2005.006

Staff / Produced by

Produced by Staff

Museum Collection.

Hoboken Historical Museum

1989

English

Copy No.: 0

Display Value: Fair Notes: Accompanying an order for the theatre history was a letter from lifetime member Florence Grogan Maupai of Washington, NJ with first-hand reminisces of theatre and movies in Hoboken. Ms Maupai recalls The Palace theatre (1913-1936) at 116 Washington Street, when it was nearing its last years and was called "The Hole in the Wall." Across at 107-109 (now the Washington Savings Bank parking lot), was the Rivoli, where she recalls seeing "Seventh Heaven" with Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell. Gaynor won an Academy Award for her role as the sweetheart of a [from page [3]; the original letter is not in the Museum collections] Parisian waif who worked in the sewers. "Seventh Heaven" was the picture of the year. Hetty Green, the so-called "Witch of Wall Street," once lived in a flat above the Rivoli, or "Bagelmann's Hall," as it was called before it became a movie house. Although Hetty was at the time (1909) the richest and perhaps the most penurious and financially greedy woman in America, she would be seen thriftily poking through trash cans along Washington Street and elsewhere in Hoboken. She later lived in the "Yellow Flats" at 12th and Washington. Florence Maupai's mother, Marcella Weadt Grogan, was an usherette at the Lyric where ushers were required to wear costumes appropriate to the show on stage. For many years the Lyric was on Hudson Street near Hudson Place. Its site is now a parking lot next to the former Hotel Victor. Florence never had a chance to ask if she was related to Hoboken mayor John Grogan, as her mother died when Florence was only eleven years old. Status: OK Status By: dw Status Date: 2005-05-13