Island Theatre
686 Park Avenue,
Portsmouth,
RI
02871
686 Park Avenue,
Portsmouth,
RI
02871
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I can possibly get some information on the theater. My mother grew up in the house that was directly to the left of the theater. The house is no longer there but was directly across Park Ave from the Sportsman’s Cafe. Shortly after the hurricane they moved to my great-grandmother’s house(3 or 4 houses away) I believe it was 684 Park Ave
I biked by there the other day on a bicycle vacation. It’s just before Flo’s Crab Shack before the main road, across from the water.
“The Portsmouth Theatre, Island Park, has added amateur night."
—-item in Boxoffice Magazine, January 10, 1953
This theatre has been often referred to in reports as the “Island Park” Theatre.
Opening of Island Theatre reported in Boxoffice magazine, August 31, 1946:
Island Theatre is Opened in Portsmouth Aug. 23
NEWPORT, R.I. – The Island Theatre, a new community project in Portsmouth, located midway between this city and Fall River, opened August 23. The new 500-seat house, equipped with the latest in projection and other equipment, is the result of the progressiveness and forethought of a Portsmouth man, Orville O. Smith, who will manage the theatre.
The Island will serve the rural community of Middletown and Tiverton, as well as Portsmouth. Construction has been in progress all summer on the house, which opened with a continuous run policy each evening with four changes a week. Provision has been made for plenty of free parking space on the theatre property on either side of the building.
An item in Boxoffice Magazine, July 9, 1955, states that the Island Park Theatre had closed for several months follwing a fire.
Yes.
Gerry, I sent an email to the address I had for you, which might be old. You’ve got great photos of all these old theatres. Can I grab them from your Photobucket site and add them to the CinemaTour site with proper credit, of course, to you?
Can’t be sure.
According to the assessor’s database (which may not always be right) the building currently there was built in 1950. View link
This would make it to new to be the theatre, right?
I drove out there today, and the photo I previously posted above is correct. The address, however, is incorrect. It should be 686 Park Avenue. The address today of the boat facility that the theatre became is 684 Park Avenue. It is just yards away from the Stone Bridge that used to connect Island Park in Portsmouth with the center of Tiverton. That bridge was destroyed, I believe in the 1938 hurricane, and never rebuilt. I would surmise that at one time Tivertonians could have walked across the bridge to see a movie here, in the absence of a cinema in Tiverton Village.
A 1948 Newport County city directory gives the address for the Island Theater as 686 Park Avenue, “near Stone Bridge.” Park Avenue runs off Route 138. Is the above photo I posted an error, another theatre, or not a former theatre at all?
Here is a photo of the former Island Theatre:
View link