Capitol Theatre – 2025

220 West Dominck Street, Rome, NY

In February and March of 1928, the site was cleared, and construction was begun on the new Capitol Theatre—a 2,000-seat edifice which was to become Rome’s first run movie house.  Designs of the Capitol were drafted by Leon R. Lempert, Jr. of Buffalo, NY., whom the Comerfords used frequently.  Lempert, also no stranger to Rome (he and his father had designed the Washington Street Opera House and the Lyric Theatre), designed the building to the then state-of-the-art standards of both luxury and safety.  A Thanksgiving 1928 opening was planned, but a Pennsylvania steel strike held up construction, and the actual opening occurred on December 10, 1928, with Joseph Kallet as the Managing Director of the theater. 

Opening as Rome’s first theater with the ability to play the new sound movies, the initial program included a newsreel, two Vitaphone shorts, and the First National feature, Lilac Time, starring Colleen Moore and Gary Cooper.  The Capitol’s impressive seven-rank Möller theatre organ was used that night to provide entrance and exit music, to accompany the newsreel, and to lead the audience sing-a-long. (Though Lilac Time had no dialogue, it was released with a track of music and sound effects.) 

What visitors to the Capitol saw during the theater’s first decade has dramatically changed since.  Originally designed with a Spanish-Moroccan theme, the interior of the Capitol was painted in tones of terra-cotta, brown, gold, blues and red. The lighting system, including the theater’s trademark octagonal dome, was on a three-color lighting system that could be controlled by projection booth or on stage in combinations of red, yellow and blue light.  Bejeweled lighting fixtures flanked the ceiling and walls, while the mezzanine foyer was decorated with mirrored fixtures with lighting effects that gave one the feeling of being on a Spanish patio in Old Spain.

Theater styles changed rapidly over the next decade.  In 1939, a mere 11 years later, Capitol received a modernistic face-lift that is preserved to this day.  The plasterwork stayed the same, but new paintwork in modernistic geometric designs in hues of yellow, green, orange, red, gold and silver flank the Capitol walls and ceiling.  Modernistic lighting fixtures, made by the Moe Bridges Lighting Co. of Milwaukee, WI, replaced the original sconces and chandeliers, and are still lit to this day.  A green and gold herringbone patterned wall fabric lined the walls of the auditorium and mezzanine. For the mezzanine foyer, chairs and sofas were created especially for the Capitol by famed furniture-maker Warren McArthur.

With the seating re-configured in the orchestra section in the 1950s, and some seat removal in the ‘80s to accommodate handicapped patrons, the house now seats 1,788.

In 2003 the Capitol’s original Möller theater organ was put back into working order and the following year a series of silent films with organ accompaniment was initiated.  Since that time world-renown silent movie musicians such as Dr. Philip C. Carli, Avery Tunningley, Bernie Anderson, Dennis James, and Robert Israel have accompanied movies from the console.  The Capitol’s 1952 projectors continue to serve their purpose well, and since 2007 a pair of mint-condition, water-cooled 1965 Ashcraft carbon arc lamps have taken their place in the booth—helping to make the Capitol a prime destination for classic movie lovers.

(A more comprehensive look at the history of the Capitol Theatre is available at their website HERE. )