Lawrence Theatre

This was known as the RKO Lawrence when I attended in 1979 and the very early ‘80’s. I remember seeing “Apocalypse Now” for the 3rd or 4th time here. Saw a number of movies here. I also saw the 1980’s 3-D flick “Coming At Ya” here and possibly “The Elephant Man”. I seem to remember this as a twin, but it might have been a triplex by the early '80’s. I know CConnoly is talking about another theater when he mentions the light flooding the auditorium whenever someone would enter from the lobby, but I think that occured at several theaters. Was the RKO Lawrence the theater where you had to walk down a few steps from the lobby to the doors leading into one of the auditoriums?

Anyway, here are a few shots of the building now, which is a Duane Reade now. The entrace looks the pretty much the same and the lobby ran along the wall that faces Rockaway Boulevard (facing the camera lens in the 1st photo) with the auditoriums on the left.

RKO Lawrence
Pylon sign
Old entrance

Thanks longislandmovies… but I was thinking of a theater where from the lobby you actually had to step down a couple of steps before pushing open the doors into the auditorium. I thought it might have been the Lawrence.

Came across an old copy of Newsday I saved from the time just after John Lennon’s murder. I also have copies of the NY Post and Daily News from this time and it seems that only in Newsday did theater chains like RKO run these sort of throwback block ads:

RKO block ad

Elsewhere in the paper, RKO also had a smaller block for its bargain-priced third run cinemas (at the time priced at “80 cents at all times”) such as the Mineola, Valley Stream and Hempstead Theaters.

This ad for Five Card Stud advertises this as the New RKO Lawrence Twin.
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This first opened in 1967 as the RKO Twin Theatres. “Why Twins?,” ads wondered. “Here are the reasons: The TWIN miracle of convenience. Each TWIN theatre will show the same feature— with starting times staggered. Come early…come late…whenever you come, the TWIN concept eliminates the long wait to see the picture from the beginning. The identical TWIN theatres each have 750 seats.” The RKO Twin boasted of free parking for 4,000 cars due to its location between “the giant Korvette Shopping Center and the mammoth "Bargain Town."
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