Nova Theatre
3589 Broadway,
New York,
NY
10031
3589 Broadway,
New York,
NY
10031
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While difficult to see in the photo above, the white carvings at the top of the building on each side are smiling rabbit faces (complete with ears), further symbolizing the original name of the theatre. Are these still there since conversion to a 99 cent store?
br91975 I agree, to think it made it from 1913 and then into the new millenium and then greed closed it. I drove by it a few times but never saw the inside. Never saw inside The Astro either but went buy it a few times.
I’m curious to know… does anyone have any memories of having seen movies at the Nova or any memories they’d like to share of the theatre, the people who went or worked there, etc., etc.? What was the interior like? Was it as popular a theatre as the Coliseum on 181st Street? What was its history, beyond its opening as a photoplay house in 1913, Jesus Nova assuming the lease in the early 1980s, and its recent shuttering and conversion into a 59/79/99-cent store? The only time I visited its interior was when I wanted to see what had become of it this past March and I’ve been haunted since by what I saw that day and heartbroken that such a cool, little long-running neighborhood movie house slipped away and just became another retail space…
Mr. Nova did not own the Nova Cinema but did rent the cinema before the rent was raised to high and Mr. Nova left. The landlord than gutted the cinemas for retail use and found someone to rent it ( a 99 c store). Mr. Nova also closed and has since reopend The
New Coliseum.
Did nova convert his theater into a 99cent store or has he sold the land. Meaning is the store his?
To answer my own question – yes, the Nova has indeed been converted into a 99-cent store. All that remains within the interior is the downward slope which greeted patrons as they entered the theatre, an odd cement formation in the ceiling where at least one or two of the cinemas were (I spent a moment or two staring at it, trying to figure out what it was, but to no avail), a small counter to one’s left as they enter the theatre (it’s too battered to have been installed during the recent renovation) and what appears to be either the fire exit (although it isn’t marked as such) or the entranceway to a storage room. (Walking around, I couldn’t imagine how three auditoriums were fit within that space or what the precise layout was; at least one or two of them must have been relatively tiny.) Of the exterior, the box office and marquee are gone, as are the one-sheet display cases shown in the above photo; the tiles beneath those one-sheet cases remain and the exterior otherwise has been painted tan.
Does anyone know if the Nova’s heartbreaking conversion into a 99-cent store has been completed?
The building is located on Broadway and 147th Street.
Nova Cinemas closed for good
This theater had a sister theater in Park Slope, Brooklyn (The Plaza and now the Pavilion Twin). It recently closed, leaving Manhattan north of 125th Street with not a single operating cinema.