Gables Triple
Coral Way and SW 33rd Avenue,
Miami,
FL
33145
Coral Way and SW 33rd Avenue,
Miami,
FL
33145
3 people
favorited this theater
Showing 1 - 25 of 27 comments
Became Triple Gables on May 14th, 1980 with no fanfare. No ad found.
The Twin Gables theatre opened on March 13th, 1970. Grand opening ad posted.
I found a way of posting the opening day ad in the photo section although now I can’t figure out how I did it. Hmmm.
Well, seeing that one of the opening films was “Jenny” with Marlo Thomas, I looked it up, and watched it on YouTube. Not terribly significant, but very much of its time period. It was produced by ABC, and “That Girl” was on the network at the time. Not a coincidence, I’m sure.
OK, I was off by several blocks. I would have sworn that Sears was next door, but I’m obviously wrong.
Guarina, it opened in 1969 and is now a Winn Dixie location.
I seem to remember where the Twin Gables used to be in 1962, there was first a Stevens and an Eckerds, then a Publix and an Office Depot and a Citgo service station on the corner, now a Winn-Dixie Marketplace and a Staples and the service station on the corner is Mobil. If somebody remembers it more accurately, please let me know.
I guess catching people is fun.
I think this was the theater where my folks would take me to see the various Disney re-releases such as “Lady and the Tramp” and “Song of the South” when we lived in Miami for a year from 1971 – 1972. One of the two apartments we lived in during that time was on Coral Way somewhere, and I know we attended films at the Coral Theatre as well as the Tropicaire, Dixie and Coral Way drive-ins. Been pillaging the google online editions of the old Miami News from around that time to pinpoint some of the titles and theaters we went to. Great fun, but can really suck all the time out of your day! Thanks to AlAlvarez for leading me to that great resource!
I got hold of a Plitt Memo from Charlotte naming Al Panetz naming him one of the top five sellers of Reduced Admission Ticket seller selling $5,400 for May 1983.
I knew Al well.
Al Panetz was managing this Plitt Theatre on June 3 1983.
Opening day ad here:
View link
Thanks. Its a shame that they did that. I would have liked to have seen a time capsule opening.
Yes I do. It was buried by Larry King at the opening .
It was supposed to be opened in the year 2000, but alas, theatre was demolished by then.
Does anyone remember a time capsule on the site of the theater? I have a vague memory of a plaque near the entrance.
The architect was Robert C. Broward.
Well, I finally found this theater – was looking in the Gables section. I attended more movies here, in the early 70s, than any other theater. Mom would drop us off, and when picked up again, we’d go next door to Sears, and get something from the candy counter, or go to nearby Sambo’s. Also went a few times between 82 – 85, while at UM (I don’t remember the Plitt name). The last films I saw there were “Tootsie” and “Octopussy”. We moved to Miami in 67, so I’m trying to figure out where we went before that – Dadeland Wometco Twin (then), The Coral and The Miracle, I guess. I have no memory of The Gables.
Plitt Gables should be added as an aka name here as it operated as that from 1980 when it was tripled until 1984 when it was sold to Wometco.
Louis, according to Wikipedia the Larry King arrest was later in 1971 and the Louis Wolfson implicated was not part of the Wometco clan.
This theatre opened as an ABC Florida State Theatre and then became Plitt. If it was a Wometco near the end, it would have been after the family sold the chain.
Does anyone know if this theatre opened during the time Larry King and Wolfson, one of the Wometco owners were giving money to Jim Garrison so he could complete his investigation of the Kennedy assasination? There was a question of money and how it was distributed. I remember reading something about this, but my memory is not clear. I was about 12 years old at the time.
An update and a correction on a coule of things. Al, the Gables Triple and Cinema 10 at the Miracle Center actually did co-exist for 2 months in 1989. Miracle Center, whose opening was between March 1st and 3rd of 1989 overlapped with the final 2 months of Gables, which closed up shop for good in May 1989. I happen to have some first-hand knowledge as I worked at the Miracle Center theater for three years between ‘89 and '92, and had a couple of co-workers who were part of the final crew at the Gables Triple and even worked both jobs for those couple of months!
An update on the Miracle Center location: It is set to re-open as Miracle Marketplace sometime next year. No word on whether there will be a theater. Incidentally, the “latin American style mess of tiny discount shops” you’re remembering Al, is when they rechristened the mall as “Paseos” back around ‘97 as a sort of last-ditch effort.
The Gables triple and the Miracle Center never did co-exists as the second theatre opened way after Winn Dixie demolished the first. Although the Gables was a very successful theatre, property values made the sale inevitable. The replacement General Cinema (not AMC)next door was a failure probably due to that steep ramp mentioned by JWX. My car was an automatic and still struggled to get in. The last time I drove by the mall was a latin American style mess of tiny discount shops.
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.
your’re right it was the Miracle