Heart Theater

The old Hartford Cinema on Main Street in downtown Hartford has been closed for several years, and a back portion of it has collapsed.

 The final curtain is near

     The city is seeking bids to demolish the former Hartford Cinema building downtown. Bids are being accepted until 3 p.m. Friday, City Manager Yemi Akinwale told city commissioners Monday night.
     There was a partial building collapse last November during a construction project, and the city has since condemned the property.
     “We’re kind of trying to push this thing along,” by seeking the demolition bids, Mayor Ted Johnson said. The bids should be good for 30 days.
     Ultimately, the city could have the building demolished and place the costs as a tax lien against the property, Akinwale said.
“The city is trying to be a catalyst for (resolving the issue),” Akinwale said. But the hope is that the insurance companies involved will sign the demolition contract so the city won’t be involved, he said. “It would be better if they are in charge of the demolition project,” he said.
     There’s still a possibility the building could be repaired, but so far that hasn’t seemed a likely scenario, Akinwale said.
Clerk RoxAnn Isbrecht said several contractors, from as far away as Detroit and Grand Rapids, have expressed an interest in submitting demolition bids this week.
     Akinwale said he will forward a copy of the bids to the insurance companies involved after they are opened Friday.
 

Pictures from the past

The day the Heart Theatre comes down will be a sad day for the town of Hartford and myself.

I was the manager when it reopened back in 1990 until 1994. The theatre owner, Dr. Jack Johns, put my uncle, Dave Sweet, in charge of restoring the building and the projector room.  He had worked at the theatre for years and had all the expertise to handle this kind of restoration. Dave also trained me to run the old projectors and manage the theatre. It was a great experience for me to be part of the Heart Theatre history.  And, to see it in the condition that it's in now, saddens me as well as others in Hartford.    

Here are a few pictures from when I was at the theatre.

                                                      John Boley   10/2010
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   
 

Dave Sweet - Projectionist

Projection  Room

Heart Theater Remodeled-Reopened

 
Heart Theater Screen - August 1990

 
    During World War II, the Heart Theatre served another purpose-movies were still popular, but there was a war to win. According to retired Hartford Postmaster Bill Miller, one evening in 1944, Hartford's Main Street was the scene of a giant war bond rally. Mayor J.C. Van Lierop had Fred Ward and Walt Markillie out in the street directing traffic.
    A parade came through town, followed by a dinner at the Park Hotel for visiting dignitaries.  Then everyone went to the theatre. The only way to gain admittance was through buying war bonds. The capacity crown listened to an Army chorus from Ft. Custer and then bid excitedly on many fine gifts auctioned off there after.
    It was an exciting night, with feelings heightened by patriotic fevor. The old movie house fairly bulged at the seams.              

War Bond Rally at the Heart in 1944. Movies showing are The North Star and Falcon Co. Coeds. 


   Photo is from page 197 of Paw Paw River Times & People.

Paw Paw River Days and Nights
by Roy M. Davis - 1993
   

     Dick Walling and I used to peddle the Heart Theater handbills door to door every week for two passes to the movies.  Dick took the north side of town, north of Main Street, and I took the south side.  We walked it and put the bill in each and every door in town.  None of this throwing them into the sewer business or the like.  And if you don't think that's a lot of walking, you should have talked to Jim Tollar's Dad (our mailman).
     I remember Lil Pennell (now Lil Stembaugh).  I'm sure she doesn't remember me, but no matter.  How interesting about the Heart Theater.  I remember it well as the State.  I recall a lot of people weren't too happy about the Pennells changing the name to the Heart.  They gave it the name Heart because it was in "the heart of the fruit belt of Southwestern Michigan."  (page 241)

Theater Ghosts

     Can a building be haunted by events of the past?  Many people think so.  Take, for instance, Hartford's Heart Theater.  On a recent Saturday night, May 5th to be exact, a family practice physician from Chicago, Dr. Jack T. Johns, reopened for the first time in years the movie house that has entertained generations of people in this area.
     Dr. Johns is also well along in the process of renovating the Thomas Farms mansion south of Hartford.  Now he is doing the same for the Heart Theater.  On that recent Saturday night about 250 people gathered there at an open house from 6 to 8 p.m.  The guests enjoyed refreshments of sandwiches, wine, punch, cheese and cake.
     At the gala affair, Hartford had the chance to meet Dr. Johns and some of the old-timers connected with the history of the movie house.  Notables in attendance included Lil Stembaugh, former owner; Dave Sweet, projectionist; and Dave Sweet, Jr., who was taught the intricacies of the Peerless 33 mm movie projector when he was just a kid.  His instructor - his father.
     The very first movie house in Hartford was run by Cenius Engle in his "Our Opera House and Opera House" over the stores just east of Ely Park on the north side of Main Street.  One day, around the turn of the century, a couple of fast-talking promoters persuaded Engle to try a new novelty-pictures that moved.
 

