Gables Theatre

I managed the Gables Theater in 1972. It was a great place with a fun staff of mainly young high school kids I inherited from my predecessor. I don’t remember hiring or firing anyone during the six or seven months I ran the place. I’d eat either for free in exchange for a few free passes at a husband and wife place down the street that served the same fare every night, I think it was a choice of meat loaf or spaghetti and meatballs; it was the size of most phone booths, the two people who ran it were a riot, really lovable. One time he mentioned in passing that he was chef and his wife said, disdainfully, “You aren’t a chef, a chef knows how to make more than two dishes!”

While I was there a couple of the favorite movies we ran were Cabaret, and Frenzy, which drew larger than usual audiences. Back then we’d run movies for several weeks because the longer it ran in the same house the more the percentage moved to the theater chain from the distributor. During a showing of Frenzy I went down to check on the place after everything got quiet and emerged from the auditorium to see my head usher tieless and standing behind the candy counter, alone. I went over and he pointed to the store room. When I went in the counter girl was sitting on a chair with the boy’s tie wrapped around her neck. The sight made me freeze, they’d gotten me and had a good laugh over it. When it rained I had to go around the auditorium placing buckets because there were so many holes in the roof, but it didn’t stop people from enjoying the films. Great loose atmosphere and a lot of fun.

I managed to get in trouble with the front office accountant because he decided it would be a good idea to raise the ticket price and show only one movie. Fiasco, it was a like watching a waterhole dry up during a draught. I got in trouble because I very methodically, and on my own time, charted the attendance figures of the place for the previous five years; it was the steadiest line you ever saw till that genius decided to tamper with things. At the managers meeting I presented my findings and told the upper UA management that the place had a local audience that went there whenever a new feature arrived. The whole family would see it during the two or three weeks it played and the small variance was due to people from neighboring towns who went a little out of their way to see a film that was no longer playing anywhere else. But when the price went up and it was cut to one movie and cartoons the locals stopped coming. The regional manager and district manager and accountant began shouting at one another, each blaming one of the others or both for the unwise decision, which was reversed immediately! My reward for this extra effort was to have all three act as though I’d done something wrong. Disgusted — the pay was terrible and I lived pretty far off in Commack at the time — I gave them a week’s notice. The district manager asked me to reconsider. I said a hefty raise would help. He said it was out of the question, no one was getting anything, the chain was on a low budget, etc, so I left. But for the most part managing the place was a lot of fun.

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.

Wasn’t that a movie, Vito? Peter Graves? 1957 or so? Title eludes me… ;}

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.

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.

RobertR…did you mean to post a photo of the Gables from that site? Here is one…
View link

It’s interesting that the executive offices of the chain that operated this theatre were next store to the theatre. I’d been in many Prudential houses in my day but it was sadly neglected to put it mildly.

Many good memories of going to the Merrick gables in the 1950’s – it was old THEN. Highly decorated ceiling, sweeping balcony – likely 1930’s vintage.

Costas Poulikidis bought the Gables in 1984 with redevelopment in mind:
http://tinyurl.com/22qtmv

The Merrick Mall Cinema was north of Sunrise Highway. I remember going there in the mid-1960’s for Saturday afternoon horror matinees. When I revisited the place ten years ago (after being away for a long time), the site was a flower & gift shop.

The Merrick Theatre was on Merrick Road, in a shopping center on the south side, close to the Freeport border. In the 1970’s they used to show a lot of foreign films there.

My earliest recollections of going to The Merrick Gables was for the mid-60’s reissue of Disney “Cinderella” and the 1966 double-bill of “The Silencers” plus “Murderer’s Row.”

Best regards,

www.Flickhead.com

It served a purpose back in the 70s and 80s. I think I saw Animal House there at least a half dozen times. For under a buck. Can’t beat that. Grew up in Merrick and there were a few cool neighborhood theaters. Then they all closed one after another. For a while in the 90s there were none. (And parents in the ‘burbs wonder why their kids are so bored out of their minds that they sit on the side of the parkway chugging beers and smoking weed.)