Embassy Theatre

416 Main Street,
Johnstown, PA 15901

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Additional Info

Previously operated by: Fabian Theaters, Wilmer & Vincent Corp.

Previous Names: Nemo Theatre

Nearby Theaters

EMBASSY Theatre; Johnstown, Pennsylvania.

A conversion of a former Presbyterian church. Opened in 1913 as the 1,000-seat Nemo Theatre. In late-1918 a balcony seating area was added. It was listed as (Closed) in 1933. It reopened around 1935 as the Embassy Theatre, and was closed in 1988. It was one of several theatres on Main Street in Johnstown.

Contributed by Ken McIntyre

Recent comments (view all 8 comments)

RvB
RvB on August 20, 2011 at 10:15 pm

Good exterior shots of this theater in the parade scenes of the 1977 movie Slap Shot with Paul Newman. The marquee has a double bill of Deep Throat and something called Meatball.

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel on August 23, 2011 at 3:04 am

Whittle Randy’s book “Johnstown: A History” says that the Embassy Theatre opened in 1913 as the Nemo Theatre.

DavidZornig
DavidZornig on August 22, 2017 at 6:17 pm

July 1977 photo added credit Pat Little, Johnstown Flood.

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel on August 22, 2017 at 8:19 pm

This information about the Embassy Theatre is from a PDF published by the Historic American Buildings Survey (link):

“Most of the Main Street theaters were operated by the Panagotacos family. The Panagotacos bought the Presbyterian Church at 416 Main St. In 1912, when the congregation moved to a new building at the corner of Lincoln and Walnut streets. Rather than demolish the church (which had some sentimental value, albeit of a grisly nature, since it had served as a morgue following the 1889 flood), the family built a new facade and marquee over the existing building. The Presbyterian Church thus became the Nemo Theater, This was the longest lived of the Main Street theaters—as the Embassy Theater, it showed movies until summer 1988.”

39Tale
39Tale on May 27, 2018 at 6:48 am

I would regularly attend movies at the Embassy, or the nearby State Theater, in the 1970s. I saw Santa Claus Conquers the Martians at one of them with my dad in 1971. It remains one of those childhood faves for me.

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel on December 23, 2019 at 10:54 pm

The September 7, 1918 issue of The Moving Picture World noted a planned expansion of the Nemo Theatre: “L. W. Barclay, of the Grand Amusement Co., Johnstown, Pa., [says] that the Nemo will be shut down to permit a balcony to be built, adding materially to the capacity of this house, which already seats 1,000.”

Trolleyguy
Trolleyguy on April 2, 2020 at 7:53 am

I added a 1954 street view in Photos.

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