The Palace Theatre Turned 100 by Going Back to the Movies

Mayor Robb Bell grew up in the Northmont neighborhood. On Saturday mornings he and his friends walked down to the theater on West Otterman Street and paid a nickel to watch cartoons in color. "It was a Saturday event for us," he told TribLive at the Palace Theatre's 100th birthday party on September 2. "Our moms would make us snacks and we would come down here and watch cartoons."

The building has hosted Tammy Wynette, George Carlin, Jay Leno, the Beach Boys and Wiz Khalifa. What the mayor remembered was the movies. The Westmoreland Cultural Trust seems to have reached the same conclusion. In the Palace's centennial year, the building went back to showing films on a big screen. The ceremonies ended in September, but the screenings run through December 20.

Built for Pictures, Then Pushed Out by Them

The Manos Theatre opened on September 2, 1926, as a vaudeville and silent movie house with 2,136 seats, at the corner of West Otterman Street and North Pennsylvania Avenue. Doors opened at 5:30 p.m., and a newspaper ad in the Greensburg Daily Tribune billed the night as "The greatest amusement event in the history of Greensburg & Westmoreland County." A first-floor seat cost 40 cents for an afternoon show and 65 cents for an evening one. According to the Trust's history of the building, it was built for $750,000 as the flagship of the Manos family's regional theaters.

The building's own history shows how central movies were to it, and how they nearly ended it:

• 1930: Warner Bros. Theatres takes over from Manos Enterprises as talking pictures push out vaudeville.
• 1973: Pittsburgh's Cinemette Theatres buys the Manos and closes it when the company opens a multiplex at Westmoreland Mall.
• 1977: Local businessman Carl V. Marinelli and partner Adelaide DelVitto buy the building and rename it The Palace Theatre.
• Late 1980s to 1990: Facing a demolition threat, community leaders rally, and the theater is sold to the Greensburg Garden and Civic Center, which later became the Westmoreland Cultural Trust.

The mall multiplex took the movies away. Live shows replaced them, starting with acts like an up-and-coming Gloria Estefan & The Miami Sound Machine. Almost half a century later, film is back in the room.

The Projectors Never Left

Four antique projectors still sit high above the stage, and the original silver screen is still in the building. For decades the Palace didn't need either one. One of the original 35mm projectors remains in the projectionist booth.

The centennial changed that. In June, TribLive reported that movies would play at the theater again, starting with "The Wizard of Oz" on July 11. The Trust named the program "Experience the Silver Screen: Celebrating a Century of Cinema." It pairs each screening with historic tours, giveaways, themed drinks and other activities. Programming and production director Matt Starry told TABLE Magazine the events were made "a little bit more alluring" for history buffs, and he described opening and closing the grand curtains during the backstage tours.

What Is Left on the Century of Cinema Calendar

"The Wizard of Oz," "Jaws" and "Grease" have already played. Three films remain on the Trust's series page, and each lands on a holiday-weekend date.

All three are rated PG, so the screenings suit Mayor Bell's Saturday-morning tradition more than a night-out crowd. The October screening also brings back a 1984 film whose cast includes Bill Murray, who played the Palace stage with the blues band The Blood Brothers.

The series isn't the only film on the building's fall calendar. The Palace's events page lists two screenings of "Clue" on October 10 in remembrance of Tim Curry. On October 17 at 7:30 p.m., the stage goes back to live music for the Westmoreland Symphony Orchestra's "Music of the Knights." The Capitol Fools show listed for October 28 is marked cancelled.

What to Look For Before the Lights Go Down

Because the series includes tours, the building gets as much attention as the film, and several details have changed or been added this year.

The ticket booth. The Manos name still appears high on the exterior and atop the restored ticket booth. As of September 2, that booth also holds a time capsule with dozens of pieces of memorabilia. A plaque on the booth says it will be opened September 2, 2076.

The murals. Theater muralist Louis Grell painted the murals on both sides of the hall from French fairy tales, and they were restored in the late 1990s. A third mural is hidden above the proscenium, and Trust CEO Benjamin Luczak said in June that he hopes ongoing restoration will eventually reveal it. No report so far says it has been uncovered.

The chandeliers. "I just love walking in and seeing the old chandeliers," Luczak told TribLive.

The floor under your feet. At the September party, Luczak showed a sample of the carpet to be installed throughout the theater "in a couple months." That puts the change close to the November and December screenings. He said $3.5 to $4 million has gone into the building over the past three years through grant and reserve funding.

Megan's Suite. The connecting building that once housed Strand Sweets is now Megan's Suite, a space for guests to socialize and get a drink during a show. A small outdoor courtyard sits where a neighboring building used to be.

The Hours Around the Show

Luczak describes the Palace's role downtown in plain terms:

"We are the main economic driver to downtown Greensburg after 4 o'clock. We're really, really proud of that."

A study by the nonprofit Fourth Economy backs that up for 2024. That year the Palace stage hosted 120 performances attended by more than 90,000 guests, for an economic impact of more than $8.5 million. Luczak added that on show nights, when the lights outside are blinking, activity picks up around town.

The Trust keeps a dining guide for Palace visitors. Three places on it work well with a screening:

• 3 Stone Merchant, 25 W. Otterman St., right next door to the theater.
• J Corks, 25 E. Pittsburgh St., which lists meal hours and online ordering on its site.
• The Headkeeper Tapas Bar, 618 S. Main St., which the Trust specifically recommends for a casual meal before or after a show. Its site says it opens daily at 3 p.m. and takes dinner reservations.

Two nights before Ghostbusters, downtown has another evening on the calendar. The Greensburg Night Market runs Thursday, October 29, from 5:30 to 9 p.m. on South Pennsylvania Avenue. The Palace stands on the same avenue's north side, at the corner of West Otterman Street and North Pennsylvania Avenue.

Tickets and details for the last three screenings are on the Century of Cinema page. The final one, "A Christmas Story," plays on December 20.

If you have your own Palace memories, from the Manos years or from last month's Grease screening, Elizabeth Bires would love to hear them. She has spent nearly two decades helping families settle into Westmoreland County, and the places a town holds on to for a hundred years are part of what she shares with them. Let's Connect.