Nickelet Theatre

406 Lackawanna Avenue,
Scranton, PA 18503

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Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel on May 28, 2014 at 12:04 am

The February 1, 1908, issue of The Moving Picture World reported that the Nickelette Theatre at 416 Lackawanna Avenue in Scranton had been destroyed by a fire on January 18. The Nickelet Theatre operating at 406 Lackawanna in March that year could have been the same business moved to a new location. The old location was demolished.

An announcement in the May 13, 1908, issue of The Scranton Truth advertised the opening that day of the 300-seat Hippodrome Theatre, newly built “…where the old Nickelette stood, before the building was destroyed by fire, right opposite Jonas Long’s Sons department store on Lackawanna avenue….”

By October, 1908, there was a Nickelet Theatre located on Penn Avenue, and there was also a World Nickelet at 210 Main Avenue, both mentioned in one issue of the Truth. In 1912, a Nickelet Theatre in Scranton was dismantled, but I don’t know which Nickelet it was. I’ve also found houses called the Nickelet (or Nickelette) Theatre in Allentown, Stroudsburg, and Ashley, and a Unity Nickelet in Archibald, Pennsylvania, operating during this period.

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel on April 23, 2014 at 11:09 pm

I’ve come across references to a few houses in Scranton called the Nickelette Theatre. There appears to have been more than one, but the term also appears to have been used locally as a generic term for a five-cent movie theater. One of them opened in 1910 in the Arcade Building, but I haven’t been able to pin down where the Arcade Building was located.