The Stanley Theater is a former 2,000-seat

movie theater A movie theater (American English) or cinema (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English), also known as a movie house, cinema hall, picture house, picture theater, the movies, the pictures, or simply theater, is a business ...

located in

Newark, New Jersey Newark ( , ) is the List of municipalities in New Jersey, most populous City (New Jersey), city in the U.S. state of New Jersey, the county seat of Essex County, New Jersey, Essex County, and a principal city of the New York metropolitan area. ...

. It was built in 1927 and was turned into a social hall in the 1970s. It was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

on August 28, 1986. "The Stanley Theater opened on May 26, 1927, as the latest suburban addition to the progressive chain of Stanley-Fabian Theaters, a local branch of the Stanley Company of America. The idea of a Spanish influenced theater was conceived by Louis R. Golding, an executive of Stanley-Fabian. Golding hired local architect Frank Grad, builder Warren MacEvoy, and supervised the construction himself. The choice of the Spanish influence for theater design was a reflection of the tastes of the times, when luxury and elegance in movie palace architecture were necessities." "The Stanley Theater contained all the ingredients of an "atmospheric" theater: a magnificent amphitheater canopied by a glorious moonlit and star-studded sky in a Spanish patio. To produce the elaborate settings and atmosphere, lighting and weather equipment such as the cloud machines, was located on platforms behind the elaborate three-dimensional facades, concealed from public observation. Satisfactory lighting for the great span of sky was created by a combination of reflectors, lighting units, and small openings in the ceiling for producing star effects." The Stanley Company of America merged with

Warner Bros. Pictures Warner Bros. Pictures is an American film studio and distribution arm of the Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group division of Warner Bros., both of which are owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. It is headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex ...

in a move that unified the assets of Warner,

Vitaphone Vitaphone was a sound film system used for feature films and nearly 1,000 short subjects made by Warner Bros. and its sister studio First National Pictures, First National from 1926 to 1931. Vitaphone is the last major analog sound-on-disc sys ...

, and Stanley. Stanley also controlled

First National Pictures First National Pictures was an American motion picture production and distribution company. It was founded in 1917 as First National Exhibitors' Circuit, Inc., an association of independent theatre owners in the United States, and became the count ...

, and what is now famously known as the Warner Bros. Studios Burbank. Warner Bros. operated the theaters until the anti-trust decree of the late-1940’s calling for separation of theaters from production and distribution. The theater portfolio was spun off as Stanley-Warner, with Warner Board of Directors S.H. Fabian and associates taking control in 1953, who already operated a circuit from New York to Virginia. From 1980, it was the Newark Tabernacle. As of November 2024, it's reported that after years of abandonment, "the owners of the building want to restore the 97-year-old theater’s lobby along with its historic marquee...The proposal, which came before Newark’s Landmarks Commission, was approved last month. The theater’s restored lobby will eventually become the entrance into a new five-story mixed-use building with 16 residential units on the top stories."

References

Theatres completed in 1927 Culture of Newark, New Jersey Buildings and structures in Newark, New Jersey National Register of Historic Places in Newark, New Jersey New Jersey Register of Historic Places Cinemas and movie theaters in New Jersey Former cinemas in the United States {{NewJersey-NRHP-stub

See also

References