Victoria Theater
313 W. Ferry Street,
Buffalo,
NY
14213
313 W. Ferry Street,
Buffalo,
NY
14213
No one has favorited this theater yet
Additional Info
Previously operated by: Basil Brothers Theatres, Marks Brothers, Mark-Strand Theater Corp.
Previous Names: Basil's Victoria Theater
Nearby Theaters
Originally a smaller theater located a block away, this theater opened on February 20, 1915, at a cost of $240,000. Had two Austin organs, and often featured an orchestra through the 1920’s. Became part of the Basil Brothers chain in 1933, showing movies after they ran at Basil’s Lafayette Theater in downtown Buffalo. A $50,000 remodel came with sound in about 1928. (Believed to be the first Buffalo community theater with sound).
Running weekends only at the end, it closed in 1961. There is supermarket on the site.
Contributed by
Alan lapp
Want to be emailed when a new comment is posted about this theater?
Just login to your account and subscribe to this theater.
Recent comments (view all 8 comments)
Does anyone know what happened to those Austin Theater Organs? I don’t know for certain, but I think Opus 476 was a 2/14 installed in 1915 and cost $2,000. I think Opus 546 was a rebuild installed later. The one thing for sure is we don’t know what happened to them. Here’s a hint, they are bigger than a bread box, they might still be around??
“Gee Dad, they were Austins!”
This was a Basil Bros. theatre, phone number 1960: LIncoln 0411
I watched the demolition of this theater when I was a kid — went down every day in the summer to see it vanish. It appeared to have a huge water tank – akin to an underground filling station gas tank – on the very top rear of the building. When the wrecking ball hit the wall support that kept in up there, it literally thundered to the ground, bringing everyone from the surrounding buildings outside to see what carnage may have ensued. Luckily, a gigantic dust cloud was the only bad result.
Back in the 50’s, this theater ran the extremely controversial film “Blackboard Jungle” and was picketed by local PTA groups concerned about the “hoodlum” theme of the picture.
Have to make another comment after reading in the Rialto Theater section that this theater, which was less than a block away from the traditionally roudy Rialto, indeed did have ushers that seemed to be imported from Nazi Germany at the time — hence their booking of “Blackboard Jungle” with the assurances of crowd control to the public.
I have 1930s window card posters from the Victoria Theater available. email jerry@countrysideantiquesdotcom
http://xa.yimg.com/kq/groups/16215519/399197291/name/Victoria+Theater0001.pdf
The website above shows a picture of this theatre.
The New Victoria Theatre was built and originally operated by Mitchell Mark, and was one of several Buffalo houses that he and his brother Moe Mark owned. Mark had opened Buffalo’s first movie theater in the basement of the Ellicott Square Building in 1896, and by the time the Victoria opened the Mark brothers were among the country’s leading movie exhibitors, counting among their houses the Strand Theatre in New York City, considered by some theater historians the first true movie palace ever built. A brief article about Mitchell Mark in the July 15, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World mentions the Victoria:
Here is a direct link to the PDF file with a photo of the Victoria mentioned in LouB’s comment.Thanks for the info and the link to the photo Joe. As a kid, I used to get my hair cut in one of those store-front houses on the right side of the street across from the theater.