Hoyts Harborlight 10

The Harborlight Cinemas may have been the only highlight of a sad sack mall called the Harborlight in North Weymouth, Massachusetts. The $6.5 million Harborlight Mall was announced at the height of mall overbuilding in 1975. The address was familiar to locals — it had been home to a drive-in theatre for about 40 years, from 1936 (!) to 1975, and the mall would take its spot. They Weymouth Twin Drive-In Theatre has its own Cinema Treasure entry.

The mall would make huge headlines early in construction by using non-union workers. During the build-out there was violence, vandalism, a pulled construction permit, and—perhaps worst of all—resentful public sentiment throughout the mall’s construction, repair, and completion.

Harborlight was a dud. The mall had reached greyfield status by 1983, with vacancies roughly equal to occupancy. In May 1984, Stuart’s opened in the former Kmart anchor space and, in 1987, attracted two more anchors: Best Buy in the former Howland’s spot and the construction of a four-screen cinema by Patriot Cinemas of Hingham as neighbors. A legal issue stalled the opening of the Harborlight Mall Cinemas 1•2•3•4 until July 22, 1988. The four-screen theatre featured one 250-seat auditorium and three 134-seat auditoriums, for a total of 652 seats. It was a joyous period with opening films “Big Top Pee-wee,” “Willow,” “Crocodile Dundee II,” and “Big Business.” Harborlight’s days of big business, however, would not last.

Stuart’s filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1990, closing the Harborlight anchor, with Best Buy beating them to the exit earlier that same year after seeing enough in just over two years. Worse yet, East Bay had stopped making payments on Harborlight in October 1989, leaving nearly 90 percent of the mortgage unpaid. Not good. So Harborlight was subject to its first foreclosure auction in 1990—just its 13th year of operation. But the cinema was impervious to all of that as it simply continued operating.

Harborlight got an unconventional owner who allowed short-term lease deals with local mom-and-pop operators and didn’t really care about signage, much of which was hand-scrawled. Places like the Building #19 Store, Don’s Dollar Store, Buck-a-Book, and the one that attracted national attention thanks to a Newsweek article, Cheapo Depot, all moved in.

Harborlight became part laughingstock and part symbol of the area’s economic downturn. Dark days also occurred when a children’s fun center moved into the Purity Supreme spot after the supermarket left in 1992. A co-owner of that fun center was convicted of abusing a child while another child was severely injured on a ride, leading to a $7.5 million settlement. And despite it all, people were still coming for the movies, as Patriot Cinemas' business was overtrending in a major way.

Patriot did the unthinkable at Harborlight Mall; they expanded to eight screens on June 26, 1992, in time for the big summer releases. This created the Harborlight Mall Cinemas 1-8. On the second anniversary of that expansion, Patriot expanded one last time as the venue became a megaplex: the Harborlight Mall Cinemas 1-10. On October 10, 1997, Hoyts Cinemas took over the venue, informally branding it as Hoyts' North Weymouth 10 and more formally as Hoyts Harborlight 10.

In June 2000, a redevelopment plan by Samuels & Associates and Lowe’s Home Improvement finally took care of the long-gestating mall. Eviction notices were issued for January 30, 2001, but some tenants stayed longer because of delays. Hoyts was one of them. The Harborlight 10 was dimmed on March 15, 2001, as one of the last three businesses operating. The formal closing date for Harborlight Mall was March 24, 2001—just one day shy of its 24th anniversary. The cinema was demolished with the rest of the mall, primarily between May and July 2001.

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