Athens Theatre

Chief Jensen is certainly right about lots of Marines going to this theatre, as it was THE grindhouse/porno theatre for Craven County from about 1974 until its closing in 1979. After the Tryon closed WCTI-TV 12(ABC) filmed scenes of the Tryon’s marquee for use on its Sunday afternoon movie. When New Bern Civic Theatre began using the theatre they originally named the building the Saax Bradbury Playhouse.

The photos at the second link in my previous comment are now enlarging properly, so I guess they worked the bugs out of their program. One of the images is the original floor plan of the theater from the office of architect Herbert W. Simpson.

The official web site gives the address of the Athens Theatre as 414 Pollock Street. The zip code is 28560.

As noted at the theater’s official web site (to which Mark_L linked above,) this house opened in 1911 as the Athens Theatre, and was designed by architect Herbert W. Simpson. In addition to The Show Shop and the Kehoe Theatre, Tryon Theatre should be listed as an aka, as the house has gone back to its original name.

The Athens Theatre was restored in 1980, and has since served as a performing arts venue operated by the New Bern Civic Theatre.

Chief Jensen, I’m shocked you didn’t quote the Rivest material as you often do! :–)

It’s a good thing, Chief, you didn’t quote Rivest, in this case, as he has the theater name misspelled as Trylon and cites an erroneous 1975 closing date. It would appear the guy who wrote and submitted the intro write-up referenced Rivest, as so many CT contributors, unfortunately, have a habit of doing.

Now that the theater name has been corrected/updated, can we fix the closing date detail?

<<< Trylon Theatre, Also known as Tryon Theatre>>>

Trylon? Any chance that’s a typo? I also suspect this theater closed later than 1975.