Loew's College Theatre
262 College Street,
New Haven,
CT
06510
262 College Street,
New Haven,
CT
06510
1 person
favorited this theater
Opened in 1880 and closed in the mid-1970s, Only the lobby seems to remain of the former Loew’s College Theatre. The auditorium may have been demolished as it is no longer visible.
Contributed by
Roger Katz
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Recent comments (view all 17 comments)
I checked out this theater in the City Directories and it goes back to 1880. It seems this theater as well as 2 others were the first theaters which then showed vaudeville and silents years later.
There’s a picture of the Hyperion in Images of America: New Haven on page 12.
Was this theater located near Yale University? This is a 1998 story about the collapse of a Hyperion Theater. “The accident occurred when a loose truss beam gave way inside the Hyperion Theater, a turn of the century opera house and later movie theater”.
If you look at the map link in the introduction, Yale University is several blocks from the site of Loew’s College. In the map at least, Yale appears to be to the north of the theatre.
NY Times September 4, 1977
HARTFORD: THE DECISION by Loews Theaters, New York, to shut down the College Theater in downtown New Haven for the ump teenth time while determining the movie theater’s future, points up the markedly winnowing away of what was once a firmly entrenched element in Connecticut entertainment—downtown motion picture theaters.
I like the name.
In New Haven 1960s you only needed three theaters [four, if you include the POST DRIVE-IN] to get the best out of ‘60s movies: the CROWN, LAWRENCE and LOEW’S COLLEGE, so named because it was on [surprise !] College Street which itself was named for Yale, which was a half-block away. We lived on Lake Place, back of the Payne-Whitney Gym, so I could walk to the COLLEGE and did, often. LOEW’S COLLEGE was THE REAL DEAL for getting the goodness from '60s movies, here’s just a few that I can remember seeing in this biggest/best downtown theater [the Paramount, around the corner was bigger, but its bookings could NOT compare]:GOLDFINGER, TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE, A STRANGER IN TOWN, STRANGER RETURNS, DEVIL DOLL, BURN !, CROSS & THE SWITCHBLADE, WHERE’S POPPA ?—-the term “eclectic” does not do justice to the canyon-wide variety of the COLLEGE’S offerings. Now, I’m not a sentimental man: I never go back, it’s not healthy. But I had some family business which took me back to New Haven for the first time in decades. Not only had they closed the COLLEGE, they’d turned the lobby into an Organic Health Food store [hawk-ptoo]—-with lots of activist/advocate posters, flyers, etc. And hipsters ! In my theater lobby ! [ Question: Why do these health-food characters always look like they’re in the final stages of some fatal wasting disease ? ] I hadn’t carried a gun in years, but I thought, “Me and my M-16, oh yeah, this is worth jail.”
Boxoffice magazine, August 7, 1961, has a photo of the interior.
View link
Thanks for the boxoffice photo Gerald.
The Moving Picture World of October 4, 1912, reported that the Hyperion Theatre had begun its final season as a legitimate house. It was to be operated by the Shuberts until May 1, 1914, when the lease would expire, and then be taken over by S. Z. Poli, to be operated as a movie and vaudeville house (the new Shubert Theatre opened in 1914.) The Hyperion’s career as a stage house was not entirely over, though, as I’ve found references to a repertory season being presented there by Poli in 1920.
Here is a fresh link to the 1951 Boxoffice item with photo that Gerald DeLuca linked to earlier. The item says that the seating capacity of Loew’s recently-remodeled Poli-College Theatre had been reduced from 1,400 to 1,250.