Ville Theater
1608 Thomaston Avenue,
Waterbury,
CT
06704
1608 Thomaston Avenue,
Waterbury,
CT
06704
No one has favorited this theater yet
Showing 11 comments
The theater can be seen in this picture near the bottom about the 1955 flood cleanup, just above Lakewood Park.
http://www.freewebs.com/waterbury-ct/northend.htm
The Ville Theater closed in 1979. The company who used it for storage was Coyne Textile Services, Inc. who started using it in 1981.
The auditorium was recently knocked down, so now this theatre is completely demolished. A new building is being constructed where it used to stand.
Florence Schaperow owned the Ville Theatre until 1969. She showed the better films such as “Sound Of Music” and “Ben-Hur” hurting the downtown chain cinemas. She sold it and the Lake Drive In in ‘69 to a small group of businessmen who made a go for about 5 years. The two multiplexes in the town were too tough to compete with by then.
This was a CLASSY place. And I thought it was 800 seats.
I enjoyed movies at the Ville as a child. As a teen, we would go next door to a pizza place after the show. Can’t recall the name. Anyone remember?
The marquee and lobby building was demolished this week, but the auditorium remains. I will go photograph it tomorrow.
It is in the Waterville section of Waterbury. There is no such town as Westbury, although it was the name Watertown was known by a couple hundred years ago.
I’ll have to drive by tomorrow and check it out! It’s sad how many old theatres were just abandoned and not even cleaned out. I have seen dozens that still have posters, soda fountains, rolls of tickets, napkins, and everything else still sitting where they were the day the theatre closed, even if it was over a decade ago.
went by there the o ther day if you look in through the boarded up wood in the cracks you can still see the doors and displays for posters and what looks like the old ticket booth
posted by kevin march 31 2004
The textile company that uses the auditorium has proposed demolition of the marquee and lobby since it is unused and falling down.
The architect of the Ville Theatre was Charles H. Abramowitz of New Haven.