This memory is submitted by George Cerchiai, a retired member who got his start in Motion Picture Projectionists Local 640 on Long Island. George moved south and joined Motion Picture Projectionists Local 316 (Miami) in 1973. He later served for many years as business agent and then secretary-treasurer of Studio Mechanic Local 477 (State of Florida). George is a retired member of South Florida Stage Local 500 and a retired Special International Representative.

George Cerchiai at Louden Hall in Amityville, New York.

Louden Hall in Amityville, New York, was a private home for the “mentally enfeebled” from the early 1900s through 1963. It had a small movie theater, built in 1930. My stepfather Albra “Pop” Adams installed the Western Electric sound system and Super Simplex 35mm projectors which were capable of running turntable discs or sound on film. Peerless brand low intensity carbon arc lamps were used for the light source. The film magazines were made of cast iron. The theater ran a newsreel, cartoon, and feature every Thursday at 2:00pm, from the mid-1930s until 1963. The equipment only ran two hours per week for 33 years.

“Pop” became a permit man at Local 640, and taught me how to operate the equipment at Louden Hall when I was 12 years old. I started operating the booth on my own in 1957, at the age of 13, and continued until the theater was closed six years later.

Pop Albans on the last day he worked the Louden Hall projection booth in 1957.

A few years ago, I took a trip back to Amityville with my high school friend, Thomas Sprague, and two of my sons for a school reunion. At that time, Tom was a retired Local 51 Business Agent. After the reunion was over, we went to Louden Hall, now the Brunswick Hospital Center, to see if the theater was still there.

It was not only still there, it looked as if no time had passed. We parked in front of the theater. It was raining, and I was the only one who was willing to get out of the car. The theater’s front door was locked. I started looking for the administration building when a nurse holding an umbrella came walking around the corner of the theater. I asked the nurse for directions. She put her arm around my shoulder and said, “I’ll take you there.” I glanced over to my car and everyone in it was laughing — they thought that the nurse assumed I was a patient that got lost! I explained that I worked there over fifty years ago and wanted to show the projection room to my friend and sons.

George Cerchiai running the projection booth at age 14.

The receptionist didn’t realize that the building was ever a theater. It was now being used as a meeting room for interventions and there were plans for the building to be converted to doctor’s offices. The hospital was very accommodating, and the head security guard opened the theater and unlocked the projection room door. He escorted us up the steep and narrow stairway to the projection booth and turned on the lights.

Even though the booth hadn’t been used since 1963, the equipment sat exactly the way that I left it over fifty years ago. Even the pliers that I used to change hot carbons were still sitting on top of the Peerless lamp in the very spot I had placed them.

The projection booth was slated to be demolished within a year. I negotiated with Brunswick’s administrators for the acquisition of the booth equipment by the non-profit Coral Gables Art Cinema and Museum in Miami. The museum’s President, Steven Krams, is also the President of Magna-Tech Electronics Co., Inc., which specializes in the design and supply of audio and video systems on a global basis.