Mayfair Theatre
7300 Frankford Avenue,
Philadelphia,
PA
19136
7300 Frankford Avenue,
Philadelphia,
PA
19136
8 people
favorited this theater
Showing 51 - 75 of 123 comments
Give up? It was “First Blood”, which was incorrectly listed on the marquee as “Rambo”. All Seats were $2.00.
Recently a friend (another former Mayfair employee) showed me a videotape of a Channel 3 Evening Magazine story on the closing of the Mayfair. It includes video of both the exterior and interior of the theater, as well as an interview with (late, great) ticket taker Bill Pierce. I’m hoping to get a copy I can post online. Once I do I’ll put a link on this page.
Side note: the story includes a comment that the last show on the last night was cancelled due to technical problems. That was probably a lie: whenever there were less than 10 people for the last show we told them there was a technical problem. The real reason usually was that we wanted to go home early. (The fact that the second show was usually empty helps explain why the Mayfair closed.)
Here’s a Mayfair Theatre trivia question: what was the last film shown at the Mayfair? Need a clue? The marquee did not show the film’s actual title, but rather the name of the main character (which became better known than the name of the film).
Fully confident in my academic and preservation credentials, I will say the following:
(1) it is sad that the Mayfair’s landmark Streamlined Moderne architecture hasn’t been protected. That said, I don’t see the economics of “right now” restoring the Mayfair Theatre to a single screen, nor does anybody else that I know of.
(2) I don’t see what foreign nations or the Taliban have to do with this either. What private developers do in the name of making a buck, in Philadelphia to buildings that aren’t legally protected has nothing to do with the religious extremism that is afflicting another part of the world.
HDTV267, with all due respect, nothing could possibly be more offensive than the comment you just posted above. However, given how I now have some familiarity with you based on various comments you’ve posted in the past, I know that you’re speaking from the viewpoint of one who doesn’t know any better. I know, for instance, that you didn’t grow up with the Mayfair Theatre back in the days when it was a really classy neighborhood movie theater to go to and back in the days when Northeast Philadelphia was far more on the up and up than it is today. For I, for one, and it’s based on what Mayfair was at one time compared to what it’s like today, find it VERY hypocritical for America to be sending troops into Afghanistan to bring down the Taliban when we allow something very Taliban-like to fester in Northeast Philadelphia unchecked — which I feel is greatly symbolized by the current state the Mayfair Theatre building is in. I mean, look, it’s not easy seeing corruption when it’s right in front of your eyes and an integral part of your existence rather than far off overseas somewhere. And so when that is the case, too often people turn a blind eye to it, feeling they have no other choice. Trouble is, that doesn’t make the situation any better. While I can fully assure you it does make things a lot lot worse.
Now with that said, Northeast Philadelphia DOES have to get out of the rut it’s currently in. And your remarks, based totally on ignorance, certainly aren’t helping things any. And based on your comments, I assume you’re not college educated. Either that, or you did not have very skilled instructors/professors, or the college you attended was such that they allowed you to fake your way through. Because I can fully assure you, based on the actual facts rather than mere opinions such as you express, that it is YOUR thinking, rather than mine, that is unbalanced. So I’m going to ask you to take a big step, and that is for you to stop assuming you know it all, because you don’t, okay?! For I can assure you that if there were more educated people around here rather than such a large number of ignorant people such as you, that Mayfair Theatre building would be being restored to a classy neighborhood movie theater right now rather than transformed into being a bank — as if Mayfair needed another one atop the many underutilized ones it has now.
Or perhaps fortunately you should say. For I was down in Mayfair today, but I made a special point of avoiding the vicinity of the Mayfair Theatre building at all costs. I really couldn’t bear to see it as you describe it as it is now, not even in photographs. And even if it’s just me, I liken what you’re describing to what took place in Afghanistan a year or so before 9/11/. At that point the Taliban was just getting a start on things and cutting its baby teeth so to speak by destroying these large Buddha statues in north Afghanistan that were carved in the side of a mountain and that were over 1,500 years old. News photos showed how they looked back while they were still perfectly intact, and then after the Taliban soldiers blasted their faces off. It was so senseless, just as was 9/11 to come a year or so later.
And how is what you’re describing all that different I wonder? For as I see it, just as the Taliban’s destroying those 1,500 year old Buddha statues was a preliminary to 9/11 itself, is this, too, a preliminary to something every bit as sinister?
