Plaza Theatre
393 East Main Street,
Patchogue,
NY
11772
393 East Main Street,
Patchogue,
NY
11772
5 people
favorited this theater
Showing 26 - 50 of 202 comments
I would love to go but I live in L.A. now but come home to Patchogue often and will remember this.
We are opening a new Cinema Arthouse at the Artspace on Terry in Patchogue (The Plaza MAC, INC) starting today. We are a not-for-profit with 501 © 3 pending and we are receiving donations. Right now we need about 75 good audience chairs for our first screening, “Mozart’s Sister” on Oct. 13, 14, 15. Anyone? Please contact me ASAP.
Thx. for the info. Ed!
Leighton18… the (remove) is there so that you are able to delete your own comment. Each user would only see this function for their own comments and photo uploads. Clicking it removes only the single comment – not your account here.
Nice work, Bway. Thanks for documenting this for us! As for your submission of this theater as demolition news, I’ve noticed that it isn’t as easy to get your submissions posted to what is now known as the “Blog” section on this site. I submitted an article from the Times a while back that never saw the light of day. Under the old system, you would submit it and – I presume – it would be checked for suitability and moved along to publication in short order. Now, you are submitting info and perhaps photos and links via email that are then reviewed and have to be edited into a post by one of the site administrators (I assume that this would be Michael Zoldessy). Seems to me that the new process is more demanding on Michael and, therefore, a bit more editorial discretion has to be applied on his part. Either that, or they are running way behind on submissions.
I guess I am doing something wrong bec. I see a “(remove)” next to my name but at least my comments are still posting!
Bway wanted to ask you…why did they leave the frame up? I’m surprised they didn’t take it down in one fell swoop, or do they need different kind of machinery for the steel frame, ductwork, etc. I am guessing so. Oh funny about “The Birds” comment. You should submit that picture to The Advance. It is very sweet and charming.
Yes, while it absolutely was an eyesore for the better of the last 20 years, I too am bittersweet about the whole thing. I took a close up so you can see the bird sitting on the Plaza sign….the theater has been home to pigeons for at least 15 to 20 years now inside. When they were having the ceremony, one of the politicians said something to the effect of, “Well Ironically I am sure Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” may have played here…..
Hey Bway these are great pictures…I see it was an “event” w. several people. I guess the last “production” at the Plaza was the “Demolition Event” as ironic as that is. I see what you mean..it appears the building was still fairly structurally sound…I doubt you would find a bldg. constructed now that would hold up as well. Especially touching to see the little bird perched on the “L” of the Plaza. I forgot that the theatre was “twinned”. Not sure how to do the updating either, but thanks for sharing these pics. In spite of it being an eyesore, I feel sad when I see them. Thanks for all of the hard work.
I added the Demolition photos to the photo section of this theater. Does anyone know how you add a demolition piece to the ‘Demolition" section of the site? I sent in a small write up to the site for the Demolition section of the site, but never heard back, although the listing was updated here to “demolished”. Does this theater not qualify for the “Demolition” section?
I took some photos of the Plaza this morning, and it’s basically a steel skeleton now, with the exterior masonary brickwork stripped away, and the entire interior of the theater opened to the outside for all to see. I will post some photos of it in the photo section of this theater. One interesting observation I noticed when I was peering into the theater from the sidewalk is that there are two drop ceilings noticed from the right side of the building. I am assuming the higher ceiling was the original, when it was one large theater, and the second, lower drop ceiling was put in when they split the theater in half, and put the sheetrock wall down the middle, the ceiling became a little lower.
All the seating seems to have been stripped out before demolition began, as it’s all gone, and you can just see the floor sloping upwards towards the street. It was very interesting seeing the layout of the theater with the side wall removed. The lobby is right under the sloped floor.
Another observation is that while I have seen the complete shambles the theater was in, and you can see right from the street the thousands of small holes in the roof, the sheetrock wall down the middle, with it’s decorative wall covering stripped away, is really not all that water damaged at all! It was very interesting see the inside of the theater for the first time in 25 years….the last movie I had seen there was either Ghostbusters or Back to the Future, in the left hand theater if facing front.
Yes I saw those interior photos a while ago and they were really bad. But what a great idea to rebuild on the site and for the time being to hold the screenings at the ArtSpace on Terry St. Wow Patchogue has come a long way baby and thanks for all of your efforts dalglish!
