Beach Theatre
1318 Atlantic Avenue,
Atlantic City,
NJ
08401
1318 Atlantic Avenue,
Atlantic City,
NJ
08401
3 people
favorited this theater
Showing 1 - 25 of 43 comments
Hey Bob. Glad you are still around. Saw many movies there starting in 68 Yours Mine and Ours. In the porn era they did run a double feature Lady Sings the Blues and Mahogany for a few weeks than back to porn. I think after we saw YMAO, they put a new screen in. YMAO did not have any masking it was a screen that looked like maybe it had masking that came down for scope. Years later they had side masking and I believe top too.
In 1982 I worked the XXX Beach theatre (union job) in Atlantic City. One night, I got I got up to make a change over (no reel end alarms) I looked out the porthole, & I thought I was at a drive-in on a foggy night! I smelled smoke! I called down to the cashier Told her to call 911. The shoe store next to our entrance, it was on fire! The flames had already burned through the ceiling to the vacant apartments above! I turned on all of the house lights I released the chain to close the port holes stopped the projector (Brenkert) I went out the fireproof corrugated door into the smokey hallway across from the apartments. The steps that lead down to the balcony were already on fire! As I was descending the burning steps, a brave Atlantic City fireman was coming yelling for anyone. … It was muti-alarm fire. Outside, I told one newspaper reporter the “They Were Showing Smokers in there”! … Several months later, the two stores were boarded up. the apartment widows, above the marquee were boarded up. the facade was very charred. I went up to the booth (yes, they reopened it!) The old apartment doors were open & the electric & water shut off We used the toilet (local 310 guys) in one of them. I opened the booth door, & lo & behold; everything was in pristine condition! …Dumb old me had saved the theatre! …However, a year later it permanently closes because of the VCR craze. The good news is that I believe that (2024) it’s all still all there!
Opened as the City Square theatre on April 1st, 1912. ad posted.
Reopened as Shore on February 28th, 1947 with “The Fabulous Dorseys”
Reopened as Embassy on January 17th, 1931. Ad posted.
Reopened as Beach on January 15th, 1952. Ad posted.
Beach theatre opening 15 Jan 1952, Tue Press of Atlantic City (Atlantic City, New Jersey) Newspapers.com
It did not. It was at the Charles.
Did Once is Not Enough play at this theater? I remember walking by the theater where it was playing as a boy.
Mikeoaklandpark: This theater was called the Shore from 1947 to 1952, and had opened as the Embassy Theatre in 1911. It became the City Square Theatre in the 1920s, and was the Beach Theatre from 1952 until closing.
TheAlan I grew up in AC and at least from 67 until it closed it was the Beach. The Embassy and Shore were two different theaters. The Embassy was part of the Apollo circuit chain along wioth the Strand and Apollo later sold to the dreadful Frank Theaters. The Shore along with the Hollywood, Center, Roxy and Virginia were part of the George A Hamid chain which also owned the Steel Pier and Million Dollar Pier.
PAB lists this theater under CITY SQUARE THEATRE in Atlantic City, Atlantic County, NJ. No additional details are listed. The Embassy Theatre, City Square Theatre, Shore Theatre, and Beach Theatre were various names for the same theater. Stores were built in front of the theater but that building remains behind those stores. Jersey Discount now claims the 1318 Atlantic Avenue address. The back of the old theater can be viewed from Central Avenue.
Crazy Bob Maderas, was correct with the Beach Theater building was owned by Charles Tannenbaum, but leased, run, and operated by George Perry and Perry Management. It burnt down in the early 80s and never recovered. It was the last operating movie theater in Atlantic City and ran x-rated films at that time. It was actually a beautiful theater with balcony seats.
As Roger Katz noted, the building still exists. I used to work a few doors down the street and frequented the stores there… the check cashing place is not connected to the theater… but the bodega and the tiny pizzeria are. Since 2nd floor space in AC is worthless, to my knowledge, only the first floor is utilized. The bodega is run by some Asians, but I can’t remember their names… and if you enter the store, you can see how the floor slopes like the original theater entrance. Also, in the back of the store is a normally closed passageway that when opened, you can see into the theater itself, with its floor sloped down towards the screen.
