Detailed Information

In the mid-1920s, the Paramount-Public theatre chain had plans to build four movie palaces in the major residential areas surrounding Manhattan: Brooklyn, Queens, Jersey City, and The Bronx. As a result of the 1925 agreement between the Loew’s and Paramount-Publix theatre chains not to trade in each other’s home territories, the plans for building the four theatres transferred to Loew’s and they added a fifth theatre to the plan, in upper Manhattan.

The five opulent movie palaces would go on to become known as the Loew’s “Wonder Theatres”, a moniker which appears to have come from the “Wonder Morton” theatre organs that were commissioned for each of the theatres. The Loew’s Valencia in Queens was the first of the five Loew’s Wonder Theatres , the others being:

• The Paradise Theatre in The Bronx, also designed by theatre architect John Eberson.
• The Kings Theatre  in Brooklyn.
• Loew’s Jersey Theatre  in Jersey City.
• 175th St Theatre in Washington Heights, now known as the United Palace Theatre .

In 1976, rumors circulated that Loew’s was considering closing the Valencia. That threat brought an outcry from residents of Jamaica and Queens. Various plans for the theatre’s reuse were proposed: among others, the Greater Jamaica Development Corporation suggested its conversion into a cultural center and a permanent home for the Queens Symphony Orchestra.

In 1977, Loew’s closed the Valencia and donated it to the Tabernacle of Prayer for All People, a church congregation formerly located in Brooklyn. In an interview that year its pastor, Rev. Johnnie Washington described the gift as “a miracle, a gift from God. A miracle at a time when miracles are not supposed to happen”.

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