In its heyday, Viers Mill was the only movie house from downtown Rockville to Downtown Silver Spring, an area crawling with thousands and thousands of little baby boomers, so it was THE place to be on a Saturday afternoon. I, too, was there when the manager came out onstage and told us that our parents would have to pay $50,000 for a new screen if we got caught pelting it with candy (or cups full of soda!). As newer theaters sprung up from Randolph Hills to Wheaton Plaza to Aspen Hill, Viers Mill was forced to go porno around 1968. I was working at Rodman’s when they took over in 1976, and by that time, the place was really gross. Rodman’s owners called an employees' meeting in the theater to explain their plans, and I can tell you nobody wanted to sit in those seats! I still have a mint condition National Bohemian can that we found during the demolition, inside a wall where some worker had entombed it during the original construction back in 1949. The stage became the pharmacy, and the old theater lobby now housed the optical department. The rest rooms were retained in their same location, but were updated for the employees. The marquee was kept for awhile and displayed store specials, until it caught fire a couple of times and had to be demolished. I believe the old poster frame shown in the photos was actually installed later for the drug store’s weekly ad, but it is possible that it was salvaged from an original location next to the box office. If you stand on the sales floor and look up, you can see perhaps the last remaining vestige of the original theater: the projection booth became the manager’s office, allowing them to watch for shoplifters using the same projection window through which such classics as Old Yeller and The Shaggy Dog once shone onto the silver screen (well, silver accented by orange Nehi and assorted colors of Jujubes!).
In its heyday, Viers Mill was the only movie house from downtown Rockville to Downtown Silver Spring, an area crawling with thousands and thousands of little baby boomers, so it was THE place to be on a Saturday afternoon. I, too, was there when the manager came out onstage and told us that our parents would have to pay $50,000 for a new screen if we got caught pelting it with candy (or cups full of soda!). As newer theaters sprung up from Randolph Hills to Wheaton Plaza to Aspen Hill, Viers Mill was forced to go porno around 1968. I was working at Rodman’s when they took over in 1976, and by that time, the place was really gross. Rodman’s owners called an employees' meeting in the theater to explain their plans, and I can tell you nobody wanted to sit in those seats! I still have a mint condition National Bohemian can that we found during the demolition, inside a wall where some worker had entombed it during the original construction back in 1949. The stage became the pharmacy, and the old theater lobby now housed the optical department. The rest rooms were retained in their same location, but were updated for the employees. The marquee was kept for awhile and displayed store specials, until it caught fire a couple of times and had to be demolished. I believe the old poster frame shown in the photos was actually installed later for the drug store’s weekly ad, but it is possible that it was salvaged from an original location next to the box office. If you stand on the sales floor and look up, you can see perhaps the last remaining vestige of the original theater: the projection booth became the manager’s office, allowing them to watch for shoplifters using the same projection window through which such classics as Old Yeller and The Shaggy Dog once shone onto the silver screen (well, silver accented by orange Nehi and assorted colors of Jujubes!).