When a theatre is nicknamed the Itch, it means that the place is so run-down and decrepit that it is probably infested with fleas and other bugs, so that when you go there you wind up itching and scratching yourself.
There used to be Itches all over the country, but with the rise of the chains and the demise of the discount houses, most Itches are now just a fond memory.
The arcana about the past is one of the unique features of this site and I hope all users with something to contribute will continue to do so, notwithstanding the occasional snarky comment or two.
Here’s another long post, this time from the theater’s website:
Theater History
Northport’s first movie house was built in 1912 at 256 Main Street, but movies were only one of its uses: Its grand opening included a vaudeville show, and over the years the space was used for high school commencement ceremonies, political rallies, children’s recitals and even basketball games, when space in the building was leased by the school system for use as a gymnasium. The early movies were silent films, accompanied by a pianist. Admission to evening shows was 50 cents for adults, 25 cents for children. The Northport trolley added an evening trip in 1913, so that East Northport residents could get home after the movies. Talkies didn’t come to Northport until about 1930, when a local businessman leased the theater and installed new projectors.
But two years later, on April 19, 1932, the theater caught fire, after a blaze started in the adjoining Chevrolet dealership. The responding fire departments found too little water pressure in the hydrants to fight the fire, and water had to be hauled up from the harbor by the truckload. To no avail – the building was a complete loss. The following August, the village board voted major improvements in the water system.
The first plan for replacing the theater was to rebuild on the same site, but theater builder William McNeil began constructing one on the adjoining property even as the old site was being cleared for a new structure. After much to and fro, Prudential Playhouses Inc. settled on the McNeil site, at 248-250 Main Street, that is occupied by the present theater building.
The new Northport Theater, with 754 seats, was opened with speeches and great ceremony on Nov. 23, 1932. Much was made of the fact that it was of fireproof construction, with major components of its electrical system isolated in a fireproof room in the basement. Uniformed ushers were recruited from the Northport high school, to be selected by the superintendent of schools. The theater would offer “the latest and most popular pictures on the cinema screen today,” a local paper noted. The initial attraction was “Sherlock Holmes,” starring Clive Brook and Ernest Torrence, which had opened in New York City only a week earlier.
The building erected on site of the old theater was used for a lunch room under various ownerships, including use by the Northport U.S.O. during World War II. In the 1970s it was converted into two stores.
In 1950 the Northport Theater, still operated by Associated Prudential Theaters, underwent major alterations: Most noticeably the stainless steel marquee was added. The lobby was remodeled, new seats installed, stage curtains and wall coverings replaced and a modern air-conditioning system installed. The cost of renovations was put at $100,000 — about as much as construction of the building had cost 18 years earlier.
As film industry economics and consumer tastes changed to favor more central theater locations, control of the Northport Theater eventually shifted to United Artists Eastern Theatres, which for years offered second-run movies at cut-rate prices. At 99 cents, later raised to $1.25, movie-going in Northport in the early 1980s was a bargain. But UA finally closed the theater in 1996, and a new owner’s plans to renovate the building for a reopening in 1997 were frustrated when the interior was vandalized. The Northport Theater reopened in 1999, but failed to make adequate commercial headway.
In 2005, the theater was purchased by Dennis Tannenbaum, a resident and local businessman, who in turn sold it to long time Huntington resident and entrepreneur Kevin O’Neill and his wife, Patti, on June 30, 2006. In tribute to Patti’s brother, Chief Warrant Officer Four John William Engeman, who was killed in Iraq on May 14, 2006, the O’Neill’s decided to rename the theater the John W. Engeman Theater at Northport.
Here’s the text of the NY Times article of 6/27/07, link posted above.
NORTHPORT
ON Thursday in this harborside village, nine professional actors are scheduled to perform “Smokey Joe’s Cafe†before a full house in the renovated theater here at 250 Main Street.
The John W. Engeman Theater at Northport is the latest and most ambitious reincarnation of the space (the original opened around 1912) and an attractive new draw to this village’s bustling Main Street.
Downtown Northport, with walkable blocks of restaurants, gift and antique shops and waterfront parks, is often held up as an example of “smart growth,†but built long before that term came into vogue. Charming Victorians and colonials with wraparound porches line many of the streets and the cliffs overlooking the water, and the tracks of the Northport trolley, which once took early 20th-century theatergoers home after the show, are still visible on Main Street.
