JERSEY CITY — In a city full of churches, it stands alone, a once-grand and imposing cathedral.

Atop its roof, a valiant St. George waits, ready for another battle with the dragon. Inside, a crystal chandelier hangs from a dizzyingly high ceiling. Hollow footsteps echo across cold, bare floors.

But these are not the footfalls of vanished ghosts, and the memories being made are new.

The Landmark Loew's Jersey Theatre is open for business.

Still.

After more than 80 years, it bears the scars of time. Most of the seats in the balcony are gone. A tiled pond, once home to sparkling goldfish, is dry and broken. Lonely niches ache for long-gone statues.

But it shows the marks of love, too. Those balcony seats are being slowly, painstakingly restored. Men’s and ladies’ lounges now boast couches and vanities. Musicians still perform on its stage and, most weekends, the old projectors start up and classic movies flicker on its silver screen.

Outside, of course, it is Jersey City, 2013 — with all the challenges, conflicts and confusion that come with inner cities, changing demographics and the rough-and-tumble sport known as Hudson County politics.

But inside? Inside it’s still a golden picture palace, and forever 1929.

Behind the scenes at Loews Jersey City 22 Gallery: Behind the scenes at Loews Jersey City

A GOLDEN AGE

For the past 40 years or so, going to the movies has had all the glamour of sitting in a bus terminal. But it was different, once.

"The theater was an integral part of the show — the opening act, really," says Colin Egan, the executive director of the nonprofit Friends of the Loew’s. "The idea was to make the most opulent setting possible — and then market that to working people as a place where, for a couple of hours, they could feel like kings and queens."

"I grew up in the Journal Square area, the son of a policeman," says Lee Pfeiffer, who now lives in Piscataway and is the co-founder of the magazine Cinema Retro. "And, even in the '60s, going to the movies was still an affordable, wonderful experience. The Loew's, the Stanley, the State — they had grandeur."

It was the big studios that built most of the picture palaces, dedicated to their own films. The Loew’s — or LOW-eeze, depending on your age and neighborhood — were largely reserved for MGM’s lavish productions, boasting "more stars than there are in heaven."

And, as the sound era got underway in the late ’20s, Loew’s decided to outdo itself with the deliberately over-the-top Wonder Theatres. One each was announced for Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens; the fifth was earmarked for Jersey City.

"They had just opened a Loew's in Newark in, I think, 1928, so Jersey City was the next best thing, and a great location," says movie historian and preservationist Ron Hutchinson of Piscataway. "It was right across from the train station, close to New York, so all the acts could come over – Burns and Allen, Cab Calloway, whoever."

Because you didn’t just get a movie for your 15 cents. You didn’t even get two movies. You got two movies, and a newsreel, and maybe a short and a cartoon. Plus an organ recital. And a stage show.

The Loews Jersey City, the motion picture palace of Journal Square in Jersey City.

"Bing Crosby played here in 1934," Egan says. "Frank Sinatra was in the audience – he’d caught the trolley from Hoboken – and that was the day he decided he was going to be a singer."

Through the ‘30s and ‘40s, theaters like the Loew’s provided escapism to people who desperately needed it. But new anti-trust laws forced the studios to sell off their picture palaces. Then came TV. And the suburbs, with their strip malls and newer, smaller theaters.

The grand old places – with their vast public spaces and armies of ushers – cut back, bit by bit. Finally, they even cut into the theaters itself, "triplexing" them into three separate screens, three separate chances to sell tickets to movies nobody wanted to see.

And eventually – sometime after a screening of a "Friday the 13th" sequel – the Loew’s projectors stopped. St. George – who once did regular battle as part of the theater’s famous rooftop clock – surrendered. The big brass doors shut.

"The theater finally closed in 1987," says Egan, a Union City kid who remembers when a trip to the theater was an event. "And then one day I was stopped at a red light with a friend, and I looked over and I said, ‘You know, it’s a shame they’re going to tear that down without a fight.’ And my friend said, ‘Well there’s a hearing coming up – you want to go?’"

THE NEXT PICTURE SHOW

A PR consultant, writer and teacher, Egan didn’t know a lot about preserving historic buildings, at first. Neither did most of the people who slowly banded around him. But they began to fight, and their first victory was to gain access so they could at least patch the roof, to keep the pigeons out.

The Loews Jersey City, the motion picture palace of Journal Square in Jersey City.

Eventually, in 1993, Jersey City finally purchased the building; the New Jersey Register of Historic Places landmarked it. The newly formed Friends of the Loew’s signed a lease and took over operations, clearing out dumpsters of debris and working to woo back residents.

"We wanted people to see what it was really like inside," Egan says. "And what they’d almost lost."

