One of the last times I went to the Gusman, was to catch a thrilling performance by a flamenco dancer whose name, oddly, escapes me at the moment (I want to say Paco de Lucia, but that can’t be right, since he’s a renowned flamenco guitarrist, of course).
From marble railings, and gold-leaf relief cherubs surrounding the lobby, not to mention the sumptuous bathroom facilities, with genuine red brocade pouffes in front of a Versailles-sized mirrors, the Gusman is a true moviepalace relic of a sadly bygone age.
I think what prevents it from fulfilling its promise, is that Miamians are notoriously fickle about location, and as soon as the 1970s-early 1980s drive to the southwest “suburbs” began, the Gusman was a goner as popular venue.
Parking — including its outrageous valet prices — and the rough, seedy quality of downtown Miami after dark, didn’t help.
N.B.: This theatre is not to be confused with the much later, much more modern theatre with practically the same name, within the University of Miami’s campus in Coral Gables.
It’s not incorrect, but I must say, it’s rather like mentioning the Apollo theatre as being in the neighbourhood of ‘the throttlingly strident black community’. I mean, please. And I’m not even Cuban…
Unfortunately, it has not, and the last time I passed by it, its art nouveau lines were obscured by its depressed Little Havana (more like Little Tegucigalpa these days…) surroundings.
I do see in Lost Memory’s recent photograph, that Miami-Dade CC (as I still call it), must have been sponsoring a Spanish-language show of some kind, as late as December 2006. Good deal.
I have only the haziest recollection of this movie theatre, considering it closed down when I was a very young kid, but I do remember its façade being around long after its close.
IIRC, it was near the nostalgia-inducing “McCrory’s 5 & Dime”, which famously also had a separate lunch counter for black customers.
From word of mouth via old time Miamians (the kind of people, that to this day still pronounce Miami, My-ah-mah), I heard this S. Charles Lee theatre was a jewel of art nouveau design and convenience.
It even had the very innovative idea of the Huyler’s restaurant and candy shop, adjacent to its box office entrance.
If I were building a movie theatre today (Ã la Hamid Hashemi of Muvico fame), I’d be sure to include a restaurant just next door too.
As mentioned in the Gables Theatre thread, this was the sprawling cinemahouse located on Coral Way, opposite Sergio’s Restaurant (a Miami landmark eatery) where I saw Return of the Jedi during the summer of 1983.
In more innocent times, that showing was allowed to be raucous, and I recall being sprawled in the aisles, on all fours, alongside my friends. A fire hazard, if ever there was one. But fun!
Capacious, well-run, I don’t have too many specific memories of it, save that of the nostalgia of having gone there as a child many times.
Because of its prime real estate location, bookending Cuban Miami with Anglo Miami neighbourhoods, this theatre later became a succession of supermarkets, including Varadero, and is currently, an enormous Winn Dixie (slogan, “The Beef People”).
Where’s the beef, indeed.
P.S.: For whatever reason, Coral Gables has had difficulty maintaining a long-standing cinemahouse within its confines. The Gables Triple location, in fact, was technically next door to a rather odd, difficult to enter mall just a few feet away from it. It had an AMC theatre inside this mall, near a Brentano’s. Upstairs was a Scandinavian Fitness Spa, and downstairs was a TGI Friday’s restaurant. Novice manual transmission drivers will never forget this mall, since the only way to park inside, was to navigate through the most treacherously steep ramp, to pay for parking. Maybe common enough in Frisco, but not in Miami.
Oh! Thanks Al. Fancy a real-time reply about this.
JWX
commented about
Omni 10on
Jan 17, 2007 at 11:31 pm
I completely agree with Spiderman’s memories.
I even remember, as a very young kid, the day this Mall opened! It was the last cry in fashionable back then, with crowds as thick as treacle for YEARS.