Kevin O’Neill, a former Treasury-bond trader, is behind the theater’s $2.5 million renovation, which was completed in seven months.
Mr. O’Neill is betting that suburban couples with children and busy weekends will pay $55 a ticket to see Manhattan-based professionals perform in musicals, and $45 to see them in plays, in their own backyard.
The theater is decked out with more suburban comforts than the usual city space, including a piano lounge and bar called the Green Room, which will open about two hours before a performance. The stadium-style seating (no obstructed views) features 402 seats, all with cup holders for that drink carried in from the lounge.
Thursday’s performance is sold out, and the theater has already sold 2,500 season tickets ($355 for seven shows), Mr. O’Neill said.
Mr. O’Neill, 44, expects most single and season ticket buyers to be much like himself and his wife, Patti, who live in nearby Lloyd Harbor with their four children.
“A night in Manhattan when you figure all the costs,†for tickets, parking, dinner and a baby sitter, can run $600, he said. Perhaps more important, it’s a lot of time†out of the weekend, a period when children are busy with activities. “Our goal is to expose people to theater of the caliber of Broadway that’s right here on Long Island,†he said.
There are plenty of amateur theaters on Long Island, but the John W. Engeman is one of only three that conform to the rules of the Actors Equity Association, the union for actors and stage managers. The other two, the Gateway Playhouse in Bellport and the Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor, are near the Hamptons.
The Northport theater is in western Suffolk County, near the Nassau border, and will be the only year-round professional theater on the Island. But it will of course be competing with Broadway, a little more than an hour away (without traffic).
The building, originally the site of a community theater used for silent movies and vaudeville-style productions, was rebuilt as a movie house in 1932 after a fire. It showed films for more than 70 years, but in 2005 it was returned to a community theater by the owner, Dennis Tannenbaum. He wanted to renovate the theater, but found “the cost became too prohibitive,†he said recently.
Mr. O’Neill came across the theater as an investor in the online marketing company theatermania.com. Mr. Tannenbaum, who used the Web site as a ticketing agent, decided against redesigning the old stage theater, Mr. O’Neill began thinking about buying it himself, he said.
On Mother’s Day last year, while Mr. O’Neill was considering the purchase, his brother-in-law, John W. Engeman, 45, a soldier in Iraq, was killed by a bomb that exploded near his Humvee. Mr. Engeman had taken part in high school theater while growing up in East Northport, and later in the Army while stationed in Germany. His death clinched the decision for the O’Neills.
“The next day we decided to buy it and name it after him,†Mr. O’Neill said. He declined to disclose the price, but Suffolk County records show that the theater sold last September for $1.2 million.
The renovation involved replacing the leaky roof and carting away 58 tons of old roofing materials. The marquee will have a replica of the steel “Northport†sign that was on the theater for decades and was a fixture on Main Street and also an enlarged copy of Mr. Engeman’s signature.
To handle auditions and programming, Mr. O’Neill brought in Richard Dolce, a 38-year-old lawyer, as artistic director. Mr. Dolce has lifelong experience in theater; his family started and has operated the Broadhollow Theater Company, with spaces in Lindenhurst, East Islip and Elmont, for 31 years.
To conform to the rules set by Actors Equity, the Northport theater needed more space and specific accommodations for actors.
Mara Brothers Commercial Construction was the contractor on the job, expanding the basement from a six-foot long boiler room and utility room to a corridor 25 feet long that houses the 12-seat orchestra pit, costume storage, and four new dressing rooms. Each one has a full bath and light-bulb-lined mirrors.
The redesign of the theater, by Hoffman Grayson Architects of Huntington, focuses on comforts for the audience, including two men’s and two women’s bathrooms (10 stalls, compared with 3 in the old theater, which had 688 seats), and a separate bathroom accessible for those with disabilities.
The new stage is 31 feet deep. Back-lighted murals of pastoral scenes, a memorable feature over the last 70 years of the theater’s movie-house history, have been added to the six already preserved on the walls inside. A steel lattice structure above the stage supports the lighting, sound system and curtain controls.
