Tara Cinemas
2345 Cheshire Bridge Road NE,
Atlanta,
GA
30324
2345 Cheshire Bridge Road NE,
Atlanta,
GA
30324
5 people
favorited this theater
The Tara Cinemas is, in my opinion, the perfect art house theater and here’s her story:
Tara was built by a local buisness man who had previously built her sister theater in downtown Atlanta. Naturally, she was named after the house in “Gone with the Wind”.
Originally she was a single screen theater, but was later twinned. Some where in the 1970’s, from what I have been told, two more screens were added on. Then in the 1980’s United Artists Theatres bought the Tara Cinemas and used her as the VP’s office theatre.
The Tara Cinemas checkerboard titled lobby is awesome. Albeit a small lobby, it more than compensates with its excellent hanging portraits of many stars like Garbo, Connery, and Chaplin.
Although the recent merger of UA/Regal/Edwards has hindered several theaters, the Tara Cinemas keeps going strong in the box office.
Contributed by
UAGirl
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Recent comments (view all 94 comments)
“The Tara still holds the distinction of being the only theatre in the Atlanta area with more than forty years of continuous operation.”
Jack: I guess you mean among the theatres currently in operation. I know that we could both think of several that lasted more than 40 years that are now gone.
Stan, are you saying that the Tara has been in continuous operation longer than the Starlight Drive In; are you sure? That does not seem right to me though I could well be wrong. Did the Starlight shut down for a while at some point? Please, straighten me out on this one.
Nope. Like you I was assuming that Jack meant indoor theatres, or as they say in the trades, walk in or hardtops.
The Starlight opened the south field in 1949 and the north in 1953. The south was closed for a while when the snack bar burned. The north closed a year later when it was split. Every winter one side or the other closes for the season, something I never understood the theory on. However, as far as I know, at least something has been open there since opening day although they close on Christmas Eve, and for the occasional power outage.
I no longer work there, at least regularly, but I did write a history of the place on its page here:
/theaters/11497/
As for indoors, without looking at a list, I can think of the Grand, the Fox, Garden Hills / Fine Art, Plaza (if you count its XXX years), and the Lenox which might have been only 39 years 8 months. I hesitate to even go down this road because I know that people will start listing reasons why some of these places were not in continious operation. Even the Tara shut down once for two days when it was first twinned.
Maybe I should start off the previous paragraph with the words “Generally speaking….”
Most of the indoor theatres built during the 60’s lasted only 25 or so years at the most, some a lot less. I think that the shortest existance for a regular indoor theatre (as opposed to some of the XXX storefront operations) was the Atlantic, an Eastern Federal location on Memorial Drive in or near the Kirkwood area. It lasted only about 5 years.
Thanks Stan. Speegie would have been proud.
now showing Sept.13 2001
“CURSE OF THE JADE SCORPION”
“BROTHER”
“HEDWIG and THE ANGRY INCH”
“APOCALYPSE NOW REDUX”
I think the Buckhead Art Cinema at west paces ferry and Peachtree was there the longest? BTW, anyone remember the drive-in at the site of the Richway->Lindbergh Marta station?
The Buckhead Art was built in 1969 in the storefront space of the old Wendler and Roberts Drug Store. With the exception of a very short effort as an art house is was 35MM softcore its entire life. In the early 90’s it was gutted and replaced by the first of many bars to occupy that space during the prime years of the Buckhead Village party days. In all it lasted about 20 years.
The drive in at Lindbergh was the Piedmont Drive In. It was operated by the Dixie chain and later sold to Storey. Its page on this site is:
/theaters/18519/
Stan, did you know a Mr. Kinard that operated the concessions at the Piedmont Drive-In?
The Tara underwent a modestly budgeted face-lift in mid-2004 under the Regal Entertainment Group design team of Nicole Potter and Angie Berry. They began with the interesting curved shapes of the existing lobby space and used it as the embryo for their “new” interior concept—One that was intended to convey what might have been built during the transitional phase between the Art Deco and Streamline Moderne time periods. Working almost exclusively with off-the-shelf materials, they were able to coax a “vintage” cinema feel from what had previously been a dated hodgepodge covered in a forlorn coat of unflattering pink paint. From there, they made full upgrades to the refreshment stand and restroom spaces that also helped mirror the 1930’s-‘40’s, replete with rich finishes, banded-aluminum inlaid millwork, and lighting fixtures chosen to enhance a period look. From the earlier lobby, several dramatic monochrome portraits of Golden-Age film icons were salvaged and mounted on the high walls, along with a selection of classic deco travel posters. Finally, they added custom carpet, and a seating area with period-look furnishings to create a comfortable place to gather before or after the film. Several photos taken of the finished project have been added.
This theater is now all-digital projection. The projection is quite poor in auditorium 2, however, because of the angle of the room and the configuration of the projector — the picture is so askew it’s practically diagonal. Hopefully that can be fixed. Other auditoriums look good.