Category:Park Theater, Allentown, Pennsylvania

Park Theatre 

former movie theater in Allentown, Pennsylvania, United States, now a restaurant
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Instance of	movie theater restaurant
Location	Allentown, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania
Street address	813 St John Street, Allentown PA
40° 35′ 29″ N, 75° 28′ 11″ W
Authority file  Q43381576 Reasonator Scholia Wikidocumentaries PetScan statistics WikiMap Locator tool KML file WikiShootMe OpenStreetMap Search depicted

The Park Theater opened at 813 St John Street in South Allentown in October 1925. Originally known as the Southern Theater, it had a capacity of 370 seats in a triangle-shaped building at the intersection of St John and Lehigh Street. The original theater had a balcony, along with theater-red velour curtain with gold bullion fringes, a small stage for live theater productions, and a Marr & Colton theater organ. The theater presented two performances each evening at Seven and Nine P.M., along with a matinee on Saturday.

In September 1929, with the end of the silent movie era, the Southern theater ended showing features and began to present local vaudeville acts on its stage. In July 1931, the owners of the theater filed for bankruptcy, likely due to the Great Depression affecting attendance and the lack of a theater sound film capability. Subsequently the theater was closed. It was reopened in December with a Western Electric sound system and renamed the Park Theater. The Park had the same showtimes. It continued to show films until closing for good in January 1944 when its owner, Al Moffa, was drafted into the Army during World War II. The theater was subsequently closed.

The building was then taken over by the "Allentown Finishing Company", who dyed silk products produced by the many silk mills in Allentown. When the dye house took it over, the balcony was removed, along with the projection booth and a second floor put in that had several apartments. The apartments upstairs had the original ornate theater ceiling.

In 1956, the dye house closed and the entire building was purchased by Edmund Zandarski in 1957, and the property was renovated, becoming Zandi's Steak Sandwiches, although some small apartments upstairs remained.