Center Mayfield Theatre
3909 Mayfield Road,
Cleveland Heights,
OH
44121
3909 Mayfield Road,
Cleveland Heights,
OH
44121
3 people
favorited this theater
Opened in 1936, the Center Mayfield Theatre, which was a sister theatre to the Cedar Lee Theatre, was a neighborhood theatre near the Cleveland Heights/South Euclid border. The theatre had shown mainly sub-run fare for discounted admission.
The theatre closed around 1996, and is currently a Hollywood Video store. Hollywood Video also uses the former Center Mayfield marquee for advertising new release videos and DVDs.
Contributed by
Toby Radloff
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Recent comments (view all 19 comments)
This theater holds a lot of significance for me. I spent my early childhood in Cleveland Heights and saw many classic movies at Center Mayfield. I saw Rocky on opening night when I was about six. I remember the line went down the sidewalk and around the corner. I also saw Star Wars, the Muppet movie and some weird documentary called Beyond and Back. I’m glad someone posted that 1982 photo, which is how I remember this place.
I haven’t lived in Cleveland for a long time, but I was there last summer on business. I had to drive by the theater. I was sad to see it closed. The Hollywood video signs were stil up, but the place was vacant. The marquee was still out there, though.
Who knows, maybe someone will buy it and restore it to its former glory. Anyways, the words “Center Mayfield” will always mean movies to me.
I wonder why the Center Mayfield is considered as a “sister” theater to the Cedar Lee; I believe the Cedar Lee is considerably older, perhaps by as much as a decade. The interiors and lobby were very different in terms of their original decor, and the Cedar Lee had a raised section at the back of the original auditorium (now sub-divided), something like today’s stadium seating, whereas the Center Mayfield had all the seats on the same sloping floor. The Center Mayfield’s seating capacity was also much larger than that of the Cedar Lee. The 600 seat capacity, as noted above, I do not believe to be accurate; take a look at the picture of the auditorium posted by Warren G. Harris above. The 1,200 figure quoted by Joe Vogel is far more likely. The Center Mayfield was much more like the Richmond Theater in Lyndhurst, especially in terms of its auditorium.
The Center Mayfield was a first run theatre for most of its life and started showing lower priced second run films during the mid 1970s. It was unrelated to the Cedar-Lee, which was an art house by the early 70s.
I mentioned the Center Mayfield as a “sister theatre” to the Cedar Lee because Cleveland Cinemas operated it in the 1980’s and 1990’s before it closed.
The Google views are inconclusive now – can’t really see what is written on the marquee but it looks probably vacant. I don’t think the video store ever occupied the auditorium and from the air the roof looks in terrible shape – with holes clearly showing. It’s a big wide auditorium so I think the 1,200 seat figure is accurate. Maybe it had been cut to 600 later when it was triplexed.
The 600 figure was for the middle screen after it was made into three. Sylvia Sheer (hope I got the name spelled right) was the manager of it after the Vogue closed. I was a good friend of hers. The center mayfield had a different owner from the Cedar Lee when it was build. The Cedar Lee was origially owned by Community Ciruit. I worked for the Cleveland Press and know most of the theater managers in Cleveland.
Saw a number of films here during my college years in University Circle. A couple I’ve always remembered are “Bonnie and Clyde” and “The French Connection”. I think the latter played here during its first run.
There was an Int'l House of Pancakes (early IHOP) across the street, and somewhere in the area, a Royal Castle (White Castle style joint popular in the 1960s). I mention these because they’re inseparable from my movie-going memories here.
There is a photo of the auditorium of the Center Mayfield Theatre at the upper right corner of this page of Boxoffice, November 14, 1936.
I grew up about two miles away, within walking distance. I remember ~1975 one Saturday they had a Planet of the Apes marathon and we hung out at the theater the whole afternoon. Another memory was seeing the original Carrie film in a packed house on a Saturday night, with the whole audience jumping in reaction to the dream sequence at the very end. I miss that kind of communal movie experience (along with the grandeur, huge screen and sound of the old theatre). The bathrooms were upstairs; you walked up the Art Deco steps that split to separate staircases; the bathrooms had one of those old scales with the mirror that “told you your fortune.”
I actually worked there when I was 18 (1981), taking tickets and watching the parking lot across the street sometimes. The original theatre was intact then; I was told the seating was 1400 but that may be incorrect based on other postings here. I visited the video store in the early 90’s and the public space of that store only encompassed the front ‘ramp’ and lobby space, blocking off the actual theatre space. I know they auctioned off seats and such before then but I never saw the theatre space after it closed. Probably just as well!
Grew up about 6 blocks from the C-M…on Parkhill. Saw my first horror film there with my dad (after he gave in). The Giant Claw and Jet Pilot…double header sometime around 1956 or 1957… Didn’t sleep for two weeks! I recently found the Giant Claw on a movie download site and showed it to my grand kids… They loved it – at first but then said that the bird was really creepy.