Northwest Plaza Cinema
Northwest Plaza,
St. Louis,
MO
63074
Northwest Plaza,
St. Louis,
MO
63074
2 people
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when they torn down the old cinema i went up there and grabed 2 of the chairs. they used to recline out. i repainted them leaving the old gum in place..i use these chairs in my own movie basement
Yes – great photo there, Chris. Good to have. Funny story: you mentioned that it opened in ‘69, and while I was working there (in 1981) I had the pleasure of knowing the projectionists that worked there. One of them worked there the day it opened – 12 years earlier. Those guys -and they were all well over 60 years old – they had to walk ALL the way up those steps to get to the booth on the top level. Some were heavy smokers and so it was not unusual to see them sitting in an aisle seat – taking a rest – as they made their way up.
Thank you for the picture! I don’t care if it’s a little grainy…THAT is the Northwest Plaza Cinema I remember!!
I made an errors in this theatre’s info when I submitted it to CT years ago. 1. The city needs to be changed/updated to St. Ann, MO (instead of St. Louis). 2. The theatre opened as a single screener in 1969 (see JAlex’s post for more detailed info).
GREAT STORY about the seats! Heh…my mother actually took me to a matinee of “The Big Fix” there when I was a kid. LOL!
I worked at NWP from ‘79 to '84 and it really was a treasure of a place. In fact, my wife and I had our first date there in '78 (The Big Fix with Richard Dreyfuss). My brother-in-law was one of the last managers there, and with his help was able to salvage two seats from the balcony (along with a wide armrest table with a floor light). And with much restoration (and a lot of gum to remove from underneath) I have a nicely-restored pair of seats that I believe are the very two from our first date. Ah the memories.
I second the comments by Chris. This theater was HUGE!!! They probably could have gone to six screens in that building and it still would not have felt cramped. Too bad this one got torn down. Favorite memories of this place are seeing Jungle Book, Chariots Of Fire, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade at this theater. Thanks for the memories, NWP!
WOW! So hard to believe that building held just 1 screen! Even when they converted it to 4 screens, accomodations were never…EVER…cramped!
Looks like there’s room enough for 6 screens in there!
All the early reports about this theater in Boxoffice do indicate that it opened as a single-screen house, and a very large one at that. The announcement of the June 25, 1969, opening appeared in Boxoffice of June 30, and said that the Northwest Plaza Cinema had 1,700 seats. A slightly longer item in Boxoffice of July 14 included a small photo of the theater, though it looks like it was taken before the building was completed, as there’s no signage.
A brief notice in Boxoffice of November 18, 1974, said that GCC had closed the house for twinning, and the reopening was scheduled for December 20.
To boil it down: GCC opened the Northwest Plaza as a single screen operation in June 1969; converted it to a twin in December 1974; and into a 4-plex in April 1982.
In October 1989 it was announced Wehrenberg would take over GCC’s Missouri theatres 10/31. GCC closed the Northwest Plaza on 10/29, just two days before the Wehrenberg takeover date.
The opening of the Northwest Plaza 9 Cine occurred November 17, 1989.
I better rephrase the first part of my previous post…
JAlex, what I meant to say was it sounded like you said the 4-screen theater at Northwest Plaza closed just after Wehrenberg took it over from General Cinema. The point I was trying to make was that the 4-screener stayed open for a while after Wehrenberg took it over. I’m pretty sure of that, but willing to listen to other facts and/or opinions on this.
My apologies for any confusion I might have caused.
Actually, I thought Wehrenberg kept the 4-screen outlot theater open for a while until the 9-screen theater inside the mall opened. I distinctly remember going to movies (one was Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade) at the 4-screen outlot and hearing the all-too-familiar Wehrenberg jingle. The 4-screener did close just before the 9-screener opened, but I don’t believe it was that soon.
Anyways, just saw a story today on the Post-Dispatch’s website saying Northwest Plaza will go into foreclosure on Sept 1:
http://tinyurl.com/n6ywjz
The demise of North St. Louis county continues…
In mid-October 1989 it was announced that Wehrenberg Theatres had purchased the General Cinema operations in the state of Missouri.
On October 29, the Northwest Plaza closed, some two days before the effective date of the takeover. Wehrenberg a few weeks later opened the Northwest Plaza 9 Cine in the newly remodeled, now enclosed, mall.
My mistake for the error…which pales by comparison to the countless other errors about St. Louis theatres made by my accuser.
;)
I am surprised that Mt. Utley didn’t get a slap on the hand for saying the 70’s instead of 1982.
The retrofitting of the two-screener into four took place in April 1982.
The original single screen auditorium was split into two in time for Christmas 1974 when the films available were “Towering Inferno” and “Island at the Top of the World.” At this time publicity said the original 1800-seat auditorium was now two of about 800 seats.
As already noted, the venue opened as the Northwest Plaza Cinema.
Opening date was June 25, 1969. At opening, touted 1700 seats.
My grandparents lived near to here, so I saw a lot of movies at this theatre, as well as the St. Ann. I believe the last movie I saw there was “WarGames.” I don’t remember much about the place, other than it was huge to a child’s eyes. To this day, seeing the General Cinemas logo reminds me of this theatre.
I also seem to remember that it was the site of the very first screening of “Flash Gordon.”
Don, you are correct about the splitting from side to side. The Northwest Plaza Cinemas backed up to Lindbergh Blvd. The entrance to Northwest Plaza from Lindbergh came in along side of the theatre. If you looked from the back of the theatre acroos Lindebergh you looked into the K-Mart Shopping Plaza. Back then Northwest Plaza was an open air mall.
The correct and advertised name for this GCC location was, I believe, Northwest Plaza Cinema, and it was located at the western-most side of the shopping center.
If I remember correctly, the original auditoriums were not twinned by adding walls down the center from rear to front. Rather, they were split from side to side. Because they were very steeply graded, this created two upper houses and two lower houses, with two separate projection booths – the original booth at the top of the upper auditoriums and the new lower booth essentially behind the screens of the upper auditoriums. Unusual. The projectionists walked countless miles up and down the aisle stairs from booth to booth many times each day.
Northwest Plaza Cinema was a strong performer for GCC in it’s day, with a very strong manager, Dave McCann, in charge during the ‘80s. He ran a very clean theatre, with a friendly and helpful staff.