In the past week I received a private tour of a Long Island landmark. I toured the last remaining (above storefront) music houses... The Vail-Leavitt Music Hall.
The Vail-Leavitt Music Hall is a National Historic Landmark that previewed on July 4th 1881. The Vail-Leavitt Music Hall formally opened October 11, 1881 to a concert sponsored by the Rough & Ready Engine Company of Riverhead. It's first theatrical play was Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1886 with a special side attraction of a demonstration of " Edison's Electric Parlor Lamp". Uncle Tom's Cabin was a huge success in that it cast all the roles in duplicate. In the 20 foot wide stage you had two Elizas, two Simon Legrees, two Little Eva's as well as two ponies and bloodhounds. This was seen as a daring novelty and considered an expectable "Embellishment" of the original text.
The Vail-Leavitt Music Hall hosted Edison again in 1908 and featured " The Great Edison Show". Edison was "Summering" at the time in Quoque, experimenting on removing iron from the local beach sand for profit. His iron experiment failed but he kept on tinkering with his "Kinetaphone" (an early mechanical "Talking Picture") at the Vail-Leavitt Music Hall. The smallness of the theater (300seats) allowed for acceptable mechanical amplification that could not be reproduced adequately in the NYC theaters. It is thought that Edison's experiments encouraged the early electrification of Riverhead in 1888 and the Vail-Leavitt Music Hall in 1914.
In 1914 an advertisement appeared in the local Riverhead News that the "Eighth Wonder of the World" was coming to Riverhead..."Edison Company's Talking Pictures" was a huge success in the local community. That first program included ; Edison's Minstrels, "Julius Caesar", and "Faust". Edison sat in the back of the small theater and cranked his Kinetaphone to match the mouth movement on screen. It would take Edison 14 more years to incorporate the "Vacuum tube" and provide the needed amplification volume for larger theaters.
The Vail-Leavitt Music Hall housed many theatrical giants in it's career, including a "young cowboy-Will Rodgers" that taught the owner's son the art of lariat-twirling. Larger theaters eventually replaced the Vail-Leavitt Music Hall. In later years the Vail-Leavitt Music Hall served as a Chinese restaurant, pool hall, and then a betting parlor. Once the owner (Mr. Leavitt) discovered the condition and use of the Vail-Leavitt Music Hall, vowed that the Vail-Leavitt Music Hall would only be used for storage in the future
The Vail-Leavitt Music Hall sat dormant and protected from 1925 to 1978 when Mr. Leavitt son and Harold Smith discovered this historic gem in Riverhead downtown. Mr. Smith spent all his retirement energies to recondition the Vail-Leavitt Music Hall and secured grants to refurbish the theater in it's 19th century grandeur. It only lacks a sprinkler system to be opened to the public.
I toured the theater thanks to the graciousness of the Vail-Leavitt Music Hall Council. It's beautiful and a piece of history that we of Riverhead should be very proud of. I admit in the quiet of the empty theater, I imagined a young Edison cranking the handle of the Kinetaphone to the opened mouth amazement of Riverhead at the turn of the century.
The lower level of the Vail-Leavitt Music Hall is currently open to the public for movies of artistic merit on weekends as the Mini-Cine with a tour of the upper music hall after each showing.
Resources:
The Riverhead Library Vertical File
Riverhead Music Hall An Historic Journal
Riverhead News microfilm 1910 to 1911
Riverhead Weekly News microfilm 1884 to 1888
Internet Resources:
Vail-Leavitt Music Hall - VAIL-LEAVITT MUSIC HALL Riverhead, Long Island, NY. Located on Peconic
A special thanks to The Vail-Leavitt Council.
Bill Phillips, Eastern Suffolk BOCES-HB Ward Technical Center.