Wakefield Theatre
4214 White Plains Road,
Bronx,
NY
10466
4214 White Plains Road,
Bronx,
NY
10466
2 people
favorited this theater
The Wakefield Theatre was opened on February 4, 1927. This Bronx neighborhood house seems to have closed sometime in the mid-1970’s.
Contributed by
RobertR
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 14 comments)
The Wakefield was my regular Saturday afternoob theater. The usual double feature, Pathe News, cartoon and serial (which we called “The Chapter.”) At one time they had a quiz show on stage featuring neighborhood kids.
Hello everyone, my name is Deouan Wilson and I am a member of Greater Faith Temple which now resides at The Wakefield Theatre. I am a part of our Performance Department and we will be putting on a theatrical production titled, THE WORD on December 1st, 2007. We would like to pay homage to the theatre and invite anyone who remembers the “glory days” when the venue showed motion pictures, hosted boxing matches, etc. So if anyone out there has any pictures, articles or anything interesting about The Wakefield, please contact me at Thanks!
Listed at 4212 White Plains Road in the 1960 yellow pages. Phone number was FAirbnks 4-0400.
The Wakefield was the biggest and best of the Bronx/Yonkers borderland neighborhood movie houses — including the Kent, the Kimball, the Craft, and the Laconia — that I explored during my high school years (1947-1951). The Wakefield often showed “first run” flicks a little before the others, and was not as gringy as some. The Saturday walk from my home in Woodlawn, across the 233rd Street Bridge and up the hill, is still remembered fondly.
The Wakefield appears in Robert Mulligan’s BLOODBROTHERS in a scene in which Richard Gere takes his kid brother to a matinee of ENTER THE DRAGON.
This web page has a description of the Welte Orchestral Unit organ that was built for the Wakefield Theatre. The organ was temporarily on display at the Exposition of Architecture and Allied Arts held at the Grand Central Palace in Manhattan in early 1927.
I spent a lot of time in the Wakefield…Laconia (same owners) Craft, Melba and LoewsPost Rd…plus the Lowes and RKO Mount Vernon….I remember when they replaced the marqees on the Laconia and Wakfield and put these modern ones up
It was great seeing all the “sneak preview” films on Saturday night, and then staying for the main feature afterwards. Someone posted a photo of “Death Rides a Horse” and “Guns of the Magnificent Seven” showing at this theatre. I remember seeing both of those there, as well as “Midnight Cowboy” (We had to see the sneak preview, which was rated M – now considered the PG – in order to see the then-X-rated “Cowboy”), and believe me, it was great seeing all of the films released by United Artists in that place! I miss it a whole lot!
1969 photo added courtesy of Al Ponte’s Time Machine – New York Facebook page.
Opened February 4th, 1927
Wakefield theatre in the Bronx opening Fri, Feb 4, 1927 – 5 · Yonkers Statesman (Yonkers, New York) · Newspapers.com