AMC Loews Paramus Route 4 Tenplex
260 E. Highway 4,
Paramus,
NJ
07652
260 E. Highway 4,
Paramus,
NJ
07652
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I have a “Boxoffice/Modern theatre” magazine from 1966. It introduces the “New Stanley Warner Route 4 Theatre as a 1,908-seat entertainment center of modern design. it is also reported as the firm’s first "highway oriented” theatre in New Jersey.
The magazine goes on to say that the “new” theatre is located on busy route 4, in the center of a landscaped 1,000-car parking area. so as to afford an imposing view from the highway. Adjacent to the Bergen Mall. the Garden State Plaza and other large retail units, it is termed as an “integral part of the world’s largest shopping complex.”
Opened in October, the 50-foot-high structure was designed by architect Drew Eberson and blends various masses and areas into an unusual treatment. The side walls of the main building are sculptured block. The front facade is dominated by a huge lighted panel that embodies the theatre name and the attraction letters. The effect is to provide a brightly-lighted landmark easily spotted by the highway traffic.
The entrance lobby has a lace-like grille effect. Large expanses of glass wall incorporate seven pairs of entrance doors that create an airy indoor-outdoor feeling and allow a full view from the exterior into the massive, colorful lobby.
The lobby and foyers, as well as the theatre front, are faced with marble. The 50-foot-high lobby walls are decorated with modern dramatic sculpturings and reliefs by the Italian sculptor, Francis Bevelacqua. The wall covering is plastic gold.
The main feature of the lobby- and an innovation among New Jersey theatres- is the Otis escalator that transports patrons to the mezzanine-balcony levels. The escalator is push-buttoned controlled to reverse downward during show breaks. The escalator’s side rail is of glass, thereby giving the installation a light transparent treatment rather than a heavy, ponderous rail of the traditional escalator.
The general decorative color scheme is red, gold and white. The carpeting-in red, gold and black by Alexander Smith-is in original design made exclusively for Stanley Warner Theatres. The seats are red and by American Seating. they have foam padded seats. Over-stuffed spring-back type seats are in loge and balcony.
The auditorium, with it’s unusual decorative treatment and floor-to-ceiling gold drapes, has been carefully engineered to incorporate the latest techniques in audio-visual presentation. The wall-to-wall screen is 62 feet wide and 31 feet high. A six-channel Ampex stereophonic sound system with 18 surround speakers is used.
There’s so much more in this magazine to type and 7 GREAT pictures! The following is a listing of theatre credits:
Architect: Drew Eberson
Carpeting: Alexander Smith
Escalator: Otis
Projectors: Century
Public Address Amplifiers: Bogen
Screen: Technikote
Seats: American Seating
Sound: Ampex
Tape Recorder: Ampex
If you ever get a chance to get this magazine, it’s the January 17, 1966 New England Edition!!!
WOW! My fingers are tired. I’m not a good typist. Hope you enjoyed the reading. Like I said, there’s so much more on this theatre in this mag.
Well….I was there in 1999 to see “Unbreakable” and it was one of the worst experiences I ever had at any theater. The theater I saw it in (not one of the four main ones…it was in the newer area) was in horrible condition…broken seats, wet, sticky floors, you name it.
But one bad experience doesn’t mean the place has gone all to hell. The last two times I’ve been there, it was a lot better than I remebered it. Yes, rough around the edges (especially the concession stand) but still decent enough.
The tenplex has always been in very decent shape. Although the floors in the theatres can eb sticky, all in all they maintain the theatre very nicely – i don’t think anyone complains.
Saw “Lemony Snicket” here this past weekend as was kind of surprised that the theater was actually clean and in decent shape. Saw it in Theater 4 (upstairs).
I noticed that it looks like at one time, there were working curtains in that theater before they started doing that annoying advertising that virtually all theaters do now for extra $$$. Does anyone know if this is true in these upstairs theaters? Or if it is, when the stopped opening/closing them?
“The idea is that the new multiplex will replace the Tenplex & Route 17 theatres – the same company is building it.”
And what will become of the Paramus 10 plex? Oh, yeah…if it closes, it’ll be REAL hard to sell that space. Jesus…can you imagine what the HELL they’ll try to build there? That space is HUGE.