And does anyone remember that on the ground floor, the Omni had a carrousel, “real” gypsy fortune teller, plus dodgem cars, and an Old Wild West photo studio (which, for a steep price, took a sepia coloured photograph of you, dressed in vintage togs)? I loved that place.
The actual cinema chain (the Omni 10) was possibly the first multiplex I recall going to, unsurprisingly.
I saw Jaws there, when it came out, being taken by my parents since I was just a little kid. (See my Gables Theatre post, for a similar story)
What I remember most about Jaws, was that the air-conditioner in the auditorium was so cold, it made my teeth chatter, not helped by the goriness of the film!
And yes, the funroom/video game area was amongst the best I recall too, and it remained viable long after people stopped flocking to the Omni.
The primary reason for its decline, as ever in South Florida, is location. Though the Miami Herald building and downtown are mere yards away, this was a rough area at night; and if I recall correctly, there were several reported rapes of women and similar violent attacks on patrons of this theatre.
Curiously, the brand-new Carnival Centre — Miami’s newest Centre for the Performing Arts — which just opened is located but a couple of city blocks away. I hope it will buck the trend, considering the area is undergoing a mini-Renaissance.
All in all, the Omni 10 was fun in the beginning, but disrepair (reportedly, patrons complained about rats and fleas!), rough neighbourhood, and a demographic shift to the South and West of Miami, led to its downfall.
The last play I saw at the Coconut Grove Playhouse must’ve been the return of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” in January, 1997. The seats, proscenium, and general atmosphere were still fantastic, although one smelt the decline in the air.
(There was also an annex at the CGP, which one could rent out. A jazz-loving professor of History at the University of Miami, invited his students to a jazz evening there, which sadly, few people came to. I believe it was out of his own pocket, too. This was also around 1997-8)
Right now, the Coconut Grove Playhouse has a dingy look to it, with closed doors, and the marquee above still proclaims the very last play which starred there.
Extract from the official Lucie Arnaz site:
“Sonia Flew” – Lucie stared alongside her daughter, Katharine Luckinbill in this new play by Melinda Lopez. (Coconut Grove Playhouse, Miami, Florida) (April – May, 2006)
Lucie Arnaz' background needs no introduction, of course, but just to note that her father, the late Desi Arnaz Sr., graduated from nearby St. Patrick’s School, in Miami Beach — and since she starred in several plays at the CGP, I’m guessing she might even live in South Florida, or maintains close ties to the area.
It’s amazing that someone should post about “Star Wars” in the context of this cinema, because I only just mentioned it to my parents, one day ago.
I was recalling that as a child (9-10), they took me to see the very first Stars Wars there, and wondered what the theatre was called.
We remembered its location (on Ponce, as we locals call the veneral Ponce De Leon Blvd.), but not the name. And here I am, reading this description like an old friend greeting another, after many years' absence.
With a child’s memory, acute for some details, but strictly hazy about others, all I can contribute to the thread is that I recall that its lobby contained the very first “Asteroids” video game machine I ever saw.
It was all of a quarter to play it, and the thrill of doing so (since there was such a queue of kids to play it that afternoon!) almost eclipsed my memories and excitement of watching Stars Wars I itself.
Years later, our (private Catholic) school took us kids to see Return of the Jedi, only this time in the cinemahouse down the road on 24th street near the famed Sergio’s Cuban restaurant — on the location which later became a succession of supermarkets, including Varadero, and currently, Winn Dixie.
I’m off to find that theatre now, for more shared memories. What a great site this is.
One of the last times I went to the Gusman, was to catch a thrilling performance by a flamenco dancer whose name, oddly, escapes me at the moment (I want to say Paco de Lucia, but that can’t be right, since he’s a renowned flamenco guitarrist, of course).
This must’ve been around 1991.
It is true that I have attended the odd piano recital and Miami Film Festival showing, there, but despite these forays, I can’t say that the Gusman is one of my favourite places, save for its wonderful décor, it goes without saying.
