Five Points Theater

327 Chestnut Street,
Union, NJ 07083

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Additional Info

Previously operated by: Jerry Lewis Cinemas

Previous Names: Jerry Lewis Cinema

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Located at the Five Points intersection of Chestnut Street. The 350-seat Jerry Lewis Cinema opened in around 1972. It was later twinned and closed around 1997. There is now a Rite-Aid drugstore on the site.

Contributed by Joe

Recent comments (view all 11 comments)

TheaterBuff1
TheaterBuff1 on February 26, 2008 at 11:59 pm

So the twinning did it in, in other words. I’ve seen that happen time and time again throughout my lifetime. For no matter how expert the twinning conversion, from a theatergoer perspective there’s just something unnerving about going to half of what had been a full theater before. So a great single screen theater gets twinned, people get turned off by it, and next thing you know it’s up for demolition. As in, hmmmm, I wonder why…?!

Life's Too Short
Life's Too Short on February 27, 2008 at 3:07 am

I think you make an interesting point. It is a little weird. Just to be fair, twin conversions can be very profitable. The Evanston Theatre in Evanston, IL did fantastic business after they split it up into four screens for many years afterwards. But the proportions of the converted cinemas were always a strange presentation for the senses.

TheaterBuff1
TheaterBuff1 on February 28, 2008 at 1:15 am

I can see a newly built cinema built as a twin being successful. But how could any theatergoer expect a single-screen theater having been twinned as somehow being “better”? Where I grew up, the first multiplex to arrive on the scene was precisely that at the outset. A multiplex from the getgo. So people went to it without complaint and derived enjoyment from it because it was all so new and novel. But when the single-screen theaters around us began splitting up into twins and multiplexes to get with the new format, they really became pathetic. For it was impossible not to feel shortchanged from what they had been before. To sit squeezed into a mere slither of what had been a grand large-scale auditorium before. In the name of good taste and respect for the audiences, it just isn’t done. But in this case it was. And now every last one of those split up theaters, plus the multiplex-at-the-getgo that started the trend, is gone. No mystery why.

markp
markp on March 12, 2008 at 1:13 pm

This theatre was VERY long and narrow after twinning. My T.V. set at home had a bigger screen.

shany94
shany94 on September 29, 2009 at 8:14 pm

I believe this one actually closed in 1997 – I was home for Christmas one year and remember the marquee read something along the lines of “Thanks for 25 Great Years”

unclejay73
unclejay73 on April 24, 2012 at 10:02 am

I remember going here in ‘88 to see “Beetlejuice”, then snuck in to see “Above the Law”.

rivest266
rivest266 on October 22, 2016 at 3:37 pm

Listings started as Jerry Lewis (Union) on July 14th, 1972. No ad found.

markp
markp on October 22, 2016 at 4:40 pm

rivest266, can you possibly find an ad for the Jerry Lewis Twin in Carteret NJ which opened on June 7, 1972? The local paper at that time was the Perth Amboy Evening News. If you find it can you post it to the Carteret Twin Cinema page here on Cinema Treasures?

FrankieattheMovies
FrankieattheMovies on August 28, 2017 at 10:19 am

I saw some movies here has a kid the one i remember the most was Batman Returns in 1992 it was a lot of fun. Does anyone have pics of the this theater before it closed in 1995?

BeyondEzra
BeyondEzra on January 12, 2018 at 11:40 pm

I went to see Evita here and that came out in December of 1996 so I don’t think it closed until 1997.

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