My late mother, Rita Dusick, grew up in Shamokin on South 1st Street in the 1930‘s, 40‘s and 50‘s and moved away probably by 1960. She graduated from Coal Township High School in 1952. (Does anyone remember her and/or her family?: father John J. (who was a Justice of the Peace and died in 1963), mother Victoria Wysocki, sister Marian.)
I visited Shamokin for the first time in September of 2013 during what I called my “PA Trip ‘13“. … I found it moving to walk upon streets my mother inhabited before I was ever a concept.
At the Shamokin-Coal Township Heritage Museum in the American Legion Building on Independence Street next to the Public Library (210 East Independence Street), I bought a locally produced book called “Matinee Memories” about the movie theaters of Shamokin, including some that existed before the Victoria, Capitol and Majestic.
The author, Garth Hall, passed away in January 2016, and I got the impression the book was only available from him/the museum.
The inside cover says the project was prepared for The Northumberland County Council For The Arts & Humanities. Perhaps they have copies for sale or perusal and can be contacted by clicking here.
My late mother, Rita Dusick, grew up in Shamokin on South 1st Street in the 1930‘s, 40‘s and 50‘s and moved away probably by 1960. She graduated from Coal Township High School in 1952. (Does anyone remember her and/or her family?: father John J. (who was a Justice of the Peace and died in 1963), mother Victoria Wysocki, sister Marian.)
I visited Shamokin for the first time in September of 2013 during what I called my “PA Trip ‘13“. … I found it moving to walk upon streets my mother inhabited before I was ever a concept.
At the Shamokin-Coal Township Heritage Museum in the American Legion Building on Independence Street next to the Public Library (210 East Independence Street), I bought a locally produced book called “Matinee Memories” about the movie theaters of Shamokin, including some that existed before the Victoria, Capitol and Majestic.
The author, Garth Hall, passed away in January 2016, and I got the impression the book was only available from him/the museum.
The inside cover says the project was prepared for The Northumberland County Council For The Arts & Humanities. Perhaps they have copies for sale or perusal and can be contacted by clicking here.
I visited North Beach on March 11, 2016. The doors to the Surf were papered over so the gym is apparently gone. (I Googled and found photos of what the interior looked like when it was Condesa gym.)
If you visit the Subway restaurant across the street and sit near the front window, you can enjoy a full view of the Surf and contemplate it as I did.
The inside of the nearby Normandy was under construction, with a table with blueprints laid out in the lobby.
Both theaters still have their marquees, which I hope are kept if the area is “revitalized” (which was somewhat dumpy).
The photo also appears on p. 36 of the book “Jesse Robinson of Homestead: Remembrances and Recollections of Jesse James Robinson, Sr.”
The caption in the book says the theatre was owned by Lester Lawrence, Sr. and had 250 Seats.
It burned down on September 16, 1940.
The photo was originally taken by Marion Post Wolcott for the Farm Security Administration in January of 1939.
In the photo Rev. Fred Lloyd’s barbershop is on the left. To the right of that is a store owned by Prince Ferguson’s that sold soda, peanuts, candy and ice cream – with the ticket window for the Ritz next to the door! The business on the far right was Nelson Kelley’s Pressing Club, where clothes were sent out to be dry cleaned, then pressed at this location. The second floor was the projection room and sleeping rooms for rent.
There is a copy of the book available to be checked out at the Homestead branch of the Miami-Dade Public Library and two other non-circulating copies at the Main Library in downtown Miami.
This multiplex was located on the top (3rd) floor of the complex.
Back in the 90’s into the 00’s the building was called the Streets of Mayfair. There was a nightclub called Café Iguana Cantina also on the third floor across from the cinema, a comedy club next to that, and a Borders Books on the first floor by Grand Avenue, making this a hub of activity. (In the 90’s there was even a Planet Hollywood on the first floor a block down from the Borders.)
All of these businesses are gone and the place is mostly offices with some retail, though the Bookstore in the Grove is on the first floor near Florida Avenue. (The Improv Comedy Club had opened on the first floor a block down in the area that looks like a street for pedestrians only, but it recently closed. The exterior looks sort of like a cinema, but it was always a comedy club.)
Back in 1998 I saw the Native American film “Smoke Signals” with a small group that included a Miccosukee Indian friend I had at the time at the Mayfair 10.
Back in the 1990’s I was driving with a Miccosukee Indian friend I had at the time when we approached Virginia Street from Florida Avenue and he told me while in the intersection facing the Coco Walk parking garage that a cinema had once existed there decades before.
This theater and the Grove Art Cinema are discussed in this article:
The second photo in the article, with the people waiting outside under a sign that says “Grove Cinema. Decameron. Magical Mystery Tour”, is of the theater discussed on this page.
