Lafayette Theatre (Suffern)

The Lafayette Theatre is a nationally acclaimed, 1923 movie palace located in downtown Suffern, New York in the United States of America. Its primary function is first run movies, but it also houses special events, the most popular are its "Big Screen Classics" classic film shows. It is also notable for housing the Ben Hall Mighty Wurlitzer Theatre organ, which is played several times a week before shows.

The Theater's History

The history of the Lafayette Theatre, named for the Revolutionary War hero Marquis de Lafayette, began when the Suffern Amusement Company hired noted theatre architect Eugene De Rosa to design a 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, subtlety mixed in a "Beaux Arts" style. The theatre was also equipped with a custom-designed Möller organ to accompany silent films and augment live performances.

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 live vaudeville shows and film presentations. 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.

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 widescreen, stereophonic sound movies. The premiere engagement was the Biblical epic "The Robe", during the Christmas holiday of 1953, and audiences flocked to the Lafayette to see it in the new widescreen process, modestly known as "The Miracle You See Without Glasses!"

The Lafayette's star faded during the 1950s and 1960s as downtown populations moved further into the suburbs and television took hold as the popular entertainment medium of the day. Luckily, the Lafayette was spared both the wrecking ball and the multiplexing boom, where large single-screen auditoriums were divided up into several small theatres to accommodate playing several films at once. As part of a minor 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, 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.

Late in 2002, the Galaxy Theatre Corporation, under the leadership of Nelson Page, took a long-term lease to operate the Lafayette Theatre as a single-screen movie theatre, erasing any lingering fears that the unique building would be converted to small auditoriums. Page and his team began immediately to refurbish the interior of the theatre, spending considerable sums to bring back its luxurious pre-war style while investing it with modern projection equipment and concession areas. In September 2003, a chandelier was hoisted to the ceiling of the Lafayette, the first time an ornate lighting fixture had been there since the 1930s, and it was a final signal of the rebirth and continued good health of Suffern's downtown treasure.

Thanks to the vision and enthusiasm of Nelson Page, the Lafayette is again a downtown movie palace and remains a popular landmark of Rockland County. While continuing to run first-run films every day, the Lafayette also runs innovative programming to keep up with the 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.

The Theater Organ

The theatre organ, which is owned and maintained by the New York Theatre Organ Society (NYTOS), is played every Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday afternoon and before the Big Screen Classics presentations on Saturday morning. The main house organists are Jeff Barker and John Baratta, but a variety of guest organists play the Lafayette on a regular basis.

The story of the Lafayette Mighty Wurlitzer reads more like an old melodrama than the story of a pipe organ. 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 removed from the Lawler, and installed in 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 during the Blizzard of 1968 and installed it in his New York City duplex. Everything (pipes, percussions, the console, blower) went up two flights of stairs by hand. Tragically, Hall died in 1971 and the organ was once again "orphaned."

When the estate of Ben Hall gave the organ to the American Theatre Organ Society, the organ was packed up and 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. Again the organ was homeless! It was removed and placed in storage by NYTOS members.

When Al Venturini and the Good Samaritan Hospital began working together to fix up the Lafayette Theatre, Dave Kopp, then chairman of NYTOS, contacted Al about the possibility of installing the organ. Everyone agreed that the Lafayette Theatre was an ideal place for the organ. Work was begun 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.

External links

* [http://www.bigscreenclassics.com/indexlafayette.htm The Lafayette Theatre official website]
* [http://www.usatoday.com/travel/destinations/10great/2005-01-20-movie-theatres_x.htm USA Today article]