Strand Theatre
900 Boardwalk,
Ocean City,
NJ
08226
900 Boardwalk,
Ocean City,
NJ
08226
8 people
favorited this theater
Showing 51 - 75 of 92 comments
I’ve also sworn off frozen bananas, giant pretzels and Taylor pork roll sandwiches. It’s kind of a moot point as neither is available in Los Angeles. I guess I could stick a banana in the freezer if absolutely necessary.
I know the feeling. I rarely eat popcorn!
But Shriver’s is still my favorite taffy!
I can’t eat that stuff anymore. I spent a summer working at a taffy place on the AC walk that had big bins which we would snack on. Ruined me forever.
Yep. Shriver’s Taffy was started by Helen Schilling’s grandfather. I believe he was William Shriver. And his son was also William Shriver. Helen, who was in her 90’s when I knew her, inherited the theaters and taffy from her father in the 1940’s I believe.
The taffy business was started in the very late 1800’s.
And the Taffy business was sold to the present owner a long time ago. 1960’s perhaps? The actual property the taffy store sits on was still owned by Helen until she died in the 1998.
Was that the Shriver family that sold salt water taffy?
I wish I had seen this discussion earlier.
I was an operator and occasional manager of the Strand Theatre for many years before the three boardwalk theaters were sold to the Frank Company in 1989. When the previous owner, Helen Shriver Schilling, decided she would sell the properties, she insisted that they not be sold to her long-time competitor. But unfortunately, the sale was handled by someone without fully briefing her, and the Frank Company used a front company called ASF Industries to make the purchase. At that time, the OC Historic Commission asked me to come brief them and testify at two planning board meetings.
The Historic Commission tried very hard to prevent the drastic and ugly alterations, but they didn’t have the authority to demand it. The planning board was not interested in historic preservation at the time, and even if they had been, they could not prevent the alterations since the buildings would still be theaters. They could dictate parking spaces, entrances and exits, but not style. Nonetheless, the new owners promised to keep the exterior the same, to use the boxoffice, and to build only 4 auditoriums consistent with the machine age art deco style.
Unfortunately, they removed all the glass block, converted the lobby into retail space, closed the round boxoffice, covered the hundreds of incandescent light circles under the marquee, and built 5 auditoriums instead of 4. The entrance is now on the side of the building where an emergency exit once was.
Since that time I’ve created the boardwalk theater history site at www.moorlyn.com and have been honored to speak at the museum a couple of times. But looking back at it all now, I of course think it is a shame that the theaters were sacrificed for money, but it would be almost impossible today to support the value of that real estate at 9th and boardwalk without multiple films running. Before the sale, the theaters were profitable because they carried no debt. They were inherited decades before from Mrs. Schilling’s father, William Shriver. To buy them in 1989 meant you had to make enough profit to cover the mortgage.
In 1989 I had a partner and a local bank lined up to help me with purchasing the theaters with the intent of keeping them the way the Shriver family had wanted. And based on the income of single screens (the Moorlyn was a twin) the properties could have supported a purchase value of $1.5 M. Yet, the buyers actually paid $6.5 M. You can’t sell enough tickets to support that with only four screens. So they carved them up. I don’t know how they ever made enough to cover that debt. Perhaps the Village fire helped reduce that burden, and perhaps the Hoyt management deal helped bring them back into the black.
And I can say from experience running those boardwalk theaters that people don’t really come to the boardwalk to watch a movie. They can do that at home. They will watch a movie if they have nothing else to do, or if it is raining. The Strand had 1,450 very comfy seats, but even as a flagship theatre it would have been very difficult to fill them, and with that kind of mortgage, you need to fill them.
This has been that company’s strategy for many years. Get maximum profit out of a theatre, do no maintenance, and sell the land when it crumbles. The Margate Twin (built in 1938) and the Somers Point 4 (converted in 1981) theatres are both examples, and are both gone now.
So it is a damn shame that the Strand did not survive in its previous configuration. It had been painstakingly cared for since 1938 and was still in very good shape in 1989. but the owner was too old to worry about it anymore. Still I am glad that I worked there. For two years now there has been a night dedicated at the OC museum to the history of the boardwalk theaters, and it is always fun to hear the stories that long-time residents tell.