Ironically, though there is no longer a movie theater in the neighborhood, I was there to attend a screening of some of avante-garde filmmaker Jonas Mekas' work at an event space rented out for the evening by Obsolete Media Miami, an organization based in a nearby building that is a repository of archival motion picture materials and other related things.
Before going I checked Cinema Treasures and found this page for the Biltmore. In my opinion the building currently numbered as 150 NE 40th Street looks like it could have been a movie theater, with its tall rectangle rising above what could have been the entrance, since I have seen other movie theaters with similar features. The place is on the south side of the street however, while steg’s comment remembers the Biltmore as being on the north side.
Check out this webpage describing Fendi, the current occupant of the space:
There’s a photo of the exterior. The green square is the part of the building that makes it look like a movie theater to me. There are also some interior shots: high ceiling?; a staircase that could have led to a balcony or projection booth?
Does looking at these photos jog anyone’s memory?
During my walk I could not find a storefront currently numbered 143, and the building directly across from 150 that looks to be 151 when I zoom in on Google Street View has recently been removed.
Down the street on the corner of NE 40th Street and NE 2nd Avenue (4000 NE 2nd Avenue) is a small, historic, interesting, federal-looking building. It housed the designer clothing store Billionaire when I was there, but carved into the architecture above the door were the words “Buena Vista Post Office” with an eagle on top of that and a profile of a Founding Father underneath.
In late 1991 or early 1992 I saw a play here with some other recent University of Miami grads and students. That the cinema had “thrived on student trade” as described above perhaps explains why the playhouse staff was not surprised we were U.M. students when to me the place was not that close to U.M.
Months later I thought I’d heard the place had been too damaged by Hurricane Andrew (August 1992) to function any longer, though the Actor’s Playhouse page says they did not move to the Miracle until 1995.
I walked by on February 14th, 2016. A JC Penney Home Store replaced the auditoriums years ago and to the left of that an empty storefront sits where I believe the entrance and lobby were the night I saw the play.
During part of what I called my “Great Western Trip ‘08”, I found a promotional postcard in the Little Tokyo Visitor’s Center for the premier of an independent film called “Asian Stories”. Being a person attracted to Asian things I attended the event, held on July 25th, 2008, which turned out to be a couple blocks away at the ImaginAsian Center, a movie theater that played only Asian/Asian-American films!
The exterior of the theater was sort of futuristic and neat. As I arrived I found out that James Kyson, an actor in the film who also played the part of “Ando” in “Heroes”, one of my favorite tv shows at the time, would be there for a q&a session.
After the film and q&a, the audience was invited to an after-party at a nightspot some blocks away. (I can’t remember the name or find it where I think it was on Google Street View, even if I look at images from 2008, but I remember a small bar in the front, then an enclosed patio-like area in the back where the party was held.)
At the party I chatted with some of the film’s crew who seemed pleasantly surprised that a guy visiting LA on a trip would have chosen to attend their event. The director introduced me to one of the producers as proof to her that using promotional postcards to attract viewers really does work, (since she seemed to have had doubts, though we wondered if I was the only one they had worked on). I was able to get a photo with James Kyson and tell him I was looking forward to the next season of “Heroes”.
I had a longer conversation with one of the other actors (probably Kirt Kishita). I said he didn’t seem like the tough guy he played in the film and asked him how he was able to get into character. He said he is usually more sensitive in real life and described some of his techniques. We agreed that acting is something that needs to come from the heart, and after we expounding upon this theme for a few minutes, he concluded by saying “We are like brothers”.
Before I left I stopped at the bar in the front, where I talked with a girl who had been in the audience about the movie and my trip. As she reached her drinking limit and her husband came to collect her, she introduced me to him in appreciative tones with some embellishment and flair : “This is Daaaave…. from Miami, Florrrrrida….. and he’s traveling the worrrrrld…. and he’s having the time of his life!”
All this is a pleasant memory.
When I next visited Los Angeles and walked by the theater in August of 2011, I was disappointed to see it was no longer the ImaginAsian (and therefore probably not showcasing Asian films), but at least it was still operating as the Downtown Independent and still had the cool unique exterior.
I had read online there had been another ImaginAsian in New York City, which I now see is part of the history of the closed Big Cinemas Manhattan that has a page here on Cinema Treasures.
“They also operated The ImaginAsian, a renovated movie theatre located in Midtown Manhattan that shows only first-run and classic East Asian films, as well as several film festivals per year. The company renovated a second former movie theatre in Los Angeles that opened in December 2007, the former Linda Lea Theater, which originally showed Japanese films and served the Little Tokyo area before shuttering in the 1980s.”
The Linda Lea has its own Cinema Treasures page, and to me the contrast from the ImaginAsian/Downtown Independent is striking.
