THE HARWAN THEATER
WILL BE DEMOLISHED
The Harwan Theater, a landmark on the Black Horse Pike in Mount Ephraim, since 1930 will be demolished in the not to distant future to make way for the construction of a Walgreen’s Pharmacy.
Elias and Eva Harwan opened the theater on Thanksgiving Day in 1930 and named it the Mount Ephraim Theater. In the beginning it was designed for live performance as well as movies. Abbott and Costello and Helen Morgan were among the stars that performed on the stage.
Originally the theater had a Kilgen pipe organ and held 774 seats. In 1970 the name of the theater was changed to Harwan.
Saverio “Sonny” Garofalo brought the theater in 1987 from the children of Elias and Eva Harwan.
Garofalo continued showing movies there for more than a decade. Every weekend the theater ran the cult film The Rocky Horror Picture Show at midnight for years.
In the late 1990’s a group of local horror film buffs rented the theater for screenings.
Garofalo closed the Harwan in 2000. In 2003 Veronica Goodman leased the theater and spent $70,000 on improvement to the lobby, hoping to transform the Harwan into a performing arts venue.
Mt. Ephraim Mayor Michael Reader said some of the exterior decorations of the theater would be salvaged.
Reader said Walgreens has met all of the boroughs requirements. Public hearings have been concluded and final resolutions is expected to be approved at the August 21 meeting of the zoning and planning board.