The proscenium arch around the stage was enlarged, and a crystal chandelier hangs above the seats, adding to muted light from four restored stained-glass rosette fixtures in the ceiling. The new cherry wood bar replaces a concession stand dating to the 1980s, when the building was a $1.25-a-ticket movie house for second-run films.
A black-tie dedication ceremony on June 16 was attended by about 380 local politicians and residents and Broadway performers.
Mr. Dolce said there would be summer theater classes and traditional performances for children, like “The Wizard of Oz,†starting in the fall. The goal is to encourage widespread use so that Suffolk residents identify with the theater. “We’re also trying to sell the theater itself as a place they want to go,†Mr. Dolce said.
Northport had a traditional seating design, the orchestra sloped down from the rear to the front, on one level. There was a formal balcony, which is also where the mens’s room was located.
Saw Sweeney on Thursday at 7pm, noticed the projectionist in the lobby (nice guy, silver hair, can’t remember his name) and I asked “Any curtain action tonight?” and he said “Nope — it’s broken.”
You ain’t heard nothin' yet — “The Jazz Singer” starring Al Jolson screens here Sunday (12/2/07) at 11am for $5./ticket. I’ve never seen it on the big screen, and with the controvery over the recent DVD’s lack of critical perspective commentary about Jolson’s use of blackface, I’m curious to attend. They say a representative from the Al Jolson Society plans to be attending and available for Q & A after the film.
Woody, it was Anco, not Avco.
When a theatre is nicknamed the Itch, it means that the place is so run-down and decrepit that it is probably infested with fleas and other bugs, so that when you go there you wind up itching and scratching yourself.
There used to be Itches all over the country, but with the rise of the chains and the demise of the discount houses, most Itches are now just a fond memory.
Hey Craig — please make sure both curtains are working! You know how we get!
“Big screen” being a relative term, of course, especially seeing as how King Kong premiered at Radio City.
So, can we agree that the Glory Theatre presented theater?
The arcana about the past is one of the unique features of this site and I hope all users with something to contribute will continue to do so, notwithstanding the occasional snarky comment or two.
Hey, rlvjr, when it comes to stupid movies, don’t forget about me, Paris Hilton! (star of “The Hottie and the Nottie”) Hugs and kisses, baby! xxxooo
I was here last week. They are demolishing the main candy stand (with the elaborate 3-D skyline) and replacing it with something else.
Link, please.
Don’t miss the Cameo…oops, too late.
There’s a big hole in the ground now.
Don’t go to theaters with dinky screens. Most newly built multiplexes like this one only have decent-sized screens.
Here’s another long post, this time from the theater’s website:
Theater History
Northport’s first movie house was built in 1912 at 256 Main Street, but movies were only one of its uses: Its grand opening included a vaudeville show, and over the years the space was used for high school commencement ceremonies, political rallies, children’s recitals and even basketball games, when space in the building was leased by the school system for use as a gymnasium. The early movies were silent films, accompanied by a pianist. Admission to evening shows was 50 cents for adults, 25 cents for children. The Northport trolley added an evening trip in 1913, so that East Northport residents could get home after the movies. Talkies didn’t come to Northport until about 1930, when a local businessman leased the theater and installed new projectors.
But two years later, on April 19, 1932, the theater caught fire, after a blaze started in the adjoining Chevrolet dealership. The responding fire departments found too little water pressure in the hydrants to fight the fire, and water had to be hauled up from the harbor by the truckload. To no avail – the building was a complete loss. The following August, the village board voted major improvements in the water system.
The first plan for replacing the theater was to rebuild on the same site, but theater builder William McNeil began constructing one on the adjoining property even as the old site was being cleared for a new structure. After much to and fro, Prudential Playhouses Inc. settled on the McNeil site, at 248-250 Main Street, that is occupied by the present theater building.
The new Northport Theater, with 754 seats, was opened with speeches and great ceremony on Nov. 23, 1932. Much was made of the fact that it was of fireproof construction, with major components of its electrical system isolated in a fireproof room in the basement. Uniformed ushers were recruited from the Northport high school, to be selected by the superintendent of schools. The theater would offer “the latest and most popular pictures on the cinema screen today,” a local paper noted. The initial attraction was “Sherlock Holmes,” starring Clive Brook and Ernest Torrence, which had opened in New York City only a week earlier.