So that’s probably why the Tenplex is getting so run down. Why invest in something that’s soon (they hope) to close. But there’s still a lot of litigation with regards to that space at the Plaza, right? It’s not a done deal…
it was called Playhouse on the Mall
The idea is that the new multiplex will replace the Tenplex & Route 17 theatres – the same company is building it.
I looked at a map of where David’s Bridal is located, that spot was not the Bergen Mall Theatre, the theatre was on the other side of the mall. I don’t know what that might be, except that there used to be a live theater company that had its auditorium in the mall. I can’t remember their name, however. Perhaps the shape you saw in the photo was their performance space?
And yes, I agree with you, the 10 plex is badly run down. It still brings in a crowd but that won’t continue if they build the proposed 16 screen megaplex at the Plaza. It’ll kill this sucker off big time. And frankly, the way they’ve NOT been keeping it up, good riddance. The shame is that this theater, in one form or another, has been a fixture in the area for years.
No, the theater WAS where the David’s Bridal is now. I wish I could find the picture I saw of route 4 westbound that showed it. It was taken around the early 60’s.
there was never a movie theater on Route 4 Westbound other than Cinema 35 which no longer shows films. What theat across from the bridal shop are the people talking about.
The 10 Plex is badly run down and is way past its heyday.
there was never a movie theater on Route 4 Westbound other than Cinema 35 which no longer shows films. What theat across from the bridal shop are the people talking about.
The 10 Plex is badly run down and is way past its heyday.
I made a couple goofs in my last post: the highway it didn’t face was Route 4, as Pete pointed out, and the street it did face is called Spring Valley Ave., not Road.
CConnolly: The Bergen Mall theater’s entrance was in the back of the Mall, not the side facing Route 17. It faced Spring Valley Rd. I guess it was behind Stern’s – it was near the eastern end of the mall. I guess it qualified as an art house – I saw Bowie in “The Man Who Fell to Earth” there and also “Swept Away” (not the Madonna version).
Loews is trying to build the multiplex at the Garden State Plaza as they do not want to maintain the Route 4 and Route 17 theatres.
The (Bergen) Mall Theatre was located almost centrally in the building, facing the back roads (I’m not from there, so I don’t know the name of the road), not Route 4. The entrance was on the outside only, facing the parking lot. It was a split design, you entered in the middle of the auditorium and could go up to the left or down to the right. The last show I saw there was a double-feature of Star Trek V and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. I was nearly ejected for complaining about the soft focus and trying to get in the booth to fix it myself!
Just to add a comment out the Tenplex, the last movie I saw there was “Unbreakable” in 2000. Not sure which number theater it was but it wasn’t in the main complex. The theater sucked. Besides the floor being sticky (hell, a lot of theaters have that problem) the two end aisle seats were broken (backs were hanging off) and they had wrapped yellow tape (like crime scene tape) around the two of them to ward off potential sitters. But the seat that I lucked out in sitting in was right next to those two and it’s seat back felt like it was the next to go. The theater also smelled awful. It smelled like a locker room, damp and disgusting. That was the last time we went there. Soon after we discovered the comparatively new Loews Palisades Center Megaplex. But now that place is falling apart as well.
The problem is that these theaters take such a beating but the owners seem to do little to maintain them. Thats why when a bigger, better place opens up, these “older” places die and close. But if the chains kept them up better, audiences might be more loyal.
I’m not sure which chain is proposing to do this, but there’s a proposal being debated (hotly) in Paramus to open up a megaplex at the Garden State Plaza Mall. I believe it will be at least 16 screens. If this happens, the tenplex is toast…
Bill Huelbig: Regarding the Bergen Mall theater, where exactly was it in the mall? A few years ago, the Record ran a story about the Mall and how it really hadn’t changed since it opened in 1955 or so (though I found out fairly recently that they got rid of that nifty, and very retro yellow star fountain…why they did is beyond me…it is what gave the place it’s weird vibe). Anyway, in the article, they did mention the theater. I don’t go to that mall much (if ever) but I know it well enough. Let me know if you remember where it was…I’m just curious…..
