John Eberson, the foremost atmospheric Theater Palace designer, made the Pickwick seem like the Arabian Nights…..with mysterious back-lit side balconies,Persian carpeting,antique furnishings and a 75 ft. high, cloud-filled ceiling with twinkling stars…..(see Marion, Ohio Theater photo in links below)
My first memory of the Pickwick Theater, September ‘48 at age 6, was seeing a live Saturday afternoon presentation of Aladdin and His Magic Lantern – where I assumed they had decorated the whole theater for the performance. So, when during that era, I would go back to the movies, I thought it great that they had left standing all those wonderful sets that had been used for that special Aladdin Show…
I spent many wonderful times as a kid at the marvelous Pickwick Space – whether alone up front in the second row of that cavernous picture palace with most of the 1900 seats empty to our backs or with our gang during a full house on Saturdays when we could raise a ruckus with the rest of the whole crowd of kids….
An evening at the Pickwick would usually progress as the credits rolled up with me and my friends bolting out the side doors into the alleyway that led down and into Greenwich Avenue and across the street to Neilsen’s Ice Cream Parlor. There, Ray, the red-headed the fountain clerk, when he saw us coming would immediately start working on our favorite > their double thick chocolate malts ($ .45 cents and delivered with the spoon and the straw standing straight up).
It could take the rest of the evening to get the last of those magnificent malts through that straw. WOW, what a treat!!….movies at the Pickwick chased with Neilsen’s own, chocolate double thicks…..those were certainly quieter and gentler days……
John Eberson, the foremost atmospheric Theater Palace designer, made the Pickwick seem like the Arabian Nights…..with mysterious back-lit side balconies,Persian carpeting,antique furnishings and a 75 ft. high, cloud-filled ceiling with twinkling stars…..(see Marion, Ohio Theater photo in links below)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_theatre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Eberson
My first memory of the Pickwick Theater, September ‘48 at age 6, was seeing a live Saturday afternoon presentation of Aladdin and His Magic Lantern – where I assumed they had decorated the whole theater for the performance. So, when during that era, I would go back to the movies, I thought it great that they had left standing all those wonderful sets that had been used for that special Aladdin Show…
I spent many wonderful times as a kid at the marvelous Pickwick Space – whether alone up front in the second row of that cavernous picture palace with most of the 1900 seats empty to our backs or with our gang during a full house on Saturdays when we could raise a ruckus with the rest of the whole crowd of kids….
An evening at the Pickwick would usually progress as the credits rolled up with me and my friends bolting out the side doors into the alleyway that led down and into Greenwich Avenue and across the street to Neilsen’s Ice Cream Parlor. There, Ray, the red-headed the fountain clerk, when he saw us coming would immediately start working on our favorite > their double thick chocolate malts ($ .45 cents and delivered with the spoon and the straw standing straight up). It could take the rest of the evening to get the last of those magnificent malts through that straw. WOW, what a treat!!….movies at the Pickwick chased with Neilsen’s own, chocolate double thicks…..those were certainly quieter and gentler days……