Palm Springs Twin One & Two
419 West 49th Street,
Hialeah,
FL
33012
419 West 49th Street,
Hialeah,
FL
33012
2 people
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This theater was located in the Palm Springs Mile Shopping Center on West 49th Street at Red Road in Hialeah. It opened on December 21, 1962 with Jerry Lewis in “It’s Only Money” and was operated by Wometco Theatres and had a seating capacity of 1,200 in its single screen.
The last movie I saw there was “Scarface” in 1981, and the first movie I saw there was the first “Batman” motion picture with Adam West back in the mid-1960’s.
This theater is now closed. I still haven’t figured out why it is closed, this theater always had good movies and lots of business. I never saw it empty.
Contributed by
Louis Jimenez
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Recent comments (view all 15 comments)
As posted by Al Alvarez above, the correct name was the Palm Springs Theater. There was no Cinema and no Mile in the name.
The grand opening was on December 20, 1962 and it was added to the east end of a shopping center that had been open for about three years. I attended many movies there starting in 1962 through 1966.
Yesterday I scanned a newsclipping describing the grand opening and it is located online at http://www.pbase.com/donboyd/image/92675326
One more correction: the stats at the top say it had 800 seats, but the newspaper article about the grand opening says it had 1200 seats.
I remember going to this theater in the early 1970’s when I was growing up in Hialeah. It was THE place to go see a neighborhood movie.
The theater was next door to a G.C. Murphy Co. Drug Store and my mother used to buy my sister and I popcorn and candy there before the movie. (Murphy’s popcorn was in long, thin bags that seemed two feet long, although as a kid, it may have looked bigger. The candy was, back then, only 25 cents.)
What I remember most is that during the summer, the theater would have amazing programming for kids before noon that included a cartoon, a short film (like the Three Stooges) and a movie—either an old Disney film or a newer G-rated movie. (One that stands out was a western called Against a Crooked Sky.) Between the shorts and the movie there were always prize giveaways. The theater was always packed during these screenings and the kids were excited and rowdy. What a blast.
I remember the theater as one auditorium, so it may have been twinned soon afterwards.
One other memory was when I was seven. My mother picked me up after school and took me there to see a movie during the week, which had never happened before. The theater was showing Peter Bogdanovich’s Nickelodeon and as a promotion, they were offering a matinee admission price of a nickel, so my mom wanted to take advantage of the bargain! (I think I fell asleep, but I do remember a great chase scene involving a hot air balloon and a locomotive.)
I went to visit there about a decade ago and it was no longer a theater. I took a pic and will post it when I dig it out.
Hopefully this ad will convince CT to correct the name of this location to PALM SPRINGS.
View link
The address was 419 West 49th Street.
Does anyone have pictures of the theatre
The Palm Springs Theatre was featured in an article in Boxoffice of October 21, 1963. There are a few photos.
The full professional name of the architect of the Palm Springs Theatre was A. Herbert Mathes. He designed many theaters for Wometco during this period, and was also a well-known Miami hotel architect.
An small grand opening ad appeared on this page at View link
New link to 1963 trade article cited above by Joe Vogel: Boxoffice
the theater eventually closed due to the united artists movie theater opening up a few blocks west of it back in 1996. the theater is now a private clinic.