Buffalo Movie Theaters - Table of Contents
Lafayette Theater (DEMOLISHED)
Washington and Broadway, Buffalo, New York
 Postcard |
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Reprint A look back at The Lafayette Theater – Corner of Washington & Broadway By D. Raphael Failla Pub. on Buffalo Rising on February 8, 2017  Taking a look back at the now demolished ‘The Lafayette Theater’, the vision was financed with a $3,000,000 investment. The funding would be the catalyst for the development of premier downtown destination that would feature a theater and office complex. The new theater would be used for vaudeville and movies, while rest of the 10-story structure was dedicated to office space. Construction began on January 1, 1921. It would seat over 3,500 people and engineer the most advanced technology and construction techniques available, including “Carrier Air Washers”, manufactured by Buffalo Forge, which filtered the air in the theater and completely refreshed it every five minutes. Lackawanna Bridge Works installed an 85-ton master girder across the orchestra seats like a bridge; it held up the balcony and gallery without posts or columns which would have obstructed sight lines. It was only the second theater in the U.S. to have this sort of feature. The interior featured a good deal of real marble. It featured rich ornamental work, murals, crystal chandeliers and ceiling domes with leaded glass.The theater had its grand opening on February 27, 1922. It offered high-class vaudeville and first-run movies. The theater also featured box seats. The great dome above the theater had indirect lighting and lights in leaded glass domes around the ceiling which could be changed to any of four colors and also dimmed. The theater added new technology over time. adding air conditioning in 1936. Overall, The Lafayette Theater had great success throughout the early years. In the later years it would suffer decline in attendance due to theaters like Shea’s and the Paramount on Main Street. In the 1962 it was bought by Benderson Development. They planned to demolish the theater portion to give way for surface parking for the tenants of the 10 story building. The building remained derelict until it was demolished in 1972. It is currently a parking lot. Hopefully, with the city on the rise, developers will once again see the potential of such a corner, and rebuild, this paying tribute to this once significant beauty. |
Reprint Lafayette Theatre 4 Broadway, Buffalo, NY 14203 By Bryan Krefft Pub. on Cinema Treasures (online March 2017)  Located at the corner of Washington Street
and Broadway. Opened in 1922, to replace an earlier theater of the same
name nearby, the Lafayette Square Playhouse was designed by architect
Leon H. Lempert for legitimate theater and vaudeville. It was located,
as the name suggests, off Buffalo’s Lafayette Square, with its entrance
on Broadway. The theater’s name was eventually shortened to simply the
Lafayette Theatre. It could seat over 3,542. The Lafayette Theatre was
acclaimed for its superb acoustics and had a large stage. In 1927, it
was the first Buffalo movie house to show the “The Jazz Singer”.
In later years, it would begin to suffer in attendance partly due to the fact in was away from the other major theaters located on Main Street, such as Shea’s Buffalo Theatre and the Paramount Theatre. The Lafayette Theatre was demolished in 1962, and the site is now a parking lot. Part of the Lafayette’s organ was later installed at the Temple Beth Zion on Delaware Avenue. |
Temple Beth Zion  The 48 rank, 4,000 pipe organ features trumpets from the Lafayette Theater |