On September 3rd, 2011 during a trip that included Los Angeles, I stood waiting at a bus stop in front of a former business with an aging mustard yellow marquee. A folding gate blocked the doorway, where discarded soda cans and fast food wrappers had accumulated in the space between. Some other signage made statements such as “Girls, Girls, Girls” (reminding me of the Motley Crue song)… I thought, “Oh, it’s a defunct movie theater that is now a defunct strip club!”.
For a while as I waited for the bus, two women in their early 20’s stood silently under the marquee holding a handmade cardboard sign that said “Hungry Hobos” and a request for money. Occasionally some people would offer assistance and chat with them, but I got the impression this was possibly a sort of performance/experiment to see how people would respond.
A year or so later I thought it would be fun to try to find the place on Cinema Treasures, but couldn’t remember what it was called or where in L.A. I had been.
Then on February 12th, 2016, I was watching the documentary “David Bowie – Five Years” that was airing on PBS. During a segment describing Bowie’s time in Los Angeles in the 1970’s, an interviewee’s voice says Bowie felt he needed to leave L.A. because the culture was getting too crazy and therefore unhealthy for him, while for a moment the image on the screen is a lit up marquee of a theater called The Cave taken from a passing car. …. I wrote down the name and looked it up on Cinema Treasures: Ha – it just happened to be the theater that I had stood in front of back in 2011! (Apparently with a remodeled exterior and reopened as a strip club.)
“Alex Weinstock (at the bottom of the ladder) and Frank Kelleher, Homestead Theatre executives, prepare the marquee of the new facility for its grand opening. 1955. Courtesy South Dade News-Leader”
“Alex Weinstock (at the bottom of the ladder) and Frank Kelleher, Homestead Theatre executives, prepare the marquee of the new facility for its grand opening. 1955. Courtesy South Dade News-Leader”
A Miami Herald article, “Homestead’s Historic Seminole Theater: Restored and Once Again a Community Treasure”, says the Seminole Theater on Krome Avenue was built by Homestead pioneer James Washington English, and that “In 1955, English built another theater called the Homestead Theatre (where the Miami Dade College Homestead Campus parking lot sits today)…”
As I said in my previous comment, I may have seen a photo of the Palms theater, which this may have been at some point, in the Homestead Historic Town Hall Museum across from the Seminole Theater.
The Miami Herald article that mentions the Ritz, “Homestead’s Historic Seminole Theater: Restored and Once Again a Community Treasure”, can be viewed here.
The Cinema Treasures page for the Ace Theater that opened farther west on 4th Street to serve the African-American community can be viewed here.
A few years ago I enjoyed walking across the parking lot towards the large exotic building, like I’ve come upon something honoring antiquity, then taking in the details of the lobby before and after a film.
If I remember correctly a depiction of a river (the Nile?) was part of the décor of the floor which I would follow to see where it went. Sometimes I’d sit and enjoy the lobby atmosphere for some time after the cinematic show I came to see was over.
This theater and the Muvico company are discussed on pages 122-127 in the book “The Community of Cinema: How Cinema and Spectacle Transformed the American Downtown” by James Forsher, published in 2003. Included are a photo of the lobby, the exterior, a child care center, with excerpts from an interview with Muvico president Hamid Hashemi from October 2001, woven into the text.
I’d see the marquee as my parents and I would occasionally drive past on our way to McDonalds just east of Bay Shore in Islip, and I’d wonder what the inside was like.
At one point, (in maybe May 1979 according to when Wikipedia says it was released), a movie version of “Battlestar Galactica”, one of my favorite television shows, was playing there, but left before I asked my parents to take me. (I may have been waiting for school to let out for summer, not knowing it wouldn’t still be showing. I also got the impression my parents were mildly reluctant to go there…. something in the tone of my mother’s voice as she mentioned the beautiful chandeliers, like she and my father had some bittersweet memory of the theater from an earlier time when their lives were different, that they didn’t want to relive.)
I assumed there would eventually be another reason for me to visit the theater …. then on one trip through Bay Shore, it was closed. Later I was shocked when it was suddenly a YMCA with the marquee and entrance completely gone.
Decades after, there are personal computers, then something called the internet, then Cinema Treasures… and whoa — suddenly I’m getting to see what the inside looked like when I never thought I would!
During what I called my “PA Trip ‘13”, I visited New Freedom on August 31st, 2013 to take a ride on the Steam into History train. (That day’s excursion had a Civil War theme.)
Before I arrived, I checked Cinema Treasures to see if there were any theaters listed for the town… and there was one — that was now an ice cream store — so I just had to go!
