Talk:Allen Theater (Allentown, Pennsylvania)

Additional notes on the Allen Theater

I grew up in the area where the Allen Theater was, and I was fortunate enough to find enough information to write an article on it. The name of the theater (New Allen) was because it was on New Street, a half-street between 9th and 10th in Allentown, and two houses north of Allen Street... The name was shortened to "Allen" over time. I remember my parents taking me to watch "Cleopatra" at it when I was growing up, and a friend of mine from school, Barb S--- lived about a block from it and we went on several dates there during high school. My mom would go there for years, up until it closed.

I mentioned two other theaters in the article, the Franklin and the Towne. I read somewhere that they all had the same owners in the 1930s and 40s. but I can't find a reference to that.. they all showed second-run films for cheap movie nights. The Franklin became the Jenette Theater in the 1950s and it became a porn theater in the 1960s

The Jeneatte was closed down in the early 80s, Then became a weekend-only theater and went back to the "Franklin" name in the 90s I believe and tried to shed its porn house image by showing second run films again .. it closed up just recently as it's in a pretty bad area of Allentown and going to see a movie there on a Saturday night isn't the safest thing to do.

The Towne became a porn theater also in the 1960s.... It was either closed down or went out of business when porn became available on VHS about 1978/79 and in the early 80s the new owners did a gut renovation of the building, tearing out everything except the outside. Today it's an apartment building and you enter the property thoug a door that was a side fire door when it was a theater. But if you know what it looked like, you still can see where the front entrance was as the 2d and 3d floor looks the same...

The Allen, however, remained pretty much the same as it was from the 30s until it closed up. The front had a facelift in the 60s I remember, getting a "permastone" faux stone front that was done by a family friend actually, Mr Sanders.. who had the franchise for that. You can see the permastone in the photo I found.

Also there is some more information I didn't add about it closing down. When the owner died, the family tried to sell it while it was still open. A deal was made for $150,000 to sell it to the entertainment editor of the Morning Call (the local newspaper), but that fell though and in the end, no one wanted to buy it and finally the last owner's family just shut the theater down because they didn't want to run it. Then there was infighting within the family about who should own it and it got all nasty (as family feuds over money tend to) and it all wound up in probate court until it got sorted out.

Oh, one more thing I didn't add is that when they started to rip out the insides as part of the demolition process, apparantley in a closet they found a ton of old movie posters going back decades that were placed there. Movie posters were supposed to go along with the film reels to the next theater, but apparently the Allen was the end of the line for the films and only the film reels were sent back to the rental agency. The posters, that were likely full of tack holes, rips and tears were just folded up and put into a closet. Either they go thrown out or someone took them when they tore the building down.

Anyway this article was fun to write and I hope the few people who enjoy looking at old movie theater articles enjoy it. Bwmoll3 (talk) 10:58, 30 July 2013 (UTC)