Allentown's Rialto Theatre

...the grand ole' theatre of Allentown that once housed many live acts & vaudeville shows.

Was a damn shame to let the Rialto Theatre go to the wrecking ball. Imagine.. we could have had the same kind of grandeur as that of Easton's State Theatre! In the 60's I saw a magazine that described the Rialto Theatre's design was based on the world's acoustically best design. Because of it's band shell like stage, you could speak a normal voice & be heard in the balcony. In fact they only used a 40 watt monaural vacuum tube amp that created enough sound to rattle the chairs. No expense was spared in it's construction.

The 2 projectors were carbon arc 'RCA Vitaphones' with 4 channel magnetic stereo heads they only used once for 'Ben Hur'. They seldom ever used it again because the film in those days were coated with magnetic pickup which tended to get erased by static electricity & proved unreliable. Each projector held a 15 minute 35 mm film which you flipped back and forth undetectably for showing the entire movie. They tried 3d by chaining the 2 projectors to one another. That was a really bad idea since one projector lagged behind the other putting a drag on the other projector's motor resulting in it to burn up. The theatre went dark for almost 30 minutes to replace the bad motor with a spare.

Wednesday's were Marquee night.. the new films arrived weekly (unless held over). 'Modern Trucking' would deliver the film in numerous 40lb 'cans' out of a Philadelphia distribution warehouse that had to be lugged 3 stories up to the projection booth suspended from the ceiling.

Nightly a 2 manned Allentown Police cruiser would pick us ushers up and drive us down to Merchant's Bank (7th & Hamilton) where we would make the nightly box office deposits. This was at their shift change, so we'd walk back up to the Rialto after making the deposit drop. We 3 ushers were paid 50 cents an hour. That's how I bought my first car. A 1953 Plymouth for $50!

Each of the cameo lights in the ceiling amongst the audience had 3 separate dimmer controlled lighting circuits. We replaced bulbs and lit them all green for St Patrick's day (orange for Halloween). I remember one St. Patrick's Day parade when 'The Allentown Hobo Marching Band' left the parade to march through the Rialto Lobby into the theatre and back out onto the parade route all the time playing loudly. CLOWNS! ha ha

The front stage lightening had 3 dimmer controlled circuits as well as 4 zones around and above the alcove stage area. Granted they were the old sparking/crackling rheostat dimmer controls that could heat a home. Wiring was shot, but what a grand old lady she was. The biggest and best. The interior design was far more lavish then the Colonial Theatre's was. The Rialto like the Colonial, had a long Marble hallway plastered with posters (teasers) for upcoming movies.

The old carpet store was located later on inside the former stage area on 10th Street since the large stage area was not needed for nothing more then a silver movie screen.

Nate Silver managed it in the 60's. Prior to that he managed the Earle Theatre. Max Korr the owner of Allentown Plumbing and Heating owned the Rialto up until his death. His wife took over and ran adult movies to deal with the declining revenues.

It even once had an elevator to the left side of the stage up to the huge 4th floor attic. Where the magnificent dimmer controlled lighted cameo/chandelier plaster ceiling was suspended from to the remaining 3 stories below.

Patrons would park at the 'Park & Shop' deck behind Benioff's Fur at 10th & Hamilton. Perhaps even stop at the smoke Shop on the corner or Sweetland for some soda fountain drinks alongside their ice cream dish. Or take a short walk up Hamilton Street to the Dolly Madison ice cream shop.

Imagine if we had the theatre restored and was thriving today! Imagine if you could bring back 'Sweetland', etc. to that area.

Again Allentown being the way it is.. blew it!

Photo Credit: "The Morning Call"