Some theaters, such as Northeast Philadelphia’s GCC Northeast, are merely big boxes, memorable and noteworthy only because of the movies that had been exhibited at them, and designed so formulaically and generically that they could be easily replicated. Other theaters, however, have a great deal more depth and dimension to them than simply being that. And to be sure, the Mayfair Theatre, designed by one of the 20th century’s leading movie theater architects, David Supowitz no less, was such a theater. And the fact that from its being a classic theater it was then converted to a drugstore for a time, and then to become a bank, which it’s in the process of becoming now, speaks volumes of how much Mayfair has fallen into a state of demise since the time when the Mayfair Theatre first was built. What is especially disturbing in the Mayfair Theatre’s case is that these downward alterations were made to it without even the slightest trace of any community outcry, combined with very harsh criticisms of my one lone voice coming to the theater’s defense.
Now in turn I could be very critical of those who criticized me, plus those holding power over the Mayfair community at the present time. But how can you criticize people who don’t know any better?
I myself was very fortunate to have grown up in Northeast Philadelphia during a much better era, and had appreciation of art and architecture instilled in me from a very early age. And given how the Mayfair Theatre itself had played a special part in that upbringing, of course I viewed the Mayfair Theatre a whole lot differently than later Northeast Philadelphia residents to come. Even long after it began deteriorating. But for those who never got to know the Mayfair Theatre when it was at its height, could I realistically expect them to see what no longer was by the time they came on the scene? For so much of the Mayfair Theatre’s former glory was severely tarnished by that point. And with few if any standing in defense of it and trying to bring it back to what it once was, namely because few such people were still around at that point. Even I was away attending school in the Midwest during those years, which, I suppose, spurred others to up and leave Northeast Philadelphia as well. For I still have an old letter somewhere from one of my childhood friends from here literally begging me to come back, while telling me how rundown the old neighborhood was starting to get.
Now here I am, back again, and everyone else has left, and with few if any around today to recall how beautiful the Mayfair Theatre, among other Northeast Philadelphia features, once had been. And to be sure, there’s no one in power in Mayfair of today who has any recollections of this. So how can I fairly blame these people of Mayfair today for what it is they don’t know? I can criticize them for their thinking they know it all, but that’s about it — hence the “Northeast Philadelphia Taliban” reference. And the fact that the Mayfair Theatre was transformed to a drugstore for a time, and now soon to be a bank, and without any real community outcry of any kind to go hand-in-hand with this, simply reveals how much of the original Mayfair community — in terms of its people — is now gone. But is Mayfair’s upwardly mobile potential gone as well? For other than a very blind sort of resistance to this I say it’s not. And factually speaking, though it did not have the public support that was necessary, that Mayfair Theatre building could’ve been made a classy neighborhood theater once more. With its lack of parking, most would have to either walk to it or take public transit. But with gasoline prices creeping ever higher, a theater that can easily be gotten to without the need for a car sounds like a pretty practical idea to me, and growing all the more practical with each passing day and with each new gas spike.
Being the eternal optimist, at least they didn’t knock down the Mayfair Theatre building completely.
Meantime, onto more encouraging news, the Majestic Theatre in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania over the past several months has just undergone a wonderful restoration, it’s having achieved this goal by aligning itself with Gettysburg College, which purchased the building in 1992 as part of its ongoing commitment to revitalize downtown Gettysburg. In other words, rather than try to restore and reopen the Majestic as business, they went in the direction of restoring it as a great art form instead. And wow, is that theater ever looking beautiful now as a result of it!
If there was greater appreciation of the arts here in Northeast Philadelphia, particularly among its politicians, I have no doubt the same thing could have been done with the Mayfair Theatre building as well, and for that matter, still could.
For long term, at least, I can’t see the bank that’s taking over that building now faring all that well. Not when there’s several other banks right in that same vicinity.
Meantime, the Devon Theatre not all that far from the Mayfair Theatre building is continuing on its course to reopen eventually as a live performing arts theater. And if the Devon proves successful, it could maybe make for a good case why the Mayfair building should become a theater again as well — that is, the Devon being for live performances, and the Mayfair for movies.
So on the road ahead, much will hinge on how well the Devon does when it reopens, and what the story on the bank will be once its honeymoon period is over.
It is SAD that we can’t preserve even the notable exterior features such as a marquee! It would’ve been even better to also have preserved for public enjoyment notable interior features such as the Mayfair’s murals.
The current draft of my pending Weekly Update email for Friends of the Boyd includes as its concluding paragraph:
Other theater news: The former MAYFAIR movie theater in the Northeast is losing its marquee as it changes from a drugstore to a bank. The Mayfair, featured in John Gallery’s book on Philadelphia architecture, is important for being our first Streamlined Moderne theater. We in Philadelphia have not done a good job of protecting and landmarking our cinemas. That’s all the more reason why we need ensure the Boyd is restored, reopened, and once again enjoyed!
