Rosemead 4 Cinemas
3518 North Rosemead Boulevard,
Rosemead,
CA
91770
3518 North Rosemead Boulevard,
Rosemead,
CA
91770
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This opened on February 10th, 1971. Its grand opening ad can be found in the photo section for this cinema.
I remember the Rosemead 4 vividly . I saw many movies there here is my list Airplane Cannonball Run 2 Karate Kid Dirty Dancing The lobby was very small , they would never make a theatre like that now . For the time it was fun to go there .
great theatre i saw the untouchables and dragnet.
Rosemead 4 Theater was an A/C haven from the long summer heat of the San Gabriel Valley. I went there almost every Saturday afternoon as a young teen and at 15-½ years young (said I was 16!) I worked in the box office as well as the snack bar & as an usherette. We used to have a Brit manager who worked for Mitzi Gaynor who called our uniforms ‘costumes’! The night I pretended to work a double shift, yet actually when to see David Bowie’s Diamond Dogs concert at the Universal Amphitheatre, was the night the theatre was held up by a robber and the thief cut the face of the manager! I was glad I went to that concert!
But the Phil Spector castle lives on.
Alhambra as we fondly remember it, like Monterey Park is all gone and only a fond memory. Along with all the old single screen theaters that used to line Main Street and Las Tunas (The Alhambra, El Rey, Capri, Century and Temple), all the old business are also gone. JC Penney’s, Lieberg’s Department Store, Downer’s, the block of shops on the south side of Main steet where the Mervyn’s is now, all gone. Pedrini’s and Max West Sporting Goods are all gone as well as the bowling alley, but Yama’s Japanese resturant is still hanging on for dear life. The Alhambra Bookstore was something in it’s time but like most of the old business in Alhambra it was relocated to a nothing space next to a Starbucks on second Street and later closed. I guess nobody reads in Alhambra anymore.
I remember when the book store moved from it’s original location on the northwest corner of Garfield and Main into the building that had once been half of Montgomery Ward’s Department Store. (The other half of Ward’s had been in the building with the small art deco tower on it, one door to the west, which later was renovated and occupied by Prober’s Shoes.) They had the biggest selection of paperbacks in the San Gabriel Valley after they moved to the new location. The place was huge.
The book store opened in its original location about 1964 or 1965, and was owned by the people who had formerly operated the Bungalow News on Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena. The store had been busier when it was at the corner of Garfield, even though the new location was bigger. I think they made a mistake by moving it. That mid-block location at the east end of town wasn’t as visible. They probably weren’t helped by the opening of a Waldenbooks on the Mervyn’s center in the early 1980s, either.
It will be a Lowes 14 Screen Theatre. Ground should be broken in 05.
It will be where the old Superior Pontiac once was. That lot has been just that, a lot, for ages now.
Yeah, Chinese immigrants have ruined that whole area, and all on your tax dollar, to boot.
I was wondering about the Monterey Park triplex. (I still think of the Atlantic Palace as being on Main Street, even though it’s on the corner. I’ve never actually seen the place, since it was built after I left, though I’ve seen many pictures of it on the Internet.) I only went to the Monterey Mall the one time. The style was sort of bland, but otherwise its was a decent place, and I thought the little entrance courtyard was a nice feature.
I did go to the Temple City Edwards once, shortly after it opened. I think that the auditorium I was in was one of the two larger ones, and I was a bit surprised to find that it wasn’t much smaller than the old Temple Theatre that was demolished to make way for the multiplex.
I remember seeing the Alhambra Place under construction, and I think that was in late 1983-early 1984. I always intended to go to a movie there, but never got around to it.
I’m surprised that the Monterey Mall building is still vacant. In the ‘80s, nothing stayed vacant for long in Monterey Park. There was construction going on all the time, and any empty storefront would have a new Chinese restaurant in it by the next week. They popped up almost overnight, like mushrooms. The whole town was very lively then.
The Edwards on Atlantic in Monterey Park or Alhambra. Hell, here are all the area theatres:
The Edwards Monterey Mall 3 Closed around 1999 after being a discount house for years. Its still vacant. No plans for it, and I highly doubt it reopening as a theatre since Lowes is planning a 14 plex just up Atlantic for 2006 (construction is supposed to start next year).
The Edwards Atlantic Palace in Alhambra is still open. It opened in 1988 to replace the Edwards Alhambra that was destroyed in the 1987 quake (Edwards lost all of their single screens and the Alhambra in 1987 due to the quake)
The Edwards Alhambra Place 5 on Bay State St opened in early 1980’s and survived until 2003, when it was closed after Regal opened the Alhambra Rennaisance up the block (Oddly enough, it shares product with the Atlantic Palace 10). This was torn down earlier this year and will be turned into senior housing.
Finally, the Temple City 4 opened by Edwards recently closed in 2004, after being opened for 20some years. It was opened a month later as a Regency Theatre and still shows first run flicks. I sense it being squeezed again by the Santa Anita 16 AMC just opened in Arcadia.
Rats, I did it again! I keep getting that date wrong. I left L.A. in 1986 and the earthquake was in 1987. It’s probably my wishful thinking that it was in 1986, because I regret missing it. I waited years for a big earthquake, and then it happens after I’m gone! Unfair!
Jeff, do you know when the Edwards on Atlantic closed? I remember that it opened about 1980, because I went there once in 1981, and the floors weren’t even sticky yet. But I wasn’t around by the time it closed, and I don’t know if it’s been turned into retail space, or what. An awful lot of those multiplexes aren’t surviving very long. They’re like disposable theaters.
Correction: The Rosemead 4 was damaged in the 1987 whittier narrows quake, as the epicentre was only a few miles away.
It was torn down and replaced with a Kids R Us store (which closed in 2004, replaced by an Office Depot) and a couple little shops (both closed and now house a Party City). It was a typical shoebox AMC at the time, similar to the (now defunct) AMC Puente 4 in Puente Hills.
I used to frequent this theatre as a kid growing up. I thought it was way better than the Edwards in Monterey Park because it had 4 screens, not 3.
I only saw one movie at this theater, a couple of years after the place opened. It was my first experience with a multiplex, and I was not impressed. The sound from the auditorium next door kept bleeding through the wall, the picture was grainy and a bit blurred, despite the smallness of the screen, and the sight lines were bad due to insufficient rake to the floor. The building was entirely without character, and could have as easily housed a drug store as a theater. The only thing good I can say about the place is that it was still fairly clean, and the popcorn was decent, if rather expensive.