Wantagh Theatre
3305 Jerusalem Avenue,
Wantagh,
NY
11793
3305 Jerusalem Avenue,
Wantagh,
NY
11793
2 people
favorited this theater
This was a really nice movie theatre, with a glass lobby. It opened in 1960. It was first run until the last year it operated, 1984, when it played move-overs. It was last operated by RKO-Century-Warner
It was converted into an office building.
Contributed by
robertr
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Recent comments (view all 35 comments)
I was at the very first showing of Jaw’s at the Wantagh Theater in the summer of ‘75. It played the whole summer and lines to get in went down Jerusalem Ave.! I still think about that movie 31 years later whenever I go to the beach!
Speedrack… get down to the Ziegfeld Theater in Manhattan sometime over the weekend or next week and go relive those memories. “Jaws” is playing there as part of a “Classics” film festival.
Anyone remember The Good Rats playing there?
Yikes!! I think I saw them there…out promoting “Rat City in Blue”!
I’m sure the roof didn’t leak then
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The Wantagh Theatre was where I first saw my favorite film, “Planet of the Apes,” on April 7, 1968. I was only 8 years old but I vividly remember it, standing in line and looking at the poster with my parents and wondering if the movie would be any good. Well, it floored my little 8-year-old mind. It was THE movie of my youth, and because of that I will always remember the Wantagh Theatre. I later saw “Escape from the Planet of the Apes” there in 1971 after I had moved away from Long Island in 1970. I’m sad to find out the theatre was torn down years ago.
I worked there in the summer of 1975. Jaws opened that summer and the theatre sold out every night for weeks. We would go outside sweep up each night after the last show went in and choose who would run across the stret to the deli for beer for the group. It was a fun summer.
Hey Scottm – I totally remember you. I just created a face book group called ‘I Remember the Wantagh Movie Theater’. Everyone should feel free to join.
Contrary to the heading this only came under the Century banner at the end of it’s, and Century’s life. It was originally part of a chain with a smaller pressence, I’ll say Mann. Much later it became RKO when that circuit was trying to get back into the Long Island market. I remember a Newsday article saying RKO was coming to Long Island and showing the exterior of the Wantagh. The Century association came about as a result of a series of mergers which produced RKO Century Warner. It would appear that the current office building, which has an address of 3305 Jerusalem Avenue, was created from the original theatre through additions and modifications.
According to the biographical listing of Queens architect Leon A. Miller in the 1962 AIA Directory, he designed the Wantagh Theatre in 1960. He also designed the Glen Cove Theatre and Town Theatre in Glen Cove, NY.