As I drove up, the place was cute as I expected, on a mostly residential street. Inside, the small lobby was now Bonkey’s Ice Cream. A convenience store-style drink refrigerator took up most of what had been the box office, beyond which the ticket seller would have had a pleasant view of the houses across the street. The ice cream counter was in front of two wooden doors that used to be the entrance to the auditorium.
I said to the three young women working there, “I had to come here just cause it used to be a movie theater”. They said through the doors behind them is what were the theater’s aisles but the seats and screen are gone, that there are still some seats upstairs and some film canisters but “it’s just creepy and we don’t go back there”. … I joked they should have popcorn flavored ice cream and they claimed they do sometimes have one that wasn’t out at the moment. I got a scoop of pumpkin flavor and said I felt like buying a movie ticket too.
I had arrived as the only customer, but as I turned around with cone in hand there were 7+ now waiting in line behind me out the front door. I thanked the ladies, took a last look at the little place, and consumed the cone at the benches just outside under the marquee.
The Bonkey’s chain homepage says the New Freedom location became the ice cream store in May 2004.
I would like to know more about the theater: people’s personal stories of seeing films or working there, when it closed, what other businesses occupied the location, if it‘s name was really New Theater…
The ice cream store is open seasonally from “St. Patrick’s Day, March 17 – Mid September 1st day of Fall” according to the “about” part of the Facebook page.
Across Aragon Avenue from what had been the location of the Coral is the Colonnade Hotel. At one point in its history many decades ago the hotel had been a movie studio. A few years ago I noticed a picture of the exterior of the building during its studio years included in some historic photos on the walls of the hotel’s second floor lobby.
Across Ponce de Leon Blvd from what would later become the location of the Coral was the Dream Theater, the city’s first cinema that opened and closed in the 1920’s.
To see the projection booth, position Google Street View in the ally on the left side of the bank. Enter the ally and proceed till there’s a parking lot on your right, then pivot right so that you see the bank’s drive-thru. Look for the two windows, one on top the other with blue awnings over them, in the short tower above the drive-thru. That’s the projection booth, adjacent to three other windows with blue awnings next to each other. The parking lot is where the outdoor theater, “reminiscent of a Spanish bullring” according to the museum’s display, would have been.
The Coral Gables Museum is one block away at 285 Aragon Avenue. (Actually, if you continue down the ally to its end on Street View, you’ll end up behind it.)
The Coral Gables Museum homepage is currently an image of the permanent exhibit about the founding of the city. The display about the Dream Theater is on the other end of the room under the word “DREAM” in neon light, with a man on a horse and a television screen below it.
A glimpse of the Dream Theater display can be seen on Youtube from 1:42 to 1:49 in the video “Coral Gables Museum: Year One“.
Imagine you are at the grand opening of the Dream Theater as the film is about to begin…then click on this.
When I’ve visited they’ve had a small interesting collection of old film cameras and projectors on display on the second floor. (I hope they are still there.)
Next to Books & Books is the Coral Gables Museum with permanent exhibits about the history of the City of Coral Gables and periodically changing exhibits of local and statewide interest.
My late mother, Rita Dusick, grew up in Shamokin on South 1st Street in the 1930‘s, 40‘s and 50‘s and moved away probably by 1960. She graduated from Coal Township High School in 1952. (Does anyone remember her and/or her family?: father John J. (who was a Justice of the Peace and died in 1963), mother Victoria Wysocki, sister Marian.)
I visited Shamokin for the first time in September of 2013 during what I called my “PA Trip ‘13“. … I found it moving to walk upon streets my mother inhabited before I was ever a concept.
At the Shamokin-Coal Township Heritage Museum in the American Legion Building on Independence Street next to the Public Library (210 East Independence Street), I bought a locally produced book called “Matinee Memories” about the movie theaters of Shamokin, including some that existed before the Victoria, Capitol and Majestic.
I have uploaded a photo of the cover and the inside cover in the photos section.
The author, Garth Hall, passed away in January 2016, and I got the impression the book was only available from him/the museum.
The inside cover says the project was prepared for The Northumberland County Council For The Arts & Humanities. Perhaps they have copies for sale or perusal and can be contacted by clicking here.
Maybe the Shamokin-Coal Township Public Library next to the museum has a copy or can tell you where to find one.
And there is the Northumberland County Historical Society to try if other options don’t pan out.
You could include the photo of the book when emailing these places so they know what you are asking about.
My late mother, Rita Dusick, grew up in Shamokin on South 1st Street in the 1930‘s, 40‘s and 50‘s and moved away probably by 1960. She graduated from Coal Township High School in 1952. (Does anyone remember her and/or her family?: father John J. (who was a Justice of the Peace and died in 1963), mother Victoria Wysocki, sister Marian.)