Here’s the photos of the interior of the Plaza from Long Island Oddities. These photos are about 10 years old, so as you can imagine, it only got worse in those 10 years: http://lioddities.com/Abandoned/plaza.html
Capt Ron, the Plaza Theatre was really almost “20 years too late” with restoring the interior. There were holes in the roof for who knows how many years, and water has flown though the building freely. Pigeons have also lived in the building for almost 20 years, and you can imagine how much droppings were all over the building. Unfortunately, it was an absentee landlord that owned the building, and just used it as a tax write off, and didn’t give a damn about the eyesore it had become, nor the blight it became. Dalglish, I went to your screening at the Brickhouse Brewery over a year ago when you were plugging the idea for the Plaza Arts Center, and I think it’s a great idea. While the old building couldn’t be saved, I hope you do get to go through with your ideas for a new building on that site. It would be a great thing for the community.
CaptRonLI: All our efforts at PlazaMAC have been and still are to carry on the history of screening films in Patchogue where ever we can find the space, obviously not inside the Plaza Theater. We are starting a fundraising drive to come back to this site in the future to build a Cinema Arthouse screening center and a Media Arts Center that could serve all of Suffolk County. Check us out at www.plazamac.org. In the meantime we have found a space at Artspace on Terry in Patchogue and we will be screening films there in the very near future. Hope to see you there. Let’s talk. Campbell Dalglish
@Danglish – I don’t know if you saw the interior of the Plaza, but there really was no way to save or renovate it. I saw it on a website, can’t remember which, but it was really beyond saving. I’d say you were about twenty years too late…
Thx. for letting me know. I was talking to a friend today who grew up in Patchogue and now lives in NJ…he too knew that “today as the day” and as he said, “we all remember the Plaza Theatre”..I mentioned about saving the letters and he agreed and said I should contact Paul Pontieri, but it was too late for a last minute reprieve. We both agreed it’s for the best that the building be razed. But again, as he said, it’s part of our past. Thx. for the update as I was wondering…look forward to seeing the pictures, as sad as that is. It’s for the best. Thx.
The Demolition began on the right hand corner of the building, and the Plaza didn’t give much of a fight, the front facade began falling down with in seconds of hitting the front facade. The first letter casualty was the “E” in “Theatre”, as debris from the roof began falling down on it. The right third of the front facade of the building went first, followed by the Marquee and lobby, then they began the right side wall, which also didn’t put up much of a fight. I had to leave to get back to work, but that’s how the demolition began, I have photos and will post when I get a chance.
Thx. Bway..the minutes are counting down now. Oh I agree..the letters are so iconic and they endured the elements for almost 50 years…it seems they should be saved just for that. But then what do you do with them? Thx. for the info.
I have been trying to add an entry to the Demolition blog here on the site, but can’t seem to find a link to do that. I even sent an email to the site, but never heard back. In any event, here’s some photos from this morning, the Plaza’s Last morning, the bulldozer is ready for this afternoon’s demolition. I wish they would save the letters, they held up better than the theater itself, and have become so iconic to East Main St….. I am going to add the new photos to the photo link above
Oh wow the end of an era. I was wondering if Hurricane Irene would do the job but I guess not. Look at those letters on the bldg..they have held up after all of these years, so I guess it would stand to reason the rest of the bldg. would. Gosh, it has been closed more years then it was open. As I have mentioned before – and someone else mentioned in this blog – the last movie I saw there was “Back To The Future” in the Summer of 1985 and it closed shortly thereafter. RIP!
Demolition is to commence on Tuesday Sept 13, 2011 at 2:30PM on the Plaza Theatre. Tonight is the Plaza’s last night….final curtain call.
It’s been hanging around vacant for 26 years, I guess a few more weeks won’t matter. Due to the mobilization of personnnel necessitated bu Hurricane Irene, the demolition of the Plaza has been postponed. A new date has not been announced.
The Town of Brookhaven has announced that they will demolish this building at 10AM August 30th. We are currently looking for a space to carry on the dream of a cinema arts center on the south shore in partnership with Huntington’s Cinema Arts Centre: The Plaza Media Arts Center. See you all there: www.plazamac.org.
As of August 15, 2011 the theater is still standing. I just uploaded a photo of it taken this evening. For the record, I think it closed in 1985. I believe the last film to play there was Back to the Future.