Herricks Cinema 4

I did the booth installation for the quad. 2 tiny theaters side by side in the back. 2 small theaters side by side in the front. Theater still does very well.

This former GG HOUSE always did very well..

Mr GG. I wonder what ever happened to him.

The three screen chain Port Washington, Herricks and Grand Avenue were bought by Clearview Cinemas in 1995

I met a friend here tonight to see Hide and Seek. I had not been here in a few years. This has to be the cleanest theatre I have ever been in. The place is almost sterile clean. Mens room, lobby auditorium floors just everything. The theatres are really tiny and the screen is the same for flat and scope but the seats are very comfortable.

All the screens have the correct aspect ratio. They also all have movable maskings. Someone must have forgotten to move the maskings to the right position. Since Clearview quaded it, they have kept the theater very clean.

Here are a few exterior photos taken last week of the theater and the pylon marquee on Hillside Ave.

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b110/GuanoReturns/Nassau%20Theaters%202005/IMG_0983.jpg
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b110/GuanoReturns/Nassau%20Theaters%202005/IMG_0984.jpg
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b110/GuanoReturns/Nassau%20Theaters%202005/IMG_0985.jpg

I wonder when the theater acquired the apostrophe in its name? Anyway... I never went here, but I work in the neighborhood so decided to take a quick tour of the New Hyde Park area cinemas (past and present).

The links in my December 6th post no longer work. Those photos may now be found here for those special few who care to see them.

Here is something you all should know. I know the theater will never live up to what it used to be. But if you still live on Long Island and have Cablevision "triple play" digital cable, internet, and voice, got to www.optimumrewards.com and apply for a rewards card. With the card, Clearview Cinemas such as the Franklin, Herricks, Manhasset, Great Neck, Port Washington etc, check under www.clearviewcinemas.com, then you are entitled to this rewards card, that gives you free movie tickets for a family of 4 on Tuesdays(EVERY TUESDAY!) and $6 adult tickets, even on Saturday evenings throughout the week. It also gives you presales, to big concerts at MSG and Radio City.

This is not an advertisement for Cablevision. I HATE THEM! The control too much and speaking of old movie houses, for old movies they have kept Turner Classics and other networks that compete with networks like the defunct American Movie Classics, now American Movie Channel, in an unfair monopoly! At least get the reward cards and make sure you go to the movies on Tuesdays whenever you can can and use the discount card whenever you go to a Clearview movie theater. If you are going anyway, at least take money out of their EVIL CORPORATE POCKETS!

most of the gg houses still opened..........strange how they lasted long after most...............

Here's a mid '80's block ad for the GG chain...
Newsday - 10/5/85

Are the Grand Ave and Old Country Twins still open in some form?

3 of the 4 theaters still open only one closed is plainview.

Ed, Grand Ave. is now a quad and a half....LOL

What were the GG Cinemas anyway? One owner, owner affiliation to get bookings of the first run releases, co-op etc? Though I went to both the Herricks and Franklin growing up, both GG theaters, I never felt they were coporate or even franchised, just independent theaters just by the way they were run, the management "Decisions" made. I am using the Franklin as an example, because I spent the most time there and find the most bizarre decisions, from construction to running films without audiences there!

Was GG renamed Clearview when it was bought by Cablevision? When I was growing up, it seemed like the Franklin which my friends and I used to go to at least on day a weekend, seem to be more of an independent theater. Could I be wrong about that? Was GG just a sort of "Co-op" of theaters to book movies so they can get first runs against the big chains or was it an actual corporation? The Franklin I know was never an RKO, a Century, Loews, Sony, etc. but I never remember it ever being a GG theater or even advertising any kind of chain affiliation except in the paper.

It seemed so too, it was independently operated the way it was run, and also the way it quaded. They just took the two small balconies and made theaters of them.

It was very strange how it was quaded, because first off, it looked to the naked eye about only 50 seats if that much, and then there was an area, the same size where no seats were, and then the screen. I do not know if it was structually unsound to put seats, but they did not have bars so you could not walk on them, and you could walk up and touch the screen as you sometimes did as "crazy teenagers." It if was a corporate of theaters, I doubt they would have quaded the theater in this way, because the cost of rental against the number of seats, it really would seem, "what is the point?" if you only have 50-75 seats in the theater?

I even remember on a couple of occasions seeing a day, non matinee for another film, and walking into both the big theater and the small theater on seperate occasions and the movie was running but no one was in the theater. When I asked about that, they said, no one had come for the 3:30 showing on a summer weekday. I asked, "Why then, after a half hour, do you not just shut the film off? I was told, they keep in on just in case people come late! Well we know movies never start on time because of previews etc, and then after a half hour and no tickets sold? That does not sound like a corporate run theater.

For that reason it seems like it was some kind of independent theater that either joined the GG group for advertising and movie booking purposes or was bought and joined with Clearview when Cablevision bought it. Does someone have the history of GG, and how it evolved to Clearview and the purchase by Cablevision?

Needless to say, movies up there on the "living room theaters", were always sold out on the weekends.

Clearview bought the GG theaters. Mr GG was an actual person. Everone today splits up theaters to get the most films they can in at once. Some films stay for a long period of time and get moved into the smaller 50 or 60 seats theaters. Thats all thats needed for those films at that time.

this theater is located in New Hyde Park

Mr GG owned the Herricks, Port Washington, Grand Avenue, and I forget what else offhand. Clearview bought them from him and started buying up theaters all over. Then Cablevision bought Clearview. Thats where it stands today.

As of October, 1985, RCDTJ, GG's Long Island empire also included the Old Country Twin in Plainview. See the ad I posted above on Aug 23rd, 2006.

I knew I was missing one. LOL. Thanks Ed.

I was never in this theatre but wandered around the exterior one day shortly after it was opened. It seemed really cheaply contructed from the outside.