Check out www.moorlyn.com and http://photobook.smugmug.com/gallery/2236013
Jim Laymon
Does he recall when actor Erroll Flynn and other famous celebrities at that time stayed there? For myself not being around yet back when the Flanders was in its heyday, such were the stories I grew up hearing in relation to how glorious it once was. But by the time I came along the Flanders had become a grand old seaside hotel that didn’t know it was dead yet. Far from being rundown — luckily it never got to the point of becoming this — still, by the late ‘60s/early '70s it became the type of place only an old lady would want to stay at. While to be sure it made a magnificent comntribution to the Ocean City skyline over all — it, too, having been designed in the style of Spanish Revival architecture — so far as grand hotels go it had one of the worst main entrances I think I’ve ever seen, with no real way it seems of ever being able to correct that. Contrast that to the Port O’ Call, whose main entrance was a thousand times better. So given the way the main entrance of the Flanders was, it would be interesting to be able to go back in time to see how that particular detail was handled when it was in its heyday.
According to things I’ve been told, back in an earlier era Ocean City was so strict that you weren’t even permitted to stroll the boardwalk in the evening if you weren’t wearing a dinner jacket! Any man caught doing this was automatically ordered to leave. And all ladies had to wear formal dresses on the boardwalk in the evening hours, of course. And even during the day bathing suits were NOT permitted on the boardwalk, by either men or women, or children. So it appears against that backdrop the old Flanders, with its poorly planned out main entrance, was made workable. But when times changed it carried on by means of inertia only. Its regular clientele just got older and older till it just came down to old widows staying there, and ones with mouths agape in horror, as I found out when I walked into its lobby in 1974, that any young man would DARE walking into the Flanders' lobby not wearing his proper dinner jacket. And no one had the heart to tell them, not even me (though my words would not have done any good) that the world had changed by then. So by 1974 the Flanders' lobby had become a fascinating time capsule of stepping back in time.
And in its last days as a single-screen theater, the Strand’s lobby had become this as well. Though you didn’t have to dress formally to be admitted, inside the lobby there were these long sofas and end tables with large, living room style table lamps, as if to say, what was any of that for? For nobody used them, they were just there as some sort of additional but totally needless decor. And quite detracting if it was meant to be a classy theater.
In its last days as a single-screen theater clearly the Strand was in need of a massive overhaul. And all sorts of wonderful things could’ve been done with it had Ocean City not suddenly changed the way it did, taking all good people there by surprise as it were. And the Strand Theatre could still be brought back as a really great single-screen theater, but it would require the right management. And by that I don’t mean theater management, but over all resort and state of New Jersey management. The old Flanders Hotel on the other hand, though it complements the Ocean City skyline beautifully, would be quite a challenge, even with that change.
That should be engineer, of course. It’s kind of early.
We have an oil painting of the Flanders in our house back in Absecon. My dad was an angineer at the Flanders in the 40s.
How about that, Ken MC!
For just before the classic Ocean City was driven under, one of the last places I stayed at there while that was still intact, and which I now have the fondest memories of, was the Oceanview Apartments, which were located there on Plymouth Place right behind Gillian’s Fun Deck (which he later turned into that giant water park, Gillian’s Island.)
In its latter days, the Oceanview was in a somewhat rundown state, and I’ll be the first to admit that. But with its Spanish Revival architecture and enormous white pillared porches facing out towards the boardwalk and sea — with high-back rockers no less! — it was a dream come true staying there! The upstairs apartments (where I stayed each time) were enormous, and at the front end they had those large pillared porches facing towards the sea which I just described, while at the back (as you stepped out from the kitchen) they had these high up porches that overlooked all of Ocean City. The sunsets from way up there were fantastic!
And you really got a sense of Ocean City history when you stayed there, it being part of the original Ocean City from its late 1800s beginnings. Case in point, to its front end (facing the boardwalk) at the lower level it had a large wooden sundeck which in actuality was a section of Ocean City’s original boardwalk when this building was positioned directly on it!
