155 South Broadway,
Yonkers, N.Y.
Loew’s Yonkers Theatre, Yonkers, NY, March, 1931.
On the screen – Alexander Gray and Vivienne Segal in “Viennese Nights.”
On stage – Barto and Mann.
Photo by George Mann of the comedy dance team, Barto and Mann.
Note the line of antique cars parked in front of the theatre.
Loew’s Yonkers celebrated its grand opening in February of 1928. According to a report in The New York Times of the following day (2/3/1928), the 2,800-seat Yonkers was built and financed for $900,000 by a local business tycoon, John E. Andrus, who had also once served as Mayor of the city. The architects were Eugene DeRosa and Milton H. McGuire. The venue housed a 1927 3/13 Robert Morton Theatre Pipe Organ with blower number 21224.
This was the largest of the four first-run theatres that Loew’s operated in Westchester County. Before the theatre’s opening, Andrus made a long-term operating deal with the Loew’s circuit. With a policy of a feature movie and vaudeville, Loew’s Yonkers was one of the first theatres in Westchester County to be equipped with a refrigeration plant to keep it cool in summer. George Miner was the first house manager.
Loew’s Yonkers was the very first stop for Al Jolson on his now legendary promotional tour for “Jolson Sings Again” in the summer of 1949. Over three consecutive evenings starting on August 10th, Jolson performed on stage at a total of 18 Loew’s theatres in the Greater New York area, or six per night. After the Yonkers on that Wednesday, he raced with a NYPD escort to Loew’s 175th Street in Washington Heights; the Paradise, Fairmont, and National in the Bronx, and finally to the Victoria in Harlem. A lengthy article and lots of rare photos of the entire tour can be found in the December 2011 issue of Classic Images Magazine.
In the early 1950s, Loew’s divested the theatre to comply with the Federal anti-trust decree against the company, at which time it was taken over by the Brandt Circuit and re-named Brandt’s Yonkers.
According to the book “Yonkers Then and Now”, compiled by the Yonkers Historical Society, the theatre was demolished in 1975.
