Loew's College

Please note that the photo you show as the College Street Cinema in New Haven is incorrect. It is the front of what was the Loews College Theatre (Hyperion) The College Street Cinema was located in the Roger Sherman Office Building that was to the left of the Loews College in the picture. Access to this theatre was through the commercial building lobby.

The Palace Theatre ( Roger Sherman) was also in this building with its own entrance. I worked as an usher at the Loews College when I was a teen.

The Loew's College Theatre seated 1411 people.

I was there yesterday but the street number advertised on this site doesn't match what it is today. The one next to it was what I presumed it to be but it was boarded up for some future work. If you go behind this row of buildings I couldn't tell if it was a theater or not. I'm guessing the auditorium was torn down if it was of that variety.

The building above, now an Irish gift shop, was the lobby of the Loew's College. The auditorium was demolished after it was announced that it would be turned into condominiums. If you look at the picture, the building to the immediate right (currently boarded up) looks MUCH more 'theatrical' than the Loew's building. I'm guessing the lobby building of the theatre existed before the auditorium, as the letters "MAHER" appear on the top, just above the windows.

Right. Maher, forgot to add that. That's actually a Middle Eastern name, but whatever. The building next door reminds me of Hansel and Gretel architecture of the witches' house, doesn't it?

If this first opened in 1880, it must have been a Loew's take-over. Marcus Loew was only ten years old in 1880!

I am trying to figure out where this photo of a "Hyperion Theater" is. Is this the Loews College, former Hyperion in New Haven? The only other Hyperion I can find on the site is in Corona, NY, and I doubt that is the Hyperion in this photo:
Here's the photo:
http://www.davidottenstein.com/HyperionTheatre1_6-98_2.jpg

The picture on this page looks like where radio station WAVZ was located back in the 60's-70's.

In 1971, all of the DOWNTOWN New Haven walk-in theaters had switched to adult fare. General release movies could only be seen at one of the many drive-in theaters, the smaller theaters on the fringe of downtown or the new cineplex in the suburbs.
http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k79/hollywood90038/miscDWNTWNNH.jpg

I checked out this theater in the City Directories and it goes back to 1880. It seems this theater as well as 2 others were the first theaters which then showed vaudeville and silents years later.

There's a picture of the Hyperion in Images of America: New Haven on page 12.

Was this theater located near Yale University? This is a 1998 story about the collapse of a Hyperion Theater. "The accident occurred when a loose truss beam gave way inside the Hyperion Theater, a turn of the century opera house and later movie theater".

If you look at the map link in the introduction, Yale University is several blocks from the site of Loew's College. In the map at least, Yale appears to be to the north of the theatre.

NY Times September 4, 1977

HARTFORD: THE DECISION by Loews Theaters, New York, to shut down the College Theater in downtown New Haven for the ump teenth time while determining the movie theater's future, points up the markedly winnowing away of what was once a firmly entrenched element in Connecticut entertainment--downtown motion picture theaters.