302:, the organ was shipped to California, where it was to be installed in the proposed Harold Lloyd Estate museum. Unfortunately, the plans for the museum fell through and the organ was shipped back to New York City where NYTOS installed it in the Carnegie Hall Cinema. Opus 2095 played in the Carnegie Hall Cinema for over ten years until the restoration of Carnegie Hall. During restoration, the Carnegie Hall Cinema was twinned, and the organ was removed and placed in storage.
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November 1990, and after countless hours of labor by the volunteer crew and nearly $ 20,000 in donated funds, the organ was reborn. Wurlitzer Opus 2095 played for the first time in its new home in
December 1992. Since then, it has been entertaining the weekend audiences at the Lafayette Theatre in the grand tradition of the American Theatre Organ.
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The theatre organ, which is owned and maintained by the New York
Theatre Organ Society (NYTOS), is played every Friday and Saturday night, and is a favorite feature before the Big Screen Classics presentations on Saturday mornings. The main house organist was Jeff Barker from 2002 until his death in
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When Al
Venturini and the Good Samaritan Hospital began working together to fix up the Lafayette Theatre, Dave Kopp, then chairman of NYTOS, contacted Venturini about the possibility of installing the organ. Everyone agreed that the Lafayette Theatre was an ideal place for the organ. Work began in
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Wurlitzer Opus 2095 left the
Wurlitzer factory on January 31, 1931, and was installed in the Lawler Theatre in Greenfield, Massachusetts. It was the last Style 150 (2 manuals and 5 ranks) that Wurlitzer built. Like so many small-town movie theatres in the 1950s and 1960s, the Lawler was closed for
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Late in 2002, the
Majestic Star Entertainment 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
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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
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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.
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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
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The owners of the rink sold it to Ben Hall, noted theater historian and film critic. He, with the help of some friends, removed it in 1968 and installed it in his New York City duplex. Hall died in 1971 and the organ was once again "orphaned".
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Insurance (later chairman of AIG), 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.
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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
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who fought, along with General George Washington, in Suffern and the Town of Ramapo. The theater's history began when the Suffern Amusement Company hired noted theatre architect
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In 2013, the theater was taken over by JACA Entertainment under Ari Benmosche, and has continues to function as a single screen movie theater till this day.
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shows. A renovation in 1927 added distinctive opera boxes, and shortly thereafter the projection equipment was updated to play
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The Lafayette is currently a modern example of a single-screen neighborhood theater and remains a popular landmark of
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to design a movie theatre for a location on Lafayette Avenue in downtown Suffern. De Rosa's concept was primarily
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demolition. The organ was moved to the Rainbow Roller Rink in South Deerfield, Mass., where it was rarely used.
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In the late 1990s, the Lafayette's future as a single-screen neighborhood movie palace was uncertain until
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apparatus to show wide-screen, stereophonic-sound movies. The premiere engagement was the Biblical epic
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and flourished through the rest of the 1920s with a combination of film presentations and live
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The Lafayette was named one of the "10 Great Places to Revel in Cinematic Grandeur" by
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Stage of the Lafayette Theatre in 2005, as seen from the back row of the loge section.
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in January 2005, sharing the list with such notable venues as New York City's
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The Lafayette opened its doors in 1924 with the silent film classic
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pipe organ to accompany silent films and augment live performances.
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style. The theatre was also equipped with a custom-designed
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The Lafayette Theatre was named for Revolutionary War hero
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When the estate of Ben Hall donated the instrument to the
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Buildings and structures in Rockland County, New York
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ended, movie-going habits changed with the advent of
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376:"Silent Films? With This Theater's Organ, Hardly"
467:Tourist attractions in Rockland County, New York
346:"10 great places to revel in cinematic grandeur"
263:The ornate glass chandelier, installed in 2003.
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141:film shows. It is also notable for housing a
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352:. January 20, 2005
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