From marble railings, and gold-leaf relief cherubs surrounding the lobby, not to mention the sumptuous bathroom facilities, with genuine red brocade pouffes in front of a Versailles-sized mirrors, the Gusman is a true moviepalace relic of a sadly bygone age.
I think what prevents it from fulfilling its promise, is that Miamians are notoriously fickle about location, and as soon as the 1970s-early 1980s drive to the southwest “suburbs” began, the Gusman was a goner as popular venue.
Parking — including its outrageous valet prices — and the rough, seedy quality of downtown Miami after dark, didn’t help.
For décor, nothing can beat the Gusman (named after Maurice Gusman, the local patron of the Arts, who made his fortune in rubber: raffishly, he was known as the Condom King to us locals, since it was rumoured that was his number one product).
N.B.: This theatre is not to be confused with the much later, much more modern theatre with practically the same name, within the University of Miami’s campus in Coral Gables.
“anti-Castro conclave”? Good Lord.
It’s not incorrect, but I must say, it’s rather like mentioning the Apollo theatre as being in the neighbourhood of ‘the throttlingly strident black community’. I mean, please. And I’m not even Cuban…
Anyway, I attended a showing of “East/West” (Est-Ouest) by Régis Wargnier back in 1999 at the Tower, just when it had re-opened controversially, as mentioned above.
A story of White Russian emigrés being duped to return to their homeland, now Soviet Russia, and suffering horrors upon horrors once there, played well in the crowd of elderly Cuban ladies and gentlemen, in the theatre that evening.
At the time, everything was renovated, and had a very clean, even soignée look to it (though the concessions stand was amateurish, at best), so I had high hopes it would stay the course.
Unfortunately, it has not, and the last time I passed by it, its art nouveau lines were obscured by its depressed Little Havana (more like Little Tegucigalpa these days…) surroundings.
I do see in Lost Memory’s recent photograph, that Miami-Dade CC (as I still call it), must have been sponsoring a Spanish-language show of some kind, as late as December 2006. Good deal.
I have only the haziest recollection of this movie theatre, considering it closed down when I was a very young kid, but I do remember its façade being around long after its close.
IIRC, it was near the nostalgia-inducing “McCrory’s 5 & Dime”, which famously also had a separate lunch counter for black customers.
From word of mouth via old time Miamians (the kind of people, that to this day still pronounce Miami, My-ah-mah), I heard this S. Charles Lee theatre was a jewel of art nouveau design and convenience.
It even had the very innovative idea of the Huyler’s restaurant and candy shop, adjacent to its box office entrance.
If I were building a movie theatre today (Ã la Hamid Hashemi of Muvico fame), I’d be sure to include a restaurant just next door too.
As mentioned in the Gables Theatre thread, this was the sprawling cinemahouse located on Coral Way, opposite Sergio’s Restaurant (a Miami landmark eatery) where I saw Return of the Jedi during the summer of 1983.
In more innocent times, that showing was allowed to be raucous, and I recall being sprawled in the aisles, on all fours, alongside my friends. A fire hazard, if ever there was one. But fun!
Capacious, well-run, I don’t have too many specific memories of it, save that of the nostalgia of having gone there as a child many times.
Because of its prime real estate location, bookending Cuban Miami with Anglo Miami neighbourhoods, this theatre later became a succession of supermarkets, including Varadero, and is currently, an enormous Winn Dixie (slogan, “The Beef People”).
Where’s the beef, indeed.
P.S.: For whatever reason, Coral Gables has had difficulty maintaining a long-standing cinemahouse within its confines. The Gables Triple location, in fact, was technically next door to a rather odd, difficult to enter mall just a few feet away from it. It had an AMC theatre inside this mall, near a Brentano’s. Upstairs was a Scandinavian Fitness Spa, and downstairs was a TGI Friday’s restaurant. Novice manual transmission drivers will never forget this mall, since the only way to park inside, was to navigate through the most treacherously steep ramp, to pay for parking. Maybe common enough in Frisco, but not in Miami.
