Fred Wesley Wentworth

Fred Wesley Wentworth (August 3, 1864 – October 5, 1943) was an American architect known for his many buildings in Downtown Paterson, New Jersey as well as several residences and theaters in northeastern New Jersey. Wentworth had a major impact on shaping Paterson after a wind-driven fire decimated much of the central business district in 1902. His body of work consisted of institutional, commercial, residential, religious and healthcare buildings as well as some of the nation's first movie theaters designed exclusively for motion pictures. He was a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects.

Wentworth was born August 3, 1864, in Boxborough, Massachusetts and raised in Dover, New Hampshire. He graduated Dartmouth College in 1889 with a degree in architecture. He married Florence Agnes Marie Hurlburt on May 9, 1893. They had no children. He died on October 5, 1943 and is interred in Pine Hill Cemetery in Dover.

Wentworth worked in Paterson between 1888 and 1943. It was a small manufacturing town when he arrived but grew rapidly and its population nearly tripled during the time he was there. He designed many of the new property types needed, the post office, the court house, movie theatres, parking garages, aeronautics factories and other commercial buildings. In 1902 a fire devastated most of the center of the city and Wentworth was responsible for much of the rebuilding work needed afterwards. He designed numerous buildings some in collaboration with his draftsman and later partner Frederick J. Vreeland. Many fall within the Downtown Commercial Historic District.

Wentworth was commissioned to build the several movie theatres by Jacob Fabian including The Regent which was the first facility built exclusively for the exhibition of moving pictures and other movie palaces. Fabian is recalled in the cinema at City Center Mall, the Fabian 8.

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