But…
After Gillian became mayor, all historic importance be damned, one of the first things he did after he got in office was push through an ordinance requiring all Ocean City buildings beyond a certain size to have sophisticated fire sprinkler systems installed. The owner of the Oceanview, unfortunately, couldn’t even begin to afford that and thus was forced to sell, and, to none other than Gillian himself.
The moment Gillian bought it up, and at bottom dollar at that (being he was mayor he was able to rig it that way), and then instantly tore it down to build a parking lot in its place for his water park.
Though it had been somewhat in a rundown state in its last days as I say, by that I only mean superficially. For at the core it was in excellent shape, very solid, one of those classic “they don’t build ‘em like they used to” type buildings. And like I say, it had been one of Ocean City’s oldest. For over a century it had easily withstood hurricanes and floods and Nor'Easters.
But alas, it could not withstand Gillian’s shear greed and stupidity.
At the same time, just to be totally fair, I don’t fully blame Gillian for what happened. When nearby Atlantic City had gone the way of casinos and governmental attention became fully focused on that — primarily to “keep the mob out” — Ocean City, 10 miles to its south, was left wide open. Suddenly it was without any real law or other protection to speak of whatsoever, for no one beforehand ever foresaw the need for this. So overnight — and I mean that literally — Ocean City suddenly became this very lawless place. Any attempts to reverse it, including my own, were too little too late. for at that point it became rule of the thugs and “commerce” at its utmost worst. No legitimate businesses based there could survive it. For governmental regulatory agencies, with their resources stretched too thin with Atlantic City, couldn’t even begin to get to Ocean City’s problems let alone adequately handle Atlantic City’s.
Add to this that it was the Reagan era of deregulation, which added even more to the confusion. For no one at that time, with its being relatively new, quite knew what deregulation meant. And for some it simply meant anything goes in the name of making a buck. And anything that stood in the way of that was without bearing.
And because Ocean City was primarily classified as a “resort” and not where Americans actually lived, that also prevented it from receiving many regulatory protections it might have gotten otherwise. Casino workers took up permanent year round residence there, yes, but as such they were viewed as only “temporary.” And most of the casino workers saw themselves that way. I remember that firsthand. When I tried to engage their support in saving the resort from becoming a “nightmare vacation spot by the sea,” to them they just saw it as a “bedroom community” only, a place close to Atlantic City simply to sleep and wash up between shifts, nothing more. And the vast majority of them, totally new to Ocean City, never even knew it had been this great seaside legacy the way you and I had gotten to know it. Plus, by then it was too late for them to get to know that, all the downward changes came so quickly.
One or two things of yore survived — the Music Pier, the Flanders Hotel, the Port ‘O Call, plus the boardwalk itself.
And miraculously, the Strand Theatre — although it’s all chopped up into little mini theaters now — is still there. And at this late stage it is Ocean City’s LAST movie theater, to give credit where it is due. However, it’s not one where I feel any customer gets a sense of what all once was. rather, I get this feeling it was reworked to prevent newcomers from ever seeing that. “Better they not know,” some might say. But I almost feel like I’m Marc Antony or somebody in my saying that.
Plymouth Place was the street where my great aunt and uncle owned a duplex. They lived on the second floor and rented out the first floor to summer people. We used to have lunch with them at the Plymouth Inn across the street. This is more than thirty five years ago, now. Time flies.
No, the Blue Laws was the first casualty when Ocean City underwent its downward transition.
I was living and working there at the time, and as I recall, an all out campaign was launched that year to register the sizeable number of new residents to town (re: Atlantic City casino workers) to vote, with voting out the Blue Laws placed at the top of the ballot. The only aspect of Ocean City’s Blue Laws kept in tact, I suppose for Somers Point’s economy sake, was the continued prohibition of bars in Ocean City, which still holds to this day.
