Lafayette Theatre (Suffern)

Its primary function is first-run movies, but it also houses special events like its popular weekly Big Screen Classics film shows.

De Rosa's concept was primarily Adamesque, but also with a combination of French and Italian Renaissance influences, subtly mixed in a Beaux Arts style.

A renovation in 1927 added distinctive opera boxes, and shortly thereafter the projection equipment was updated to play sound film.

Later that year, the Lafayette was the first theatre in Rockland County to install CinemaScope apparatus to show wide-screen, stereophonic-sound movies.

However, the theater was spared both the wrecking ball and the multiplexing boom, where large single-screen auditoriums were divided into small theatres to accommodate several films at once.

In the late 1990s, the Lafayette's future as a single-screen neighborhood movie palace was uncertain until Robert Benmosche, a resident of Suffern and chairman of MetLife Insurance (later chairman of AIG), saw the potential of the Lafayette building and purchased the property in 2001, making repairs to the roof and exterior in order to prevent more serious damage from occurring.

Page and his team refurbished the interior of the theatre, bringing back its luxurious pre-war style while investing it with modern projection equipment and concession areas.

Unfortunately, the plans for the museum fell through and the organ was shipped back to New York City where NYTOS installed it in the Carnegie Hall Cinema.

Work began in November 1990, and after countless hours of labor by the volunteer crew and nearly $20,000 in donated funds, the organ was reborn.