History

North Tonawanda in 1926 was a prosperous industrial city at the junction of the Erie Canal and the Niagara River, its economy built on the lumber trade that had made it one of the largest lumber centers in the United States in the late nineteenth century. By the 1920s, the lumber industry had declined but North Tonawanda retained its commercial vitality, and local theater operators built the Riviera to serve a working-class and middle-class audience hungry for the escapist fantasy that movie palaces were uniquely equipped to provide.

The atmospheric interior — with its painted sky ceiling, stucco walls suggesting outdoor arcades, and the original Wurlitzer pipe organ that accompanied silent films and later served vaudeville and variety programs — created a theatrical environment that transcended the modesty of its location. Unlike the great movie palaces of Buffalo or New York, the Riviera was built for a smaller city on a more intimate scale, but its ambition matched that of its larger counterparts.

The theater faced the same pressures of mid-twentieth-century decline that closed most American movie palaces. The Riviera was saved by a community organization — the Riviera Theatre and Organ Preservation Society — that took on responsibility for the building’s restoration and operation. The restoration of the original atmospheric interior, including the Wurlitzer organ, has made the Riviera one of the most authentically preserved atmospheric theaters in the Northeast.