When the Fresh Pond was a twin, what was the layout – of the auditoriums and the theatre itself? Was the exterior vandalized or maintained in decent condition between the time General Cinemas closed it and Entertainment Cinemas leased the property?
No further news on the future of the Brooklyn Heights, but it appears the Flatbush Pavilion recently reopened as the Brooklyn Arts Cinema (and with duplicative entries on this site: /theaters/2106/ for the Flatbush Pavilion and /theaters/10174/ serving as the page for the Brooklyn Arts).
Below, for those who are curious, is a press release detailing the reasoning behind Access Integrated Technologies' recent purchase of the Park Slope Pavilion:
Access Integrated Technologies to Acquire Pavilion Movie Theater/Entertainment Complex in Brooklyn, New York
Thursday December 23, 8:00 am ET
– Will Serve as Both Profit Center and Showcase for New Digital Cinema Technologies –
MORRISTOWN, N.J., Dec. 23 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Access Integrated Technologies, Inc. (“AccessIT”) (Amex: AIX – News) today announced it has signed an agreement to acquire the businesses and assets of the Pavilion Movie Theater/Entertainment Complex (the “Pavilion”) in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn, New York. The purchase price will include approximately $3.3 million in cash and a $1.7 million 5-year note. Closing is subject to completion of due diligence and to obtaining financing satisfactory to AccessIT.
Designed for an evening of total entertainment, the Pavilion Complex includes the Living Room Cafe, a full-service restaurant, a club, and an eight-screen multiplex. The popular showplace, housed in a 1926 art deco building is also undergoing expansion with the addition of a ninth movie screen. It now regularly attracts over 500,000 admissions annually from upscale Park Slope and the surrounding communities.
The Pavilion will become an asset of Access Digital Media, the division of AccessIT and a leading provider of state-of-the-art digital film delivery and content management solutions and services, employing technologies that are revolutionizing the motion picture exhibition industry. Access Digital Media’s “Theater Command Center” software application provides in-theater storage and play-back capabilities to digitally-equipped movie theaters around the United States. Continuing to operate as a fully functional multiplex, the Pavilion will also become a showplace for AccessIT to demonstrate its integrated digital cinema solutions to the movie entertainment industry.
“In addition to being one of the most complete and attractive single site entertainment centers in Metro New York offering first run films, the Pavilion will afford AccessIT an ideal venue for demonstrating to the public, the media, and other exhibitors the company’s complete suite of services, software, and satellite or fiber delivery systems. These systems were used to deliver nine major movies in the last half of this year. It will be the first multiplex installation of our ‘Theater Command Center’ software, which allows theater owners to manage and operate all equipment as well as to receive and maintain a library of all movies, trailers and advertising showing in a multiplex” said Russell Wintner, President and COO of Access Digital Media. Wintner continued, “We will also deploy the Vista Point of Sales system, and our Exhibitor Management System (EMS) for back-office, booking and accounting, both supported by AccessIT’s Hollywood Software business unit.”
Bud Mayo, President and Chief Executive Officer of AccessIT added: “Besides adding another positive cash flow generator to our business, we are tremendously excited about obtaining a fully operational showcase at the Pavilion for our unique set of full-service digital cinema solutions. It’s another major step in our effort to build a company whose various components work together synergistically to serve all the needs of the film distribution and exhibition communities in the emerging digital era,” he added.
AccessIT’s management team is not new to film exhibition. Mr. Mayo founded the Clearview Cinema chain (“Clearview”), developing it into a leading, publicly traded, circuit of movie houses in the New York tri-state area before it was acquired by Cablevision Systems Corp. (NYSE: CVC – News) in 1998. Other AccessIT officers, who later joined Mayo from Clearview, are Gary Loffredo, Senior Vice President and General Counsel; Brett Marks, Senior Vice President, Development; and Brian Pflug, Senior Vice President, Accounting and Finance and Dale Morris, Manager, Human Resources. In addition, Russell Wintner and Gerd Jakuszeit an executive of Access Digital Media have extensive experience in movie theater operations.
