Beneath the feet of passengers darting to and fro in the RTS Transit Center on North Clinton and Mortimer rests a tomb. There, under the hub where Rochesterians bustle on their way around the city, thousands of their forebears once sat awash in the magic of silver nitrate, crafted into film just a few miles away.
It was the site of the RKO Palace, the crown jewel in a diadem of sparkling cinemas that dazzled Rochester’s moviegoers with crystal chandeliers, towering mirrors and fireplaces in two separate lounges — all before they saw a frame of film splash across the giant screen. The palace’s marquee illuminated the nighttime cityscape in the company of The Lyric and The Lincoln, The Thurston, The Hub, the Hippodrome, The Revy and The Rialto to name a very few. All, like The Palace, are now history; casualties of the television and suburban multiplex.
There is, however, an exception. The Little Theatre on East Avenue opened its doors a week before the stock market crash of 1929. In keeping with its devotion to silent films, The Little Theatre chose to be known as “The House of Silent Shadows” and its first presentation was the “Cyrano de Bergerac.” It had almost 300 seats (compared to the Palace’s 3,000), served coffee and cigarettes and styled itself — according to a pamphlet from 1949 commemorating the theater’s 20th anniversary — as one of a string “of ‘Intimate’ theaters in cities across the country for showing unusual films.”
That string was known as the ‘Little Theatre Movement,’ created by the Motion Picture Guild in the 1920s to give cities smaller, more intimate, higher-brow film experiences. Originally, The Little was a residential home with a front porch and cupola. (The theater itself was constructed in the art deco style by Edgar Phillips of Rochester and Frederick Pike of Buffalo, and its distinctive style has earned it a place on the National Register of Historic Places.) Throughout the decades, it would transform into a cinema and lounge, a franchise of the Rochester Jo-Mor theater chain and, allegedly, a XXX theater (which wouldn’t have been atypical for the time; as movie-goers gravitated to screens outside the city, a number of downtown theaters sought ‘niche’ revenue streams).
In the 1980s, a coterie of historically minded cinephiles, William Coppard and John and Pam Blanpied, restored the theater’s original vision and much of the building, while adding additional screens to the layout. Eventually, the theater became a non-profit before merging with WXXI.
This October, The Little celebrates its 95th anniversary, and, despite such a fraught and winding path, still shows unusual films. If it didn’t, it probably would have felt the wrecking ball, too.
“We show the movies you can’t see anywhere else,” said Scott Pukos, The Little’s director of communication. “The film community is so amazing … passionate, smart people who just love movies and have great taste in movies and love supporting The Little and art house films.”
The community supported The Little through a major renovation that took place in stages over a number of years. When the original theater at 240 East Avenue was finally restored in architectural homage to the original structure (plus seat cupholders), Pukos stood on the stage before a sold-out celebratory screening of “When Harry Met Sally,” on Valentine’s Day 2020.
“I did the introduction for the movie that night, and as I’m looking out at the crowd, I was like, ‘Can I take your photo? I want to capture this, it feels like an historic moment for The Little,’” said Pukos. “It’s one of my favorite photos I’ve ever taken here. I wanted something to capture history, and unfortunately, it captured kind of the wrong history.”
Weeks later, the theater’s screens went dark for more than a year. Pukos made the comparison of a global depression at the theater’s birth to a global pandemic clouding its renaissance 90 years later.
“And yet,” he said, “The Little is still here and still thrived.”
Whether worldwide catastrophe or the slow encroachment of technology, the scythe felling Rochester’s moviehouses has been relentless since the 1950s. The final screening of the Palace was a Frank Sinatra war flick called “Von Ryan’s Express,” flickering in front of a meager handful of final patrons. That was 1965, when TV and suburban competitors sapped the lifeblood from the grand cinemas of yesteryear.
Today, algorithms and streaming services arguably protect us from seeing something we may not enjoy (gasp) in a crowd of people we don’t know, all so far from our sofas. But that congregation is exactly what makes The Little so special, said Pukos.
It’s a community that can never be recreated at home (nor, it’s worth noting, can The Little’s popcorn). Ayette Jordan, The Little’s executive director, believes that is the secret to the theater’s longevity — and its future.
“The theater has survived because people in the community cared,” she said. “When you look at the opportunities that are before us right now, we have a chance to really become more stable, stronger and make sure this place and everything that goes on here exists for the benefit of the generations that follow us.”
Generations that include Julie, who told Pukos her love of cinema was born at The Little when she saw the 1948 film “The Red Shoes;” the 4-year-old girl who giggled through the entirety of Cat Video Fest; and the young local filmmakers in the Rochester Teen Film Festival.
“Seeing their faces when they see their names up on the marquee,” said Pukos. “All that stuff makes me so happy.”
Pete Wayner is a contributor to CITY.
This article appears in Oct 1-31, 2024.
