Walter Reade

Walter Reade
Born	(1883-04-28)April 28, 1883 Selma, Alabama
Died	February 5, 1952(1952-02-05) (aged 68) Manhattan, New York
Occupation(s)	Businessman, movie theater owner
Spouse	Gertrude Blumberg
Children	Walter Reade, Jr. Suzanne Reade Gage
Relatives	Oscar Hammerstein I (uncle) Willie Hammerstein (cousin) Arthur Hammerstein (cousin) Oscar Hammerstein II (cousin) Elaine Hammerstein (cousin) Stella Hammerstein (cousin)

Walter Reade (1883 – 1952) was a businessman, theatre impresario, and cinema magnate, and a member of the prominent Hammerstein family of American theatre. After managing several of his uncle Oscar's vaudeville houses in New York, he pioneered the construction of movie theaters throughout New York and New Jersey. He also played an influential role, both economically and politically, in the transition of Asbury Park, New Jersey from a Methodist temperance resort to a secular amusement resort.

Early life

Walter Reade was born Walter Rosenberg on April 28, 1883 in Selma, Alabama. His father, Henry Rosenberg, immigrated to the United States from Westphalia, Germany in 1866. Henry operated a saddlery in Selma. Reade’s mother, Anna Hammerstein Rosenberg, immigrated to the United States from Szczecin, Pomerania in what was then Germany in the late 1860s. Anna’s brother, Oscar Hammerstein I, had already immigrated to New York and would soon be responsible for transforming Times Square into the epicenter of the American theatre industry. The Rosenbergs moved to New York in 1890, and Henry went to work for his brother-in-law, managing several theatres, including the Columbus, the Metropolis, and the Harlem Opera House.

After he finished high school, Walter Rosenberg worked briefly as a traveling necktie salesman, and later as a leather goods wholesaler. With $350, he opened a roller-skating rink in a National Guard armory in Manhattan. He convinced the landlord to forgo the rent for the first three weeks of operation, and he convinced a contractor to install a $7000 hardwood floor by promising to pay him after the business started. The rink was an instant success, and Rosenberg took in $1000 a day for the first two years. Within a year, he was operating 15 rinks throughout the New York City area, earning $500,000 by 1901.

First Motion Picture Ventures

Rosenberg sold off several of his rinks in 1901 and used the revenue to lease Fehrs’ Opera House in Port Chester, New York. Convinced of the profitability of the then-new motion-picture industry, he began showing movies there. He followed up by leasing Hoyt’s Opera House in Norwalk, Connecticut and Homans’ Mount Vernon Theatre in Mount Vernon, New York.

In December 1909, Rosenberg negotiated a five-year lease with Klaw & Erlanger for the right to show motion pictures on the roof of the New York Theatre (built by his uncle Oscar in 1895 as the Olympia Theatre) except during the summer. The initial season was a success, and Rosenberg presumed the lease would be extended to the following winter. Klaw & Erlanger, however, cancelled the contract because Rosenberg had violated it by showing vaudeville acts a well as movies.

In 1910, he leased the Savoy Theatre on 34th Street from Frank McKee and showed motion pictures. .

In 1928, Reade purchased the Columbia Theatre, a burlesque house on the southwest corner of Seventh Avenue and 47th Street in Times Square. He continued to operate it as a burlesque house until 1930, when he hired Thomas Lamb to convert it into a 2,300-seat movie theater, renamed The Mayfair. R.K.O. signed a 20-year lease to operate the Mayfair, but broke the lease in 1933. Reade took over management of the theatre, and featured, among other films, the only United States screening of the anti-Nazi Hitler's Reign of Terror.

Asbury Park

In 1904, theater impresario James B. Delcher suggested Rosenberg invest in the burgeoning resort town of Asbury Park, New Jersey. In 1907, Rosenberg signed a three-year lease to operate a vaudeville theatre inside the Casino on the boardwalk.As the end of Rosenberg’s lease neared, the town’s beach commission proposed converting the Casino into a convention hall. In response, Rosenberg proposed building a pier immediately south of the casino and over the ocean on which he would have built a 2,200-seat theatre. Before the commission could vote on the idea, Rosenberg withdrew his proposal and announced that he would instead build a new theatre on a downtown plot owned by Dr. Hugh S. Kinmonth.

