Old Orchard Theatre
9400 Skokie Boulevard,
Skokie,
IL
60077
9400 Skokie Boulevard,
Skokie,
IL
60077
11 people
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Showing 26 - 39 of 39 comments
This theatre had one drawback—it was not located in the Old Orchard Shopping Center proper. Once Cineplex-Odeon constructed theatres in the shopping center, attendance at this place went down. M&R owned the Old Orchard and when both chains ended up in the Loews-Cineplex camp, it didn’t make sense to retain both of them. As Life’s Too Short says above, it was an obvious choice for Loews to unload this one to Meridian.
Check out www.cinematour.com for pictures of the Old Orchard after closure. Someone really went nuts TPing the place!
I spent after school hours around this theater, at the bowling alley next door, the Arbys in front of the bowling alley, Jordys (1 blk north), Turnstyle/Venture across the street, Polk Bros (1 blk south), The Skatium (3 blks South), etc.. I crawled through the theater’s parking lot atop the snow drifts in the blizzard of 79.
The first movie I saw at this theater was The Front Page in 74, and later I saw Grease, Tommy, Halloween, Friday the 13th, The Warriors, Raiders of the Lost Ark, etc…
It felt spacious inside, always clean and comfortable. A magic piece of old Skokie!
This was one of my favorite theaters, I hate that they demolished it. I saw so many movies there, including X-Men and Star Wars re-release.
Yeah…that’s what I heard as well.
Per Life’s Too Short’s comment: I beleive Meridian Theatres went into bankruptcy due to failure to pay city & county amusement taxes.
the fun fair was where the hotel is across sk blvd. the mini railroad went all around the property. this was before turnstyle/jewel shopping center, next store!!!
i went to niles north and we used to walk to jordys for lunch.
the bowling alley had 72 lanes! all the kids went on saturday am !!!
how about the old allied radio shack in that lot? this was way before the radio shack chain, this was a classic old tube TV/radio store.
i remember Old Orchard with montgomery wards and walgreens, and this was an open court not a mall.
Here is a view of a fire department drill being conducted behind the theater by the Skokie Fire Dept in the 60s.
Wow!! I grew up at this place…saw E.T. there. Seeing a sold-out show in the main theater was great. I had no idea it was once one screen…or that there was a bowling alley & amusement park. It became part of Meridian Theaters as a condition of the Loews Cineplex merger…which was fine with Loew Cineplex…they just gave Meridian a lot of their older sites. Loews Cineplex then promptly sank into reorganization bankruptcy…anybody want my stock certificate? Meridian was seeded with a couple million in venture capital money: they wanted to create an entertainment company serving inner-city movie-goers. it didn’t pan out for whatever reason…and now, near as I can tell, the organization has completely liquidated. It was a shame to see the place come down…a lot of North Shore history went with it.
i used to go there in the 60’s when it was only one theatre. the fun fair amusment park was across the street, and jordy’s hotdogs was right on the old orchard parking lot. in fact there was a huge 64 lane old orchard bowling alley there also….
I saw tons & tons of flicks here. Took a lot dates here too. Old Orchard was a real treat because it was always very clean, and although there was no balcony, it was sprawling with gigantic screens. It was also a nicely designed theater, very streamlined and well-kept. The Gardens Theaters at Old Orchard don’t even come close to replacing this great theater.
Can’t remember the last movie I saw here, but I think it was “Saving Private Ryan.”
The only movies I saw at the Old Orchard – “Up At The Villa”, “Jesus' Son”, “The Exorcist (The Version You’ve Never Seen) and "Bounce”.
This theater had 2,464 seats all together.
It’s a shame this theater closed.
It will for ever be missed in my heat. Lots of good memories there. Theater 1 was increadable, ill never forget seeing this little known movie (at the time) known as “the matrix”, 950 seats in theater one, there was nothing like seeing it at a sold out show with 950 other people.
The Old Orchard was a very nice theater especially theater 1 (which reminded me of Hillside Square theater 1) with the plush rocking chair seats. It was good while it lasted.