Carib Theatre
1148 Cleveland Street,
Clearwater,
FL
33755
1148 Cleveland Street,
Clearwater,
FL
33755
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Opened with “Three Sailors And A Girl” (I haven’t checked if short subjects were added yet, but I will find it soon).
Closed On April 3, 1983 With “Funny Girl” And “Lady” As Their Last Films. It Was Demolished On April 22, 1984 To Make Way For A Bank.
This opened on January 7th, 1954. Article below:
Found on Newspapers.com
The Carib theater did not become the Barnett Bank; Barnett bought the building to use the space for a parking lot. I worked at the bank until 1979 and then left for college and came back to photograph the theater in 1983 just before it came down. I have interior shots of the lovely Egyptian figures displaying the history of sound and motion picture that were painted two stories high on the inside of the theater. To my knowledge these are the only photos of the inside that exist. I will post them at a later time as I am using them in research that is to be published soon.
The manager of the Carib was named Clarence, and while the national anthem movie was played before every feature, he would stop the film and turn on the houselights if patrons did not stand.
Yes, the Thunderbird was on East Bay. Another great theater gone.
Tinseltoes-Thank you for uploadind the article.Very cool!
Driving from Tampa on our way to Clearwater Beach during the 50s & 60s we would pass this theatre but unfortunately I never had a chance to stop and see a movie or at least see the interior. When the building was demolished there was a feature story published in the Tampa Tribune including interviews with several loyal patrons and how sad there were to see the theatre come down. Before demolition began a few people had arrived early to take whatever souveniers they could grab and carry out of the theatre. The Carib was replaced by a Barnett Bank building.
Floyd did have a lot of theatres at the end of the “good ole days”.
My grandparents and their brothers & sisters had a small chain of indoor and outdoor theatres throughout the state of Florida back in the day. The last one they had was the outdoor theatre off the highway in Bartow. It is a flea market now. But the building is there; restrooms on either side of the building, the concession stand in the center and upstairs was the “house”. I remember laying in my grandmother’s bed while she work the concession downstairs, watching the cartoons then the movie through the wide window that was directly center of the screen.
On Belecher road and Cleveland St (which ended at Belecher) was the Gulf to Bay drive in.
Thunderbird Drive-In… Wasn’t that by the Wagon Wheel Flea Market? Also I recall the Mustang Drive-In on Belcher in Clearwater.
Here’s direct links to the photos I tried to post:
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Floyd Theatres HAD the Whole state it seemed to me!Much like MARTIN Theatres in Georgia.
The Carib closed in early June, 1983. Floyd briefly considered buying the old Ritz Theatre and moving operations there, but, as you could imagine, that fell through. Admission was 99 cents and the theater still played the national anthem before every show up until the end.
The Carib Theatre closed in the late 70’s, I believe. I thought the last owner was Floyd Theatres who owned most of the drive in theatres in the bay area. He had the drive in on East Bay Dr in Largo – was that called the Thunder Bird?
Here is the Carib in 1954:
http://tinyurl.com/yzfnhyo
Last line of paragraph two in my last comment should start “If it’s the same guy….”
I’ve got typoid fever tonight.
Note: I misspelled Heinemann in my comment above. I can only plead that my computer has a surplus of n’s and wants to get rid of as many as possible.
If it’s the same Peter Heinemann, he’s become a fairly well-known artist and a number of his paintings, often featuring images of cats and birds (as in this one), can be seen at various web sites. The painter Peter Heinemann was born in 1931 and would have been about 23 years old when the Clearwater Carib was built. I believe he is still living. It it’s the same guy, maybe he’ll find this page and tell us about the murals.
I’ve been unable to find out who created the very similar but more elaborate mural on the facade of the Miami Carib, but if it wasn’t Cohen and Heinemann (or at least Cohen, as Heinemann would have been about 19 in 1950) then the Clearwater mural was a pretty blatant imitation. I’d be inclined to blame the owners of the project. They must have had a case of mural envy. Interestingly, the name of the company they formed to build the Clearwater theater is from the initials of their surnames, N and V, but spelled out as En Vee, Inc. Freudian, perhaps?
The Carib Theatre in Clearwater opened in 1954, and was the subject of an article in Boxoffice Magazine’s issue of March 6 that year. Considerably smaller than the Miami Beach house of the same name, it had 1,194 seats on opening, and was the first Florida theater built to accommodate a CinemaScope screen from its opening day.
Despite any similarities it may have with the Miami Beach Carib, which was designed by architect Michael DeAngelis, the Clearwater Carib was designed by architect James E. Casale. The murals in the auditorium and on the theater’s facade were the work of artists Peter Cohen and Peter Heinnemann.
The Carib was originally operated under lease by the Bay-Lan Theatre Corporation of Tampa (the Miami Beach Carib was a Wometco house), though the building was owned by two men who had winter homes in Clearwater; Anast Notopoulos, the head of a Pennsylvania theater circuit, and Philip Voulis of Chicago.
Boxoffice article here.
Cool shot, LM.
I never knew the Miami Beach Carib had a wannabe clone. Good move for Clearwater.