Warner Theatre
811 State Street,
Erie,
PA
16501
811 State Street,
Erie,
PA
16501
18 people
favorited this theater
Showing 126 - 138 of 138 comments
Brian: Congratulations and good luck with your Warner Theatre research……I will be in touch!
I am part of a team writing a coffee table book about the Warner’s history and restoration. We want to include as many personal stories and photos that we can find. If you have any you would like to share, please contract me at:
Thanks !
I plan to get a personal tour of the Warner this coming summer as I will be in the Erie PA area and have recently emailed the general manager and a member of the Erie Philharmonic who is involved with the Warner.
The original seating capacity of the Warner Theatre when it opened in 1931 was 2,584. Today it has a capacity of 2,506
At 75 feet, the proscenium was the widest Rapp & Rapp had ever designed.
DavidStear;
Here are details of the organ which was in the Warner Theatre:
Wurlitzer 3Manual/13Rank, Style 240, Opus#2153. It was shipped from the Rudolph Wurlitzer factory, North Tonawanda on 7th March 1931.
It was removed from the Warner Theatre in 1969 and installed in Gray’s Armory, Cleveland, OH in January 1972. Since then the instrument has been enlarged with the addition of another 5Ranks of pipes and a piano, taken from Opus#935 which was originally installed in the State Theatre, Cleveland, OH
The Warner isn’t in any danger, real or imagined…they are still in the process of completing restoration and are asking for donations to cover the cost of additional theatre projects as I see it.
Wow…I hope the Warner is not in real danger. It looks to be unusually original…and it is serving the community well. The web site listed above has instructions on how to make donations. It is difficult to imagine that anyone viewing this content cannot spare $10.
I would say this theatre is more French Renaissance than Art Deco, if at all.
This is a wonderful theatre in downtown Erie and thank goodness this one was saved as so many in that city were not saved including a Shea’s!
I love the Warner’s marquee, with the stained glass in the corners that advertises ‘A Warner Theatre’. Unfortunately my pictures of the theater have some stupid giant ‘art’ frog right in the middle. Why did it have to block the ticket booth? And it isn’t even very good (‘Copper Hopper Chopper’ down by the lake was much cooler).
The interior doesn’t appear to be pure Art Deco. I would describe it as a hybrid of French Renaissance, Beaux Arts and Deco.
Here is a link for a more detailed history: http://www.erieevents.com/warner-history.html
The Warner Theater used to have a theater organ. All I know about it is that it was sold (I think in the 1930s) to an armory in Cleveland, Ohio. I saw this organ inside the armory about 15 years ago. I recall that there was talk about recovering the organ when the Warner Theater was undergoing refurbishment. If anyone can supply more complete information about this organ they can e-mail me. I would like to know if there is any kind of movement in Erie to try and recover this organ for its rightful place in the Warner Theater. It could be used as a similar entertainment as the “Organ Grinder” in Toronto. Erie is a city which greatly lacks innovation and imagination,the result of which is a city which lives up to its epithet of “dreary”. People in Erie should show that for once their sights can be set higher than just another trip to the Millcreek Mall, McDonald’s (of which Erie has one for each of its 19 square miles) or the local grocery super emporium.
Good day, my father was a Projection & Sound technician for Warner Bros. when I was born in 1942. He worked out of the Pittsburgh, PA office, I am certain that he probably serviced this theatre. His name was George W. Evans,Sr. I am his son, and still work in the industry. He moved to NY in 1943 and worked the rest of his career for Altec Service. He retired and passed away in 1967. I am searching for theatre preservation since the gentlemen that took over his Altec job is my friend Ray Matthews and he is attempting to renovate the Suffolk Theatre in Riverhead, NY. It would be interesting if there is reference to my father in the records. Thank you, George W. Evans