     They were projected on a sheet by a crude machine, and the very first audience came because they believed that no way could pictures "move."  But Engle convinced them, and did so well financially that he showed them every week thereafter.
     But the toils of the law were closing in.  Early projectors were unpredictable, and prone to catching fire.  State law soon required the machines to be enclosed in an all metal room.  Cenius complied with the law-he was making money.  But the next regulation put him out of business.  Many early theaters were located in upstairs rooms.  A few tragic fires brought the requirement that movie houses could only be located on the ground floor.  This finished Engle's upstairs opera house for movies.
     One of the next movie theaters opened on the south side of Main Street across from Ely Park.  Charlie Root, a Hartford boy whose father was a local harness maker, began showing nickel movies in an old feed store there.
     Then, the Gem theater opened on the north side of Main Street, just west of the location where now stands the Heart Theater.  After a man named Joe Kazinski bought the business, Dave Sweet Sr., became his projectionist.  Dave was just 14 and talkies had not yet been invented when he began running the projectors. Dave Jr., says his dad got paid back in those days by Joe's letting him use his car on weekends.
     Joe outgrew that building and constructed the present movie house next door.  Dave Sr., went with him when Joe opened his new theater, called The State.  In 1930, Joe installed sound projectors and Hartford took a giant leap into the future.  The building had been wired for sound and stage shows from about 1925 on.

 
    The next owners were Walter and Ruth Woodward, a popular local couple.  After Ruth died tragically, Walt sold the theater to the Pennells, who already owned a theater in Decatur.  Lil kept the business going and married a local man, Tom Stembaugh.
     Along about 1945, Dave Sweet taught his son, Dave Jr., to run the projectors, and his son worked there off and on after that.  Young Dave proved to be of great help when Dr. Johns decided to restore the building recently.
     Dave Jr., rebuilt the whole sound system.  In Elkhart, they found parts for the Peerless projectors in a closed movie house.  When the job was finished, they tried it out.  Dave says those speakers were almost like the best modern stereo; and when the volume is turned up, they can make the movie screen flutter.  Incidentally, Hartford boasts the only really wide screen in this area.
     Dave Jr., also says he can remember running the popcorn machine as a kid in about 1945.  It is a Manley and recently, after a good cleaning, they fired it up and the delicious hot popcorn rolled out again.
     Dr. Jack T. Johns is excited about his new project.  He has a small park in the empty slot where the old Gem Theater once stood, just to the west of the movie house.  He is a real history buff and his interest in the past is bringing to our town, and all people in the area, a new-old movie theater...a place where ghosts linger from years and years of movie going in the past.  He is providing for all of us a house of marvels.  For this, he has the thanks of everyone who has ever loved going to the movies.
[pg 247-250]   

          Comment by Dr. John's sister, Trisha Claire:

     Jack did a lot for the community in the short time he owned the theater.  The Heart Theater hosted the Strawberry Festival prince and princess contest, at Christmastime he had special programming for the children, stuff like that.  We grew up with relatives in the area and spent many happy summers there, which is what attracted him to Hartford in the first place.
     The date on the photo is June of 1989,  this would have been Jack’s first year as owner.  We don’t know who the children are, but we can bet that someone will recognize them—so cute!
     It was very sad indeed to see the theater go. He had preserved its lovely art  deco façade, and the garden next door was quite pretty.  Small towns are struggling everywhere, and it’s just terrible that the small mom-and-pop operations have been swallowed up by the Walmarts and big theater chains.

