Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
The marquee displayed on the historic Loew‘s Jersey theater up until a few weeks ago may not have been the original, but it was the theater‘s most longstanding ― an enduring, iconic symbol of a time when Journal Square was the center of Jersey City’s universe.
For 75 years, it was the signage that greeted everyone who passed through Jersey City’s Journal Square since the 1950s. Now, the historic sign is history.
Construction crews working on a $105 million project to convert the theater into an A-list entertainment venue sliced it into pieces over the past few weeks as they began its removal.
The plan to take down the large, rectangular sign wasn’t new. The theater ― which hosted everything from performances from huge stars to community holiday parties since it opened nearly 100 years ago ― will feature a new digital marquee will replicate the original 1929 sign.
The entertainment venue is one part of the massive Journal Square makeover that includes neck-straining skyscrapers and the controversial Pompidou modern art museum project. This isn‘t your grandfather’s, or even your father’s, Journal Square any longer.
Surprised. Depressed. Stunned. Local preservationists say they’ve gone through every emotion.
They say the decision to destroy, rather than salvage, the marquee ― which featured a letterboard sandwiched between “Jersey Loew’s” in neon cursive neon letters ― is an alarming step in the renovation and a potential warning sign that the building’s history isn’t being adequately considered.
“When you see construction workers smashing the Loew’s name into bits … even if you’re not from Jersey City or if you’re not a preservationist, you’ve got to stop and wonder what’s wrong here,” said John Gomez, a board member of the Jersey City Landmarks Conservancy and a columnist for The Jersey Journal. “If you have a preservation heart you’ll stop and say, ‘What kind of city is this that’s allowing this to happen?’”
The city indicated that it never intended to salvage the marquee, saying that it wasn’t historic because it wasn’t the very original marquee.
It insisted that the proper care is being taken with the theater’s interior renovations, which are far less visible to both the public traversing the square and local preservationists.
“That is the purpose of this project — to restore and preserve every possible aspect of theater’s interior and exterior that is salvageable,” said city spokeswoman Kimberly Wallace-Scalcione. “This includes countless small, but important details such as the decorative filagree in the bathrooms.”
But to the preservationist community, the marquee is a part of Jersey City history that deserved to be saved, regardless of whether it was the very first marquee when the theater opened in 1929.
The renovations of the Loew’s will return the historic theater to regular public use, now as a live music venue operated by Devils Arena Entertainment, the same company that runs White Eagle Hall and Prudential Center. The deal was struck in 2021, with the Jersey City Redevelopment Agency contributing $7.5 million of the projected $72 million price tag, both numbers that have increased by the millions since then.
In recent years, the marquee’s white letterboard, bordered by light bulbs that illuminated from below, often displayed community messages. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Friends of the Loew’s put up an “in memoriam” for “Councilman Michael Yun and everyone else we have lost.”
It celebrated graduations when they could not be held in person. When it was still showing movies, the titles were available front and center for anyone passing on Kennedy Boulevard to read.
The theater is beloved for its history and elegance. At the time of its opening, movie palaces like the Loew’s — cavernous with chandeliers and stages — drew live entertainers like Duke Ellington in addition to screening new films. The Loew’s was one of five of its era that the Loew’s Corporation built in the tri-state area.
It had its final film screening in 1986 and was headed toward demolition before the non-profit Friends of the Loew’s saved it and proceeded to lease it from the city for decades, hosting occasional events and screenings.
The group, which performed painstaking preservation work and held programming at the theater since the 1990s, was given the opportunity to work with the redeveloper to save parts of the building, per a 2020 request for proposals when the Jersey City Redevelopment Agency was soliciting a redeveloper.
The city said Friends of the Loew’s had told the city exactly what it wanted preserved and that the city is preserving all of those items for the group, implying that the marquee was not included.
Friends of the Loew’s actually provided the city with two lists: one of loose items to be preserved before any construction work and another of pieces of the building itself that should be archived once they’re removed during construction, said Friends of the Loew’s Executive Director Colin Egan.
He declined to share whether the marquee was on the second list, but said he couldn’t say it lacks historic importance.
“That marquee has been the face of the Loew’s and an iconic presence in Journal Square for 75 years,” Egan said. “Everyone who knows the Loew’s and the Square knows it. So even though it’s not original to the theater, it has become historically important in its own way.”
The original marquee was arched over the doorways, with “Loew’s Jersey” at the center top and letterboards below. It stayed there, albeit with a slight alteration, for just 20 years before the second version was installed in 1949.
“That was typical for theaters in the post-war era,” Egan said. “They were often updating, modernizing.”
That marquee remained for the next 75 years, with the Friends of the Loew’s renovating it after some damage. The new marquee will be a digital reimaging of the original marquee.
Gomez said that though the preservationist community is angered by how the marquee’s removal was handled, he hopes that it can open a dialogue with the city about best practices moving forward.
“They have to make meaningful movements now like, ‘Hey, we’re going to reassure you that this was a one-off incident, it was a mistake, we take responsibility for the mistake, it won’t happen again and in fact we want you involved with us,’” Gomez said. “Now that’s a wish list I know, but the ball’s in their court. Now they need to show us that it won’t happen again.”
English