AMC Lehigh Valley Mall 8

RichardCWolfe on May 24, 2011 at 3:38 pm

The General Cinema Lehigh Valley Mall theatres were built in a strip center to the east of the indoor Mall outside of the ring road that surrounded the mall. It originally had, going from left to right, an Acme market, several small shops, the theatre, and an Oriental restaurant.
The theatre opened as a tri-plex. The entrance lobby was at the extreme left side of the theatre property. The entrance doors were flush with the building line. You then entered a shallow vestibule and went through a 2nd set of doors into the main lobby. Just inside the doors was a large island type open counter box office. The lobby was L shaped and went off to the right behind the oriental restaurant. The original refreshment stand was around the corner to your right as you made the turn into the L. The 3 auditoriums were then to your left. If you continued on to the right beyond the concession stand there were stairs that took you up to the rest rooms. The largest auditorium was straight ahead behind the box office area and sat over 500 people. The other two that were to the right probably sat between 250 and 350 people, but that is just a guess on my part. In the far left corner of the lobby was a door to a 2nd private staircase to the 2nd floor which gave access to both the office and the projection booth. This is the way I was sent whenever I stopped by to see Mr. Klaas, the managing director. There was also an entrance to that area from the public hallway that led to the rest rooms as well.
In the late 70s the store to the left of the theatre came available and was converted into 2 more screens in a back to back arrangement. The one screen was against the front wall with the exit doors coming out onto the sidewalk just to the left of the theatre entrance, while the other screen was at the back of the building with its exits going out the rear. Rather than dig out a deep pit to create the slope of the auditoriums the rear of each auditorium and the hallway that separated them were raised about 5 feet. In order to get to this hallway a section on the far left side of the original 500 seat auditorium had to be eliminated so a hallway could be built from the main lobby to the cross hall separating the two new auditoriums. After going down the hallway from the lobby you made a left turn and then went up a set of stairs to get to the new hallway between those auditoriums. As mentioned above they were not ADA accessible. They were built before the ADA existed. The refreshment stand was moved to be directly in front of the large auditorium directly behind the box office which put it in a more centralized location to service patrons going to any of the now 5 screens. The original location was somewhat hidden and out of site when people entered the complex. I’m not exactly sure about this, but I seem to recall that they actually moved the refreshment stand to that new location even before they added the 2 new screens.
Sometime in the early to mid 80s the theatre expanded again, adding 3 more screens, making it an 8 plex. This time an addition was added to the strip center to the right of the oriental restaurant creating an entirely new entrance and lobby. The entrance was on the corner with a conventional box office with a window to the outside, and entrance doors on either side. Inside was a large island type refreshment stand in the center of the lobby. Behind the lobby the 3 new auditoriums were laid out with two going off to the right, one behind the other, and one to the left of the others going straight back parallel to the original ones. The original auditorium #3 was shortened to allow the lobby to connect with the original theatres lobby. The concession stand in the original lobby was used as a 2nd stand when business warranted. The original entrance to the theatre was now used strictly as an exit to keep most of the exiting traffic out of the new lobby. They added a first floor handicap rest room at this time as well.
A few years later, for a reason that I never quite understood, they removed the island refreshment stand and built a new straight counter one in front of the left wall of the new lobby. At the same time they enclosed in glass the sidewalk going around the corner where the box office was located, which then put the box office window inside an enclosed vestibule.
The last few years that the theatre operated, I seldom went there. I don’t know if it happened while GCC still operated it or if it was after AMC took over, but the lobby was re-carpeted with a dark blue carpet and the ceiling tiles were also painted a dark blue and the lobby was literally filled with video games giving it the feel more of an arcade than a theatre lobby. One Saturday night shortly before they closed some of my staff convinced me to go along with them to a midnight movie after we closed our theatre. It was a sad sight to see. A theatre that was for many years the area’s finest multi-plex and busiest venue was now overrun by rowdy teens, was dirty… a complete mess. I felt completely out of place. I had to be the oldest person there. Maybe it was just because it was a midnight show, but regardless, even if it had been clean and without the rowdies, it didn’t have the class that it had previously. I knew the end had to be near.
And to confirm what someone posted above. I never operated the Lehigh Valley Cinemas, but did operate the Plaza Twin across the street inside the Whitehall Mall. I had to vacate that theatre when they decided to tear down most of that mall to redesign it as a strip shopping center. Although the theatre wasn’t torn down, it wasn’t in the malls plans to keep a theatre there and it was converted into a gym. The Lehigh Valley Cinemas were indeed torn down and replaced with a new retail building.
For many years Whitehall was the movie center of the Lehigh Valley. Now there are no theatres in Whitehall at all even though it still is the retail center of the valley. The closest theatre to Whitehall is my Roxy Theatre in Northampton which is about three blocks beyond the Whitehall Township line in the Borough of Northampton.