1989 Prince, Princess, and Court email the webmaster if you can identify these kids?

L-R: 1. _________ 2. _______ 3. Amana Smith, Princess  4. _______, Prince  5. ________

     After more than two years, the damaged Hartford Theater on Main Street came down. Damaged by a cement truck doing work in the area for the City, the building sat in the middle of a bitter battle on who was responsible that lasted from November of 2009, to this week.
     Owner Glenda Edwards said she had purchased it in 2005 and had hoped to restore it and reopen it as a theater or some other business, but when the corner was knocked off in 2009 no one wanted to take the responsibility for the damage and repair it.
     "I think it is really sad that Hartford has lost a part of its history." Edwards said. In the two and a half years after the damage was done, she said the inside was damaged not only by the rain and snow, but also by vandalism and large items were stolen, such as the projectors.
     Edwards said she retains the property on which the theater had been, but has no plans to do anything with it at this time. She wants to let it sit and let wounds heal. It will cost her around $50,000 for the clean up of the building and grounds.
     Russ Cross, of Cross Excavating & Demolition from Dowagiac, said the removal of the theater and clean up after, should be close to being completed by Friday, March 16. The rubble will be hauled off, the fill brought in and the well that was inside the theater will be capped.
     As the Theater was torn down Tuesday, a steady stream of locals came to take a last look and reminisce. Local resident Larry Anchor was one of those and said he remembers coming to the theater in the 50s to see Elvis Presley in his first movie, Love Me Tender; Ben Hur with Charlton Heston and Clark Gable in Gone With The Wind. His wife, Shirley, worked behind the refreshment counter while she was still in school.

Final Show of the Heart Theater Hartford Michigan March 14, 2012 Photos by Emma  Thornburg Sefcik
From the back parking lot, a dirt lot is all that remains of the Heart Theater. The building to the left is the new restaurant that was built to replace the old Midget Lunch. That beautiful restaurant building is for sale.	This is the park, west of the Heart Theater, as mentioned in the comments above by Trisha Claire.

 ☺I worked weekends at the Heart Theatre during 1964 and 1965. I must have popped 500# of popcorn there and watched "A Shot in the Dark" five times. I learned how to smile there - it was part of the job working behind the counter. I also would walk up and down the aisles to try to get the kids to be quiet during the Saturday matinees. I learned they would not be quiet anyway. I learned of Carol McCollum's fatal accident while I was at work one evening. I learned how to deal with a diverse population that grew during the summers. I learned how so many people went to the movies to escape their own mediocre lives - at least for a few hours; or dropped their kids off for the entire day on Saturday to escape parenthood. I still have flashbacks when I smell buttered corn at today's theatres -- but the atmosphere, with its subdued lighting, hard seats with gum stuck on the bottom, and the smoking projectionist has faded with the multi-plexes. The "Heart Theatre" was the heart-beat of down town Hartford for decades.       
Shirley Swift, class of 1965

☺If only my father was with us today to see this picture.  Dad was born Woodrow Stoddard on Nov 9,1916 in Hartford Mi. He  left there in about 1923. Dad had told us many times of when his grandfather owned the old picture show (as Dad called it).  His grandfather was Charles Frank Stanley Stoddard.  His granddad had it these years, but for how long after that, I don't know. Dad said he lived on Shafer Lake as a young child. Once a month, the family went into town for supplies. While there, they got in to see the movie free, but the catch was they had to clean the theater after the movie.  It was great to see the picture of the place Dad often (more times than we cared to hear) told us about.  But, his stories are what brought me into genealogy and made me want to know of his younger days.

Thanks for your pictures and stories and the great site you have here.     Janet Stoddard Whalen

8-16-2010 update from Janet: 

      I have an old picture of my Dad, Woodrow Stoddard, along with his brothers Raymond and Lyle, taken  in Hartford.  On the back, it ask for the plates on the car but can't make them out. It says they did not move to Indiana until 1926.  This was written by my Aunt years ago.
     So, Charles Stanley Stoddard would have still been with the theater until 1923 when he passed.
 

☺ I remember when the Heart theater was Spanish movies only. I worked there as a ticket taker when I was 11 or so.  I worked with Theresa Schaner and Carla Miston who worked the ticket booth. I think I made all of $.75/hour. I don't have any pictures from that time though. Probably around 1970.

Thanks for the great post about the theater.

Merry Christmas from San Antonio,
Jerry Hoadley Jr.  12/20/2010