Yorktown Theatre

Yorktown Theater closed in 1996/1997, not 1994. In 1994, it stopped showing new movies and became sort of a Parma/Detroit Theater clone…but it was still a movie theater. I know this because in 1996, they showed at Yorktown Disney’s Oliver and Company when Disney re-released it.

I was in this theater once before it was twinned and it seemed much larger than 600 seats. More in the thousand range. It seemed quite large to me. I imagine the twinning created 2 long tunnel type theaters similar to Loew’s East and West. I remember it being a nice theater.

Here is a different look at the marquee:
http://tinyurl.com/ygt9dmt

Here is a 1982 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/d9l7xh

I was snooping around the formerly beautiful Loew’s Yorktown 1&2 today, and discovered the following: The International House of Prayer seems to be confined to the lobby area. The main entrance doors are covered over with paper, but on one the paper had fallen off and you could see there has been a wall built across inside, thereby sealing those doors. The entry is on the west side of the building. The former auditorium houses an enterprise known as Yorktown Surplus. It is basically a junk store, selling items salvaged from buildings that were being demolished such as store fixtures, old computers, cash registers AND, lo and behold, the projection automation units and popcorn warmers from the Westgate Mall Cinema. Near the entry to the place remnants of the dividing wall, which was mostly removed, can be seen. Above that are the projection portholes. The original plaster ceiling of the auditorium is still there, though in the former stage area it has been removed, and the roof structure is visible. Also in the stage area are stairs going into a basement below the new flat floor, but I don’t know how extensive the basement is. The walls are stripped down to the bricks. The church was locked so I couldn’t see how that looks, but from what I did see the place is an overall mess.

The correct address of the former Loews Yorktown theatre is 6208 Brookpark Road, Cleveland 44109 (on the Cleveland side of Brookpark Rd.). This was built by Modern Theatres of Ohio in the 1940s and had about 1500 seats. Loews bought it in the mid-1960s, divided it in half and covered the art-deco interior with soundfold draperies in about 1968. Loews closed it in 1994 and it is being used as a church, whether the church has un-twinned it I don’t know at this time.