Stage of the Lafayette Theatre in 2005, as seen from the back row of the loge section.
The Lafayette Theatre is a nationally acclaimed movie palace located in downtown Suffern, New York, built in 1923. Its primary function is first-run movies, but it also houses special events like its popular weekly Big Screen Classics film shows. It is also notable for housing a Wurlitzertheatre organ, which is played before Big Screen Classics shows.
A movie palace is any of the large, elaborately decorated movie theaters built between the 1910s and the 1940s. The late 1920s saw the peak of the movie palace, with hundreds opened every year between 1925 and 1930. With the advent of television, movie attendance dropped and many movie palaces were razed or converted into multiple screen venues or performing arts centers.
Suffern is a village that was incorporated in 1796 in the town of Ramapo, Rockland County, New York, United States. As of the 2010 census, Suffern's population was 10,723.
The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company, usually referred to as simply Wurlitzer, is an American company started in Cincinnati in 1853 by German immigrant (Franz) Rudolph Wurlitzer. The company initially imported stringed, woodwind and brass instruments from Germany for resale in the U.S. Wurlitzer enjoyed initial success largely due to defense contracts to provide musical instruments to the U.S. military. In 1880, the company began manufacturing pianos and eventually relocated to North Tonawanda, New York, and quickly expanded to make band organs, orchestrions, player pianos and pipe or theatre organs popular in theatres during the days of silent movies.
The Lafayette Theatre was named for Revolutionary War hero Marquis de Lafayette who fought, along with General George Washington, in Suffern and the Town of Ramapo. The theater's history began when the Suffern Amusement Company hired noted theatre architect Eugene De Rosa to design a movie theatre for a location on Lafayette Avenue in downtown Suffern. De Rosa's concept was primarily Adamesque, but also with a combination of French and Italian Renaissance influences, subtly mixed in a Beaux Arts style. The theatre was also equipped with a custom-designed Möller pipe organ to accompany silent films and augment live performances.
Eugene L. De Rosa was an Italian American architect, called at birth Eugenio. He worked in New York City and specialized in the design of theatres.
The French Renaissance was the cultural and artistic movement in France between the 15th and early 17th centuries. The period is associated with the pan-European Renaissance, a word first used by the French historian Jules Michelet to define the artistic and cultural "rebirth" of Europe.
The Italian Renaissance was a period of Italian history that began in the 14th century (Trecento) and lasted until the 17th century (Seicento). It peaked during the 15th (Quattrocento) and 16th (Cinquecento) centuries, spreading across Europe and marking the transition from the Middle Ages to Modernity. The French word renaissance means "Rebirth" and defines the period as one of cultural revival and renewed interest in classical antiquity after the centuries labeled the Dark Ages by Renaissance humanists. The Renaissance author Giorgio Vasari used the term "Rebirth" in his Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects but the concept became widespread only in the 19th century, after the works of scholars such as Jules Michelet and Jacob Burckhardt.
The Lafayette opened its doors in 1924 with the silent film classic Scaramouche and flourished through the rest of the 1920s with a combination of film presentations and live vaudeville shows. A renovation in 1927 added distinctive opera boxes, and shortly thereafter the projection equipment was updated to play sound film. During the mid-1930s, an air-cooling system was installed which forced the removal of the pipe organ. It was during this renovation that the original chandelier was also removed.
Scaramouche, also known as scaramouch, is a stock clown character of the 16th-century commedia dell'arte. The role combined characteristics of the Zanni (servant) and the Capitano, with some assortment of villainous traits. Usually attired in black Spanish dress and burlesquing a Don, he was often beaten by Harlequin for his boasting and cowardice.
Vaudeville is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 18th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a kind of dramatic composition or light poetry, interspersed with songs or ballets. It became popular in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s, but the idea of vaudeville's theatre changed radically from its French antecedent.
A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades passed before sound motion pictures were made commercially practical. Reliable synchronization was difficult to achieve with the early sound-on-disc systems, and amplification and recording quality were also inadequate. Innovations in sound-on-film led to the first commercial screening of short motion pictures using the technology, which took place in 1923.
After World War II ended, movie-going habits changed with the advent of television. To keep pace with audience expectations, the Lafayette changed, too. Equipment to handle 3-D film was installed in early 1953 and many notable entries in the short-lived 3-D boom played at the Lafayette. Later that year, the Lafayette was the first theatre in Rockland County to install CinemaScope apparatus to show wide-screen, stereophonic-sound movies. The premiere engagement was the Biblical epic The Robe, during the Christmas holiday of 1953.
World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. The vast majority of the world's countries—including all the great powers—eventually formed two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. A state of total war emerged, directly involving more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. The major participants threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. World War II was the deadliest conflict in human history, marked by 50 to 85 million fatalities, most of whom were civilians in the Soviet Union and China. It included massacres, the genocide of the Holocaust, strategic bombing, premeditated death from starvation and disease, and the only use of nuclear weapons in war.