I visited Shamokin for the first time in September of 2013 during what I called my “PA Trip ‘13“. … I found it moving to walk upon streets my mother inhabited before I was ever a concept.
At the Shamokin-Coal Township Heritage Museum in the American Legion Building on Independence Street next to the Public Library (210 East Independence Street), I bought a locally produced book called “Matinee Memories” about the movie theaters of Shamokin, including some that existed before the Victoria, Capitol and Majestic.
I have uploaded a photo of the cover and the inside cover in the photos section.
The author, Garth Hall, passed away in January 2016, and I got the impression the book was only available from him/the museum.
The inside cover says the project was prepared for The Northumberland County Council For The Arts & Humanities. Perhaps they have copies for sale or perusal and can be contacted by clicking here.
Maybe the Shamokin-Coal Township Public Library next to the museum has a copy or can tell you where to find one.
And there is the Northumberland County Historical Society to try if other options don’t pan out.
You could include the photo of the book when emailing these places so they know what you are asking about.
I visited North Beach on March 11, 2016. The doors to the Surf were papered over so the gym is apparently gone. (I Googled and found photos of what the interior looked like when it was Condesa gym.)
If you visit the Subway restaurant across the street and sit near the front window, you can enjoy a full view of the Surf and contemplate it as I did.
The inside of the nearby Normandy was under construction, with a table with blueprints laid out in the lobby.
Both theaters still have their marquees, which I hope are kept if the area is “revitalized” (which was somewhat dumpy).
The photo also appears on p. 36 of the book “Jesse Robinson of Homestead: Remembrances and Recollections of Jesse James Robinson, Sr.”
The caption in the book says the theatre was owned by Lester Lawrence, Sr. and had 250 Seats.
It burned down on September 16, 1940.
The photo was originally taken by Marion Post Wolcott for the Farm Security Administration in January of 1939.
In the photo Rev. Fred Lloyd’s barbershop is on the left. To the right of that is a store owned by Prince Ferguson’s that sold soda, peanuts, candy and ice cream – with the ticket window for the Ritz next to the door! The business on the far right was Nelson Kelley’s Pressing Club, where clothes were sent out to be dry cleaned, then pressed at this location. The second floor was the projection room and sleeping rooms for rent.
There is a copy of the book available to be checked out at the Homestead branch of the Miami-Dade Public Library and two other non-circulating copies at the Main Library in downtown Miami.
You may be able to buy a copy from the Florida Pioneer Museum in Florida City or the Homestead Historic Town Hall Museum. It includes many historic photos.
This multiplex was located on the top (3rd) floor of the complex.
Back in the 90’s into the 00’s the building was called the Streets of Mayfair. There was a nightclub called Café Iguana Cantina also on the third floor across from the cinema, a comedy club next to that, and a Borders Books on the first floor by Grand Avenue, making this a hub of activity. (In the 90’s there was even a Planet Hollywood on the first floor a block down from the Borders.)
All of these businesses are gone and the place is mostly offices with some retail, though the Bookstore in the Grove is on the first floor near Florida Avenue. (The Improv Comedy Club had opened on the first floor a block down in the area that looks like a street for pedestrians only, but it recently closed. The exterior looks sort of like a cinema, but it was always a comedy club.)
Back in 1998 I saw the Native American film “Smoke Signals” with a small group that included a Miccosukee Indian friend I had at the time at the Mayfair 10.
Back in the 1990’s I was driving with a Miccosukee Indian friend I had at the time when we approached Virginia Street from Florida Avenue and he told me while in the intersection facing the Coco Walk parking garage that a cinema had once existed there decades before.
This theater and the Grove Art Cinema are discussed in this article:
http://www.miaminewtimes.com/arts/miami-memoirs-the-grove-cinema-7934464
The second photo in the article, with the people waiting outside under a sign that says “Grove Cinema. Decameron. Magical Mystery Tour”, is of the theater discussed on this page.
I walked the Design District on March 26th, 2016.
Ironically, though there is no longer a movie theater in the neighborhood, I was there to attend a screening of some of avante-garde filmmaker Jonas Mekas' work at an event space rented out for the evening by Obsolete Media Miami, an organization based in a nearby building that is a repository of archival motion picture materials and other related things.
Before going I checked Cinema Treasures and found this page for the Biltmore. In my opinion the building currently numbered as 150 NE 40th Street looks like it could have been a movie theater, with its tall rectangle rising above what could have been the entrance, since I have seen other movie theaters with similar features. The place is on the south side of the street however, while steg’s comment remembers the Biltmore as being on the north side.
Check out this webpage describing Fendi, the current occupant of the space:
http://pursuitist.com/inside-fendis-new-boutique-in-miami-design-district/
There’s a photo of the exterior. The green square is the part of the building that makes it look like a movie theater to me. There are also some interior shots: high ceiling?; a staircase that could have led to a balcony or projection booth?