In July of 1910, Rosenberg purposely violated Asbury Park’s prohibition against showing movies on Sunday. He told the trade paper Variety that as long as the city’s Beach Commission sponsored band concerts on Sunday, he should have the right to show movies.

Name change

In October 1919, both Rosenberg and his wife legally changed their shared surname from Rosenberg to Reade.

Monte Carlo Pool

In January 1942, Reade announced plans to build an enormous swimming-pool complex on the oceanfront in Asbury Park, across the street from the boardwalk. The Monte Carlo swimming pool and recreation center opened June 28, 1942. Its main pool measured 240 feet by 175 feet and held 1.3 million gallons of saltwater pumped in from the ocean. It was 5 inches at its shallowest point and 5 feet 8 inches at its deepest. On the north end of the complex was a 60X30, 9-foot deep diving pool. The complex also contained a 16-inch deep children’s wading pool.

Personal Life

Walter Rosenberg married 20-year-old Gertrude Blumberg at New York’s Biltmore Hotel on February 10, 1916. The couple had a daughter, Suzanne, and a son, Walter, Jr. Both followed their father into the family business, and Walter Reade, Jr. took over management of the Walter Reade Organization after his father’s death.

Oscar Hammerstein I was Reade’s maternal grandfather. Theatrical managers Arthur Hammerstein and William Hammerstein were two of Reade’s uncles, and William Hammerstein’s son, the librettist Oscar Hammerstein II, was one of Reade’s cousins. Along with Andrew Paul Keith, E.F. Albee, Marcus Loew, and William Morris, Reade served as a pallbearer at William Hammerstein’s funeral in June 1914.

Reade kept apartments in both Asbury Park and New York. In 1936, he purchased Bel-Aire Farm, an estate in the Oakhurst section of Ocean Township, New Jersey. He renamed the estate’s house “Mayfair” and used it as his family’s primary summer home. After Reade’s death in 1952, his son converted the house into the primary offices of the Walter Reade Organization. The Reade family sold the house in 1978 to the Synagogue of West Deal, who converted it into a house of worship. It was demolished and replaced with a new synagogue in 1991. At the end of his life, Reade lived with his wife in an apartment adjoining the Park Avenue Theatre.

Philanthropy

In the 1920s, Reade created a charity funded by a percentage of his theaters’ ticket sales. Beneficiaries included the Asbury Park Hospital, the Monmouth Memorial Hospital, the Federation for the Support of Jewish Philanthropies, the Child Welfare Association, the Elks, the Ann May Hospital, and the Monmouth County Organization for Social Service.

Reputation

Reade had a reputation as a gambler and philanderer. He was known to be a client of infamous madam Polly Adler, at whose brothel he celebrated after winning $70,000 from the Jack Dempsey-Jack Sharkey fight at Yankee Stadium in July 1927. , Reade also developed a reputation for pugnaciousness, which he readily played up in the press. In 1909, when Klaw & Erlanger cancelled their contract with Reade (then still Walter Rosenberg) to show movies on the roof of the New York Theatre, he responded by gathering some 20 men and occupying the roof garden by force. Klaw & Erlanger sent a group of their own men, including a young Tim Mara, to remove them, and a melee ensued. Mara and Leonard Bergman, treasurer of the Liberty Theatre, were both charged with assault. .

In 1932, advertising executive Herbert Paul Field filed a $250,000 lawsuit accusing Reade of luring away Field’s wife, Helen. Field hired a private investigator named Nathan Hirsh to dig up dirt on Reade’s relationship with Mrs. Field. Reade claimed in court that he went to Frances, the Manhattan clothing store Helen Field managed, and encountered Hirsh, who demanded $250 to divulge the information he found. Reade testified that he replied, “I won’t pay you $250, but I’ll pay you this” before punching Hirsh and dragging him to the East 51st Street police station to bring extortion charges (but with no evidence, he never did). Field’s suit was eventually dismissed.

In July 1933, Deal mayor Aaron Bach threatened to arrest Reade and his son for sitting on the beach without tops (which was not illegal). Reade angrily cursed at Bach, who charged Reade with using obscene language. In court, Reade apologized to Bach, who in turn dropped the charges.