Center Theatre
562 Bloomfield Avenue,
Bloomfield,
NJ
07003
562 Bloomfield Avenue,
Bloomfield,
NJ
07003
2 people
favorited this theater
Recently leased by the 12 Miles West Theatre Company. The theatre opened in 1931 as the Center Theatre. Most recently operated as a movie theatre by the Roberts Theatres named the Lost Picture Show. The converted balcony will eventually become a 99 seat second stage for the 12 Miles theatre. The 12 Miles West Theatre Company is a not for profit arts organization founded in 1992.
Contributed by
Chuck Van Bibber
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Recent comments (view all 15 comments)
Listed in the 1951 FDY as having 955 seats and located at 560 Bloomfield Avenue.
I think there should be an aka for Roberts Lost Picture Show. From what I have read, the Center theater was a legit theater and only became a movie theater when it was called Roberts Lost Picture Show. 12 Miles West Theatre Company has a website here:
http://12mileswest.org/
The Center Theater, about three blocks away, runs Indian films, some with English subtitles, exclusively.
The Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ), July 26, 1998 p039
Wan’t there also a ‘Lost Picture Show’ theater in Union, N.J.?
My experience with the Center predates its being twinned. It was an okay neighborhood theatre, never very comfortable, that got kinda run down by the time I stopped going there in the late ‘80s. I think it may have switched to all-Indian films before Roberts bought it, twinned it and renamed it the Lost Picture Show (I’ve been to the original Lost Picture Show in Union, which I believe is now closed). It had been in the downtown area of Bloomfield probably since the 1930s, and while it probably did have live shows in its early years—as I recall, it had a stage although the screen was pretty far forward in the stage area—my experience with it was strictly as a moviegoer. I grew up in Bloomfield, and so this was within walking distance for me. I recall seeing “Taxi Driver,” “One Flew Over the Cuckoos’s Nest,” “The Exorcist,” “Black Sunday,” “Sorcerer,” and a couple dozen other movies there in the late '70s and early '80s. Probably about 500 seats including a balcony, decent-sized 'scope screen (no curtain) and sightlines, cramped lobby. Did not get stereo sound until after Roberts bought it; in fact, sound and projection got progressively more murky from about 1983 on.
Listed in the 1970 Film Daily Yearbook as part of Triangle Theatre Service Inc.
Listed as part of Rapf & Ruden in the 1956 Film Daily Yearbook.
New owner as of 1/8/2008
Multi Media Arts Center, LLC
www.TheMMAC.net
973-748-MMAC
Old ticket:
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1981 Photo
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1982 Photo