Shea's Performing Arts Center

Shea's Buffalo broke ground January 15, 1925 and opened January 16, 1926 taking only a year and a day to build the entire theatre. When it opened it featured silent movies.  Construction cost $1.8 million ..  $31.6 million in 2023 dollars.   The architects were Rapp Brothers.  Shea's Buffalo was added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 6, 1975.  The theater's Mighty Wurlitzer was a custom design built by the Wurlitzer Company and was one of the only 5 in the world that had tonal finishing, provided directly from the Wurlitzer factory after it had been installed in the theater.  

The organ was used as a demonstrator by the Wurlitzer factory in nearby North Tonawanda whenever a visiting customer wanted to hear an example of a 4 manual (keyboard) organ. Built originally to provide silent film accompaniment like many of the thousands of instruments like it, fell into disrepair, rarely being heard in the 1940s and 1950s. It was made operational by the American Theatre Organ Enthusiasts for a series of memorable concerts.  

Shea's Buffalo Theatre, opened under the moniker of "The Wonder Theatre" and was the dream of Michael Shea.  Originally serving as a movie house under Paramount Pictures iwht "an acre of seats", it would later stage vaudeville shows and play host to the likes of the Marx Brothers, Frank Sinatra, George Burns, Bob Hope and others in the 1930s.  Later in the 1970s to save the theatre from demolition, a group of concerned people formed The Friends of Buffalo Theatre.  This not-for-profit organization worked to bring about a preliminary restoration and was responsible for getting Shea's placed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 6, 1975.  Over the past 20 years, there has been over $30 million in restoration completed, all by volunteers, at Shea's which allows Buffalo to keep the only surviving Tiffany designed theatre in magnificent condition for their patrons and the community. 

The Shea's Buffalo was the jewel in Michael Shea's theatre crown.  Shea's entertainment empire began with a single Buffalo music hall in 1882 and eventually included theatres as far away as Toronto, Canada. Seating almost 3,500 people and with an architectural design by eminent theatre architects Cornelius Ward Rapp & George L. Rapp the Tiffany Studios interior scheme is a baroque design of rich colors and textures in which light dances off the gilding, stenciled silver and prisms that hang from the chandeliers.  Louis C. Tiffany designs for Shea's Buffalo were carried out and were recently restored as part of Shea's Performing Arts Center. 

The theatre located at 646 Main Street was opened to first show silent movies. Present day seat capacity is 3,019. The general contractor firm was John Gill & Sons. Shea's boasts one of the few theatre organs in the United States that is still in operation in the theatre for which it was designed.  

The theatre's "Mighty Wurlitzer" was a custom design by the Wurlitzer Company and was one of only 5 in the world that had *tonal finishing, provided directly from the Wurlitzer factory, after it had been installed in the theatre.  The organ was used as a demonstrator by the Wurlitzer factory, in nearby North Tonawanda, whenever a visiting customer wanted to hear an example of a 4 manual (keyboard) organ installed in a theatre.  (The demonstrator for a 3 manual (keyboard) organ was the Riviera Theatre in North Tonawanda, New York.

In 2006, to commemorate the theater's 80th birthday, the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of conductor, JoAnn Falletta played a concert with Anthony Newman playing the organ.  Highlights of the program included selections from The Phantom of the Opera.  

*The final step in any organ project is tonal finishing. It is the painstaking on-site voicing or regulating that matches each pipe and stop to the room.  This two-person process can take weeks to months to complete and requires careful listening from different places throughout the building.  An organ cannot be properly regulated at the factory.  The effects of the size of the organ, the resonance of the chambers, the size of the venue and the acoustics of the building all come into play. 

The organ is set to be ready in time for the center's 100th anniversary in January 2026.  The nearly $400,000 renovation of Shea's Mighty Wurlitzer is well underway and should be completed on schedule.  The renovation consisted of seven stages which started in 2020.  The organ is one of the top Wurlitzers in North America.

Shea's Wurlitzer organ is a global asset and a unique part of our city that needs to be recognized. It's a legacy of Buffalo's Golden Age, but its excellence remains evident today

Robert Brunschmid, Shea's Director of Operations 

The project has been funded by a $20,000 grant from the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo as well as $25,000 from the Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Legacy Funds at the Community Foundation.  The organ was built in North Tonawanda by the Rudolph Wurlitzer Co. and was installed in December 1925 for $72,500 or about $1.15 million today.  This organ is one of 12 in the world that is still in the building that it was originally installed.  After a concert given as part of the American Theatre Organ Society annual conference at Shea's in July 2019, Ken Double of ATOS gave the following quote.

I cannot emphasize to you in any stronger terms the 'gold standard' of the theatre pipe organ that sits in those chamber at Shea's Buffalo.  It is not simple hyperbole, but fact.  If one were ranking or awarding top honors for the finest sounding theatre organ in the world, Shea's Buffalo could be arguably No. 1 and most certainly top three."

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