Rialto Theatre

Joe Vogel on November 9, 2013 at 3:06 pm

Either Washington and Miller switched architects, or Emil Motel might only have been the supervising architect for the Rialto Theatre. The February 2, 1921, issue of The American Architect ran this item:

“Monticello, N. Y. —A theatre building will be erected by Washington & Miller at Monticello, N. Y., at a cost of about $90,000. Backoff, Jones & Cook of Newark, N. J., Architects.”

George W. Backoff, George Elwood Jones and J. Frederick Cook established their partnership in early 1920. If the house did open in 1921, especailly the first half of the year, they probably designed it, but if it didn’t open until 1922 as this page says, then the architect might have been changed.

GaryCohen on December 9, 2009 at 1:28 pm

My family used to vacation in Montecello each summer. One of my favorite things was the fact that the theaters upstate would show films that were then still playing on Broadway in NYC. I remember seeing “Guns of Navarone,” Sinatra in “Von Ryans Express” and “Cleopatra” at the Rialto, while it was still playing reserve-seat on Broadway. After the movie, there was a store a few stores away where I would purchase my beloved DC comic books.
Sorry to hear that this theater, like so many others, I attended is gone.

larry on October 12, 2009 at 12:06 pm

Passed the theater yesterday. Sad to see both the Broadway and the Rialto abandoned just waiting for the wrecker’s ball sometime in the future.

frankie on May 9, 2006 at 5:31 am

I was doing summer stock up there in the 70’s and I believe this was the theater where a bunch of us went to see “The Spy Who Loved Me.” Carefree days !