The building erected on site of the old theater was used for a lunch room under various ownerships, including use by the Northport U.S.O. during World War II. In the 1970s it was converted into two stores.
In 1950 the Northport Theater, still operated by Associated Prudential Theaters, underwent major alterations: Most noticeably the stainless steel marquee was added. The lobby was remodeled, new seats installed, stage curtains and wall coverings replaced and a modern air-conditioning system installed. The cost of renovations was put at $100,000 — about as much as construction of the building had cost 18 years earlier.
As film industry economics and consumer tastes changed to favor more central theater locations, control of the Northport Theater eventually shifted to United Artists Eastern Theatres, which for years offered second-run movies at cut-rate prices. At 99 cents, later raised to $1.25, movie-going in Northport in the early 1980s was a bargain. But UA finally closed the theater in 1996, and a new owner’s plans to renovate the building for a reopening in 1997 were frustrated when the interior was vandalized. The Northport Theater reopened in 1999, but failed to make adequate commercial headway.
In 2005, the theater was purchased by Dennis Tannenbaum, a resident and local businessman, who in turn sold it to long time Huntington resident and entrepreneur Kevin O’Neill and his wife, Patti, on June 30, 2006. In tribute to Patti’s brother, Chief Warrant Officer Four John William Engeman, who was killed in Iraq on May 14, 2006, the O’Neill’s decided to rename the theater the John W. Engeman Theater at Northport.
Here’s the text of the NY Times article of 6/27/07, link posted above.
NORTHPORT
ON Thursday in this harborside village, nine professional actors are scheduled to perform “Smokey Joe’s Cafe†before a full house in the renovated theater here at 250 Main Street.
The John W. Engeman Theater at Northport is the latest and most ambitious reincarnation of the space (the original opened around 1912) and an attractive new draw to this village’s bustling Main Street.
Downtown Northport, with walkable blocks of restaurants, gift and antique shops and waterfront parks, is often held up as an example of “smart growth,†but built long before that term came into vogue. Charming Victorians and colonials with wraparound porches line many of the streets and the cliffs overlooking the water, and the tracks of the Northport trolley, which once took early 20th-century theatergoers home after the show, are still visible on Main Street.
Kevin O’Neill, a former Treasury-bond trader, is behind the theater’s $2.5 million renovation, which was completed in seven months.
Mr. O’Neill is betting that suburban couples with children and busy weekends will pay $55 a ticket to see Manhattan-based professionals perform in musicals, and $45 to see them in plays, in their own backyard.
The theater is decked out with more suburban comforts than the usual city space, including a piano lounge and bar called the Green Room, which will open about two hours before a performance. The stadium-style seating (no obstructed views) features 402 seats, all with cup holders for that drink carried in from the lounge.
Thursday’s performance is sold out, and the theater has already sold 2,500 season tickets ($355 for seven shows), Mr. O’Neill said.
Mr. O’Neill, 44, expects most single and season ticket buyers to be much like himself and his wife, Patti, who live in nearby Lloyd Harbor with their four children.
“A night in Manhattan when you figure all the costs,†for tickets, parking, dinner and a baby sitter, can run $600, he said. Perhaps more important, it’s a lot of time†out of the weekend, a period when children are busy with activities. “Our goal is to expose people to theater of the caliber of Broadway that’s right here on Long Island,†he said.
There are plenty of amateur theaters on Long Island, but the John W. Engeman is one of only three that conform to the rules of the Actors Equity Association, the union for actors and stage managers. The other two, the Gateway Playhouse in Bellport and the Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor, are near the Hamptons.
The Northport theater is in western Suffolk County, near the Nassau border, and will be the only year-round professional theater on the Island. But it will of course be competing with Broadway, a little more than an hour away (without traffic).
The building, originally the site of a community theater used for silent movies and vaudeville-style productions, was rebuilt as a movie house in 1932 after a fire. It showed films for more than 70 years, but in 2005 it was returned to a community theater by the owner, Dennis Tannenbaum. He wanted to renovate the theater, but found “the cost became too prohibitive,†he said recently.
Mr. O’Neill came across the theater as an investor in the online marketing company theatermania.com. Mr. Tannenbaum, who used the Web site as a ticketing agent, decided against redesigning the old stage theater, Mr. O’Neill began thinking about buying it himself, he said.