Television (TV), sometimes shortened to tele or telly, is a telecommunication medium used for transmitting moving images in monochrome, or in color, and in two or three dimensions and sound. The term can refer to a television set, a television program, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, entertainment and news.
CinemaScope is an anamorphic lens series used, from 1953 to 1967, and less often later, for shooting widescreen movies that, crucially, could be screened in theatres using existing equipment, albeit with a lens adapter. Its creation in 1953 by Spyros P. Skouras, the president of 20th Century Fox, marked the beginning of the modern anamorphic format in both principal photography and movie projection.
The Lafayette's popularity declined in the 1950s and 1960s as downtown populations moved further into the suburbs and television took hold as the popular entertainment medium of the day. However, the theater was spared both the wrecking ball and the multiplexing boom, where large single-screen auditoriums were divided into small theatres to accommodate several films at once. As part of a renovation in the late 1980s, the old stage was refurbished and the New York Theatre Organ Society installed a new pipe organ, the Ben Hall Memorial Mighty Wurlitzer.
In the late 1990s, the Lafayette's future as a single-screen neighborhood movie palace was uncertain until Robert Benmosche, a resident of Suffern and chairman of MetLife Insurance (later chairman of AIG), saw the potential of the Lafayette building and purchased the property in 2001, making repairs to the roof and exterior in order to prevent more serious damage from occurring.
MetLife, Inc. is the holding corporation for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (MLIC), better known as MetLife, and its affiliates. MetLife is among the largest global providers of insurance, annuities, and employee benefit programs, with 90 million customers in over 60 countries. The firm was founded on March 24, 1868. MetLife ranked No. 43 in the 2018 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue.
The ornate glass chandelier, installed in 2003.
Late in 2002, the Majestic Star Entertainment Corporation, run by Nelson Page, took a long-term lease to operate the Lafayette Theatre as a single-screen movie theatre, calming any lingering fears that the unique building would be divided into small auditoriums. Page and his team refurbished the interior of the theatre, bringing back its luxurious pre-war style while investing it with modern projection equipment and concession areas. In September 2003, an ornate chandelier was added to the ceiling of the Lafayette for the first time since the 1930s.
The Lafayette is currently a modern example of a single-screen neighborhood theater and remains a popular landmark of Rockland County. While continuing to run first-run films every day, the Lafayette also runs alternative programming to keep up with changing tastes in entertainment. A weekly series of classic film presentations began in the spring of 2003, taking place on Saturday mornings, bringing in hundreds of film buffs every week.
In 2013, the theater was taken over by JACA Entertainment under Ari Benmosche, and has continues to function as a single screen movie theater till this day.
Wurlitzer organ
The theatre organ, which is owned and maintained by the New York Theatre Organ Society (NYTOS), is played every Friday and Saturday night, and is a favorite feature before the Big Screen Classics presentations on Saturday mornings. The main house organist was Jeff Barker from 2002 until his death in 2013.
Wurlitzer Opus 2095 left the Wurlitzer factory on January 31, 1931, and was installed in the Lawler Theatre in Greenfield, Massachusetts. It was the last Style 150 (2 manuals and 5 ranks) that Wurlitzer built. Like so many small-town movie theatres in the 1950s and 1960s, the Lawler was closed for demolition. The organ was moved to the Rainbow Roller Rink in South Deerfield, Mass., where it was rarely used.
The owners of the rink sold it to Ben Hall, noted theater historian and film critic. He, with the help of some friends, removed it in 1968 and installed it in his New York City duplex. Hall died in 1971 and the organ was once again "orphaned".
When the estate of Ben Hall donated the instrument to the American Theatre Organ Society, the organ was shipped to California, where it was to be installed in the proposed Harold Lloyd Estate museum. Unfortunately, the plans for the museum fell through and the organ was shipped back to New York City where NYTOS installed it in the Carnegie Hall Cinema. Opus 2095 played in the Carnegie Hall Cinema for over ten years until the restoration of Carnegie Hall. During restoration, the Carnegie Hall Cinema was twinned, and the organ was removed and placed in storage.
When Al Venturini and the Good Samaritan Hospital began working together to fix up the Lafayette Theatre, Dave Kopp, then chairman of NYTOS, contacted Venturini about the possibility of installing the organ. Everyone agreed that the Lafayette Theatre was an ideal place for the organ. Work began in November 1990, and after countless hours of labor by the volunteer crew and nearly $20,000 in donated funds, the organ was reborn. Wurlitzer Opus 2095 played for the first time in its new home in December 1992. Since then, it has been entertaining the weekend audiences at the Lafayette Theatre in the grand tradition of the American Theatre Organ.
Honors
The Lafayette was named one of the "10 Great Places to Revel in Cinematic Grandeur" by USA Today in January 2005, sharing the list with such notable venues as New York City's Ziegfeld Theatre and Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.[1]
A theatre organ is a distinct type of pipe organ originally developed to provide music and sound effects to accompany silent films during the first 3 decades of the 20th century.
