Crandell Theatre

About this property

The nonprofit Crandell Theatre is located in the Village of Chatham, N.Y., and is Columbia County’s oldest and largest single-screen movie theater. The nearly 100-year-old community cinema is supported by ticket sales and earned revenue, contributions of members and friends, and private and public grants, including the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. The theater is dedicated to enriching the cultural vitality of the region through film programming that challenges, inspires, educates and entertains. The Crandell was built by Walter S. Crandell, a Chatham native, New York stockbrocker, and later, a local banker. Considered an architectural gem, the theater was constructed in Spanish Renaissance style, a 16th century design aesthetic from Spain that combines Moorish elements with those from the Italian Renaissance. It remains largely unchanged since it opened on Christmas Day, 1926, with the silent masterpiece Michael Strogoff. It has many unique features not found in today's movie houses, including a full 26-foot (7.9 m) wide and 13-foot (4.0 m) deep stage with dressing rooms, a balcony featuring 36 original 1926 seats, an orchestra pit, and organ lofts on each side of the stage. The Crandell was added to the State and National Registers of Historic Places, selected by The New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation (OPRHP), in 2017. Constructed on the site of a residence formerly owned by Walter Crandell's father and grandfather, the pink brick-and-stucco theater was built at a cost of $100,000 pre-Depression dollars. It was envisioned as a movie house for silent moving pictures. Moving pictures quickly mesmerized audiences everywhere and vaudeville acts never performed at the Crandell. In 1929, in recognition of the growing importance of talking movies after 1927's The Jazz Singer was released, the theater installed a cutting-edge RCA Photophone system. The Crandell has been in continuous operation for 99 years. For nearly 50 of those years it has been associated with the Quirino family. Anthony Quirino purchased the Crandell in 1960, and the theater was owned and operated by his son, Tony, until Tony's death in 2010. In 1998 the Chatham Film Club (CFC) was organized by area film enthusiasts to bring additional independent and foreign films to the area on a regular schedule. Members approached Tony Quirino, then-owner of the Crandell, and arranged to rent the theatre for monthly Sunday matinees. In 2000 CFC joined with the Columbia County Council on the Arts to produce the first FilmColumbia festival, a weekend of films shown at the Crandell. Following Tony Quirino’s death in 2010, the Crandell was closed and faced an uncertain future. With an outpouring of community support and the leadership of the Ellsworth Kelly Foundation, Lael Locke, and Judy Grunberg, Chatham Film Club raised approximately $600,000 to buy the theatre and make much needed repairs. The immediate renovations included a new roof, new HVAC system, new steam boiler, and façade and marquee repair. Additionally, the installation of digital projection and compliant sound systems allowed the Crandell to keep pace with industry Digital Cinema Projection (DCP) standards and show first-run and feature films the way the filmmakers intended.

Location

Categories

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

More in Columbia County

Historic places, battles, and census history across Columbia County.

More historic places in New York

Browse all historic places in New York.

Conflict records

Explore 19,000+ military engagements across American history.

New York history

Colonial settlement, territorial period, and statehood narrative.