Thanks CConnolly for the info on the mural. My niece goes to school at Bergen Community and I’ll ask her about it. Alexander’s has a connection to my all-time favorite movie: when I was 13, I was there with my family the day the review for “2001” was due to appear in the New York Daily News in 1968, and I couldn’t wait for the shopping trip to end so I could get home and read that review (which was not a good one). That was also the day Martin Luther King was assassinated.
Pete, I remember the theater in the Bergen Mall. I think it was called the Mall Theater back in the ‘60s. I saw “To Sir With Love” there, and it was so small and crowded that my family had to split up and find separate seats.
Bill Huebig: though this is off the topic, the huge mural that was on Alexanders was salvaged and is (I believe) on display at the Bergen Community College in Paramus. When it was announced that Alexanders was going to be demolished, there was a public outcry over the mural and it’s value. So someone (this was at least five years ago) got together with some art enthusiasts to get it moved.
Back to the Drive-In…it’s not listed here and I don’t know enough about it to post it. In the Garden State Plaza Mall management offices (near the Mexican restaurant) there’s an amazing over head picture from (I think) 1962 that clearly shows the drive in. It looks like the back row of the drive in was on Paramus Road with the screen roughly where the large parking lot is in front of Nordstroms. I don’t think the Garden State Parkway was built in that area yet. Do you know what year it closed?
PeterApruzzese: I understand that there was a movie theater in the Bergen Mall but no one in my neighborhood seems to recall much about it except that it closed in the early 80’s and it was crummy. But I know I saw a photograph in the Bergen record a few years ago of Route 4 West bound that showed a movie theater in what is now David’s Bridal across the street from the Bergen Mall. You can clearly see that it must’ve been a fairly large size theater because it has exit stairs coming from the upper sides and the roof line has that distinctive curved appearance of a movie theater.
CConnolly:
I don’t know what it turned into, but there was a theatre in that mall called, not surprisingly, the Bergen Mall Cinema. It was a single screen with, I would guess, around 500 seats and the entrance was on the outside of the mall. I think that at one time it was run by the B.S. Moss organization, I don’t know who was running it when it closed.
Bill:
The company I worked for in the early 80s owned the Paramus Drive-In for a time. We were probably the first – if not only – drive-in that used the radio sound system to transmit in FM Dolby Stereo. At that time, most drive-in’s used AM transmitters (because you could control very precisely how far the signal traveled). The FM transmitter we used had no such control (and was probalby illegal), lucky drivers on Routes 17 & 4 could often hear several minutes of the film sound. “American Pop” sounded great in the car while on the road!
The Paramus Drive-In’s entrance was on Route 4 East, across the highway from the huge Alexander’s department store (which is now Ikea). Never got to see a movie there, unfortunately, but you could see the back of the screen from the highway.
Does anybody remember the really big BIG abstract painting on the front of Alexander’s? Wonder what ever happened to that – was it destroyed when the store was torn down?
ONE OTHER QUESTION for those who know the area (Paramus):
There was a Drive-In in Paramus. I believe it was located where or near where the existing entrance to the Garden State Plaza Mall is.
Someone told me a few years ago that the present Davids Bridal store on Route 4 across from the Bergen Mall also used to be a theater and it closed in the early 80’s. Can anyone confirm this?
I saw the pictures that rhett speaks of. They were pictures from 1965 playing a movie called “Situation Hopeless… But Not Serious”. It looked like a large single screen movie theater standing alone without any additional stores or space. The entrance faced directly out onto Route 4. If you stand in the lobby with your back to Route 4, you can see the way the floor slopes upwards the way theaters did back then. I never realized this until I saw those pictures.
When I first moved to the area in 1994, I saw virtually all my movies here. But lately, it’s kind of gotten trashy. In addition, I’m ok with driving up to the Palisades Center to the Megaplex. For the same price, you get stadium seating and it’s generally better maintained.
The box office # s for this theater have always been huge….
ski…you mention screens to the left? and theaters to the right…I’m a little confused…can you elaborate…I saw the same films there that you mentioned…are you saying that during the original Star wars, the screen was more to the left in a bigger auditorium than it is now?? that when they cut the theater, they moved the screen to the right more??