Looking a the bird’s eye view from Bing that’s definitely a theatre building there. The status of this one should be changed to “Closed.”
Here is another photo:
http://tinyurl.com/ybn8n63
My guess would be that is the same building. The dimensions are too similar, besides no one wants to build anything new on Atlantic Avenue at this point.
The building in Google street view does look like the Beach building in the 1981 photo, with some of the windows sealed up. The Bing Maps bird’s eye view shows that there’s auditorium behind it, too, and it looks quite old. The Beach has not been demolished— or at least hadn’t been at the time the Google and Bing images were made.
New building at 1318 or the same building as in the 1980s photos? What do you think? Take a look at the same brick building to the left in both photos.
http://tinyurl.com/y8qwxs2
Chuck, you must be right about the address. The Beach must be the theater that was at 1318 Atlantic. But I still think the Beach was once the City Square, one reason being an entry in the 1920 edition of Boyd’s Atlantic City Directory, which lists: “O'Keefe Edw J genl mgr Criterion Theatre Cort Theatre City Square Theatre h 1318 Atlantic.”
A January 6, 1951, Boxoffice item I found said that the Cinema was a former burlesque house taken over by Waxmann in 1940. It was still called the Cinema in 1951, and got the name Shore the next year.
The same item repeated the claim that the then-Shore (this house) had been the City Square, and added that it was once operated by Eddie O'Keefe, and was taken over on a lease by Waxmann in 1945. But the Cinema, at 1831 Atlantic, has to be the last theater to have had the name Shore, so the address currently given on the Shore page is wrong and actually belongs here on the Beach page.
Comparing the 1981 photo of the Beach linked above by Lost Memory with the 1968 Shore photo he linked on the Shore page, they are both seen with their post-1950s names on the marquees. That would indicate that this house, which still had the name Beach in 1981, is the 1911 Embassy which became the City Square in the 1920s and the Shore in 1947 and finally the Beach in 1952. The front must date from the 1947 renovation by Waxmann, which would explain why it doesn’t look like a building from the 1920s (or 1911.)
I hope this can finally unravel the confusion that has prevailed on the various Atlantic City theater pages.
I was in Ocean City last week but didn’t make it over to AC. I think you will find Atlantic Avenue to be mostly parking lots. Not much left of the town that you and I remember.
Thank you, Ken. My walking and note-taking tour on Wednesday may be tougher than I hoped because I haven’t seen any of these locations since my A.C. years (1955-61), and the surrounding buildings will not be familiar. If they were, they’d help orient me.
As I recall it was between South Carolina and New York avenues, about mid block on the east side of the street.
Can anyone tell me quickly an approximate street address? I’m heading for Atlantic City tomorrow to examine and report on the sites of the old moviehouses.
At least, can you tell me what streets it was between on Atlantic Avenue? Thank you.
The Beach Theatre was the subject of an item in the August, 1984, issue of Boxoffice Magazine. The house had been closed since the previous November when a fire had done extensive damage to it and to adjacent buildings. There had been some hope that the Beach could be reopened, but real estate agents handling the building said that the only interest shown in it was from a potential purchaser who wanted to convert it to non-theatrical commercial use.
The item said that the house had opened in 1911 as the Embassy Theatre, had become the Shore Theatre in 1947, and was renamed the Beach Theatre in 1952.
An item in the February 15, 1947, issue of Boxoffice said that the old Embassy Theatre, which had become the City Square Theatre during the silent movie era, was being renovated for the Waxmann chain and would soon reopen as the Shore Theatre.
An April 9, 1952, Boxoffice item said that Henry Waxmann’s Hollywood Circuit had recently moved the Shore Theatre name to the former Cinema, and that the old Shore had then been reopened by an independent operator as the Beach Theatre.
The aka’s Embassy Theatre, City Square Theatre, and Shore Theatre need to be added to this page, and the aka’s currently on the Embassy Theatre page need to be removed. The Embassy, opened about 1942, was the third Atlantic City house of that name, and apparently never operated under any other name.
I was pretty close. This is a 1982 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/cfbxdm