Category:Boyd Theater, Allentown, Pennsylvania

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Object location40° 36′ 07″ N, 75° 28′ 34″ W Kartographer map based on OpenStreetMap.View all coordinates using: OpenStreetMapinfo
<nowiki>Boyd Theatre; Boyd Theatre; Boyd Theatre; Boyd Theatre; former movie theater in Allentown, Pennsylvania, United States; antiguo cine de Allentown, Pensilvania, Estados Unidos; ehemaliges Kino in Allentown, Pennsylvania, USA; ancienne salle de cinéma à Allentown, Pennsylvanie, États-Unis; New Pergola Theatre; Embassy Theatre</nowiki>
Boyd Theatre 
former movie theater in Allentown, Pennsylvania, United States
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LocationAllentown, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania
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  • 28 N. 9th Street, Allentown, PA 18101
Map40° 36′ 07″ N, 75° 28′ 33.08″ W
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The Boyd was grand 1920s cinema in Allentown, Pennsylvania located at 28 North Ninth Street.

The origins of the Boyd go back to the Pergola theater, located at the Northwest corner of Ninth and Hamilton Streets. The Pergola was the second-oldest movie theater in the city, opening in 1908. It was very popular, being developed basically from a penny arcade and bowling alley. It showed movies at first on a wall, with some seats for people to sit down and watch them for a nickle. How the term "Nickelodeon" came about. The first color films to be shown in Allentown were shown at the Pergola. It later was expanded with extra seats and became more of a movie theater, however the sounds of bowling pins could still be heard as it was an amusement center.

In the late 1920s when Harry Trexler and his partners in the PP&L wanted to build the PPL Tower at Ninth and Hamilton streets, the Pergola theater along with some other buildings were purchased and forced to close in 1926. John Bowen, who owned the Pergola was a successful merchant on Hamilton Street and the Pergola was a popular theater. He decided to build a "New Pergola" theater along North Ninth Street with the money he received from Trexler for the Pergola. At the same time, he built a new, larger location for his business, a grocery store, which was the largest in Allentown at the time. That was built next to the new movie theater, along with a warehouse to store retail goods for the store.

Bowen spent lavishly on the construction of the New Pergola theater. It was built as a silent movie theater, and was the fourth largest theater (1,008 seats) in Allentown, behind the State, Rialto and Colonial Theaters. The New Pergola had a large balcony for seating with the main floor seating. It also had a stage for vaudeville shows. When it opened the New Pergola shared its films with the Nedsen (later Allen) Theater which was also owned by Bowen. When it opened on December 6th, 1927 it had a full house, it was quite ornate inside with a purple and gold interior. It had very comfortable seats, a thick rug and a large lobby and refreshment stand. It was indeed, a grand theater in the descriptions made by the newspaper writers at the time who described it. Bowen had arranged for the new theater to receive Hollywood films from Fox and Warner Brothers. The fortunes of the Bowen family, however were fading in the late 1920s, and they had to sell their theater investments.

The New Pergola theater was sold in 1928 to the Alexander R Boyd theater chain from Philadelphia, who also owned the Bethlehem and the Easton Boyd. Boyd upgraded the theater by adding a Western Electric sound system so it could show the new "Talking" sound films, and renamed the theater as "The Embassy" in August 1928. The Boyd chain also had a lease on the smaller Strand Theater on North Eighth Street, but did not own it. The New Pergola offered them larger audiences, was much more ornate, and was basically brand-new. In the beginning the Embassy shared its newspaper advertising with the Strand. The theater was renamed the "Boyd" in November 1938 to align it with the rest of the A R Boyd chain. In 1940 the Boyd chain also ended it's lease with the Strand as well.

Throughout its lifetime, the Boyd was a very successful cinema, showing first-run Hollywood films for decades and kept up with the larger Wilmer and Vincent theaters along Hamilton Street such as the Colonial and Rialto. It was modified over the years to show widescreen CinemaScope films, and also films with stereo sound. 3-D films were also shown at the Boyd. The theater had a policy over the years that significant blockbuster major films were presented at night by seat reservation only, although open seating was offered during matinees which normally began at 1:00pm

The theater also had a very advantageous location, essentially being next door to the Hess Brothers department store and was in the prime area of the Allentown Central Business District. The Boyd was also successful despite the television-era that closed several other theaters in Allentown in the early 1950s, and benefited from the Park & Shop cooperative that was formed after World War II, as it provided validated parking to theatergoers. Some of Hamilton Streets best restaurants were located within walking distance, and a 24-hour diner opened next door in 1960.

In March 1970, the A R Boyd theater chain was ordered liquidated by the courts due to the death of Frank W Buhler, the last owner of the chain in May 1969. Buhler had taken over management of the chain with the passing of his partners Alexander Boyd and Louis Goldsmith in 1962.

With the Boyd Chain's dissolution, the Allentown Boyd, along with the Boyd theaters in Bethlehem and Eastern were ordered to be sold. The Allentown Boyd was subsequently purchased by Pennsylvania Power & Light in April 1970 who planned to raise the theater and replace it with an office building. Ironically, it was the purchase of the Boyd Theater, along with other properties in the block behind the PPL tower which kept PP&L headquarters in Allentown. The opportunity for the utility to expand in downtown Allentown was a deciding factor, as it was planning on moving outside the city and building a new headquarters campus that allowed expansion.

After the sale to PP&L, The theater began to wind down and began to show some old major Hollywood blockbusters that had been shown at the Boyd and other Allentown theaters in years past, in a form of a farewell to the city. It's last film was "Gone With The Wind", that was shown at the beginning of June, 1970. Its closing night was June 10th, 1970 when it locked its doors for the last time. It was a successful theater throughout its lifetime.

The theater met its fate in the Summer of 1971 and became a memory.

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