The former marquee for the theater, by the intersection of New London Ave and Sockanosset Crossroad was later repurposed and refurbished for use as a marquee for Garden City Center itself.
From what I can remember, the Warwick Cinema closed sometime between 1984 and 1989. It was most definitely closed and boarded up in 1990. Sometime in the early 90’s, my boy scout troop held a car wash at the McDonald’s in the plaza. A few of us wandered off to explore the building via the decomposing rear exit from the theater. The place, though ransacked, looked as though it had been closed for the night. Cups, popcorn buckets, straws and other trash littered the place. There were still items strewn around from the smashed glass candy case, and the sample popcorn buckets with prices on them were still lined up along the back of the counter. I took the large bucket with it’s little red plastic price numbers glued on, a few blank employee name tags, and a strip of connected tickets to a 1980’s showing of “Luther” (the 1973 version). We weren’t brave enough to venture upstairs to the storage, office or projection space. At one point the building was mostly gutted and a locked entry door installed through the boards over the front entrance. I can remember finding strips of degraded film on the ground outside in the years after it was gutted. I even remember watching as the building was being torn down. As the front of the building was peeled away, marquee letters organized in a rack on the upper level spilled out into the rubble. I saved a couple of random letters, though I never did anything with them. I’m pretty sure I lost all the taken objects when I moved out of my parent’s place. It’s amazing that the building existed until just under 20 years ago, and yet as vividly as I remember it, there are no pictures of the building to be found anywhere.
The former marquee for the theater, by the intersection of New London Ave and Sockanosset Crossroad was later repurposed and refurbished for use as a marquee for Garden City Center itself.
From what I can remember, the Warwick Cinema closed sometime between 1984 and 1989. It was most definitely closed and boarded up in 1990. Sometime in the early 90’s, my boy scout troop held a car wash at the McDonald’s in the plaza. A few of us wandered off to explore the building via the decomposing rear exit from the theater. The place, though ransacked, looked as though it had been closed for the night. Cups, popcorn buckets, straws and other trash littered the place. There were still items strewn around from the smashed glass candy case, and the sample popcorn buckets with prices on them were still lined up along the back of the counter. I took the large bucket with it’s little red plastic price numbers glued on, a few blank employee name tags, and a strip of connected tickets to a 1980’s showing of “Luther” (the 1973 version). We weren’t brave enough to venture upstairs to the storage, office or projection space. At one point the building was mostly gutted and a locked entry door installed through the boards over the front entrance. I can remember finding strips of degraded film on the ground outside in the years after it was gutted. I even remember watching as the building was being torn down. As the front of the building was peeled away, marquee letters organized in a rack on the upper level spilled out into the rubble. I saved a couple of random letters, though I never did anything with them. I’m pretty sure I lost all the taken objects when I moved out of my parent’s place. It’s amazing that the building existed until just under 20 years ago, and yet as vividly as I remember it, there are no pictures of the building to be found anywhere.