And you’re right about the big amusement pier at the upper end of the boardwalk being Wonderland, but I don’t believe Gillian owned it in the years you remember. Perhaps he did, but if so he was in a dormant state of the kind of person he evolved into later, sort of like the two Nicks depicted in IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE. After Ocean City sharply underwent its downward transition he rose up to be mayor for a time, which is when he created that big water park — Gillian’s Island at Plymouth Place and the boardwalk. All to cash in on the huge ocean pollution crisis that hit Ocean City during that period. As mayor, he was able to supply his new water park with the city’s water free of charge which, incidentally, coincided with a severe drought New Jersey farmers suffered that year. Later, a mother and two kids got killed on one of his faulty rollercoaster rides, but because he was mayor he got off with something like a $20,000.00 fine.
In other words, you’re lucky you got to experience Ocean City when you did, so was I. While I really wish I had not seen it later when it sharply underwent its downward slide. As I say, the last movie I saw there at the Strand while it was still a single screen theater was THE UNTOUCHABLES, while my guess is the movers and shakers of Ocean City by that point felt it hit too close to home for them. For that year I saw that movie it really did feel like I was living it while I was seeing it.
Anyway, I wasn’t in Ocean City for the 4th of July this year. But they said on the news tonight that for this year’s 4th of July it was an unusually cold night on the Ocean City boardwalk. Winter coat weather almost.
The amusement park was Gillian’s Wonderland. Do they still have the Blue Laws in Ocean City?
It’s now the height of summer in the seaside vacation resort town of Ocean City, NJ — tomorrow is the 4th of July, 2007 no less — and the Strand Theatre, strategically located at the pinnacle of the entire town (9th Street & the Boardwalk is clearly the pinnacle of the entire town), is the only last movie theater Ocean City has at this point to its name. So given that, one would think a very special effort would be made to go all out to insure it’s one that doesn’t insult peoples' intelligence. But lo and behold what do we see but the exact opposite. And I’m trying very hard to understand that right now, but hard as I try, I can’t. Yet it is a question that begs to be answered.
I’m not saying this is the theater operator’s fault, for ultimately I don’t believe that to be the case. Faced with all sorts of bureaucratic governmental pressures, it’s in a position where it’s forced to either sink or swim. Of course some business operators, strange as it might sound, like that sort of thing. It levels the playing field so that incompetent businessmen can be happy while no one else can. And when the main — and only — movie theater in town is run in such a way that insults the intelligence, who’s to know?
If a program could be started up in this country that would grant movie theaters a type of diplomatic immunity — which they should have anyway thanks to the First Amendment — that could begin to change. For why not movie theaters that can raise peoples' awareness in ways they need to be raised? And the Strand Theatre in Ocean City — where countless hundreds of thousands flock to each summer — would be an excellent starting place for this.
But watch. I’ll say what I’ve just said here, and the only response I’ll get is one of one huge blank. As in, “Raise awareness? Raise awareness of what? What are you talking about? We go to Ocean City each summer and find it ‘lovely’.” Which will only reinforce my point why movie theaters — protected by diplomatic immunity — are needed. For to be sure, Ocean City could be lovely. It could be outright beautiful. But it’s far from that now. And who’s to know, given the current way the Strand Theatre is being run. Again reinforcing my point.
Since most of those two weeks I spent in Ocean City that summer were down at 59th Street and hitting the beach at that fantastic state park below there leading out to Corson’s Inlet, I don’t know if Roy Gillian owned Ocean City’s big amusement parks that year or if all of that was to come later. Probably later, since Ocean City was still very much on the up and up at that time. Cases in point, Chris’s Restaurant back on the bay at 9th Street, where we ate on several occasions, was in full swing that year, and beachtags were still way off in the future if you can imagine. But in your case you were there so you know that firsthand.
But in remembering things uptown on the boardwalk that year, there was a pinball arcade in a large white airplane hanger shaped building with amusement rides in back — I think it was Paul’s Fundeck (though it might not have been called that at that time) — which had a full-size painted metal cowboy riding a metal horse up over its entryway. The cowboy was supposed to be holding onto and swinging a lasso high in the air, but the metal lasso part was missing. I don’t know if the hippies that year climbed up there and stole it or what. In any event it was like straight out of the Rory Calhoun western movie era. In the years to follow, that same cowboy on a horse reemerged in one of the boardwalk miniture golf places, though I don’t remember which one now. But why it was ever removed from over the entrance of that pinball arcade I have no idea, as it was just so memorably classic up there.
