Amboy Multiplex Cinemas
US Highway 9 and State Route 35,
Sayreville,
NJ
08872
US Highway 9 and State Route 35,
Sayreville,
NJ
08872
15 people
favorited this theater
Showing 26 - 50 of 228 comments
SNdoniB_1999, I have spoken to someone and we will be able to film something in the projection room of my theatre before the showing of a film. Films resume in October. I will be in contact as we get closer.
markp Excellent ! And September would be fine, I myself am currently working on some other things at the moment so I would love to do it then. Just drop me an email so we can further discuss it. Mine is . I look forward to hearing from you directly ! 🙂
SNdoniB_1999, Sounds good Im going thru a home renovation right now. How about in sept when the Union County Arts Center reopens and maybe we can do it in the projection room. Im sure Id have no problem doing it an hour or so before a movie. Things are quite busy for me right now. If things quiet down, my wife can figure out the zoom thing for me.
Well markp I myself have a YouTube channel and I would be more than happy to discuss or even interview you over zoom about your past experiences as a projectionist most specifically about your experiences and stories surrounding the Amboy Cinema but after you telling me about the fact that you ran other types of movie theaters as well it has me even more interested especially with recent events and the fact that the movie theater industry was under its most recent hardship. Please let me know if you’re interested in this offer.
SNdoniB_1999, People have told me I should do that. Unfortunately Im not a computer wizard. I need help just to install an app. Maybe someday if someone was to sit down with me I could share my various stories with people. Ive run everything from G to XXX, so Ive seen it all.
markp have you ever considered doing a YouTube series on your various experiences as a projectionist in multiple cinemas over the years ? I would to hear more of your stories in greater detail especially with aforementioned Amboy Cinema.
CCMPI, thanks. Dad was a 55 year projectionist vet before passing away. Im in my 46th year. Im the house projectionist at the Union County Arts Center in Rahway NJ. We do 35MM screenings there. I also do 70MM movies for Warner Bros at the Regal E Walk and AMC Lincoln Square in NYC when they have them.
SNdoniB_1999, I have said I would love to see a 3 screen drive in put up there. But thats just me. ridethectrain, As I recall, screens 3,4,5,7,8 and 13, 14 had dolby stereo stereo units that were there when I started. Theatre 7 (original Cinema 1 ) had 70MM. And Im with you. I couldnt stand those theatres they split. And when you spend 21 years working in a place, sometimes for 18 hours in a day, you tend to remember stuff like I do.
At markp, I uploaded the grand opening ad when it went to 8 screens on August 21, 1981 in the photos sections. I was researching from the New Jersey newspapers online.
Which screens had Dolby Stereo when you there and it was 70MM. When did Amboy finally go all Dolby in the 90’s.
Also, they only cut two theatres in half. The Sunrise in Valley Stream that open the same date, the cut 4 original auditoriums in half.
I was not a big fan of long bowling alley theatres, but that must of been a 1970 and 1980 thing to do. The newer theatres at least they build them better.
Thanks for the help, I’m familar with the seat counts of the Sunrise, when it open in 1979 for the orignal six each had 700 each.
Thank you markp for that input. I did not know that the cinema had that many seats and I personally find it quite amazing that you remember all that after all these years. However I don’t understand why they let this building sit, wasting money in property tax. The building is filled with Incredible mold and mildew all over except for maybe in certain places of the projection room and if the ceiling wasn’t sinking then, it’s definitely sinking now as seen from the videos of people exploring the building so the idea of building ever being repurposed is just out of the question. National amusements should just let the building go and give the property back to the city of Sayreville so that they can actually use the land for something else. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a sucker for abandoned places and urban exploring and I have been fascinated with this building since I was 8 years old and it has a lot of memories for my family who did go to the theater. But given all the information that has been presented with videos and photographs, it’s clear that any future for the Amboy building is as fictional as some of the motion pictures that used to show.
A few corrections to what was recently posted. As a projectionist here from 3/84 to 5/2005, The expansion dates after 1982 are wrong. They added 2 screens to the building and split 2 original theaters in late 1984 to go from 10 to 14. From 1985 on it was 14 screens.
As far as the collapse that closed it, it was never a sinking ceiling, but a sinking floor in the lobby around the concession stand that closed the building. There were many theories over the years but the most likely cause was a break in the sewer main from the restroom that eroded the fill under the lobby and caused the concrete floor to give way.
At the end Amboys was bleeding money.