On Mother’s Day last year, while Mr. O’Neill was considering the purchase, his brother-in-law, John W. Engeman, 45, a soldier in Iraq, was killed by a bomb that exploded near his Humvee. Mr. Engeman had taken part in high school theater while growing up in East Northport, and later in the Army while stationed in Germany. His death clinched the decision for the O’Neills.
“The next day we decided to buy it and name it after him,†Mr. O’Neill said. He declined to disclose the price, but Suffolk County records show that the theater sold last September for $1.2 million.
The renovation involved replacing the leaky roof and carting away 58 tons of old roofing materials. The marquee will have a replica of the steel “Northport†sign that was on the theater for decades and was a fixture on Main Street and also an enlarged copy of Mr. Engeman’s signature.
To handle auditions and programming, Mr. O’Neill brought in Richard Dolce, a 38-year-old lawyer, as artistic director. Mr. Dolce has lifelong experience in theater; his family started and has operated the Broadhollow Theater Company, with spaces in Lindenhurst, East Islip and Elmont, for 31 years.
To conform to the rules set by Actors Equity, the Northport theater needed more space and specific accommodations for actors.
Mara Brothers Commercial Construction was the contractor on the job, expanding the basement from a six-foot long boiler room and utility room to a corridor 25 feet long that houses the 12-seat orchestra pit, costume storage, and four new dressing rooms. Each one has a full bath and light-bulb-lined mirrors.
The redesign of the theater, by Hoffman Grayson Architects of Huntington, focuses on comforts for the audience, including two men’s and two women’s bathrooms (10 stalls, compared with 3 in the old theater, which had 688 seats), and a separate bathroom accessible for those with disabilities.
The new stage is 31 feet deep. Back-lighted murals of pastoral scenes, a memorable feature over the last 70 years of the theater’s movie-house history, have been added to the six already preserved on the walls inside. A steel lattice structure above the stage supports the lighting, sound system and curtain controls.
The proscenium arch around the stage was enlarged, and a crystal chandelier hangs above the seats, adding to muted light from four restored stained-glass rosette fixtures in the ceiling. The new cherry wood bar replaces a concession stand dating to the 1980s, when the building was a $1.25-a-ticket movie house for second-run films.
A black-tie dedication ceremony on June 16 was attended by about 380 local politicians and residents and Broadway performers.
Mr. Dolce said there would be summer theater classes and traditional performances for children, like “The Wizard of Oz,†starting in the fall. The goal is to encourage widespread use so that Suffolk residents identify with the theater. “We’re also trying to sell the theater itself as a place they want to go,†Mr. Dolce said.
Northport had a traditional seating design, the orchestra sloped down from the rear to the front, on one level. There was a formal balcony, which is also where the mens’s room was located.
Saw Sweeney on Thursday at 7pm, noticed the projectionist in the lobby (nice guy, silver hair, can’t remember his name) and I asked “Any curtain action tonight?” and he said “Nope — it’s broken.”
Also, you can use Advanced Search and look under the former names feature.
Lynbrook only shows first run movies; new releases are split between the Fantasy in RVC and the Lynbrook. Art releases go to the Malverne.
I was here the other day to see Alvin and the Chipmunks. Full matinée prices ($8. adults, $7. kids) and there was NO HEAT in five of the six screens. “We’re waiting for the parts” said the young manager (not Mike) and yet they have the nerve to charge full price.
I love and want to preserve old theaters, but this is a shit-heap in need of some serious attention.
From the waist up, maybe. But everything below the waist — kaput!
Meanwhile, back on planet earth…
But where are they putting these IMAX screens? Are they raising the roof any maybe losing one or two of their terraces? I love those terraces.
Only 25 short blocks up Broadway.
You ain’t heard nothin' yet — “The Jazz Singer” starring Al Jolson screens here Sunday (12/2/07) at 11am for $5./ticket. I’ve never seen it on the big screen, and with the controvery over the recent DVD’s lack of critical perspective commentary about Jolson’s use of blackface, I’m curious to attend. They say a representative from the Al Jolson Society plans to be attending and available for Q & A after the film.
Or do they get off on weekends?
zzzzzzzzz