robertklaas on September 2, 2011 at 1:33 pm

Robert Klaas here…just found this site and joined. Was manager here for first 8 yrs…77 to 85. Construction comments by Richard Wolfe are mostly accurate. Operations comments by Dan Doherty at the top are appreciated. If anyone has any questions about this complex, I’ll be glad to answer.

jeffpiatt on September 10, 2017 at 12:41 am

http://articles.mcall.com/2002-12-13/news/3428308_1_general-cinema-s-chapter-movie-theaters-general-cinema-theaters article on the Theater closing it’s final name was “AMC Lehigh Valley Mall 8” AMC only kept it open from March 2002 to December 2002.

Lehigh Valley Mall theater to call it a wrap December 13, 2002|By Mike Frassinelli Of The Morning Call 4-5 minutes

Manager says 8-screen cinema made “obsolete' by giant complexes.

On Jan. 5, the lights will dim inside the Lehigh Valley Mall movie theaters.

Only this time, they’ll stay dim.

Nearly 26 years after opening with the films “Freaky Friday,” “The Seven Percent Solution” and “The Cassandra Crossing,” the mall’s cinemas will turn off their projectors for good.

Moviegoers dressed in leather and hosiery will have to find another place to swear at silly dialogue and throw rice at fellow patrons during showings of the “Rocky Horror Picture Show,” which has enjoyed a record run of more than 24 years at the mall.

On the other end of the spectrum, the Hope Wesleyan Church will have to find another place to hold its Sunday morning services.

When it opened with three screens on Feb. 6, 1977, the Lehigh Valley Mall General Cinema was the first theater of its kind in the region.

Known since March as AMC Lehigh Valley Mall 8, the eight-screen theater has become a dinosaur in a world of stadium-seating movie theaters with digital sound.

“I’m going to miss it,” said Bruce Copio, general manager of the theater. “It’s the first shopping center theater in the Valley. It’s the end of an era, I guess.”

He said the theater employs between 17 and 20 during this time of the year.

In March, bankruptcy court accepted AMC Entertainment’s plan to buy General Cinema as part of General Cinema’s Chapter 11 reorganization. A spokesman for AMC said at the time that the company would evaluate the performance of all General Cinema theaters.

“It’s an old building, it’s obsolete,” Copio said on Thursday. “They are building all the fancy stuff now, with the stadium seats.”

The theaters are expected to give way to a department store.

Everyone from Hannibal Lecter to Forest Gump, from Luke Skywalker to Charlie’s Angels, from Batman to Spiderman, has been on the theaters' screens.

“Freaky Friday,” starring Barbara Harris and Jodie Foster, was a slapstick Disney comedy about a mother and daughter who switched bodies.

Lehigh Valley Mall opened in 1976. The theater grew from three screens in 1977 to five in 1980 and to eight in 1984.

“You didn’t have the 16- and 14-screen complexes,” Copio said. “Eight was considered huge back in ‘84, monstrous.”

“Rocky Horror” has been shown midnights during weekends since May 26, 1978.

During the cult classic, a line in the movie about making a toast causes patrons to fire bagels into the air.

At least two couples who met during showings of “Rocky Horror” have been married.

But people who dress as Transylvania transvestites are not the only ones who will miss the mall theaters.

The Rev. Dan Hall has grown his congregation since moving Hope Wesleyan Church to the mall theaters on Sept. 24, 2000. The church has attracted more than 120 people during 10 a.m. Sunday services in Theater No. 3.

Hall said that although a church “is not about bricks and mortar, it’s about people,” church members have become attached to the theater.

The theater seats are the pews.

Hall has made good use of the giant screen behind him during services. During a talk about the importance of getting off the sidelines and getting into the game, he showed a clip of Gene Hackman as a coach giving a rousing speech during the basketball movie “Hoosiers.”

“We find that most people get their information visually today,” he said. “To just sit and listen to a talking head gets boring.”

Hall also said the mall provided a visible, central location for members, who drive from Slatington and Phillipsburg and points in between.

The church, which rented the theater for $200 a week, is looking for another location.

Church leaders will hold the first — and only — Christmas Eve service at the church — the movie theater, rather — at 6 p.m. on Dec. 24.

610-820-6595

annemfoster on February 22, 2018 at 4:21 pm

I am VERY late to the game, but I wanted to say hello to Dan and Mr. Klaas. I was employed at GCC in 1985 and was one of the “artists” who painted the Care Bears on the windows. I have VERY fond memories of GCC, including the “bridge” aka the main concession stand in front. If anyone happens to have photos of the theater at that time, or the painted bears, I would love to see them!

Roger Katz on December 5, 2019 at 11:59 am

Opened 2/6/1977, closed 1/5/2003