Access Integrated Technologies, Inc. (AccessIT) is an early mover in offering a fully managed storage and delivery service for owners and distributors of digital content to movie theaters and other venues. Supported by its robust platform of fail-safe Internet data centers, AccessIT is able to leverage the market-leading role of its Hollywood Software subsidiary with the innovative digital delivery capabilities of its Digital Media unit to provide the highest level of technology available to service the emerging digital cinema industry.
In the tri-state area, at least, according to Joe Masher’s July 20, 2004 post on the Mariner’s Harbor, Staten Island Jerry Lewis Cinemas page (/theaters/3760/), there are two former Jerry Lewis sites still in operation, both of them in North Jersey – the Valleyview Twin in Wayne (/theaters/6359/), and the Kinnelon 1-2-3/Meadtown Cinema in Kinnelon.
It’s a hip, easy-to-roll-off-the-tongue marketing term for ‘Entertainment Walk’. The complex the Loews Theatre on 42nd Street resides within also serves as home to several shops and restaurants – all the better to flitter away the money of tourists and other assorted folk with plenty of discretionary cash to burn.
It is; it’s on the exact location of the original Kips Bay Theatre/Bay Cinema. Where the theatre itself stood is where the lobby of the Loews Kips Bay currently stands.
I can see another theatre or theatre chain having a use for the projectors and sound equipment from the Copley, but the seats? They were a close second to the size of the screens at the Copley on a scale of undesirability.
Meanwhile, with Loews apparently planning to close (I wouldn’t expect them to open and operate an art house to replace the Copley; that would be akin to Carrot Top giving lessons in subtlety) the Fresh Pond (and, when I was living in the Boston area, there was constant word that the awful – but still-open – time-warp multiplex at Assembly Square in Somerville was on the chopping block) wouldn’t it, um, make sense to maybe replace it with an all-stadium seating megaplex? Unless the people who aren’t going to the Fresh Pond are giving their business to another Loews theatre in the area (and one with plenty of parking, supposedly, as that’s about the only reason for anyone who doesn’t live nearby to see a film at the Fresh Pond), it would be the height of stupidity for Loews to be conceding away all that business.
As for why The Back Lot closed… of that I have no idea. I remember it seemingly being popular; perhaps it was shut down due to licensing and/or budgetary reasons.
The Back Lot closed not terribly long after the theatre opened; in barely a year’s time, I believe. Oddly enough, when I passed it back on a Friday night in December, most, if not all the furnishings (tables, stools, etc.), were still inside.
The Loews Boston Common also housed, on the second of its three levels, a short-lived lounge, The Back Lot, which, if memory serves, was open to ticket-holders only.
The Loews Boston Common formally opened its doors for business on July 20, 2001; among its initial film offerings was the Julia Roberts-John Cusack comedy ‘America’s Sweethearts’.
As popular – and as justly popular – an addition the Fenway 13 proved to be to Boston’s moviegoing scene, its opening contributed to a considerable degree to the decline and closing of the relatively nearby Cheri Theatre. The Cheri, which became more of a destination venue for moviegoers as more and more film venues within the city were shuttered in the ‘80s and '90s, and a showcase for blockbuster flicks, suddenly found itself fighting with its new booking zone partner for product – and, in turn, for audiences. The final nail in the Cheri’s coffin was the opening of the 19-screen, all-stadium seating Loews Boston Common Theatre on July 20, 2001. The Cheri became a discount house – and increasingly an afterthought to both Loews, the chain which operated it, and the film-seeking public – and closed its doors for good in November 2001; its space is currently occupied by the Kings bowling alley and a Jasper White’s Summer Shack restaurant. (Meanwhile, another fellow zone mate closed its doors – the Nickelodeon, once the top arthouse in Boston, which Loews cut loose as part of its bankruptcy reorganization in February of 2001; the building which housed the Nickelodeon was subsequently demolished by Boston University, its landlord, in the spring of 2003; B.U. is currently constructing a Life Sciences and Engineering building on the property.)
