Prince Theater
Route 1,
Princeton,
NJ
Route 1,
Princeton,
NJ
No one has favorited this theater yet
Showing all 9 comments
This was opened by Budco on July 10th, 1962. The grand opening ad is posted here.
The Prince was razed completely so the status should be changed to closed/demolished.
A Pep Boys Auto Store sits on the site of the Prince 3 today. This was an undistinguished building on Route 1 outside of the Princeton town limits. I believe that the theater building was expanded on its “western” side in the 1970s while the original auditorium was twinned.
It was a Budco theater and it sometimes ran X-rated films as pointed out above. The last film I saw here was Die Hard.
For a period in the early 1980s, this cinema would show X-Rated Adult Films on one of its screens, while the other two auditoriums were still used for first-run mainstream pictures, which I thought was very odd.
It was a Budco Triplex when I moved to Princeton in 1980. I think the last movie I saw there was Total Recall in 1990.
Listed as a 3 screen Budco Theatre in the 1985 International Motion Picture Almanac.
The Prince 3 ended its days in the early 90’s (probably ‘92-'93) as a discount movie house showing 2nd run films for $2 for all seats at all times.
I’m watching the documentary now and in the special features section it shows the theater in black and white in a newspaper and in the present day. It’s now a Pep Boys. The original prosecutor tours the store and points to where the screen once stood.
On 11/9/67, received smoke damage from a major fire at the nearby sprawling Princeton Bowl and Indoor Ice Skating Rink on Route 1. The bowling alley, ice rink and cocktail lounge were all destroyed in the blaze.