Main Street and the State Theater

From "The Delmont Street Gang"

Chapter Nine

Main Street and the State Theater

Main Street was special.

If you were a kid, and you were taking a trip downtown to Main Street, it usually meant something cool was happening. For the kids in my neighborhood, taking the two-mile trek downtown was a weekly ritual, for one of several reasons.

Thursday night was ”Family Night”. The whole town would turn out. All the stores were open until nine o’clock! Can you believe it???

Marlow’s Department Store, Woolworth’s, House and Hale’s, The Brass Key Restaurant, Regal Men’s Shop, Beller’s Music Store and several others were open in one big block party. Mom, Dad and all the kids would turn out, park the car, and walk from the top of Center Street down to Charter Oak Street, and back. The beat cop’s job was to keep the sidewalks clear, as dozens of people would stop to congregate, and catch up. Your arm would be sore from waving to everyone you knew.
 
Marlow’s was the coolest store around. The décor was circa 1940, and they still had merchandise from that era, and every era since. You could find anything there, and I MEAN anything. If you needed a skate key, Old Man Marlow had it. If you wanted a Super Ball in the original 1960’s packaging, he had it! If you needed a sewing needle for a 1950’s Singer Sewing machine, Marlow’s had it. It was old and dusty and dingy and fun; and we always looked forward to going there.

Although not technically on Main Street, there was another great stop just around the corner on Hartford Road – The Cheney Mills, named after the Cheney Brothers, who founded the silk mills in 1838, and employed a large number of Manchester residents, for years. Truth be told, Manchester probably should have been named “Cheneyville”.

Anyway, after the mills had closed in the fifties, one of the buildings was converted to a terrific discount department store, called King’s. It had a huge concrete staircase which led to three floors of clothing, toys, housewares, hardware, and fun. It was fresh bags of popcorn and balloons for the kids, and a great place to run and play, while the parents shopped.

Saturday on Main Street was “Everything Day”. First thing in the morning, Larry, Karl, David, Ted and I would head down to the Manchester Herald, to turn in our paper route money. Then we’d head up to the Roma Pastry Shop, which opened at nine o’clock sharp, and have hot chocolate and a pastry. Then, it was home to deliver the Saturday paper, lunch, then back downtown for the matinee at the State Theater.

The State Theater was your typical grand, old theater, with a fully-working proscenium stage, used during the old vaudeville era, a free-standing ticket booth, snack bar and balcony.  Next door was the Bissell Soda Fountain, which had a huge penny candy counter. The routine went this way – Dad would give my sisters and me a dollar each, and we’d head down to the matinee’. A child’s ticket was thirty-five cents, popcorn was fifteen cents, and a soda was a dime. That left forty cents for forty pieces of penny candy.

The candy counter was run on the honor system. We would grab one of those brown paper bags, with the red and green stripes and stock up on Squirrel Nuts, Atomic Fire Balls, Mary Janes, Paper Dots, Bazooka Bubble Gum, Tootsie Rolls, Pixie Sticks, Nikl Nips and licorice
whips. We’d then bring the bag to the old man behind the cash register. He’d ask us how many pieces we had taken, and we would tell him, and give him the money; and we never, ever fibbed!

We always kept our fingers crossed that the balcony would be open, as we thought this was incredibly cool, especially if you were sitting in the very front row of the balcony. It was akin to being in the first car of a roller coaster. It was also great for chucking candy at the kids below.

After two features and a half-dozen cartoons, four-hundred maniacs, wired on sugar, were released to the custody of their parents.

The last Saturday of summer vacation meant one thing. It was time for the Pencil Box Matinee’ at the State Theater.  It was traditionally the busiest day of the year at the theater. The line would start forming early in the morning, work its way around the block, and start around again. This was the one matinee’ each year that had two complete showings, so that everyone had a chance to receive their treasure. Every kid would receive a cardboard pencil box, blue for boys, red for
girls, complete with two number two pencils, a rubber eraser, a compass, a protractor, and a red and blue pen. It also had a secret drawer in the bottom.
Parents would schedule their vacations around this most-important event. A kid would have to be in a coma not to show up. Kids would show up on crutches, in wheelchairs, and with barf bags, so they wouldn’t be left out. You had to be there! If you were to show up on the first day of school, and didn’t have your pencil box, you were weird!

We had figured out, early on, that security was not too tight at the State, when I found out that the exit doors at the back of the theater did not completely lock, if they weren’t pulled shut from the inside. It was determined, through masterful surveillance on my part, that there was a twenty-second lapse between the end of the coming attractions and the start of the first feature film, when the theater was absolutely dark. We would wait outside the exit, the previews would end, the room would darken, the feature would start, and there would be 10 or 12 new patrons in the front rows, crouching down in the seats, hoping to avoid detection. I don’t think any of us ever got snagged.

I even worked there for a short while as an usher, when I was sixteen. We all had to wear black tuxedo jackets, and carry a flashlight, and stock the snack bar, and pick up trash between showings. You know; glamorous stuff! One of the perks was getting to go to the shows for free. What a big shot I was, when I would bring my friends down for a free movie. I used to love to sit in the closed balcony, during my breaks, with a slice of pizza, and take it all in, watching a 30-foot tall Bruce Lee beat up the bad guys, in Enter the Dragon.

Unfortunately, the State had outlasted its usefulness, when the UA Theaters East, the first twin-theater opened at the Manchester Parkade, in the mid-seventies. The State couldn’t compete with the 99 – cent ticket price for any show, in this new, sanitary facility, with plenty of parking. It finally closed around 1977, ending the era of the grand, old theater.

The State Theater was where you felt grown up, when your parents let you go by yourself; this is where you brought your first date – saw your first PG rated movie…

This was a real movie theater, on a real Main Street.