NJ_NEWARK--Miner's Newark Theatre/Paramount Theatre

MINER'S NEWARK THEATRE/PARAMOUNT THEATRE

General Description:

"The Paramount Theatre opened on October 11, 1886 as H.C. Miner’s Newark Theatre. It was originally a vaudeville house[, and after...] Miner’s death in 1900, his surviving relatives retained ownership of the theater for several years until its sale in 1916 to Edward Spiegel, the owner of the nearby Strand Theatre. Spiegel also purchased the building next to the theater with the intent to use the space to expand the theater. To accomplish this he hired famed theater architect Thomas W. Lamb to do the alterations."¹

Lamb was born "...in Dundee, Scotland, [...and] came to the United States at the age of 12. He studied architecture at the Cooper Union school in New York and initially worked for the City of New York as an inspector. His architecture firm, Thomas W. Lamb, Inc., was located at 36 West 40th Street in Manhattan... . Lamb achieved recognition as one of the leading architects of the boom in movie theater construction of the 1910s and 1920s. Particularly associated with the Fox Theatres, Loew's Theatres and Keith-Albee chains of vaudeville and film theaters, Lamb was instrumental in establishing and developing the design and construction of the large, lavishly decorated theaters, known as "movie palaces", as showcases for the films of the emerging Hollywood studios."²

"In 1917, Thomas Lamb remodeled the theatre in an Adam [or Adamesque] style. The former Paramount Theater still boasts the vertical ‘Paramount’ sign, as well as the ‘Newark’ marquee. The Paramount Theater was closed on April 1, 1986. Although a retail store operated out of the former lobby until around April 2011, a store employee confirmed that behind the drop ceilings and walls remains much of the old theater, complete with stage area and balcony seating intact."³

Materials Used/Technical Information (size, manufacturer, etc.):

Polychrome terra cotta. The manufacturer is unknown to me.

Year Created:

1917

Does Installation Still Exist?

Partially. The exterior terra cotta frieze exists. It is uncertain if anything is left of the interior, especially when the marquee advertises 20,000 square feet of retail space for rent.

If Not, What Happened?

Location of Installation:

195 Market Street, Newark, NJ 10702

Directions to Installation:

The theater is a half block east of the intersection of Market and Broad Streets, the heart of downtown Newark.

Additional Information, Websites, Citations:

¹http://afterthefinalcurtain.net/2011/09/28/the-newark-paramount-theatre/ (Matt Lambros, "The Newark Paramount Theatre" in his blog, After the Final Curtain, September 28, 2011. There are a number of interior photographs of the theater on this post, also.)

²http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_W._Lamb

³http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/4603 (Cinema Treasures is an excellent website to begin a search for a theater's history.)

⁴Picture post card image from Cardcow.com. This website has a massive number of picture post cards.

Color photos taken in 2012, courtesy of Michael Padwee.

Submitted by and Year:

Submitted by Michael Padwee (tileback101'at'collector.org) in August, 2012.