Jersey City had kicked in $1 million to start renovations, and another million came from the New Jersey Historic Trust. Since then the city has picked up the utilities bill, and other money has come from the Hudson County Open Space Trust Fund, some small corporate grants, private donations and ticket revenues (Egan says major funding promised by previous administrations never materialized).

But it’s never been enough. In Brooklyn, the Loew’s sister theater, the Kings, was recently approved for its own restoration; the estimate there is $70 million, and New York City and private interests are picking up the tab. Here in Journal Square, most of the work’s been paid for in folding money, and pushed along only by scrappy Jersey stubbornness.

Although Egan and Friends of the Loew’s president Pattie Giordan eventually began taking small salaries ("I like eating," he jokes) the couple worked for free for years. Dozens of hard-core volunteers continue to, donating time, talent and elbow grease – like the fellow who told Egan not to worry about that $250,000 he’d been quoted for fixing the hydraulics in the orchestra pit.

"He fixed it himself," Egan marvels, "with $37 worth of WD-40 and spray paint."

Other angels found their way to the Journal Square cathedral, too. Jersey City native Paul Citti, an organist at St. Aedan’s, now plays the theater’s Wonder Morton behemoth; Mitchell Dvoskin, a software developer from West Milford, runs its massive projectors, probably the last in the country still using blazing, carbon-arc lights.

Colin Egan in the projection room at Loews Jersey City, the motion picture palace of Journal Square in Jersey City.

Everyone does double duty. That nice woman behind the concession stand may have been refurbishing theater seats earlier that day; Bruno Berton, the "native Jersey boy" polishing the massive brass doors one hot weekday morning, is part of the committee choosing the films showing most weekends.

"I remember seeing ‘Forbidden Planet’ here, when it first came out," Berton says, his eyes going soft. "This place means something to me. It means something to all of us."

THE NEVERENDING STORY

There are, of course, drawbacks to a volunteer force. Not everyone comes with the necessary skills or unlimited time; as in the cathedrals of old, work stretches on. The massive pipe organ – which once sat in the Loew’s Paradise, in the Bronx – took years to reassemble. The second-floor seating is a work in progress.

It’s made some impatient, particularly those who’ve eagerly noticed the city’s new commercial space and condos, and hunger for a regional arts center. A refurbished Loew’s – particularly one featuring concerts and stage shows – could be a cultural magnet.

"Journal Square should be the jewel of Jersey City," insists Rich Boggiano, the area’s new councilman. "I’m going to have a meeting with Colin, with the Journal Square business people, see if we can get some grant money, see if we can get the Port Authority, Goldman Sachs to do something… I’m going to push very hard for the Loew’s. Why should people have to get on a train and go to New York City? Let them stay here, spend their money here."

New mayor Steve Fulop agrees.

"When that theater gets completed — and it is on our priority list — it will be part of the renaissance of Journal Square," predicts Fulop, who calls it "a huge asset, and a huge asset that’s been underappreciated." Still, he acknowledges, it will take millions to get the theater into "tip-top shape" – and as soon as he mentions money, he also starts talking intensely about "management groups," "metrics" and "stakeholders."

Less spoken about sometimes, though, is what’s kept the theater alive all these years, particularly after so many officials and developers had written it off. The Friends may not have a slick PowerPoint presentation at the ready. But they have a real commitment to this place, the only one of the fabled Wonder Theatres regularly showing the films it was made for.

Which may be why the community supports the non-profit Friends (the theater keeps a donation box by the door). And, in turn, why the Friends support the community, hosting charity events and high-school art shows. They’ve smartly moved beyond just movies, too, finding additional fans – and funds – by booking concerts and live theatre, opening up the space to festivals, renting it out for private events.

"My daughter had her wedding there," Hutchinson says. "She got married on the stage, with the organist playing, and then we had 150 people out in the lobby for a sit-down dinner, with an old movie-theme. Everyone loved it – that theater is a gem."

If the Loew’s Jersey City is the diamond of Journal Square, though, the setting is still a little scratched and twisted, and the work is daunting; one project only naturally leads to another.

Want to expand the screenings? Great, but you’ll need to buy a digital projector. Want to use the theater year-round? OK, but first you have to replace the air-conditioning. Almost finished restoring that balcony? Terrific – but before you actually open it up to patrons, there has to be a sprinkler system, and fire escapes and...

Looking around at all there’s left to do in this old picture palace, it’s sometimes hard to believe in a happy ending. But then you remember – oh yes. That’s right. This is where happy endings were made. And this is where people always went to believe.

IF YOU'RE INTERESTED

The Landmark Loew's Jersey City is at 54 Journal Square; their new classic-film series is scheduled to start September 27. For more information on the theater or volunteering, visit its site.