I was driving by this week and I noticed a sign that said coming soon: Majestic Performing Arts Center. I don’t get downtown much these days, so I’m not sure how long the sign has been there, but I’ve definitely never noticed it before. It also looks like a new marquee is under construction. I didn’t see anything on the Palace side of the building.
This was my neighborhood theater growing up. I saw Star Wars here more times than I can count. Like others have said, after it was twinned, it just wasn’t the same.
It was demolished in the fall of 1994. I vividly remember slamming on the brakes of my car when I drove past a pile of rubble that used to be the Merritt.
These theaters opened around the same time as the Showcase Cinemas next door. 93ish. I remember seeing Gettysburg and Schindler’s List here. They are inside the former Bullard building that also houses BJ’s Wholesale Club. There are a handful of outdoor parking spaces but most are beneath the building. You need to take a couple of escalator rides up to the lobby, which has a huge neon drive in sign. It’s been a while since I’ve been there, but I remember a few of the auditoriums were quite small. This theater showed more offbeat fare than its sister theater next door.
Toward the end of its life, the Beverly showed second run features for 99 cents. Combined with the nearby Beverly Pizza House (which hasn’t changed one tiny bit) it made an excellent night out for broke high school kids. The theater closed within weeks of my graduation.
The original 10 auditoriums were standard orchestra seating, and the 6 that were added later were stadium seating. Sometime after Bow Tie took over, all the original auditoriums were retrofitted to stadium seating.
I was driving by this week and I noticed a sign that said coming soon: Majestic Performing Arts Center. I don’t get downtown much these days, so I’m not sure how long the sign has been there, but I’ve definitely never noticed it before. It also looks like a new marquee is under construction. I didn’t see anything on the Palace side of the building.
This theater was a dive. I think every other movie I saw there had problems with the projection or sound or something. I avoided it like the plague.
This was my neighborhood theater growing up. I saw Star Wars here more times than I can count. Like others have said, after it was twinned, it just wasn’t the same.
It was demolished in the fall of 1994. I vividly remember slamming on the brakes of my car when I drove past a pile of rubble that used to be the Merritt.
These theaters opened around the same time as the Showcase Cinemas next door. 93ish. I remember seeing Gettysburg and Schindler’s List here. They are inside the former Bullard building that also houses BJ’s Wholesale Club. There are a handful of outdoor parking spaces but most are beneath the building. You need to take a couple of escalator rides up to the lobby, which has a huge neon drive in sign. It’s been a while since I’ve been there, but I remember a few of the auditoriums were quite small. This theater showed more offbeat fare than its sister theater next door.
Toward the end of its life, the Beverly showed second run features for 99 cents. Combined with the nearby Beverly Pizza House (which hasn’t changed one tiny bit) it made an excellent night out for broke high school kids. The theater closed within weeks of my graduation.
The original 10 auditoriums were standard orchestra seating, and the 6 that were added later were stadium seating. Sometime after Bow Tie took over, all the original auditoriums were retrofitted to stadium seating.