Does looking at these photos jog anyone’s memory?
During my walk I could not find a storefront currently numbered 143, and the building directly across from 150 that looks to be 151 when I zoom in on Google Street View has recently been removed.
Down the street on the corner of NE 40th Street and NE 2nd Avenue (4000 NE 2nd Avenue) is a small, historic, interesting, federal-looking building. It housed the designer clothing store Billionaire when I was there, but carved into the architecture above the door were the words “Buena Vista Post Office” with an eagle on top of that and a profile of a Founding Father underneath.
In 1988 the space was used by the Actors' Playhouse until they relocated to the Miracle Theater in Coral Gables.
In late 1991 or early 1992 I saw a play here with some other recent University of Miami grads and students. That the cinema had “thrived on student trade” as described above perhaps explains why the playhouse staff was not surprised we were U.M. students when to me the place was not that close to U.M.
Months later I thought I’d heard the place had been too damaged by Hurricane Andrew (August 1992) to function any longer, though the Actor’s Playhouse page says they did not move to the Miracle until 1995.
I walked by on February 14th, 2016. A JC Penney Home Store replaced the auditoriums years ago and to the left of that an empty storefront sits where I believe the entrance and lobby were the night I saw the play.
The other ImaginAsian was in Los Angeles with its own page on Cinema Treasures, now as the Downtown Independent, but still has its cool looking exterior.
During part of what I called my “Great Western Trip ‘08”, I found a promotional postcard in the Little Tokyo Visitor’s Center for the premier of an independent film called “Asian Stories”. Being a person attracted to Asian things I attended the event, held on July 25th, 2008, which turned out to be a couple blocks away at the ImaginAsian Center, a movie theater that played only Asian/Asian-American films!
The exterior of the theater was sort of futuristic and neat. As I arrived I found out that James Kyson, an actor in the film who also played the part of “Ando” in “Heroes”, one of my favorite tv shows at the time, would be there for a q&a session.
After the film and q&a, the audience was invited to an after-party at a nightspot some blocks away. (I can’t remember the name or find it where I think it was on Google Street View, even if I look at images from 2008, but I remember a small bar in the front, then an enclosed patio-like area in the back where the party was held.)
At the party I chatted with some of the film’s crew who seemed pleasantly surprised that a guy visiting LA on a trip would have chosen to attend their event. The director introduced me to one of the producers as proof to her that using promotional postcards to attract viewers really does work, (since she seemed to have had doubts, though we wondered if I was the only one they had worked on). I was able to get a photo with James Kyson and tell him I was looking forward to the next season of “Heroes”.
I had a longer conversation with one of the other actors (probably Kirt Kishita). I said he didn’t seem like the tough guy he played in the film and asked him how he was able to get into character. He said he is usually more sensitive in real life and described some of his techniques. We agreed that acting is something that needs to come from the heart, and after we expounding upon this theme for a few minutes, he concluded by saying “We are like brothers”.
Before I left I stopped at the bar in the front, where I talked with a girl who had been in the audience about the movie and my trip. As she reached her drinking limit and her husband came to collect her, she introduced me to him in appreciative tones with some embellishment and flair : “This is Daaaave…. from Miami, Florrrrrida….. and he’s traveling the worrrrrld…. and he’s having the time of his life!”
All this is a pleasant memory.
When I next visited Los Angeles and walked by the theater in August of 2011, I was disappointed to see it was no longer the ImaginAsian (and therefore probably not showcasing Asian films), but at least it was still operating as the Downtown Independent and still had the cool unique exterior.
I had read online there had been another ImaginAsian in New York City, which I now see is part of the history of the closed Big Cinemas Manhattan that has a page here on Cinema Treasures.
The Wikipedia page for the ImaginAsian company says:
“They also operated The ImaginAsian, a renovated movie theatre located in Midtown Manhattan that shows only first-run and classic East Asian films, as well as several film festivals per year. The company renovated a second former movie theatre in Los Angeles that opened in December 2007, the former Linda Lea Theater, which originally showed Japanese films and served the Little Tokyo area before shuttering in the 1980s.”
The Linda Lea has its own Cinema Treasures page, and to me the contrast from the ImaginAsian/Downtown Independent is striking.
On September 3rd, 2011 during a trip that included Los Angeles, I stood waiting at a bus stop in front of a former business with an aging mustard yellow marquee. A folding gate blocked the doorway, where discarded soda cans and fast food wrappers had accumulated in the space between. Some other signage made statements such as “Girls, Girls, Girls” (reminding me of the Motley Crue song)… I thought, “Oh, it’s a defunct movie theater that is now a defunct strip club!”.
