Tyler Theater
Main Street and Railway Street,
Whitney Point,
NY
13862
Main Street and Railway Street,
Whitney Point,
NY
13862
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The Tyler Theater was built in 1920 by Andy Tyler. It was located adjacent to the Rogers House hotel. It operated until early 1927.
Contributed by
Lou Rugani
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Recent comments (view all 13 comments)
As an addendum to the above, a recollection of research done 35 years ago just popped into my head, that in 1925 the town fathers ordered one of the two operating movie theaters in Whitney Point to close on the idea that the village could only sustain one. Without access to the old Whitney Point Reporter archives I cannot confirm this recollection, but I think this may have been the theater that was ordered to close, and the later Point Theater (whose location is still unknown) being the beneficiary of this decision.
Hold the phone…further research reveals Whitney Point had an opera house that was in operation during this same period, and my recollection is further confirmed by a survey of the area from 1924 that states Whitney Point had “two opera houses” at that time. It makes more sense that the village fathers would ask the newer business to shut down.
And more confusing information: an item from a November 1931 DeRuyter paper states: “Carl Bird’s movie house at Whitney Point has gone out of business.” No idea where that fits, but chances are that is the same theater as this one.
We have a name! Per 1922 and 1924 issues of the Binghamton Press, this was named the Tyler Theater.
Interestingly, there is also mention of a Crescent Theater in Whitney Point in 1924, only one month after mention of the Tyler in the same newspaper. So presumably (though by no means certain) this was a short-term name for the opera house.
A 1926 article in the Press refers to “the” theater in Whitney Point, which may give credence to my vague childhood memory of finding an article about one the theaters being forced to close in 1925. Was the Carl Bird theater that went bust in 1931 a reopening of the Tyler? There are continuous references in the Press to an “opera house at Whitney Point” (only one of them apparently referring to the Tyler) from 1899 through 1936.
The Tyler Theatre is listed in the 1926 and 1928 editions of the Film Daily Yearbook with 300 seats. In the 1929 Yearbook, a 300-seat house called the People’s Theatre is listed. The Crescent Theatre also appears in the Yearbooks from 1926 through 1929, though only in 1929 is its seating capacity given (500.)
The next few years are a bit complicated. Whitney Point is not in the Yearbooks for 1930 or 1931, but in 1932 there are three theaters listed: The Crescent, with 390 seats, the Tyler, with 250 seats, and the People’s Theatre, with 225 seats. Only the People’s Theatre is listed as open. In 1933, the first two houses are still listed as closed, but the People’s Theatre is not listed at all. The interesting thing is that the closed Crescent Theatre is now listed with 225 seats.
It seems possible that the Crescent Theatre moved into the building formerly occupied by the People’s Theatre in 1932, but was closed before the information was gathered for the 1933 Yearbook. The Crescent was listed as closed in 1935 and 1937, too, and Whitney Point did not appear in either the 1934 or 1936 Yearbooks.
Then in 1938, the Point Theatre appears for the first time, open, with 225 seats. It’s possible that this was the 225-seat former People’s and/or Crescent Theatre reopened under a new name. It’s also possible that the original Crescent, with 500 and then 390 seats, was the old Opera House, and the owners might have moved their operation to the smaller house during the lean times of the early depression. All this is speculation, of course, based on the changing seating capacities reported for the various theaters. The actual course of events, whatever it was, would have to be confirmed by other sources such as newspaper reports.
Also, note that the fact that a theater is listed as closed in the Yearbook doesn’t mean that it was closed that entire year. The Yearbook listed the status of a theater as of January 1, and information for each edition must have been gathered in the later part of the year preceding the publication date. In some cases, a theater might have closed for the winter and reopened later in the year.
I posted an image of the Binghamton Press article about the Tyler Theater being built. It is from this site: http://fultonhistory.com/
I have,also posted a much earlier photo of the Roger’s House with horse and carriage in front. In the 1950’s it was an apartment house. For a short while in the 1960’s it may have been an antique store. It was it was torn down as a derelict building in the 1960s.
Andrew Tyler bought Rogers House which was originally built as a big hotel that sat on the corner of Main and Railroad Street where the Advance Graphic is now (was old NAPA site.) in 1919. He left his farm on Cherry Hill Road and used the old hotel to run his insurance and real estate business. He built an addition on the east side to make an opera house. He leased the opera room to a guy named Gillette. Gillette with his brother managed the movies business with decent success. As movies were silent in the early days, they bought a super expensive $2000 movie piano (custom player piano) in June of 1922. Early movies also often included some stage acts and humor which required a lot of showmanship. Taylor ran a restaurant and hotel still and he turned his dining room into a dance floor. They offered dancing and sold ice cream after the movies to drum up more business. By December 1925, Gillette and Taylor almost gave up on the movie business at Roger’s House, but kept making attempts to show movies up until about early 1927 where it appeared they were done with movies in WP. Gillette went on and opened a theater in Greene, then Cinncinatus, and later Chenango Forks. Roger House was leased out in April 1930 to a man from Endicott, Vincent Davenport to be used as a Ford car showroom and repair shop. There was a nother movie house in town above the fire station operated from the 1924 to 1961 unrelated to Tyler. See Point Theatre for info on that which operated under differnt owners and names.
The movie addition on the east side of Roger’s House was afterwards used as a miniture golf course and shortly after the 1935 flood was torn down. Roger’s House was run down and abandoned in its final years. It was condemned, demolished and debris burned by the fire company in July 1962. The movie house was never a great success.
The Point theatre over the old fire station had good years and bad. The old fire station was burned by arson on 1/17/1967.