Washington Theatres

Photo #14 on this website shows the marquee in 1943.

http://www.roaringrockrest.com/DickHarpster/

I always looked forward to vacation time to visit my Grandma in West Virginia. Part of the reason being that in the pre-Interstate days, we would go down the highways and byways of the Mid Atlantic states, reaching our destination in about 8 or 10 hours. One of the places I looked forward to seeing every year was the Washington Theatre in New Jersey, with its beautiful art deco marquee. Every year I’d asked my dad to stop, so I could look at it, maybe take a picture of it. Dad was always saying “no time..next year maybe”. This went on for years, until finally, on what I had announced was going to be my last family vacation with them (I was about 18 or 19 by then), I insisted we stop at the Washington Theatre, so I could take some pictures. We stopped, but instead of the beautiful neon art-deco marquee, there stood a square brown box with with large, mean looking, block letters spelling out WASHINGTON TWIN TEATRE. No pictures were taken. We drove on, and I never looked back.