Though I don’t have the heart to go see it first hand, from what I’ve been told, most if not all the Mayfair Theatre building’s marquee has been fully removed. And if you think this sort of destructivity is limited just to Mayfair, just wait till gambling takes full hold in this state. For I saw how that worked when gambling became legal in Atlantic City, NJ. So many operations throughout New Jersey that were not gambling related, and that were doing very well up until that point, literally just curled up and died overnight. And New Jersey’s movie theaters, among other things, topped the list. So I guess it’s just as well that the Mayfair Theatre building is one of the first casualties on the path of what’s to be coming next throughout our entire state.
I thought the Mayfair Theatre building had a chance there for a moment to come back as a classy neighborhood theater. But, “one swallow doesn’t make a summer” as they say.
Jack, going by the billboard atop the theater building to the Cottman Avenue side, which shows an artist’s computerized rendering of what the completed First Republic Bank will look like, the classic marquee indeed will be missing. Futhermore, the whole entire building when transformed will be totally gray — bound to uplift the spirits of the folks of Mayfair on those stretches of gray rainy days that seem to go on and on forever. Before on days such as that people had the great theater to offset this. Now it’s to be a bank, and by the way, unlike how hdtv267 tried to make it sound, just a bank like any other — and in an area that is oversaturated with banks as it is, not to mention immediately across Cottman Avenue. And to those who have that Beneficial Bank right across Cottman Avenue from the Mayfair I wonder what that feels like? For the idea of this new bank is to fully displace the old one, isn’t it? And needless to say, the people of Mayfair themselves were never even asked what they would like to see the Mayfair Theatre building become. Rather, they’re simply being told by the 1984-ish billboard to the Cottman Ave/Beneficial Bank side: “This is what it’s going to become next, and you all are going to like it.” It’s like the aliens are moving in and displacing all that remains of before. All told, pretty creepy, huh?
I understand that the marquee is coming down as part of the project.
Just to go one step further, not only did I see the billboard Hdtv267 is referring to, but I also got photos of it, along with how the theater building looks now. From the looks of things, if this bank follows through with its proposal, it will alter the Mayfair Theatre building’s exterior very little from how it is now.
Meantime, going by the kinds of people I saw around the Mayfair Theatre building today, which were very varied, it would be very tricky trying to come up with what the happiest medium would be if it were to be restored to be a movie theater here and now. Not impossible, mind you, but tricky. A theater, no matter where it is located, or the clientele it will most likely serve, should appeal to and evoke peoples' highest aspirations, no matter what they might be. And we haven’t really been pushed to that point just yet; to that level of commonality that Churchill aluded to in his “Finest Hour” speech. Which means there’s time for now to think in terms of how this building could be best restored as a theater, even though it might not be the right time to actually do it as of yet.
It was just brought to my attention today that it’s pretty close to impossible for most people to look upon the Mayfair Theatre as it is today as a “work of art.” And in all fairness to those who don’t see it that way, it made me realize that when I look at it, not only do I see it as it is here and now, all boarded up and much stripped down of most if not all the many embellishments it once had had, but I also see it as it once was. That is, as an alive and well theater and being run in the best possible way. And very little if indeed any indication of that shows now. And naturally there’s no way I can take photographs of what I can now only see in my memories. And yes, it could well be that my memory is creative in that what I think I remember differs greatly from what actually once was. Children see things much more specially than we the adults do, and to be sure, my best memories of the Mayfair were when I was at my youngest. As a child everything looks so much bigger, of course, not to mention that a child’s focus is much more selective. And children are powerless to destroy things the way we the adults so readily do. And now as adults we’ve become one heck of a tough audience to so easily please. And with the Mayfair Theatre building being at its worst ever at this moment at that.
Money-wise, there’s no question it would cost a fortune to bring the Mayfair Theatre up to what most adults today would regard as a “work of art.” But instead of thinking strictly in terms of money, what about imagination-wise? Have we adults become so dead in this regard that we can’t even write out on paper at the very least what changes and alterations the Mayfair Theatre would require so as to readily be recognized by everyone as a work of art? For instance, can we simply make a list of what it is we don’t like about the Mayfair Theatre building as it is today? Factors that either didn’t exist or that we didn’t notice when we were children? For maybe some of those factors can be changed, we really won’t know until we draw up such a list. Or, if not changed, at least compensated for in some other way. The latter is a process I call “off-setting.” For instance, it may totally lack parking, but on the other hand it could have so many other positive things going for it that would make it well worthwhile to get to it via public transit or on foot. And what would such other factors be? Using our imaginations and only just that for now, could we make a list of that much? Or has money consciousness fully cancelled out our ability to still think in that way?
