The Loew's Jersey

Less than a month before the 1929 stock market crash that sent the United States tumbling into the Great Depression, one of the grandest of all movie palaces opened in Jersey City. The Loew's Jersey, with its soaring ceilings, ornate detailing, and plush amenities, glorified popular entertainment and the masses who sought it out, turning a night at the movies into a glamorous event, a chance to lose yourself in flickering dreams. (Frank Sinatra supposedly decided to become a singer while in the audience at the Loew's.) The next part of the story is a familiar but nonetheless sad and sordid one: In the decades following World War II, people abandoned vibrant neighborhoods and public life for cars and tract houses, lamenting all the while the death of the society they killed. The movie palaces wasted away, falling into disrepair or becoming parking garages.

The Loew's Jersey closed in 1986, slated for demolition the next year. But, in one of those unlikely civic turnabouts that you usually see, well, only in the movies, the community pulled together, the city bought the theater, and volunteers labored painstakingly to restore it, a process that continues today. On the last weekend of every month, Loew's Jersey lights its marquee, tunes its organ, and throws open its doors once again. This past weekend, they ran a Bogart/Bacall series; we made it out for The Big Sleep, even more fun and sexy and mystifying on the big screen. (And amazingly cheap, only $7 a ticket and $1 for popcorn.) Much of the theater is still in decay, a reminder of how much we lost and why we should fight to get it back.