Gables Theatre
173 Merrick Road,
Merrick,
NY
11566
173 Merrick Road,
Merrick,
NY
11566
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Another neighborhood second run house. In the early-1940’s it was part of the Interboro chain. 1970’s and 1980’s, the price would be the last two digits of the year.
Contributed by
RobertR
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Recent comments (view all 21 comments)
RobertR…did you mean to post a photo of the Gables from that site? Here is one…
View link
Thanks for the great ad and pictures,guys.
rvd I just saw your post regarding Prudentional and the theatre’s neglect. It was, as you probably know, a fact that the company spent little to no money on those theatres. I was so happy when UA took many of them over and began fixing them up. The booths were one of the first thongs to get attention with upgraes and improvements in projection thanks of course to the one and only Joe Kelly.
Vito, the two worst theatres I was ever in were the Gables and the Westbury. Both were dumps. The Westbury had character but the Gables was just a box. If you look at the postings you’ll see that it was next to the Prudential office and movies were previewed there. What does this tell you about Prudential.
This theater should be listed as “demolished.” The address also no longer exists, which is why it won’t map properly or offer a correct street view. The numbering along Merrick Rd in the village of Merrick seems to have changed since the Gables' existence – at least on the south side of the street where the theater stood. Across the street on the north side, 172 and 174 Merrick Rd still stand (a law office and a plumbing & heating supply company, respectively). On the south side stands an animal hospital with an address of 1798 Merrick Rd that seems fairly recently constructed, a parking lot and two smaller and older looking one-story commerical buildings with the addresses 1800 and 1808. Not to mention that the addresses run in opposite directions on either side of the street! I think the law office and plumbing company probably had their old addresses grandfathered in for business purposes.
In any event, any trace of the theater is gone today. My best guess is that it stood where the parking lot and animal hospital sit today.
There was a sky light in the ceilng of the Gables booth I still recall the day a giant praying mantis hovered over me all day watching me work. :)
Wasn’t that a movie, Vito? Peter Graves? 1957 or so? Title eludes me… ;}
Ed, That was “The Deadly Mantis” from 1957 but it wasn’t Graves it was Craig Stevens and William Hopper
We had a ton of those giant bug movies in the 50s. But no, my Mantis was not quite that big :) Big bugs alays scared me, when I lived and worked in Hawaii a giant flying roach got into the booth and terrorised me for hours.
That’s right. Graves was in the giant grasshopper flick, I believe was called “Beginning of the End” from around the same time! Too many giant insect films to keep up with! I don’t think I’ve seen either of those films since they used to play on WNEW TV back in the days of Creature Features!
In any event, the street view was kindly unlocked, so I was able to correct the location to where I believe the theater must have stood, across the street from 172 and 174 Sunrise Highway. Seems accurate… If you compare the street view with the 1983 shot of the Gables posted earlier from the American Classic Images website, you’ll see that both pictures show the dotted white lines on the street veering off from the double yellow line, indicating the beginning of a westbound left-turn lane on Sunrise.
2209 Merrick Rd., Merrick is the current address. Technically, the theater was stripped to the steel back in the late ‘80s, and the building was rebuilt and repurposed. The 'theater’ frame is now a 2-story office building and the Merrick Rd. streetfront are now stores. It was named for the housing development built in the 1920’s by Charles Fox known as the “Merrick Gables”. Matter of fact, Fox Blvd. is on the side of the former theater and a street view down the street will show examples of these Spanish-type homes.