When a child sets out to build a sandcastle, money is the last thing on the child’s mind, and in achieving this task, the child has no money to speak of. Yet lo and behold, that sandcastle gets built. With a child’s imagination, the “unrealistic” is simply the reality.
If the Mayfair Theatre building gets converted to something the people of Mayfair can really connect with and love, there’s no need for programs such as CLIP. Which was the point I was trying to make many many comments back on this page when I described the Flyers celebrations/riots that took place at that Frankford & Cottman intersection in 1974. The rioters went after all else, but the Mayfair Theatre as I say was completely unscathed. At which point all the other merchants of Mayfair should have asked themselves: “What are we all doing wrong that the Mayfair Theatre is doing right?” Instead, a whole battalion of cops was brought in to beat the people down for expressing what they really thought through their actions. I remember that night very vividly. A thousand and one billyclubs suddenly tearing their way into the drunken crowds and swinging this way and that, the sounds of screams and cracking bones and the sight of blood immediately following. I managed to stay out of harm’s way, however, given how I stayed close to the Mayfair Theatre the whole time, where all was very calm.
The latest news on the Mayfair Theatre building, as told me by my brother yesterday (March 9, 2006), is that trash and litter is fast beginning to fill up its boarded up front vestibule, and grafitti artists are wasting no time seizing upon it. And what’s the political message? That either it be a drug store or bank or whatever, or it just become what we’re seeing it be reduced to now? But for it ever to be restored to a neighborhood theater again is totally out of the question?
What I feel is that Mayfair needs to become its own municipality, quite separate from the rest of the city, with its own mayor, police force and so on. For Mayfair is not a community that can be run unseen, and from a far distance. For we’re seeing right now how that alignment is failing miserably. And we’re seeing the exact same pattern in communities all throughout the Northeast portion of Philadelphia, ranging from Mayfair to Holmesburg to Burholme to Fox Chase to Bustleton to Somerton and so on.
David Supowitz also designed two other Northeast Philadelphia theaters of note — the Tyson at Castor and Tyson Avenues and the Crest on Rising Sun Avenue several blocks below Cottman.
The former Tyson Theatre is now a furniture store, and as buildings go is well maintained and appears to be in excellent shape. The Crest Theatre, meantime, I believe had been torn down.
Of all these three theaters Supowitz designed up here, the Mayfair was by far the best. It had to be, given the prominance it was given when the all new Mayfair was built!
That’s great info. Thanks Howard!
The book “Philadelphia Architecture: A Guide to the City (1984) includes the Mayfair Theatre with this description:
Streamlining was a favorite mode of design in the 1930’s. It was an important aspect of the Art Deco style and reflected America’s growing preoccupation with speed and transportation machines. Streamlining had little impact on building design in Philadelphia, but even in conservative cities movie theaters were often designed in this popular style.
The Mayfair was the first movie theater in the city designed in a streamlined manner. Supowitz, the city’s outstanding theater designer of the 1930’s, transferred the building into a giant sign. The horizontal bands of the curved marquee are repeated in decorative horizontal bands on the wall below, broken by circular display windows. To achieve a sleek appearance, Supowitz used modern materials, including porcelain, structural glass and stainless steel. The Mayfair influenced the design of many subsequent theaters in the city.
Howard Haas note: “structural glass” was often Vitrolite or Carrara glass, brand names.
The late Irvin R. Glazer, in his hardback book Philadelphia Theatres A-Z wrote the following:
MAYFAIR THEATRE, 7300 Frankford Avenue; Capacity 1009, Architect David Supowitz
The entrance area of the Mayfair Theatre is on a triangular lot with the adjoining auditorium built on a rectangular lot giving the 90 by 200 feet theatre access to three streets. A very wide white plastic and neon marquee fronts the cut-off end of the triangle with a deep recess leading into the mirror and chrome decorated foyer. A very ample standing room area behind the seating section was designed so that 300 seats could be added if needed. The walls have an impressionistic mural on each side framed by panels of horizontal colorings. Birch and walnut veneer panels cover the base areas. The floor is steeply pitched towards the wide stage assuring good sight lines.
The theater opened in the fall of 1937 with subsequent run feature pictures and stage shows. By 1940, the Mayfair was showing only moving pictures and by 1950 the policy was double features. The theatre now alternates between single and double features showing the best product available.
(The Mayfair Theatre closed in November, 1985).
in the intro text of the book, Glazer wrote “Big one story art deco styled houses continued to be built, with the President in 1936 and the Frankford-area Mayfair and South Philadelphia Savoia in 1937.”