Theatres like New Brunswick and Menlo Park, as well as the complexes in Staten Island killed the theatre. I know in its final years, I cant recall seeing a sell out. Its time had come. The floor collapse just caused the inevitable.
Even after all these years I still remember the seat counts:
Theatres 7 thru 14 were the original 1 thru 6. 9 and 10 and 11 and 12 were splits of the original 3 and 4. 5 and 6 were the first addition. 3 and 4 were the second addition and 1 and 2 were the last addition at the same time they did the splits.
Please update, total seats aprx. 5600
So essentially the theater was expanded to death, it went from a 6 screen to an 8 screen to a 10 screen to a 12 screen and finally to a 14 Screen Cinema, all within the span of six years. That kind of expansion that quick in my opinion can cause unnecessary stress to the already existing infrastructure within the building. Even though it wouldn’t happen until 2005, I feel that the building just couldn’t handle the extra load need to take in which is what caused the ceiling to initially sink. Since then as seen from the photos and videos of people exploring the building, the infrastructure has gotten worse and worse and eventually we’ll probably just collapse in on itself completely. So from what ridethectrain has said, I would say Amboy Cinemas expanded too much, too fast, too soon and 18 years of that stress on the building, finally gave out. I’m now convinced had they not have expanded so much or not as fast as they did, maybe Amboy Cinemas would still be open today.
Please update, theatre expanded to 8 screens on August 21, 1981 (Grand opening ad in photos), 10 on June 11, 1982, 11 on December 21, 1984, 12 on November 8, 1985 and 14 on December 11, 1987
My favourite urban explorers (urbex), The Proper People, posted a video tour on YouTube yesterday.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeGHPFuBomI
A new video has been posted. Basically from the same venture to the building as the previous, however this was recorded and edited by the previous posters partner as they were both filming simultaneously. Same things that I said before apply for this as well. https://youtu.be/dVOD4Zd3kPc
The theatre very similar to the Sunrise, except screen entrances similar to Commack It also showed the old pacer ticket machines The ticket system came out in 1982, National Amusements installed them in 1985
To add on to what markp has been saying on this forum for many years now, the building has actually gotten worse since AmboyUrbanEx first got into the building back in 2016. The water damage has become even more extensive and many of the theaters have become completely dilapidated, one of which has a ceiling that is in so much disrepair that the roof has even caved in revealing some sunlight. All of this can be seen in the video that I shared in my previous comment. So in short it is safe to say that unfortunately the building can never be repurposed ever again and the only other option is to demolish the structure. My only hope is that National Amusements can come into the building prior to demolition to retrieve anything in the building that could be salvageable that being old movie theater Marquis security footage old tapes which are in the upstairs office area, just for the sake of preservation and history so we can at least see what the theater used to look like in its heyday.
Hello everyone ! I am happy to say that someone has actually gained acces into the defunct cinema and has filmed the inside of it using a high quality 4K camera here is the link to the video.
https://youtu.be/HhuHW-bBTbM
Now the man who film this censored the sign as well as any Marquis that would have indicated it as the Amboy Cinema in order to keep himself safe. So I strongly urge you all to not Badger this man and try to ask him how he got inside the building. We should all be grateful that he has this footage at all. The reason I know that this is Amboy is because of the fact that everything matches up to the photographs and the end of the video shows the exterior matching the location of Amboy. He also mentioned in the video that the reason he censored the name of the cinema was to keep people from going in the theater to vandalize it so it’s most likely that the entrance way where he was able to enter the building is still there and still open but as AmboyUrbanEx said himself several years ago it’s very dangerous so be mindful of the risks.
I would rather see the property converted to a 3 screen drive in. It would be a real money maker from say April till the end of October.
As of November 2020, National Amusements (Owned by the Redstone family) still owns the property at 8020 State Route 9 & 35 in Sayreville. According to the current property tax records, National Amusement pays a property tax bill of $156,990.00 per year to the Borough of Sayreville. That’s a lot of money to lose considering that its been a non-revenue generating property for going on 15 years now.
Why doesn’t the borough just do what the City of Bloomfield did with the old Schering-Plough pharmaceutical campus buy it for a dollar with some tax incentives and then sell the property to a retailer like Home Depot, Lowes, ShopRite or whoever for a million dollars or they can use eminent domain (For the record I hate the use of eminent domain) take over the property National Amusement gets nothing and they lose everything.
May 28 2005
Its time to tear down this place and put up a 3 screen drive in theatre in its place. 2 screens by the river and one on the opposite side by the old circle.
It actually closed in late may 2005. I was scheduled to work the day the floor collapse happened.