A great loss indeed. The one blessing is Mayor Newsom doing what he can to fight and preserve the other remaining single-screen theatres in San Francisco. Most film venues in danger of closing don’t have as powerful an advocate on their side and, as heartbreaking as the imminent demolition of the Coronet is, at least the Metro and Cinema 21 have a chance of being saved. (I have to admit curiosity on one front – wasn’t the Presidio just recently converted into a quad? According to the article, there’s a rumor floating about its closing within a year; sounds a bit peculiar, given the circumstances.)
The same web site lists several other Chinatown movie theatres of the past, including the Sun Sing (formerly located under the Manhattan Bridge and long since torn down – sometime in the mid-‘90s, if I remember correctly); the since-demolished Pagoda at 11 E. Broadway; the Essex, which closed in the early '90s (around '93-'94, or thereabouts) and was replaced by a health clinic; and the Jade (at Canal and Mulberry – I know this building was either cleared or gutted and replaced by another business; it may also be an empty lot, but I tend to doubt it and will try to make a point of walking over and finding out), the Wah Dor (the only info being provided that it was on Canal), and the Canal (which, unless there were two Canal Theatres on Canal Street, is the former Canal Theatre at 31 Canal and, contrary to what’s posted on the site, has NOT been torn down).
A remembrance of the Rosemary Theatre, from a web site dedicated to the many theatres which once populated Chinatown (http://members.aol.com/hkfilms/):
‘The Rosemary Theatre closed down in 1996 and is now a Buddhist Shrine! It was great having the Music Palace (which is still standing, shuttered and covered with graffiti, on the southeast corner of Bowery & Hester – I pass by it on my way to work every morning – br91975) & Rosemary right around the corner from each other. Easy access to four new movies every Friday night! The Rosemary always seemed to show a lot of Category III sex films. When you would call the box office to try to find out what was playing,
the woman wouldn’t even attempt the English title, she would just say
“sex movie….sex movie only!”’
Thanks for answering my questions; I’d long wondered about those booking and advertising policies and it’s great to finally have some clearance. Again, thank you…
The former Republic Theatre on 42nd Street in Times Square, as was the Gaiety in Boston, was also renamed the Victory post-WWII, a name it retains to this day, albeit in present time as the New Victory Theatre, a slight revision inspired by not only its own rebirth as a renovated venue for family-geared theatrical productions, but the new, overall reconsideration of the block it resides on as well.
There are two other film booking questions I have, Robert, that perhaps you (or someone else in the know) can answer for me:
1) Is there a standard length of engagement agreement between the major studios for all their releases and the exhibitors or is it negotiated on a per-film basis?
2) Prior to a film’s release, can an exhibition agreement be broken? I’ve noticed the theatres a film is scheduled to open in vary sometimes from what’s listed within advance-release print ads and the theatres in which it actually opens. One recent example involves ‘Coach Carter’ and ‘Racing Stripes’, both of which were scheduled to open at the New York Twin; ‘Racing Stripes’, though, opened at the 64th & 2nd/Gemini instead…
3) Sunday newspaper print ads, specifically those which run in the NY Times, Post, and Daily News, don’t always list every Manhattan theatre in which the film opens – commonly, the Nova was left off and the New Coliseum continues to be with regularity. Any idea why this tends to be so?
The correct address of the Main Street Cinemas is 72-66 Main Street. All Queens street address numbers are hyphenated, the first number representing the block within that street the building resides within (i.e., the 72nd block of Main Street), the second number representing its address within that block (think of each block as its own street). Hope that helps…
When the Fresh Pond was a twin, what was the layout – of the auditoriums and the theatre itself? Was the exterior vandalized or maintained in decent condition between the time General Cinemas closed it and Entertainment Cinemas leased the property?
No further news on the future of the Brooklyn Heights, but it appears the Flatbush Pavilion recently reopened as the Brooklyn Arts Cinema (and with duplicative entries on this site: /theaters/2106/ for the Flatbush Pavilion and /theaters/10174/ serving as the page for the Brooklyn Arts).
