Teatro America
Jose Julian Acosta Street,
Vega Baja
Jose Julian Acosta Street,
Vega Baja
2 people
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It is a nice pink Art Deco style movie theater, opened in 1924. It was designed by the Basque emigrant Pablo Eguia Maguregi and was renovated in an Art Deco style in 1940.
The Teatro America operated as a movie theatre until 1985, when it was closed. After restoration, it re-opened in 2000, but now is a live theatre venue.
Contributed by
Jose Otero Buenaga, Ken Roe
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Recent comments (view all 6 comments)
This link will take you to a pic of the theatre.
View link
I remember going to this theater when I went to Puerto Rico. They use to run a different movie everyday except on sunday and monday when they would play the newest movies of course about 8 or 9 months after it had open else where. It also had a marquee which I see is missing. don’t know how many it seated but it was pretty big.
The link above has expired. Does anyone know if this theater has completed its restoration?
I lived in Puerto Rico for only a short 3 years during the mid 80s & recently visited there after a long hiatus…the theater is still there, but it seems it does not operate as a MOVIE theater anymore…I took a peek inside & there are fold up chairs & a stage (no screen that I can see), according to a friend of the family (who has lived in Vega Baja her whole life), she says she has seen her share of “plays” there & can’t remember WHEN they stopped showing movies, so I’m assuming it is operating strictly as a performing arts center for the small town of Vega Baja.
I lived there when I was in the 5th-6th grade, so this theater has a sweet spot from my youth…I have fond memories of seeing movies like The Goonies, Fright Night, Return of the Living Dead, A View To A Kill & several others that escape me at the moment. On my recent trip back, I believe I took a photo of the very front of the theater. I will try my darnest to upload it to Photobucket in the next few days & copy the link over here.
Geez, I need to read the above captions better…I see it is already KNOWN it stopped working as a theater around 1985..which is around the time I had my above posted memories…it must’ve close shortly after, how sad. As LUISMEL above said, I remember talking to my cousin (who lived in NYC) on the phone & he’d already seen movies that were still a long ways from being screened at the America! I also remember they only showed movies at night…maybe 2 showings, like one at 7:30pm & another at 9:30pm & the popcorn was always “stale” & was always pretty dirty inside…now I know WHY, considering it was pretty much at the end of its “movie theater” run.
Jorge is correct. They would only show movies at night, except on Sundays when they had an extra showing at 3pm. Tuesdays was XXX night. The guy that worked the projector was terrible. In 1979 or 1980, can’t remember exact year, they turned it into a double screen theater and they changed the name to Vega Baja 1 & Vega Baja 2. Terrible idea. I guess they figured that out and went back to a 1 screen theater.