Sepia Saturday 110 Movie Theaters and how we were



About 1954 me and my Grandma
ready to go to the movies

 A challenge this week with Theater as our theme, but I think back to growing up in New Kensingon, PA in it's glory days when we had 3 movie theaters in a town that is all ashambles to the dregs today. Stroll along my memories with me to back before televisions became  a standard home furnishing, many Sundays, after mass and family dinner, from as early as I can remember, my grandmother,  Rose and I went to the matinee movies downtown and would stop for a big ice cream cone on our way home.  She enjoyed her movie theaters which she always referred to as just that, "movie theaters".  Some Sundays we'd  catch  two, a musical or drama  for her and cowboys and Indians  in technicolor for me.

Baba which I called her all my life, from the Polish word for Grandmother, made her money for our day out and about by playing the numbers at the local bookie who took bets at the butcher shop.  She was quite lucky most times and kept her stash for our treats, saying that was for us to have fun.  I spent lots of my time at their house and each morning when I awoke she'd ask me about my dreams and then get a small black book from the cupboard drawer.  I learned years later from her that was her Dream Book which translated the subject of dreams into numbers and those were the bets she placed,  always winning when she played Patty's dreams.  How I wish I knew what became of that book, imagine if  today I could use it for the lottery.

 I  learned that the reason we could afford two movies was we frequently got in free at the Liberty where her brother Bill worked as a projectionist, when movies came on the big reels.  I have shared photos of Bill before, here's a newspaper clipping she  saved of the  man at work.  Notice the name Walter Austin, somehow Bill came from Walter and he'd changed the  Polish Ostroski aka Ostrowski to Austin, generating much  fuss and disdain from his sisters.   But today's theater theme  showed photos of the buildings and I  had to dig and  search to find any photographs of the big time days in New Kensington when we had the Liberty, the Dattola, the Circle and the Ritz theaters.  I was amazed to find a Library of Congress photo of our own old Liberty theater which was demolished.   These movie theaters were grand seating from 700 to 1000 with more balcony seating, plush carpets, draperies, gilded to the max.  Wish I had photos of the insides, they sure don't make 'em like that anymore.  Todays movie theaters  use a sardine pack seating system,  superior technology does not make up for lack of grandeur and class. 

Downstairs  where I watch movies today
Back of my recliner looking toward the big screen

Today, I wait for DVD's and the latest Netflix offerings and take my self downstairs to our own big screen, surround sound put my feet up in the recliner and enjoy the movies, I often think how Baba would have loved this.   

A Westmoreland county historical site shows  that:  On May 2, 1921, the first of the new theaters, the Liberty Theater (demolished 1996) opened on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Eighth Street and the Ritz Theater (958 Fifth Avenue) opened the next year.


The Liberty courtesy of the Library of Congress



Dowtown  Fifth Avenue as it looked when we walked to the movies
The old Liberty  is on the left

From a historic website the Dattola theater



The Dattola movie Theater on the other end of Fifth Avenue
Photo from 1969 coverage in the Valley Dispatch,
taken sometime in the  1960's.



The newspaper article tells the sad tale of the Dattola.

I have no photos of the Circle nor the Ritz.  At one time they had both become bingo halls and today that is likely gone as well.  Will New Kensington ever  be revivied to it's glory days when  we grew up in the  50's and 60's.  Who knows

To see more wonderful Sepia posts go to the Sepi site here:

http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2012/01/sepia-saturday-110-saturday-28-january.html