Below, for those who are curious, is a press release detailing the reasoning behind Access Integrated Technologies' recent purchase of the Park Slope Pavilion:
Access Integrated Technologies to Acquire Pavilion Movie Theater/Entertainment Complex in Brooklyn, New York
Thursday December 23, 8:00 am ET
– Will Serve as Both Profit Center and Showcase for New Digital Cinema Technologies –
MORRISTOWN, N.J., Dec. 23 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Access Integrated Technologies, Inc. (“AccessIT”) (Amex: AIX – News) today announced it has signed an agreement to acquire the businesses and assets of the Pavilion Movie Theater/Entertainment Complex (the “Pavilion”) in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn, New York. The purchase price will include approximately $3.3 million in cash and a $1.7 million 5-year note. Closing is subject to completion of due diligence and to obtaining financing satisfactory to AccessIT.
Designed for an evening of total entertainment, the Pavilion Complex includes the Living Room Cafe, a full-service restaurant, a club, and an eight-screen multiplex. The popular showplace, housed in a 1926 art deco building is also undergoing expansion with the addition of a ninth movie screen. It now regularly attracts over 500,000 admissions annually from upscale Park Slope and the surrounding communities.
The Pavilion will become an asset of Access Digital Media, the division of AccessIT and a leading provider of state-of-the-art digital film delivery and content management solutions and services, employing technologies that are revolutionizing the motion picture exhibition industry. Access Digital Media’s “Theater Command Center” software application provides in-theater storage and play-back capabilities to digitally-equipped movie theaters around the United States. Continuing to operate as a fully functional multiplex, the Pavilion will also become a showplace for AccessIT to demonstrate its integrated digital cinema solutions to the movie entertainment industry.
“In addition to being one of the most complete and attractive single site entertainment centers in Metro New York offering first run films, the Pavilion will afford AccessIT an ideal venue for demonstrating to the public, the media, and other exhibitors the company’s complete suite of services, software, and satellite or fiber delivery systems. These systems were used to deliver nine major movies in the last half of this year. It will be the first multiplex installation of our ‘Theater Command Center’ software, which allows theater owners to manage and operate all equipment as well as to receive and maintain a library of all movies, trailers and advertising showing in a multiplex” said Russell Wintner, President and COO of Access Digital Media. Wintner continued, “We will also deploy the Vista Point of Sales system, and our Exhibitor Management System (EMS) for back-office, booking and accounting, both supported by AccessIT’s Hollywood Software business unit.”
Bud Mayo, President and Chief Executive Officer of AccessIT added: “Besides adding another positive cash flow generator to our business, we are tremendously excited about obtaining a fully operational showcase at the Pavilion for our unique set of full-service digital cinema solutions. It’s another major step in our effort to build a company whose various components work together synergistically to serve all the needs of the film distribution and exhibition communities in the emerging digital era,” he added.
AccessIT’s management team is not new to film exhibition. Mr. Mayo founded the Clearview Cinema chain (“Clearview”), developing it into a leading, publicly traded, circuit of movie houses in the New York tri-state area before it was acquired by Cablevision Systems Corp. (NYSE: CVC – News) in 1998. Other AccessIT officers, who later joined Mayo from Clearview, are Gary Loffredo, Senior Vice President and General Counsel; Brett Marks, Senior Vice President, Development; and Brian Pflug, Senior Vice President, Accounting and Finance and Dale Morris, Manager, Human Resources. In addition, Russell Wintner and Gerd Jakuszeit an executive of Access Digital Media have extensive experience in movie theater operations.
Access Integrated Technologies, Inc. (AccessIT) is an early mover in offering a fully managed storage and delivery service for owners and distributors of digital content to movie theaters and other venues. Supported by its robust platform of fail-safe Internet data centers, AccessIT is able to leverage the market-leading role of its Hollywood Software subsidiary with the innovative digital delivery capabilities of its Digital Media unit to provide the highest level of technology available to service the emerging digital cinema industry.