So often the business owners in Ocean City don’t know a good thing when they have it. And that most certainly was the case when Frank Family Management acquired and reworked the Strand Theatre. You look at the photo of how it’s being run now and compare it to how it once had been, and you can’t help but think, what were they thinking?! For in the summer of ‘72 as a single-screen theater it had been a major uptown centerpiece, rivaled only by the Ocean City Music Pier, Flanders Hotel and Stainton’s Department Store. And who does that really? Take a main attraction such as that and reduce it to what for the most part is now a chopped up nothing? Maybe Ocean City at some future point could all be brought back to what it once was. But it seems it would require a whole different class of people for that to be possible.
I played a lot of miniature golf on the Boardwalk that summer. Also the rides at that big complex, I forget now what it was called. My great uncle was a night watchman at the complex, despite being almost ninety, and used to slip me rolls of free ride tickets. I was a very popular kid that summer.
So do I, and being as I was in my teens at the time I thought it was fantastic! My widowed, childless aunt rented a place for herself, my brother and I down at 59th Street for two weeks in July of that summer, and after we got all settled in and then went uptown to visit the boardwalk and saw all the hippies and flower children everywhere I turned to my aunt — who was quite conservative — and said all excitedly, “Wow! Ocean City’s really become a hippie heaven!” She was horrified, and quickly scoffed, “Why on earth would anyone think that is a good thing?!” I don’t recall what my exact reply was, but I remember feeling, why wouldn’t they? But alas, I guess you had to be young to see it that way. Still, here it is 35 years later, I’m not that young person anymore, and yet I still see it that way.
And the two brightly lit up things I remember in the middle of it all at that time were the Strand Theatre to one side of the 9th Street ramp and Shriver’s Salt Water Taffy with its neon lights to the other. That was the main central point of the boardwalk, and when you arrived to there it felt like coming to the top of the world. And it was, it was, it was!
My grandparents lived at 32nd & Asbury. I remember the hippies very well that summer.
Back when it was a real theater the main entrance was right behind the circular ticket booth, of course. But going by this photo that part looks like it’s completely sealed over now and has been for quite some time. So who knows where the patrons are expected to enter in through. To the theater’s immediate right that’s a ramp leading off the boardwalk, so I’m guessing the entrance (or entrances) is somewhere along there.
At least it’s still a theater, albeit all chopped up now.
But if there’s one location where a single screen theater should be able to work out very well, this is it, at least all throughout the summer months when that boardwalk is jammed packed with tourists. And because the tourism turnover rate is extraordinarily high now, given the very high cost to vacation in Ocean City these days (gone are the days when sizeable numbers of people could afford to spend their whole summers there), you could have one movie playing there all summer yet expect that theater to operate at full capacity every single night.
Meantime, just to tell an interesting story relating to something near to there, just up the boardwalk is the Ocean City Music Pier. traditionally Ocean City’s Music Pier hosted free live performances throughout the summer months, but this year the tickets for each show will be $20. One of the performers it will host this year is John Sebastian, leader of the 1960’s band the Lovin' Spoonful. An interesting story about John Sebastian which may be true or merely urban legend, back in the summer of ‘72 Ocean City caught the ripple effect from the Woodstock Music & Arts Fair held up in New York State just three years before. The whole entire resort that year was completely swamped with hippies and flower children everywhere. And one of the tales of that summer was that John Sebastian attempted to enter the resort (which is out on a barrier island) totally stoned on L.S.D. and driving a paisley Rolls Royce but was immediately intercepted by Ocean City police and forced to depart the resort the same way he drove in. So in that sense I just thought it’s very interesting that 35 years later he’ll now be performing at the Ocean City Music Pier. Maybe somebody can ask him if that longstanding story is really true. But at the same time, if he was really stoned on L.S.D. as the story goes, he probably wouldn’t remember it, would he?
