Palace Theatre

When Mary Vuono arrived in America from Potenza, Italy, as an infant in 1883, no one could have predicted she would become Stamford's most legendary businesswoman—or its most devoted ghost. Born Maria Miceli on March 23, 1882, she married Charles D. Vuono, co-founder and president of Vuono Construction Company, at age nineteen. By 1915, the ambitious entrepreneur had opened the Strand Theatre on Atlantic Street, making it Stamford's first "talkie" movie house and a premier vaudeville destination.

Her husband purchased the entire Burlington Arcade Building in 1920, giving Mary the capital and creative freedom she craved. She hired Thomas White Lamb—the famed architect of New York's Madison Square Garden and over three hundred theaters worldwide—to design a palace worthy of the name. On June 2, 1927, the Palace Theatre opened its doors to a headline-making crowd. The Stamford Advocate reported: "HUNDREDS TURNED AWAY, UNABLE TO OBTAIN TICKETS." The terra cotta facade, domed auditorium, and glittering chandeliers made it "Connecticut's Most Magnificent" theater, seating over 1,900 in Renaissance Revival splendor.

For the next fifty-one years, Mary brought the world to downtown Stamford. The Three Stooges, Lucille Ball, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, Hattie McDaniel, Red Skelton, Jimmy Dorsey, Ed Sullivan, and Blackstone the Magician all graced her stage. She lived in an apartment directly above the auditorium, watching over every performance from her traditional perch in the balcony. The theater briefly became "Vuono's Palace" from 1934 to 1936—a testament to her indomitable presence.

Mary died in October 1978 at age ninety-six, in that same apartment above the theater she had built and nurtured for half a century. The Palace went dark in 1980, but when it reopened in 1983 for live performances, staff quickly discovered they were not alone.

Multiple sightings placed Mary's ghost in her traditional balcony seat, watching shows as she always had. "She's been very friendly," one staff member told reporters, "just making sure that we're taking good care of her home." But not all phenomena are so benign. Workers alone after hours report persistent whistling that follows them through the building—sounds with no source that trail from the lobby through backstage corridors. Theater seats flip up and down rapidly, the distinctive clatter echoing through the empty auditorium with no one near them. Dark shadows slide along the walls, moving against the direction of any light source, slipping between the ornate columns of Lamb's original design.

The theater maintains a ghost light—an exposed bulb on a stand left burning center stage when the building closes. While most theater historians cite safety reasons for the tradition, Stamford's executive director offered another explanation: "One story is that all theaters are haunted, and they leave on a light for the ghosts so they can come out. We believe this is one of those theaters."

In December 2012, RISEUP Paranormal of Connecticut conducted an unprecedented public investigation, inviting forty participants for a four-hour exploration using state-of-the-art equipment. For one hundred dollars each, attendees worked alongside investigators in areas normally off-limits, documenting cold spots concentrated near the stairwell leading to Mary's former apartment and capturing unexplained audio in the auditorium. The group produced a case report detailing their findings, adding scientific methodology to decades of staff experiences.

Connecticut is often called one of America's most haunted states, and the Palace Theatre stands as a crown jewel in that legacy. As the theater approaches its centennial in 2027, Mary Vuono's spirit reportedly continues her eternal vigil—an Italian immigrant who built an entertainment empire and loved it so deeply she never left.