Citizens Rally to Save Rutherford's Historic William Carlos Williams Performing Arts Center and Newman Theatre

A group of Rutherford residents are making a last-ditch effort to raise awareness of the auction of the Williams Carlos Williams Center for the Performing Arts, including starting an online petition (https://www.change.org/savethewilliamscenter)  which has garnered over 2,000 signatures. Bergen County, who has owned the building since 1987, has decided to give up on maintaining the costs for this building, which happens to sit on the most coveted piece of real estate in the center of this NJ town.

Preserving the building, in stages, has been the goal of the Williams Center board and hundreds of community members. A Save the Williams Center Facebook group was started in 2015 in an effort to help bring life back into the building. Currently, the center is only partly functioning, with 3 movie cinemas operating in the building's lower level. Over the last couple of years the Williams Center Board along with volunteers have kept the center afloat, upgrading the cinemas and hosting special events such as live music, comedy nights and film screenings. Like countless other art venues the Williams Center has struggled since the pandemic.

Inside the center lies a secret gem: the historic Newman Theatre which has sat vacant since 2012 when its plaster ceiling was damaged during Hurricane Sandy. Once known as The Rivoli, this vaudeville-era theater opened in 1922 and acts like Abbott and Costello and the Glenn Miller Orchestra are among those who have graced its stage. Above the 642-seat house still hangs a magnificent 2 ton-crystal chandelier, a twin of the one that hung in the original Warner Brothers Theatre (later renamed the Mark Hellinger Theatre) on Broadway and 51st Street. The Newman's stage remains intact and its dimensions rival those on Broadway.

Inspired by other historic theater restorations across the country, the Save the Williams Center group along with other Rutherford residents recognize the value that a renovated center would bring to their town's cultural and economic life, as well as their communities sense of pride. Now they are working 'round the clock to raise awareness in the hope of finding an arts-oriented developer to sponsor this much needed revitalization. After all, they believe it's only fitting that Rutherford resurrect a performing arts center named for the long-time Rutherford resident who happens to also be one of the world's greatest poets of the 20th Century and Pulitzer Prize winner, William Carlos Williams.