Centre Street Theatre
424 Centre Street,
Trenton,
NJ
08611
424 Centre Street,
Trenton,
NJ
08611
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Adams Party Rental occupied the Centre Street Theater at 422 Center Street from approximately 1962 to 1999. Frank and John Adamczyk (Adams) replaced the original elevated wood floor with a flat concrete slab but made very few additional changes. The second floor had a large doorway through which flame-driven projectors were lowered to be sent to a school in Poland. Frank died in 1978. John sold the business to David VanDenburgh in 1988. I’ve looked, but never found any photos from when it was a theater.
John told a story about his father moving the family from Cleveland to Trenton during the depression, in search of jobs. John was five years old when his father took him to the Centre Street Theater as a reward because of John’s good behavior on the trip from Cleveland. When the bad guys started shooting at the good guys in the Western, John’s dad took him out to the street because John was so afraid. As a 75-year-old man, with tears in his eyes, John would say, “And I never dreamed I would one day own the building.” Many customers used to stop in just to reminisce about watching movies at the Centre Street Theater at the cost of a nickel.
RKO Hamilton at S. Broad and Maddock. Sister to RKO Brunswick on Brunswick Ave near Circle, both built late 40s.
the bijou is now a church & has been for several years——there is also a church on broad st in hamilton across from mcdonalds that used to be a theater to—does anybody know the name?
See “Photos” for the October, 2011 photo that I just posted. This building currently houses a laundromat.
August 2009 photo here.
From Boxoffice magazine, February 1955:
Nicholas Capone and Michael Fonde are now operating the Center in Trenton.
According to The Times of Trenton article “Trenton’s Bijou days are bygone” 5/24/1993, the Centre was at 422 Centre Street and it is now Adams Rental. A web search finds http://www.adamsrental.com/ still an active business.
Listed on page 126 of the 1917 Trenton City Directory under “Moving Pictures”. Address is given as 422 Centre Street.
The theater you are referring to is the Victory Theater. In fact, there is a Victory Florist across the street or around the corner. It is located on the same side of the street as the RKO BROAD but a half-a-block closer toward downtown. It was another small neighborhood theater that has been a Salvation Army thrift shop ever since I remember it.
Okay Trentonians, the CYO occupies a building which was obviously a theater at some time in the past. Little has been done to hide that fact. A marquee still exists (although it now says CYO on top), even the parking lot is still intact. The address is 920 S. Broad Street. There was a long forgotten Bijou theater on South Broad, but nobody’s come forward with any information about it, and the address is not the same. If you know anything, I’d be curious to know.
“Centre Street Theatre, (Isaac Levy), 422-426 Centre”
listing from the 1920 Trenton City Directory as hosted by trentonhistory.org. I believe that Mr. Levy was the theatre manager.
so it looks like sometime between 1920 and 1923 this theater changed names from Center/Centre Street to Center.
The Robert Morton organ was installed when this theater was known as the Center Street.
On 12/1/1923, a Wurlitzer organ, opus 592, was installed in the Center Theatre.
A Robert Morton organ was installed in this theater in 1919.
Listed in the 1951 FDY as the “Center” at 424 Centre Street with 550 seats.