For a while as I waited for the bus, two women in their early 20’s stood silently under the marquee holding a handmade cardboard sign that said “Hungry Hobos” and a request for money. Occasionally some people would offer assistance and chat with them, but I got the impression this was possibly a sort of performance/experiment to see how people would respond.
A year or so later I thought it would be fun to try to find the place on Cinema Treasures, but couldn’t remember what it was called or where in L.A. I had been.
Then on February 12th, 2016, I was watching the documentary “David Bowie – Five Years” that was airing on PBS. During a segment describing Bowie’s time in Los Angeles in the 1970’s, an interviewee’s voice says Bowie felt he needed to leave L.A. because the culture was getting too crazy and therefore unhealthy for him, while for a moment the image on the screen is a lit up marquee of a theater called The Cave taken from a passing car. …. I wrote down the name and looked it up on Cinema Treasures: Ha – it just happened to be the theater that I had stood in front of back in 2011! (Apparently with a remodeled exterior and reopened as a strip club.)
Elmorovivo: Wow, where did you find the picture of the marquee?
This photo also appears on p. 147 of the book “A Journey Through Time: A Pictorial History of South Dade” by Paul S. George, with the caption:
“Alex Weinstock (at the bottom of the ladder) and Frank Kelleher, Homestead Theatre executives, prepare the marquee of the new facility for its grand opening. 1955. Courtesy South Dade News-Leader”
The Miami-Dade Public Library system has 22 copies of this book.
Elmorovivo: Wow, where did you find the picture of the marquee?
This photo also appears on p. 147 of the book “A Journey Through Time: A Pictorial History of South Dade” by Paul S. George, with the caption:
“Alex Weinstock (at the bottom of the ladder) and Frank Kelleher, Homestead Theatre executives, prepare the marquee of the new facility for its grand opening. 1955. Courtesy South Dade News-Leader”
The Miami-Dade Public Library system has 22 copies of this book.
A Miami Herald article, “Homestead’s Historic Seminole Theater: Restored and Once Again a Community Treasure”, says the Seminole Theater on Krome Avenue was built by Homestead pioneer James Washington English, and that “In 1955, English built another theater called the Homestead Theatre (where the Miami Dade College Homestead Campus parking lot sits today)…”
As I said in my previous comment, I may have seen a photo of the Palms theater, which this may have been at some point, in the Homestead Historic Town Hall Museum across from the Seminole Theater.
Here is a photo of the lighthouse in the lobby I had mentioned in my previous comment from the Miami New Times listing for this theater.
The Breezeway Drive-In was demolished decades ago and the Dixie Center, a shopping plaza anchored by a Winn Dixie grocery store, is on the site.
Here is the photo of the Ritz Theatre.
The Miami Herald article that mentions the Ritz, “Homestead’s Historic Seminole Theater: Restored and Once Again a Community Treasure”, can be viewed here.
The Cinema Treasures page for the Ace Theater that opened farther west on 4th Street to serve the African-American community can be viewed here.
View the photo from January 29, 1926 of the Temple Theater here: https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/41787
“History of Park Place” page, including a photo of what the auditorium looks like now.
Wider version of same photo on Google of the auditorium now.
Scroll down on the Miami Scottish Rite “About Us” page for a “History of the Temple” building (though I don’t see a mention of the cinema).
Youtube video of an aerial flyover of the Scottish Rite building.
A few years ago I enjoyed walking across the parking lot towards the large exotic building, like I’ve come upon something honoring antiquity, then taking in the details of the lobby before and after a film.
If I remember correctly a depiction of a river (the Nile?) was part of the décor of the floor which I would follow to see where it went. Sometimes I’d sit and enjoy the lobby atmosphere for some time after the cinematic show I came to see was over.
This theater and the Muvico company are discussed on pages 122-127 in the book “The Community of Cinema: How Cinema and Spectacle Transformed the American Downtown” by James Forsher, published in 2003. Included are a photo of the lobby, the exterior, a child care center, with excerpts from an interview with Muvico president Hamid Hashemi from October 2001, woven into the text.
The company’s Egyptian style theater in Maryland looks cool too.
Jeff M.: Thanks for posting these photos!
I grew up in West Islip, but did not get to see the inside of this theater before it closed.
(Looking at the photos, I believe I may have played in the nice entrance way around the box office and golden fixtures once for a minute during a stroll through town when the theater was not open, but that’s as close as I got.)
I’d see the marquee as my parents and I would occasionally drive past on our way to McDonalds just east of Bay Shore in Islip, and I’d wonder what the inside was like.
