Loew's College
262 College Street,
New Haven,
CT
262 College Street,
New Haven,
CT
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. The auditorium may have been demolished as it is no longer visible.
Contributed by
Roger Katz
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Recent comments (view all 16 comments)
I am trying to figure out where this photo of a “Hyperion Theater” is. Is this the Loews College, former Hyperion in New Haven? The only other Hyperion I can find on the site is in Corona, NY, and I doubt that is the Hyperion in this photo:
Here’s the photo:
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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.
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Thanks for the boxoffice photo Gerald.