Princeton Garden Theatre
160 Nassau Street,
Princeton,
NJ
08542
160 Nassau Street,
Princeton,
NJ
08542
3 people
favorited this theater
Located across from Princeton University, the theatre has been modernized yet maintains an old time charm.
The Garden Theatre opened its doors on September 20, 1920, with a showing of “Civilian Clothes”, starring Thomas Meighan. The event also featured a live orchestra and palms and ferns arranged on the stage.
Sameric Corporation ran the theatre from 1975 through 1988, turning the facility into a twin theatre in 1981. United Artists then operated the facility for four years before Theater Management Corporation, which operates neighborhood theatres throughout the northeast, began leasing and managing it in 1993, after it was quietly purchased by Princeton University.
The theatre closed temporarily in August 2000 and reopened in June 2001 after a $1M renovation.
Contributed by
TC
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Recent comments (view all 16 comments)
Listed in the 1961 FDY as part of Associated Prudential Theatres, Inc.
The interior photo TC posted of the renovated Garden made me say, “Now that’s more like it.” I’d been to the Garden before it was twinned—both to see movies and to stage a cover photo for the college yearbook (the management graciously gave us the use of the theatre’s marquee and lettering)—and the initial (1981) twinning job was a crime: squalid little shoeboxes with plaster-board dividing wall and tiny screens. I’ll have to make time to take in a movie at this theatre the next time I’m in the area.
Here is a recent photo of the Princeton Garden Theaters.
This is another photo of the Princeton Garden Theater.
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1947 program:
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1948 program:
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Here is another photo of the Princeton Garden Theaters.
The information on this theater is slightly inaccurate. I moved to Princeton in September 1980 and it already had two screens. Also, the theater closed down for a few years in the late eighties and early nineties shortly after the UA Movies at Marketfair opened in 1987.
1981 Photo of the Garden Theater.
1986 Photo of the Eric Garden Theater. Eric Garden should be another aka name.
Saw many movies here but the most memorable are The Deep around 1977 and then Poltergeist. Place was packed for both and the experience for Poltergeist was off the hook. The whole crowd was just blown away. Great memory.