-- Winter 2005 Edition --

The Hyway Theater    A Fair Lawn Resident, on Fair Lawn's Discussion Forum, recently asked about Fair Lawn's own Hyway Theater (which originally had only one screen with over 1,000 seats). He wrote "I went there about 10 years ago and haven't been back since. It wasn't horrible but it wasn't very nice either. Also, on Route 4, was David's Bridal a movie theater at one time?"   A Concerned Parent replied "Yes, the Hyway Theatre used to be nice. I used to go to he Saturday matinee almost every week while in junior high in the late 60's. Also, I believe David's Bridal used to be a high end restaurant for the time named "The Steak Pit" at one point in time. Was a "hot" spot to go after proms. In my day the senior prom was still held in the high school gym." Principessa Mama wrote that "Blockbuster and that whole strip of stores was a bowling alley."   Then, Raymond St. Resident wrote: I worked in the Hyway Theatre from 1974 through the early 1980's. If you went on a Sunday evening, I was the box office cashier. That was back when the box office was still outside on the street. The back part of it had counters like the front, from the old days when you could get reserve seats for movies, and I did all my college term papers in there, between shows.   I worked there the night George C. Scott came and did a presentation for his movie "The Savage is Loose". I wasn't supposed to be working, but they were short handed when I came in, so I was assigned the duty of making sure Mr. Scott wasn't mobbed when he needed to use the men's room by guarding the door while an usher escorted him. I remember him being very polite about how we had to deal with the crowd.   Bill Leff, who was the manager for the theatre back then, was an old comedy writer. His big client was Henny Youngman, but he also wrote for Charlie Callas, Jack Albertson, Bebe Anderson and a lot of others. Henny used to call all the time, and stop by to visit, as did Charlie Callas who was living in Fort Lee at the time. One night, someone told him about my nasty cat, Ignatz, and he came over and started exchanging "bad cat" stories -- he hated cats but his wife had adopted a kitten and the kitten had adopted him. A few weeks later, he's on the Tonight Show, telling stories about "his" cat, Ignatz. I think he stills owes me royalties.   When I worked at the Hyway, it was still a single screen, and the cast of characters that worked there was probably more interesting than most of the stuff we showed. There was Harry Frumowitz the doorman, Hank DeHaan the other doorman, Bill Leff's assistant Sy Terminello (his wife owned the "adult" theater in Passaic), and all the minions, some of whom I still hear from. There was a teenage Brooke Shields and her dad who used to come in,and be carefully hidden so they could leave in peace. There was the Night someone passed a counterfeit twenty at the box office, and the Fair Lawn police surrounded all the exits to try to catch the guy that did it - they missed him, and my boyfriend and I found several hundred dollars in fake bills scattered on the floor when we cleaned up later (and yes, we turned them in!). There was the fire in the A/C the night the Hindenberg was playing to a full house when people refused to leave even when the Fair Lawn Fire Department told them to go. There were the mice - many, many mice. The fire across the street at Glen Rock Lumber that trapped all of us and the movie patrons that had parked in the lot until the wee hours of the morning.   One more thing. The Hyway is supposed to be haunted. Shortly after the original opening, a man working in the basement was killed in a boiler explosion. We used to never go down into the basement alone because, over the years, all sorts of strange things had happened down there. We frequently heard footsteps in the inner lobby late at night, and doors would open and close - particularly the men's room because the door to the basement was through it. When I worked there, at the end of the candy stand was an old payphone booth. The door would close as you walked up to it, and open when you walked away. Bill was calling NJ Bell constantly to find out what was going on with it, but no one ever found out why. The door would act normal every time a repairman came. When the theater was remodeled, Bill had them remove the booth.