This book was published in 1986 and is out of print. The “theatre” should have been “theater” except when part of actual name, i.e. Mayfair Theatre. I’d also put in caps Art Deco. Although he says the murals were “impressionistic” I think I’ve read him do that elsewhere where the term “Art Deco” might have been best used. He wasn’t always accurate in all details that he wrote about theaters, but we owe him so much for writing on all our theaters and collecting tons of historic photos and documents, now at the Athenaeum.
Yes, there was a large greenroom below the stage. (We called it the usher’s room, and I do remember there was an old bong in there – gives you some idea of how it was used, but not by me! I used it – the room, not the bong – once or twice when I wanted to take a nap.)
Don’t know if there was an orchestra pit, but I think there was. I’m pretty sure that the area in front of the stage had a wood plank floor that probably had been an orchestra pit.
Also don’t know if there was a loading dock or other backstage entrance at one time. I don’t recall seeing any signs of one, but I didn’t have much reason to go behind the screen very often. (The speaker behind the perforated screen was pretty big.)
The heavy drapes hondo59 mentioned were just beyond the ticket taker stand and were intended to keep light out of the auditorium when the lobby door was open.
The ticket taker for many years was a dirty old man named Bill. (He’d be okay with that designation. He spent most of his time ogling the girls that came in.) Great guy. He had worked at another theater years before; I think it may have been the Kent. I remember we were goofing around one night and he grabbed my tie when I was working in the candy stand. He leaned against the stand to get a better grip, and broke the glass display case. Naturally, we said some kids did it and took off.
In the 70s, there was a tear in the screen that was quite visible at times even though the patch was pretty good. I saw “Torso” and “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” here as a double bill. I recall seeing “Airport 75” and Charles Bronson in “White Buffalo” in the 70s when the admission price was $1.50. Remember the heavy drapes beyond the entrance that separated the concession area and the auditorium? I miss not being able to stay in a theater all afternoon to watch a favorite movie a second time.
Ah, now that’s something I never knew, that it had live performances there other than the Easter services I recall from my early childhood. For being as it doesn’t have a stage house (maybe it did at one time?) it seems it would’ve been very limited. Also, did it have a green room, dressing rooms, wardrobe rooms, and a prop storage room? Also possibly a loading dock in back at one time? And to the best of my memory I can’t recall any traces of a onetime orchestra pit. I will say though that the more we talk about this the more I miss it as having been such a classy movie theater so close by! Back in yesteryear we all just took it for granted! And not in a careless, wreckless way, but in simply that was just the norm. And I can’t recall ever seeing any movie there that wasn’t perfect for seeing at that theater, whether it was “Jason & the Argonauts,” “The Agony & the Ecstasy,” “Fantastic Voyage,” “Planet of the Apes,” “The War Wagon.” “Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid,” “To Sir With Love,” and so on. It just seemed to be so versatile in that regard. Which is why it’s so hard to understand how it could ever have possibly folded.
Anyhow, anything new on how the bank that’s taken it over plans to transform it? I hope they don’t alter it too much, because I believe a day will come — though perhaps not right now — that it could become a movie theater again. But before it can happen, Mayfair must make up its mind who it is first. At one time that community was a very fixed thing. Then it went into transition, and it’s still in this phase to a large degree. But as the babyboomers get older and want to settle down in one place once and for all, at that point I expect Mayfair to stablize once more. So I guess we’ll see how it is come then…
That’s interesting. The Mayfair had a very large stage, and I always thought it was a shame it was never used for anything. (Well, “never” meaning in the 70s and 80s. I believe live shows ended there in the 40s or 50s. Not including the time when we ushers got up on stage after hours to sing along with whatever music we had on one night.)
A very good point you bring up. For being as I was just a little kid back in the late 1950s and ‘60s, I have no memories of what the adult admission price at the Mayfair Theatre was, and I apologize for that oversight on my part. Perhaps TheaterBuff3 can remember since he was a year or so older than me.
By the way, does anybody remember when the Redeemer Lutheran Church (where I was baptised, incidentally) held its annual Easter service every year at the Mayfair Theatre? When they held their Easter services there, there were three crosses on stage with special lighting for added dramatic effect and a fiery Pastor Bertrum (the man who baptised me) preaching the sermon. As I understand it, they had to hold their special services there on Easter because the church up on Ryan Avenue wasn’t big enough to hold them all. And the turnouts for this as I recall were huge. Anyway, this is just a bit more trivia I thought I should add to the Mayfair Theatre page.
I remember the Mayfair admission price in the mid 70s as $1.50 for adults, 75 cents for children.