The GCC Santa Anita 4 closed sometime in ‘98 or early '99; I remember 'Saving Private Ryan’ having played there.
What was the heyday, as it was, for the Jerry Lewis Cinemas, and why did the concept fail?
If/when the Fresh Pond closes and there was no immediate in-zone replacement for its screens, Ian, would the Capitol switch to a first-run policy?
In the tri-state area, at least, according to Joe Masher’s July 20, 2004 post on the Mariner’s Harbor, Staten Island Jerry Lewis Cinemas page (/theaters/3760/), there are two former Jerry Lewis sites still in operation, both of them in North Jersey – the Valleyview Twin in Wayne (/theaters/6359/), and the Kinnelon 1-2-3/Meadtown Cinema in Kinnelon.
It’s a hip, easy-to-roll-off-the-tongue marketing term for ‘Entertainment Walk’. The complex the Loews Theatre on 42nd Street resides within also serves as home to several shops and restaurants – all the better to flitter away the money of tourists and other assorted folk with plenty of discretionary cash to burn.
It is; it’s on the exact location of the original Kips Bay Theatre/Bay Cinema. Where the theatre itself stood is where the lobby of the Loews Kips Bay currently stands.
The new headquarters of CAA (Creative Artists Agency) is to be constructed on the site of the former ABC Entertainment Center.
I can see another theatre or theatre chain having a use for the projectors and sound equipment from the Copley, but the seats? They were a close second to the size of the screens at the Copley on a scale of undesirability.
Meanwhile, with Loews apparently planning to close (I wouldn’t expect them to open and operate an art house to replace the Copley; that would be akin to Carrot Top giving lessons in subtlety) the Fresh Pond (and, when I was living in the Boston area, there was constant word that the awful – but still-open – time-warp multiplex at Assembly Square in Somerville was on the chopping block) wouldn’t it, um, make sense to maybe replace it with an all-stadium seating megaplex? Unless the people who aren’t going to the Fresh Pond are giving their business to another Loews theatre in the area (and one with plenty of parking, supposedly, as that’s about the only reason for anyone who doesn’t live nearby to see a film at the Fresh Pond), it would be the height of stupidity for Loews to be conceding away all that business.
As for why The Back Lot closed… of that I have no idea. I remember it seemingly being popular; perhaps it was shut down due to licensing and/or budgetary reasons.
The Back Lot closed not terribly long after the theatre opened; in barely a year’s time, I believe. Oddly enough, when I passed it back on a Friday night in December, most, if not all the furnishings (tables, stools, etc.), were still inside.
The Loews Boston Common also housed, on the second of its three levels, a short-lived lounge, The Back Lot, which, if memory serves, was open to ticket-holders only.
The Loews Boston Common formally opened its doors for business on July 20, 2001; among its initial film offerings was the Julia Roberts-John Cusack comedy ‘America’s Sweethearts’.
As popular – and as justly popular – an addition the Fenway 13 proved to be to Boston’s moviegoing scene, its opening contributed to a considerable degree to the decline and closing of the relatively nearby Cheri Theatre. The Cheri, which became more of a destination venue for moviegoers as more and more film venues within the city were shuttered in the ‘80s and '90s, and a showcase for blockbuster flicks, suddenly found itself fighting with its new booking zone partner for product – and, in turn, for audiences. The final nail in the Cheri’s coffin was the opening of the 19-screen, all-stadium seating Loews Boston Common Theatre on July 20, 2001. The Cheri became a discount house – and increasingly an afterthought to both Loews, the chain which operated it, and the film-seeking public – and closed its doors for good in November 2001; its space is currently occupied by the Kings bowling alley and a Jasper White’s Summer Shack restaurant. (Meanwhile, another fellow zone mate closed its doors – the Nickelodeon, once the top arthouse in Boston, which Loews cut loose as part of its bankruptcy reorganization in February of 2001; the building which housed the Nickelodeon was subsequently demolished by Boston University, its landlord, in the spring of 2003; B.U. is currently constructing a Life Sciences and Engineering building on the property.)
