I lived on 28th Street half a block off Bergenline Avenue, and spent many Saturdays at the City Theater in Union City. We called it the Itch. The theater had no candy counter, but there was a candy store on the corner that had a common wall with the theater. A hole was knocked in the common wall, and you could buy candy and sodas from the store by kneeling on the floor of the theater and handing your money through the hole. Because countless sodas were spilled while being passed through the hole, the floor where you had to kneel was sticky enough to suck the knees off your pants. On a Saturday, you could go to the City Theater for a dime and spend all afternoon watching two films – usually a cowboy movie (Johnny Mack Brown or Lash LaRue)and an adventure movie, in addition to half a dozen cartoons, a Dick Tracy, Superman, or Flash Gordon serial, Pathe News, maybe a Wacky Racer, and a live Duncan yoyo demonstration. I have written a book about growing up in Union City, entitled IN THE SHADOW OF THE BIG APPLE, available from Diversion Press. One short story that didn’t make it into the book is entitled Appendicitis and the Itch, and it is about adventures at the City Theater. I will be happy to send the story to you, if your request it.
I lived on 28th Street half a block off Bergenline Avenue, and spent many Saturdays at the City Theater in Union City. We called it the Itch. The theater had no candy counter, but there was a candy store on the corner that had a common wall with the theater. A hole was knocked in the common wall, and you could buy candy and sodas from the store by kneeling on the floor of the theater and handing your money through the hole. Because countless sodas were spilled while being passed through the hole, the floor where you had to kneel was sticky enough to suck the knees off your pants. On a Saturday, you could go to the City Theater for a dime and spend all afternoon watching two films – usually a cowboy movie (Johnny Mack Brown or Lash LaRue)and an adventure movie, in addition to half a dozen cartoons, a Dick Tracy, Superman, or Flash Gordon serial, Pathe News, maybe a Wacky Racer, and a live Duncan yoyo demonstration. I have written a book about growing up in Union City, entitled IN THE SHADOW OF THE BIG APPLE, available from Diversion Press. One short story that didn’t make it into the book is entitled Appendicitis and the Itch, and it is about adventures at the City Theater. I will be happy to send the story to you, if your request it.