JCC Old movie theaters and such

This is the old movie theater in my town, that was torn down in 1988. I saw films like Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Gremlins, Rocky IV, The Goonies, and other 1980s films that have slipped my mind at the moment here. Currently, this area is home to a hair salon and a walkway to a parking lot. For a movie theater, my town has a two-screener in a strip mall down the road.

(Geesh, they just had to take a picture of the place when Annie was playing? What, were they too lazy to do that when The Wrath of Khan was playing?)

Post pics of the movie theaters you went to, and what movies you saw there.

 

I was at a few of those Rocky Horror nights at the Oriental in the mid 90s and later lived two blocks away for a while.

 

Mine is still open:

http://www.orpheum.com.au/

 

http://www.foxfullerton.org/w/about/history-of-the-fox/





People have been trying to re-open this thing since before I was born. I've seen movies there... projected onto the back wall.

 

I saw The Empire Strikes Back, among others, at the RKO Keith's in Flushing, New York. It's been closed for decades but is still standing. A few pictures fro its heyday:



And in its current, decrepit, state

 

My childhood movie theaters are mostly still open. Even the drive-in where I first saw Star Wars - in 1977, when I was four years old - is still open.

As for more recent matters...

Unfortunately the UC Theater in Berkeley is closed; a victim of competition in perhaps the only town in the country that suffers from having too many arthouse movie theaters. I remember seeing Patlabor 2 there in perhaps 1996 - the first time I had seen an anime movie on the big screen. I have similar memories of the old Camera 3 in San Jose - the small one out on The Alameda - which they sold and is now an Indian movie house (only in San Jose!).

The Hayward 6 down by Southland Mall is long-gone. I took a date there to see The Lion King once. I remember when there was nearly a riot after the "e" fell off the "Spice World" marquee - not a great thing to happen in a town that's 40% Latino.

Maybe my favorite, though, is the Byrd Theater on Cary St. in Richmond. Talk about old-world southern elegance! And it's the only arthouse in town... I remember going to see Pulp Fiction there at a midnight showing. Cool stuff.

 

Auckland still has one of its old theatres, built in the depression. I saw Star Wars there in 1979. These days the main stage is used for plays and concerts, though there is still a silver screen, used mostly for film festivals.

http://www.civictheatre.co.nz/

 

Before I moved to the UK, I lived in an apartment in a two-family house across the street from the State Cinema. The house is now gone, but the cinema is still there.

http://stamford.patch.com/listings/state-cinema

I'd walk across the street to see films and at the end I'd be home while people were still getting in their cars. Fun times!

 

The Virginia Theater in Champaign, IL

http://www.flickriver.com/photos/army_arch/sets/72157627785147657/

http://www.thevirginia.org/

Star Wars, 1977 and then ESB in glorious 70mm. Buying the projection system for that one helped put the theater out of business.

 

See, Luca$ really did rape your childhood!

 

"helped" I said. Nothing was going to prevent the rise of the multiplexes. Luckily the Virginia Theater is under the protection of Roger Ebert, or it probably would have been demolished by now.

ROTJ was one of the first movies I ever saw at a multiplex, on a screen no bigger than a third the size of the vast Virginia screen, with a crowd no bigger than a tenth the size of a sold out show at the Virginia.

 

If memories serves, I saw Star Wars three times in its original run:

1. UA Continental, Forest HIlls, Queens: Very unspectacular theater, multiplex sized rooms and screenTeater has since been renamed for the developers sin, which wouldn't eb so bad if the son wasn't named after a 90210 character.

2. A really, really beautiful theater in Bremen, Germany that apparently no longer exists. It was huge, a classic, old fashioned, one movie movie theater. With assigned seating (which is standard in Germany and Austria even today). And it was called "Krieg der Sterne"!!! Have to ask my Mom if she knows which one it could have been.

3. The UA Quartet in Flushing New York. Sort of an early multiplex forerunner, but still had pretty good sized screens. Probably saw more movies here than any other theater in my life, going all the way back to the very first movies I ever saw as a child (Disney's Robin Hood, maybe??). Apparently it was closed down in the early 90's and has been replaced by some kind of odd, unnamed orange building according to Google street view.