Thanks, Lost Memory, for posting a link to what to a large extent is a very sad photo, at least in relation to the Strand Theatre’s one time glory. And just looking at how it’s being run now, it having been greatly reworked since I last saw a movie there in 1987 (ironically called THE UNTOUCHABLES), where do you even go in at? And given how it wasn’t all that big inside when it was a single screen theater, the five seperate auditoriums it’s been chopped up into must be really cramped. Not the best place I would say to see PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD’S END. The way it had been before would’ve worked out quite well for a movie such as though.
John, you left out the important detail that Hoyt’s is ultimately an Australian-based corporation. And if there is a link between Hoyt’s and Ocean City, NJ’s Strand the way it’s been run since the late 1980s onward it’s not to their credit and both Ocean City and Australia were harmed by the relationship.
International conglomerates like Hoyt’s tend to have a high degree of diplomatic immunity. And it’s a shame they don’t use it for good rather than bad, as Ocean City’s Strand sure could have used such an advantage over the past 20 years. That is, if there was a Hoyt’s connection as you’re still trying to find out. Let us all know when you find out for sure. Thanks!
Dear John:
I’m not responding to your previous post.
I just wanted to say how much I appreciate your posts throughout CT.
I appreciate your comments about Lehigh Valley. I can’t imagine it closed either. I was an Assistant Manager there in the mid-80’s. Bob Klaas was the Manager, until he moved to Cleveland as the DM. I later heard that when GCC eliminated the Division system, he became an Area Manager, with offices at Bidgewater Commons 7. When Bob left, Glenn D. Schattan became the Manager. I later moved to the Viewmont Mall 5 managed by Fred Jensen.
In many ways, I guess most of us are flabbergasted by the demise of GCC. It’s hard to believe that they went bankrupt 4 months after opening Fenway.
Do you know if many GCC Managers now work at AMC? I wonder because that GCC’s Managers used to earn much more than those at other circuits. There was also a number of GCC Managers who earned more than Division Managers. You probably remember all that.
Thank you.
Dan Doherty
This was once part of Hoyts?? I didn’t know this. Were others part of Hoyts that are now and were owned by Frank’s Theatres? I’m confused. Hoyts' American operations were based in MA, and they had a financing deal with BCG for some of their MA/CT theaters, which were than reaquired. I know Hoyts was also going to build the Bayone theater that Frank’s Theatres finished. (Most newer Hoyts sites are run by Regal Entertainment Group, others are now opperated by National Amusements, Crown (now Bow Tie), and BCG’s Entertainment Cinemas/NorthEast Cinemas). Can anyone clarify the corporate relationship between Frank’s Theaters, Hoyts, and BCG?
For me it was never a choice between Ocean City and Atlantic City, or Ocean City and Wildwood, but at all times for me it was Ocean City or nothing. And if I ever visited Atlantic City or Wildwood or even Cape May for that matter, it was just to appreciate Ocean City all the more in such stark contrast. But then came the big blood transfusion so to speak, that is to say bad blood fully displacing the good blood that had given life to Ocean City before. And so long as that bad blood continues flowing through Ocean City’s veins, I and other good people who used to go there regularly every summer won’t go anywhere near there now — while Atlantic City, Wildwood and Cape May continue being held in the same perspective as before. Prior to the casinos Atlantic City was bad in that so much of it had become rundown and impoverished, but after the casinos it became an equally undesireable place to go for totally different reasons. And Wildwood in my views remained the same as always — an always dirty looking oversized boardwalk plus that constant “Watch the tram car, please” business. As for Cape May, it always struck me as way too cramped. But Ocean City in all respects was always just right. Then came the bad blood. Some from the outside, and some from Ocean City’s own pores. And it lost its soul accordingly. Alas, will there ever be another Ocean City? I think of those who have their pets dry freezed. Which is how Ocean City seems to me now. Glad I got to know it while it was still alive though.
I always preferred the OC boardwalk to the one in Atlantic City. Better theaters, better miniature golf, the works.