St. George Theatre
19 Hyatt Street | also 23 Hyatt Street, 35 Hyatt Street, 27 Hyatt Street | St. George | built 1930
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The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1929
Solomon Brill opens the St. George Theatre as Staten Island's answer to Manhattan's movie palaces
Brill, who ran other theaters on the island and 15 in the wider New York area, began building in 1928 and promised top vaudeville for 75 cents a seat. The 2,800-seat house opened on December 4, 1929, at a total cost of $2 million, and its first film was the MGM picture So This Is College. Brill sold it to William Fox within three years.
“The theater opened on December 4, 1929, at a cost of $2 million, $500,000 of which was for the theater.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1929
Eugene De Rosa and Nestor Castro give the theater a Spanish and Italian Baroque interior
De Rosa designed the building with help from local architect James Whitford, while Nestor Castro, art director of the Libman-Spanjer Corporation, created the gilded interior. It was conceived for the RKO vaudeville circuit, and a projection booth was added only as construction neared its end. Features included a $25,000 Wurlitzer organ and a huge cantilevered balcony, from which a conversation with the stage is said to carry without raised voices.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1965
Fabian Theatres runs its Staten Island district office from inside the St. George
The Fabian chain made the theater its Staten Island flagship through the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. In 1965 the company's district office occupied a space on the main level that is now the men's room. After the chain broke up in the late 1960s, its former general manager kept the theater running until 1975.
“…the men's room on the main level are actually in what was once the district office for Fabian Theatres in 1965…”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1976
Victoria Theatres brings live music back to the St. George stage
A group of young Staten Island entrepreneurs leased the theater as Victoria Theatres, aiming to mix concerts and stage shows with films. For the first time since the 1950s the stage served as more than a platform for the movie screen. Their run lasted only from April 1976 to February 1977, but it featured Sly Stone, Chaka Khan and Lester Flatt.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1978
The St. George Theatre stops showing movies
The theater's run as a cinema ended in 1978. Several later operators tried to make it work as a dinner theater, a nightclub and a showroom for antiques, and none of those ventures lasted. From the mid-1990s into the early 2000s, local dance schools rented the hall for their annual recitals.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2003
The finale of the film School of Rock is shot at the St. George Theatre
The closing sequence of the 2003 movie School of Rock was shot inside the theater. The hall has remained a film and television location since: Gossip Girl shot opera scenes there in December 2008 for the episode "You've Got Yale!", and Steven Spielberg's NBC series Smash filmed there during its 2012 season.
“The finale of the 2003 film School of Rock was filmed at the St. George Theatre.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 2004
Rosemary Cappozalo and her daughters reopen the theater as a nonprofit
Cappozalo, known locally as "Mrs. Rosemary," had rented the hall for her dance studio's recitals. In 2004 she and her daughters Luanne Sorrentino and Doreen Cugno formed a not-for-profit to rescue it, and the theater reopened that June. Since the reopening the theater has hosted more than 1,000 events, from concerts and comedy to Broadway touring companies, children's shows and architectural tours.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2017
The theater closes for a $5.2 million renovation and gets an LED marquee
In mid-2017 the St. George shut for several months while $5.2 million was spent redoing the mezzanine seating and installing a new LED marquee. The house, which held about 2,800 when it opened, now seats 1,903.
“In mid-2017, the theater closed for a $5.2 million, several-month-long renovation to renovate the mezzanine seating and add a LED marquee.”
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- St. George TheatreWikipedia
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