Cinema Endicott
108 E. Main Street,
Endicott,
NY
13760
108 E. Main Street,
Endicott,
NY
13760
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Some of the movies I saw at the Cinema Endicott -
Tootsie
Hardware
Moonraker
Hard Target
Cry Baby
Opened with “Honolulu”.
March 16th, 1939 and October 18th, 1963 as Cinema grand opening ads can be found in the photo section for this theatre.
STATE THEATRE OPENED MARCH 16, 1939.
Circa 1959 photo added courtesy of Larry Kleebauer Sr.
In the letter in the trade ad Tinseltoes linked to, the operator of the theater, B. Worth Dittrich, says: “Just nine years ago we were engaged in the construction of the State in Endicott.” As the letter is dated February 18, 1948, the State must have been completed in 1939.
My Grandparents, Howard and Florence Ammerman owned the Elvin. The Elvin was named for the founders' wives (my grandfather’s first wife).
Back to the Cinema Endicott…it was a great little theatre. I remember going there to see “Cleopatra,” “Thunderball” and also “Annie Hall.”
I started as an usher in 1973 in the Washington DC area. We never got paid extra to change the marquee. It was just part of the job. We used cast iron letters that weighed a couple of pounds each. It was great being up there with all of that neon! What a thrill. I’m still in the movie theatre business. Most of it is electronic now. We’ll never see those days again.
Ever send a new guy to get the “MARQUEE STRECHER”?
Theres an Art to changing a marquee as I am sure you know, I had a few guys just do it on their own and they would get all the letters out for the new movie without thinking about the letters that were already on the sign and have to carry all the extra letters back to storage that was always good for a laugh.They did better the next time, after I told them to start in the middle they learned how to do it pretty quick.Now back to the Cinema Endicott………..
No I never got paid extra to change a marquee at ABC-Plitt,at General Cinema our janitors did it.I loved doing the marquee at National Hills,it was huge as you have seen from Robin’s pictures.Columbia 1 and 2 even had a decent marquee,Hell I would have done for free I loved it so much.
An Eric I have been there too, we showed one movie for 26 weeks at 5 shows a day at one of my theatres thats 910 showings, same movie,same screen,very boring.
Whats was this theatres name when Loews ran it till it closed? Yeah Mike you do not change the marquee if you do not change the movie, did not have to pay to change the marquee one time for 26 weeks at one of my theatres. By the way did you guys get paid extra to change the marquees in your day? Loews paid the doorman most of the time seperate to change to sign.We paid out straight hours for each marquee,each theatre paid out a different amount because of the different size marquees, the Crescent paid the less be cause we only had one signboard.
Doggoneit,daviddwny,what did you expect the marquee to have on it?
I worked at the Cinema Endicott from 1990-1993. In fact I helped close the theater on its final night. If memory serves me correctly the final film shown was “The Joy Luck Club”. I kept the movie one-sheet from the final performance as a memento but unfortunately over the years it got water damage and it was eventually ruined.
One of my other obscure memories from my time working there was having “Dances with Wolves” run at the theater for 26 weeks! A half a year… one screen… one movie.
The Cinema Endicott was truly a classical single-screen theater from a bygone era. I have great memories of it as a both a patron and later as an employee.
the neighboring theater was the Elvin, owned and operated by the Ammerman family, torn down in the early 60’s to make way for a bank.
I used to live in Endicott in the 50’s and 60’s.
I believe that Ben Hur opened there to great fanfare in the late 50’s. They had spotlights and all the Marques proclaiming it’s opening.
There also was another theatre nearby???
I can’t remember the name?
I believe the site is now a chain drug store or the parking lot for a chain drug store — I’m not sure that is what the neighborhood needed. I remember this as a nice single screener. I remember when “An Officer and A Gentleman” played here for 5 months straight — every day the marque said the same thing when I passed by.
I grew up around the corner from the State Theater and remember when it was renovated for CinemaScope. The screen was touted as being 40 feet wide, the six track magnetic stereo was as close to surround as the 50’s could come, and a glittery sign stretched over the box office proclaiming, “Acclaimed one of the nation’s most outstanding theaters for CinemaScope."
The original marquee was a work of art, with five alternating lighting cycles: neon only, incandescent bulbs only, neon only, bulbs "running,” and then neon and running bulbs together.
In the mid-60’s the theater reduced the size of the screen, moved the lobby into a former store front, offered foreign films and demi-tasse coffee, and changed its name to “Cinema.” That art house phase didn’t last long, and the theater went second run.