Surf Theatre
7420 Collins Avenue,
Miami Beach,
FL
33141
7420 Collins Avenue,
Miami Beach,
FL
33141
4 people
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Additional Info
Previously operated by: Wometco Theatres
Architects: Robert E. Collins
Styles: Art Deco
Nearby Theaters
This mid-sized theatre was built in 1938 for and initially operated by Weingarten Theatres. Later taken over by Wometco Theatres. From time to time they ran first run films and second runs. I remember in the 1970’s the theatre ran the American Film Theatre subscription series which included “A Delicate Balance” with Katharine Hepburn.
Around 1989 Wometco gave up on this theatre and it ran as an independent house for a while. It was closed mid-to-late 1992. When last I heard the theatre had become a gymnasium, which has since closed. By early-2017 it had converted to retail use as a beachwear store. It had closed by December 2022.
Contributed by
Kitty
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Recent comments (view all 48 comments)
December 2022 street view shows the beach wear store going out of business as of then.
My first year there was 94 and the theater was open at least until the mid to last 90’s. They closed Regal opened a 4 screen theater around the corner. When it was a gym they kept videos and films on the screen while you worked out.
As I mentioned earlier, this became a Med Fit location by 1996. No movies or plays by that point. As to the Regal, that was the Loews Bay Harbor 4 which closed in 1999. There was no theater nearby other than the Byron Carlyle 7 which by that point (c. 1993 or 1994) was run By Cobb and closed by Regal in 1999. The Normandy closed in early 1989.
Aeterna yeah it was probably the first year I was there 94 when they had movies. The Byron Carlye was the theater I was thinking of. I saw Anger Management there. After Regal closed it it became a live theater and than a movie theater again but is probably closed now. I used to stay at the now demolished Deauville.
Correction: Regal closed both the Loews Bay Harbor 4 and the Byron in 2000. Not 1999. Yes, the city of Miami Beach used the Byron for various live events from 2001 to 2011. In 2011, a Broward theater company signed a 5 year lease but the director passed in the 4th year of that lease. O Cinema came in in 2014 and signed a 5 year lease which was not renewed. The theater has been dormant since late 2019.
Yes, Stage Door theater in Coral Springs Opened there until Dee passed in 2015. Her daughter ran the CS theater but it’s now defunct too.
There is a photo below of owner Raul Benitez sometime in the summer of 1989 so this must be the period after Wometco bowed out and before Katz purchased much of the property in the area.
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/north-beach-looked-see-hotels-134447303.html
On August 31, 1985, the Surf Theater became statewide headlines following the attempted androcide of a 19-year-old black man named Curtis D. White, who was shot in the left side and the arm while attempting to meet up with a 15-year-old black girl (with Jamaican or West Indian accent) in front of the Surf Theater.
The girl, a rare and unusual suspect, pulled out a .25-caliber nickel-plated pearl-handled automatic pistol and shot the man twice before saying, “This is for talking to me”, and fleeing on-foot north as the victim fell. The Surf Theater was showing “Cease Fire” starring Miami Vice actor (and very brief pop singer) Don Johnson at the time of the shooting. Police didn’t confirm if the girl is a misandrist. Meanwhile after the shooting, a female cashier in the ticket booth of the nearby Normandy Theater, which was showing “Gremlins” at the time, ran into the roadway and flagged down a Miami Beach police car under a Code 3 response, complete with lights and sirens.
and those headlines are shown where on here?
I just checked the Miami Herald for that week and there are no signs of that event taking place and the Surf was not showing CEASE FIRE the week of August 31. 50sSNIPES, where are you getting these headlines with terms like “androcide” and “misandrist”?