Oh! Thanks Al. Fancy a real-time reply about this.
I completely agree with Spiderman’s memories.
I even remember, as a very young kid, the day this Mall opened! It was the last cry in fashionable back then, with crowds as thick as treacle for YEARS.
And does anyone remember that on the ground floor, the Omni had a carrousel, “real” gypsy fortune teller, plus dodgem cars, and an Old Wild West photo studio (which, for a steep price, took a sepia coloured photograph of you, dressed in vintage togs)? I loved that place.
The actual cinema chain (the Omni 10) was possibly the first multiplex I recall going to, unsurprisingly.
I saw Jaws there, when it came out, being taken by my parents since I was just a little kid. (See my Gables Theatre post, for a similar story)
What I remember most about Jaws, was that the air-conditioner in the auditorium was so cold, it made my teeth chatter, not helped by the goriness of the film!
And yes, the funroom/video game area was amongst the best I recall too, and it remained viable long after people stopped flocking to the Omni.
The primary reason for its decline, as ever in South Florida, is location. Though the Miami Herald building and downtown are mere yards away, this was a rough area at night; and if I recall correctly, there were several reported rapes of women and similar violent attacks on patrons of this theatre.
Curiously, the brand-new Carnival Centre — Miami’s newest Centre for the Performing Arts — which just opened is located but a couple of city blocks away. I hope it will buck the trend, considering the area is undergoing a mini-Renaissance.
All in all, the Omni 10 was fun in the beginning, but disrepair (reportedly, patrons complained about rats and fleas!), rough neighbourhood, and a demographic shift to the South and West of Miami, led to its downfall.
That’s a great photo, Lost Memory.
The last play I saw at the Coconut Grove Playhouse must’ve been the return of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” in January, 1997. The seats, proscenium, and general atmosphere were still fantastic, although one smelt the decline in the air.
(There was also an annex at the CGP, which one could rent out. A jazz-loving professor of History at the University of Miami, invited his students to a jazz evening there, which sadly, few people came to. I believe it was out of his own pocket, too. This was also around 1997-8)
Right now, the Coconut Grove Playhouse has a dingy look to it, with closed doors, and the marquee above still proclaims the very last play which starred there.
Extract from the official Lucie Arnaz site:
“Sonia Flew” – Lucie stared alongside her daughter, Katharine Luckinbill in this new play by Melinda Lopez. (Coconut Grove Playhouse, Miami, Florida) (April – May, 2006)
Lucie Arnaz' background needs no introduction, of course, but just to note that her father, the late Desi Arnaz Sr., graduated from nearby St. Patrick’s School, in Miami Beach — and since she starred in several plays at the CGP, I’m guessing she might even live in South Florida, or maintains close ties to the area.
It’s amazing that someone should post about “Star Wars” in the context of this cinema, because I only just mentioned it to my parents, one day ago.
I was recalling that as a child (9-10), they took me to see the very first Stars Wars there, and wondered what the theatre was called.
We remembered its location (on Ponce, as we locals call the veneral Ponce De Leon Blvd.), but not the name. And here I am, reading this description like an old friend greeting another, after many years' absence.
With a child’s memory, acute for some details, but strictly hazy about others, all I can contribute to the thread is that I recall that its lobby contained the very first “Asteroids” video game machine I ever saw.
It was all of a quarter to play it, and the thrill of doing so (since there was such a queue of kids to play it that afternoon!) almost eclipsed my memories and excitement of watching Stars Wars I itself.
Years later, our (private Catholic) school took us kids to see Return of the Jedi, only this time in the cinemahouse down the road on 24th street near the famed Sergio’s Cuban restaurant — on the location which later became a succession of supermarkets, including Varadero, and currently, Winn Dixie.
I’m off to find that theatre now, for more shared memories. What a great site this is.