University Theater

There were two General Cinemas near OSU - one they bought and called the University Flick, and one that they built called University City. Is this one the Flick? What happened to the U-City?

This is the flick. The U-City was razed around 1990 or so and an Applebee's Restaurant built there. The McDonald's the seemed to grow out of the front of the theater is still there as well.

This was purchased by General Cinema from Modern Theatres around 1971 and was part of a package deal that included the Eastland and Northland here in Columbus and the Mercury and Mayland in Cleveland.

When General Cinemas bought it they changed the name from "University Theatre" to "University Flick".

It's sad that there are no longer any movie theaters on High Street across from Ohio State.

That's for sure. A huge university, and not one theater in the district. There are plans for the Drexel group to open a multiplex in the Gateway project on south campus soon. I hope they make it.

The address was 1980 North High Street.

This building now contains two side-by-side restaurants, Penn Station East Coast Subs and Moe's Southwest Grill. It is no longer easily recognizable as a former theatre.

After reviewing some Columbus Dispatch microfilm archives, I have to retract an earlier statement. This theatre was renamed from 'University Theatre' to 'University Flick' some time before it was sold to General Cinemas. The chain that owned this theatre, as well as the Northland and Eastland mall cinemas, used a distinctive hexagonal logo in its newspaper ads.

And yes, movies are coming back to North High Street. The 'Gateway' cinema, which will be part of the local Drexel chain, is now under construction on the east side of High, opposite 10th Street. It will be next door to the new Barnes & Noble which is replacing Long's Bookstore next week.

In the absence of High Street movie theatres, OSU students are probably patronizing the 24-screen AMC Lennox Town Center megaplex, just across the Olentangy River from campus. This strip mall has other attractions for students, too: an Old Navy, a large Barnes & Noble, a Target, and a Staples. The local transit authority runs a frequent late-night bus from OSU to Lennox.

While in the Ohio Union this week, I also saw advertisements from the Arena Grand theatre downtown, offering tickets to OSU students for $3.

Neither the AMC Lennox Town Center nor the Arena Grand are listed here at CinemaTreasures.

It looks like the restaurant was Moe's Southwest Grill, a chain place. This location is no longer on Moe's website, though. A used record store is currently advertising at 1980 N. High Street.
http://www.usedkids.com/home.html

LIFE 1948 lobby view,
http://images.google.com/hosted/life/l?imgurl=36ecf3582d079282&q=theatre%20lobby%20source:life&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dtheatre%2Blobby%2Bsource:life%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Dactive

renewing link