movie all by myself was there: “The Great Escape” in 1963. Nowadays my friends who have kids would never dream of sending an 8-year-old to the movies alone. I guess it is a much different world.
One of the highlights out of the hundreds of movies I saw there: “A Hard Day’s Night” in 1964, with big speakers installed in the back of the theater for that engagement only, and the teenage girls in the audience screaming for The Beatles as if it were a live concert.
Thanks, Warren, for posting all the facts about it. I can still see that chandelier in my mind …