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Stanley Theater (Jersey City)
Encyclopedia
Journal Square
Journal Square is a business district, residential area, and transportation hub in Jersey City, New Jersey, which takes its name from the newspaper Jersey Journal whose headquarters are located there. The "square" itself is at the intersection of Kennedy Boulevard and Bergen Avenues...
in Jersey City, New Jersey
Jersey City, New Jersey
Jersey City is the seat of Hudson County, New Jersey, United States.Part of the New York metropolitan area, Jersey City lies between the Hudson River and Upper New York Bay across from Lower Manhattan and the Hackensack River and Newark Bay...
.
The theater opened to the public on March 22, 1928. Mayor Frank Hague
Frank Hague
Frank Hague was an American Democratic Party politician who served as the mayor of Jersey City, New Jersey from 1917 to 1947, Democratic National Committeeman from New Jersey from 1922 until 1949, and Vice-Chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1924 until 1949.Hague has a widely-known...
attended the ceremonies that evening and, with the audience, was greeted on the screen by actress Norma Talmadge
Norma Talmadge
Norma Talmadge was an American actress and film producer of the silent era. A major box office draw for more than a decade, her career reached a peak in the early 1920s, when she ranked among the most popular idols of the American screen.Her most famous film was Smilin’ Through , but she also...
. An orchestral performance, a stage show called "Sky Blues," a newsreel, and a musical piece on the Wurlitzer organ, preceded the showing of The Dove starring Talmadge and Gilbert Roland
Gilbert Roland
Gilbert Roland was a Mexican-born American film actor.He was born Luis Antonio Dámaso de Alonso in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico and originally intended to become a bullfighter like his father. When the family moved to the United States, however, he became interested in acting when he was...
.
The Stanley was designed by architect Fred Wentworth. When it opened, its 4,300 seats earned it the rank of the second largest theater on the East Coast, behind only New York City 's Radio City Music Hall
Radio City Music Hall
Radio City Music Hall is an entertainment venue located in New York City's Rockefeller Center. Its nickname is the Showplace of the Nation, and it was for a time the leading tourist destination in the city...
. Now, if one looks at the ranking by number of seats for one screen movie theaters, the Stanley ranks number four, behind Radio City, and the Detroit and St. Louis Fox theaters. It was an elegant and popular venue into the 1960s. Stage shows at the theater reflected the popular culture of the times with entertainers ranging from Three Stooges
Three Stooges
The Three Stooges were an American vaudeville and comedy act of the early to mid–20th century best known for their numerous short subject films. Their hallmark was physical farce and extreme slapstick. In films, the Stooges were commonly known by their first names: "Moe, Larry, and Curly" and "Moe,...
and Jimmy Durante
Jimmy Durante
James Francis "Jimmy" Durante was an American singer, pianist, comedian and actor. His distinctive clipped gravelly speech, comic language butchery, jazz-influenced songs, and large nose helped make him one of America's most familiar and popular personalities of the 1920s through the 1970s...
to Tony Bennett
Tony Bennett
Tony Bennett is an American singer of popular music, standards, show tunes, and jazz....
, Janis Joplin
Janis Joplin
Janis Lyn Joplin was an American singer, songwriter, painter, dancer and music arranger. She rose to prominence in the late 1960s as the lead singer of Big Brother and the Holding Company and later as a solo artist with her backing groups, The Kozmic Blues Band and The Full Tilt Boogie Band...
, Dolly Parton
Dolly Parton
Dolly Rebecca Parton is an American singer-songwriter, author, multi-instrumentalist, actress and philanthropist, best known for her work in country music. Dolly Parton has appeared in movies like 9 to 5, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Steel Magnolias and Straight Talk...
, and The Grateful Dead. During the 1970s, however, movie attendance suffered and the theater fell into disrepair, and became an RKO (Radio-Keith-Orpheum Pictures) grindhouse
Grindhouse
A grindhouse is an American term for a theater that mainly shows exploitation films. It is named after the defunct burlesque theaters located on 42nd Street in New York City, where 'bump n' grind' dancing and striptease were featured.- History :...
. The once beautiful metalwork throughout the building was painted dark blue, and the Wurlitzer organ was removed in the 1970s. It finally closed as a movie theater April 20, 1978.
The future of the building was in question until it was purchased in 1983 for $800,000, becoming an Assembly Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses
Jehovah's Witnesses
Jehovah's Witnesses is a millenarian restorationist Christian denomination with nontrinitarian beliefs distinct from mainstream Christianity. The religion reports worldwide membership of over 7 million adherents involved in evangelism, convention attendance of over 12 million, and annual...