The Kings Theatre, formerly Loew's Kings Theatre, is a live performance venue in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City. Opened by Loew's Theatres as a movie palace in 1929 and closed in 1977, the theater sat empty for decades until a complete renovation was initiated in 2010. The theater reopened to the public on January 23, 2015 as a performing arts venue. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on August 22, 2012.
The Bay Theatre is a single-screen movie theater in Seal Beach, California, in the United States of America. It is best known for its screenings of foreign and independent films, and for its revival screenings. The Bay Theatre is also home to a Wurlitzer organ which is used for concerts and silent film screenings.
Peery's Egyptian Theater is a movie palace located at 2439 Washington Boulevard in Ogden, Utah, United States. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.
The Bartola Musical Instrument Company of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, USA, was a producer of theater pipe organs during the age of silent movies.
The Colonial Theatre is located in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, at 227 Bridge Street. Built in 1903, the "Colonial Opera House" became a preeminent venue for movies, traveling shows and live entertainment throughout the 20th century. The three-screen venue consists of the original 658-seat ‘vaudeville house’ and two newer additional theatres in the adjacent National Bank of Phoenixville building (c.1925).
The Paramount Theatre is a concert venue in Denver, Colorado, located on Glenarm Place, near Denver's famous 16th Street Mall. The venue has a seating capacity of 1,870, but is a popular destination for large acts looking for a smaller concert setting. With spelling as Paramount Theater, the building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.
The Riviera Theatre is listed on the National and New York State Register of Historic Places. The theatre is a historic, 1140 seat entertainment venue in North Tonawanda, New York. The theatre hosts a multitude of performing arts events per year, including live concerts, theatre, dance shows, and movies. The Riviera's “Mighty Wurlitzer” theatre organ has been fully restored, is continually maintained by volunteers, and is famed as being one of two original Wurlitzer demonstrator organs, which the company would use to show off to potential clients in the height of the silent film era.
The Robert Morton Organ Company was a producer of theater pipe organs and church organs, located in Van Nuys, California. Robert Morton was the number two volume producer of theatre organs, building approximately half as many organs as the industry leader Wurlitzer. The name Robert Morton was derived not from any person in the company, but rather from the name of company president Harold J. Werner's son, Robert Morton Werner.
The Capri Theatre is a cinema in Goodwood, a suburb of Adelaide, South Australia, built in the Art Deco style.
Bernie Anderson Jr. is a silent film music composer, organist and orchestrator. He has presented live accompaniments for silent films, with theatre organ and piano since 1995. He is also active in the preservation and restoration of Movie Palaces, Theatre organs and Classic Film.
The State Theatre in Minneapolis, Minnesota is a significant venue in that city.
Tremont Theatre was a theater constructed in about 1910 with seating for 942. It was located on Webster Avenue and East 178th Street, beside a New York Telephone Company building. One of the earliest purpose-built cinemas, it was known by various names during its use including Tremont Yiddish Theatre, Cinema Tremont, Moss's Tremont Avenue and the Hamilton Theater. It was located on East Tremont Avenue. The theater closed around 1960.
RKO Proctor's Theater is a historic movie theater located on Main Street in New Rochelle in Westchester County, New York. Herbert J. Krapp designed the brick structure using a Renaissance motif with retail stores housed under two-story "blind arches", a feature borrowed from Stanford White’s Madison Square Garden. Completed in 1927, this movie palace and vaudeville house featured a luxurious 2,800 seat interior with 4 screens. A Wurlitzer organ was installed in the theater in 1927 and was used to accompany silent movies and for intermissions and shows. After the invention of talking movies the organ was abandoned and later sold.
The American Theatre Organ Society (ATOS) is an American non-profit organization, dedicated to preserving and promoting the theatre pipe organ and its musical art form.
The Golden State Theatre in Monterey, California, opened on August 6, 1926.
The Castro Organ Devotees Association (CODA) is an American nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving and enhancing the tradition of live organ music in San Francisco's Castro Theatre. The theater is a popular San Francisco movie palace, built in the 1920s, which gained Historic Landmark status in 1976. The original Robert Morton organ was removed in the 1950s. The present organ, widely regarded as one of the finest theatre organs assembled, was assembled in the late 1970s using components from other organs, including its console, which was originally built in 1925 for the State Theatre in Detroit, Michigan to accompany silent pictures. The current console and organ were built by the Taylor family starting in 1979, and it has been owned and maintained by them since, but in 2014 they moved taking the console and one fourth of the pipework.
The Oregon Theatre, or Oregon Theater, is an adult movie theater in the Richmond neighborhood of southeast Portland, Oregon. The theater was completed in 1925 and originally housed a Wurlitzer pipe organ and vaudeville stage. It would later screen Hollywood, art-house, and Spanish-language films. The building was acquired by the Maizels family in 1967 and became an adult cinema in the 1970s. It continues to operate as the city's longest running pornographic cinema and remains owned by a member of the Maizels family.
Shea's Hippodrome Theatre was a movie house that opened in 1914 in Buffalo, New York. It was renamed the Center Theater, following a renovation in 1951. In 1983, the theater closed and the building was demolished.
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