At one point, (in maybe May 1979 according to when Wikipedia says it was released), a movie version of “Battlestar Galactica”, one of my favorite television shows, was playing there, but left before I asked my parents to take me. (I may have been waiting for school to let out for summer, not knowing it wouldn’t still be showing. I also got the impression my parents were mildly reluctant to go there…. something in the tone of my mother’s voice as she mentioned the beautiful chandeliers, like she and my father had some bittersweet memory of the theater from an earlier time when their lives were different, that they didn’t want to relive.)
I assumed there would eventually be another reason for me to visit the theater …. then on one trip through Bay Shore, it was closed. Later I was shocked when it was suddenly a YMCA with the marquee and entrance completely gone.
Decades after, there are personal computers, then something called the internet, then Cinema Treasures… and whoa — suddenly I’m getting to see what the inside looked like when I never thought I would!
During what I called my “PA Trip ‘13”, I visited New Freedom on August 31st, 2013 to take a ride on the Steam into History train. (That day’s excursion had a Civil War theme.)
Before I arrived, I checked Cinema Treasures to see if there were any theaters listed for the town… and there was one — that was now an ice cream store — so I just had to go!
As I drove up, the place was cute as I expected, on a mostly residential street. Inside, the small lobby was now Bonkey’s Ice Cream. A convenience store-style drink refrigerator took up most of what had been the box office, beyond which the ticket seller would have had a pleasant view of the houses across the street. The ice cream counter was in front of two wooden doors that used to be the entrance to the auditorium.
I said to the three young women working there, “I had to come here just cause it used to be a movie theater”. They said through the doors behind them is what were the theater’s aisles but the seats and screen are gone, that there are still some seats upstairs and some film canisters but “it’s just creepy and we don’t go back there”. … I joked they should have popcorn flavored ice cream and they claimed they do sometimes have one that wasn’t out at the moment. I got a scoop of pumpkin flavor and said I felt like buying a movie ticket too.
I had arrived as the only customer, but as I turned around with cone in hand there were 7+ now waiting in line behind me out the front door. I thanked the ladies, took a last look at the little place, and consumed the cone at the benches just outside under the marquee.
The Bonkey’s chain homepage says the New Freedom location became the ice cream store in May 2004.
I would like to know more about the theater: people’s personal stories of seeing films or working there, when it closed, what other businesses occupied the location, if it‘s name was really New Theater…
A nice promotional photo of the exterior of the theater as Bonkey‘s Ice Cream.
Check out the Bonkey’s New Freedom location Facebook page.
The ice cream store is open seasonally from “St. Patrick’s Day, March 17 – Mid September 1st day of Fall” according to the “about” part of the Facebook page.
A different angle of the exterior.
Across Aragon Avenue from what had been the location of the Coral is the Colonnade Hotel. At one point in its history many decades ago the hotel had been a movie studio. A few years ago I noticed a picture of the exterior of the building during its studio years included in some historic photos on the walls of the hotel’s second floor lobby.
Across Ponce de Leon Blvd from what would later become the location of the Coral was the Dream Theater, the city’s first cinema that opened and closed in the 1920’s.
To see the projection booth, position Google Street View in the ally on the left side of the bank. Enter the ally and proceed till there’s a parking lot on your right, then pivot right so that you see the bank’s drive-thru. Look for the two windows, one on top the other with blue awnings over them, in the short tower above the drive-thru. That’s the projection booth, adjacent to three other windows with blue awnings next to each other. The parking lot is where the outdoor theater, “reminiscent of a Spanish bullring” according to the museum’s display, would have been.
The Coral Gables Museum is one block away at 285 Aragon Avenue. (Actually, if you continue down the ally to its end on Street View, you’ll end up behind it.)
The Coral Gables Museum homepage is currently an image of the permanent exhibit about the founding of the city. The display about the Dream Theater is on the other end of the room under the word “DREAM” in neon light, with a man on a horse and a television screen below it.
A glimpse of the Dream Theater display can be seen on Youtube from 1:42 to 1:49 in the video “Coral Gables Museum: Year One“.
Imagine you are at the grand opening of the Dream Theater as the film is about to begin…then click on this.
Here is a nice photo of the exterior on their website’s “History & Mission” page.
When I’ve visited they’ve had a small interesting collection of old film cameras and projectors on display on the second floor. (I hope they are still there.)
Books & Books, an independent bookstore named “Best Bookstore of the Year” in 2015 by Publishers Weekly is across the street, where there are author presentations every night.
Next to Books & Books is the Coral Gables Museum with permanent exhibits about the history of the City of Coral Gables and periodically changing exhibits of local and statewide interest.
The three make a nice cultural hub.
One block away on Miracle Mile is the Actors' Playhouse at the Miracle Theater.
The official website is http://www.gablescinema.com/
The Mercury was named Best Art Cinema by the Miami New Times in 2001.