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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 like its popular weekly ''Big Screen Classics'' film shows. It is also notable for housing a Wurlitzer theatre organ, which is played before Big Screen Classics shows. ==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 movie 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, subtly mixed in a ''Beaux Arts'' style. The theatre was also equipped with a custom-designed Möller pipe 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 film presentations and live vaudeville shows. 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 wide-screen, stereophonic-sound movies. The premiere engagement was the Biblical epic ''The Robe'', during the Christmas holiday of 1953. The Lafayette's popularity declined in the 1950s and 1960s as downtown populations moved further into the suburbs and television took hold as the popular entertainment medium of the day. However, the theater was spared both the wrecking ball and the multiplexing boom, where large single-screen auditoriums were divided into small theatres to accommodate several films at once. As part of a 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, run by Nelson Page, took a long-term lease to operate the Lafayette Theatre as a single-screen movie theatre, calming any lingering fears that the unique building would be divided into small auditoriums. Page and his team refurbished the interior of the theatre, bringing back its luxurious pre-war style while investing it with modern projection equipment and concession areas. In September 2003, an ornate chandelier was added to the ceiling of the Lafayette for the first time since the 1930s. The Lafayette is currently a modern example of a single-screen neighborhood theater and remains a popular landmark of Rockland County. While continuing to run first-run films every day, the Lafayette also runs alternative programming to keep up with 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. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Lafayette Theatre (Suffern)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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