The AMC Fenway 13 formally opened its doors for business on June 23, 2000; among its initial offerings were ‘Chicken Run’ and ‘Me, Myself, and Irene’.
A great loss indeed. The one blessing is Mayor Newsom doing what he can to fight and preserve the other remaining single-screen theatres in San Francisco. Most film venues in danger of closing don’t have as powerful an advocate on their side and, as heartbreaking as the imminent demolition of the Coronet is, at least the Metro and Cinema 21 have a chance of being saved. (I have to admit curiosity on one front – wasn’t the Presidio just recently converted into a quad? According to the article, there’s a rumor floating about its closing within a year; sounds a bit peculiar, given the circumstances.)
The same web site lists several other Chinatown movie theatres of the past, including the Sun Sing (formerly located under the Manhattan Bridge and long since torn down – sometime in the mid-‘90s, if I remember correctly); the since-demolished Pagoda at 11 E. Broadway; the Essex, which closed in the early '90s (around '93-'94, or thereabouts) and was replaced by a health clinic; and the Jade (at Canal and Mulberry – I know this building was either cleared or gutted and replaced by another business; it may also be an empty lot, but I tend to doubt it and will try to make a point of walking over and finding out), the Wah Dor (the only info being provided that it was on Canal), and the Canal (which, unless there were two Canal Theatres on Canal Street, is the former Canal Theatre at 31 Canal and, contrary to what’s posted on the site, has NOT been torn down).
A remembrance of the Rosemary Theatre, from a web site dedicated to the many theatres which once populated Chinatown (http://members.aol.com/hkfilms/):
‘The Rosemary Theatre closed down in 1996 and is now a Buddhist Shrine! It was great having the Music Palace (which is still standing, shuttered and covered with graffiti, on the southeast corner of Bowery & Hester – I pass by it on my way to work every morning – br91975) & Rosemary right around the corner from each other. Easy access to four new movies every Friday night! The Rosemary always seemed to show a lot of Category III sex films. When you would call the box office to try to find out what was playing,
the woman wouldn’t even attempt the English title, she would just say
“sex movie….sex movie only!”’
Thanks for answering my questions; I’d long wondered about those booking and advertising policies and it’s great to finally have some clearance. Again, thank you…
The former Republic Theatre on 42nd Street in Times Square, as was the Gaiety in Boston, was also renamed the Victory post-WWII, a name it retains to this day, albeit in present time as the New Victory Theatre, a slight revision inspired by not only its own rebirth as a renovated venue for family-geared theatrical productions, but the new, overall reconsideration of the block it resides on as well.
Actually, sorry, that was THREE questions; thanks in advance for your answers (or those of someone else of equal reliability)…
There are two other film booking questions I have, Robert, that perhaps you (or someone else in the know) can answer for me:
1) Is there a standard length of engagement agreement between the major studios for all their releases and the exhibitors or is it negotiated on a per-film basis?
2) Prior to a film’s release, can an exhibition agreement be broken? I’ve noticed the theatres a film is scheduled to open in vary sometimes from what’s listed within advance-release print ads and the theatres in which it actually opens. One recent example involves ‘Coach Carter’ and ‘Racing Stripes’, both of which were scheduled to open at the New York Twin; ‘Racing Stripes’, though, opened at the 64th & 2nd/Gemini instead…
3) Sunday newspaper print ads, specifically those which run in the NY Times, Post, and Daily News, don’t always list every Manhattan theatre in which the film opens – commonly, the Nova was left off and the New Coliseum continues to be with regularity. Any idea why this tends to be so?
It does; on occasion – I suspect during fallow periods – City Cinemas only books six out of the Village East’s seven screens.
The correct address of the Main Street Cinemas is 72-66 Main Street. All Queens street address numbers are hyphenated, the first number representing the block within that street the building resides within (i.e., the 72nd block of Main Street), the second number representing its address within that block (think of each block as its own street). Hope that helps…