. At that time some basement sections of the stage area were flooded under two feet (60 cm) of water. The original brass and copper on doors and windows was covered by layers of paint and dirt, the picturesque Italian façade was obscured by 50 years of nicotine and dust, and the seats were stained, torn, and ripped. The theater's huge chandeliers had lost their brilliance under layers of grime. Thousands of volunteers, Jehovah's Witnesses, worked over a nine-month period to renovate and clean the theater back to its original beauty and splendor, for its first assembly in August 1985.
Description
A glittering copper marquee spans the entrance, overhanging the solid brass doors. Over the marquee are three large arched windows. Building materials include marble from ItalyItaly
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, Vermont
Vermont
Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...
and Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
, limestone from Indiana
Indiana
Indiana is a US state, admitted to the United States as the 19th on December 11, 1816. It is located in the Midwestern United States and Great Lakes Region. With 6,483,802 residents, the state is ranked 15th in population and 16th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38th in land area and is...
, and granite from Maine
Maine
Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...
to face the Corinthian columns.
The interior has a three-story lobby adorned with columns, a broad center staircase with trompe l'oeil alabaster handrails and balusters, lamps, velvet drapes, and stained glass windows of faux "Chartre Blue" in the foyer. Allegorical paintings by Hungarian muralist Willy Pogany
Willy Pogany
William Andrew Pogany was a prolific Hungarian illustrator of children's and other books.-Biography:...
originally adorned the ceiling and walls.
The larger of two crystal chandeliers, suspended from the second floor, is from the New York 's original Waldorf Astoria
Waldorf-Astoria Hotel
The Waldorf-Astoria is a luxury hotel in New York. It has been housed in two historic landmark buildings in New York City. The first, designed by architect Henry J. Hardenbergh, was on the Fifth Avenue site of the Empire State Building. The present building at 301 Park Avenue in Manhattan is a...
of the 1880s; it is thirteen feet tall and ten feet wide, and illuminated by 144 bulbs that reflect onto 4,500 hanging crystal teardrops.
The grand staircase is the main feature of the three-story lobby. During the day, sunlight streams in, illuminating the lobby. An immense crystal chandelier shines after the sun sets. On three sides of the lobby, stands a formation of marble columns topped by a balcony. A nearly celestial ceiling actually had machine generated clouds and points of light that twinkled like stars.
Movie palace
Movie palace
A movie palace is a term used to refer to 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.There are three building types in particular which can be subsumed...
architect John Eberson
John Eberson
John Eberson was an American architect best known for his movie palace designs in the atmospheric theatre fashion.Born in Czernowitz, Austro-Hungarian Empire , Eberson went to highschool in Dresden and studied electrical engineering in Vienna. He arrived in the United States in 1901 and at first...
contributed the design for the auditorium. Here theatergoers enter the environment of an evening in Venice with a replica of the Rialto Bridge
Rialto Bridge
The Rialto Bridge is one of the four bridges spanning the Grand Canal in Venice, Italy. It is the oldest bridge across the canal, and was the dividing line for the districts of San Marco and San Polo.- History :...
spanning the stage. Above the seating is an eighty-five foot ceiling that permits an open sky effect with stars and moving clouds originally effected by a projecting device called a "Brenkert Brenograph," costing $290 (in 1920's dollars). Lighted stained glass windows line the walls with grottoes
Grottoes
Grottoes may mean:*The plural form of Grotto .or*Grottoes, Virginia - The town named for Grand Caverns....
, arches and columns simulating the courtyard motif.
See also
- Stanley Theater (Newark, New Jersey)Stanley Theater (Newark, New Jersey)The Stanley Theater is located in Newark, New Jersey. The building was built in 1927 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places on August 28, 1986....
- Loew's Jersey TheaterLoew's Jersey TheaterThe Loew's Jersey Theatre is a New Jersey Registered Historic Site in Jersey City, New Jersey of the United States of America. Opened in 1929, it was one of the five Loew's Wonder Theatres, a series of flagship Loew's movie palaces in the New York City area. It was designed by the architectural...
- Park Performing Arts CenterPark Performing Arts CenterThe Park Performing Arts Center is a cultural center located at 32nd Street and Central Avenue in Union City, New Jersey, USA. Originally built by a church parish, it became a non-profit organization in 1983, and hosts appearances of local, national, and international artists as well as community...