Park Hill Theatre

What's Cinema 5?

Cinema 5 were was a chain of art houses originally called Rugoff Theatres. They were the company who built Cinema 1-2 among others.

The Park Hill was triplexed by its last operator. It closed in the early 90's after their business was severly impacted by the National Amusements Cross County 10-plex nearby. The theatre building housed a church in the late 90's, but was recently put up for sale again. The marquee is still on the building. It is the last of the downtown Yonkers theatres still standing in its original configuration.

Could anyone give a brief history of the Park Hill? I assume that by the looks of the exterior it was built in the early 30's.

Here's an ad from July, 1958. The trashy main feature seems to contradict the Park Hill's self-description as "Westchester's Theatre of Refinement":
www.i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/parkhill.jpg

The 1957 Film Daily Year Book reports a seating capacity of 1,105. I believe that the Park Hill took over the runs of Loew's Yonkers when Loew's closed that theatre, though the Yonkers later re-opened under Brandt management.

A brief history of the Park Hill Theater can be found here. If the information is accurate, the timeline for this theater is 1926-1982.

I recollect Park Hill as a very nice theater, around 1970 or so. We used to drive over from Woodlawn, to see flicks here. The only real problem was finding a parking place nearby. The neighborhood deteriorated, later.

So much for the 1982 closing year. Here is a 1983 photo.

The Park Hill Theatre first opened on February 27th, 1926. Seating capacity has been variously reported in trade directories as between 1,100 and 1,200.

The second sentence of the introduction is awkwardly phrased. I would suggest changing it to something like "Later, it became one of the few theatres in Westchester County that were operated by the Cinema 5 chain."

Here's a PDF of a report about the Park Hill Theatre, with history and photos. Published in 2004.