Blue Star 1-4 Cinemas
1701-65 US Highway 22,
Watchung,
NJ
07060
1701-65 US Highway 22,
Watchung,
NJ
07060
11 people
favorited this theater
Showing 26 - 49 of 49 comments
Blue Star Cinema Tribute Group formed!
A tribute to Central New Jersey Movie Theaters that brought happiness to thousands of people but have sadly been demolished. The theaters may be gone but the memory lives on and here is a place were we can discuss, reminisce, and remember.
This group can also be open to other thetheaters the surrounding areas such as Somerville, Plainfield, Westfield and other areas of Somerset County. Please feel free to post your stories and in particular any ads, photos or memorabilia you may have. Many Thanks and…enjoy the show!
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MenloBlueStarCinemas
The theatre is not demolished nor is it “Micheals Crafts” – it’s a store called TUESDAY MORNING – the area is gutted but I believe some of the outside design (white bricks) are the same….they even may use the old front exit doors – not sure…more to come..
Growing up in nearby New Providence meant quite a few trips to Blue Star with Korvettes and Two Guys nearby.I do remember taking a ½ day from work and going to see Aliens the day it opened.As a youngster my dad would take me to the Strand in Summit,Gone with the wind……
Iv always loved movie theaters!In fact i volunteer now at the beautiful Loews Jersey in Jersey city.
Good luck with the website! PS…I live In Green Brook now!
Website Dedicated to Menlo Park and Blue Star Cinemas.
I am in the very early stages of starting a small website dedicated to the memories of the General Cinemas owned MENLO PARK CINEMA and BLUE STAR CINEMA, both formerly located in Central New Jersey.
Both movie theatres were a haven for me as a child and adolescent and judging from responses on this website, they meant a great deal to many others as well.
If anyone has photos, or ads or stories they would like to share â€" I would of course give full credit. I am especially looking for any exterior and interior photos.
You can reach me at:
Many Thanks.
Anthony (formerly of Green Brook, NJ)
Up until the Berkeley Cinema was built, Blue Star Cinemas was the closest theater to home. As other people have noted in their postings the cinema started out with a large auditorium that was eventually carved into smaller theaters.
My experience with Blue Star Cinemas is broken into two distinct phases. The first consists of the 1960s and early 1970s when I traditionally found myself at the movies with my parents. Beginning with James Bond’s LIVE AND LET DIE in 1973 I started going to Blue Star on my own or with friends.
It is difficult to even remember all the movies I saw at Blue Star as a kid. THOSE MAGNIFICENT MEN AND THEIR FLYING MACHINES, BEATLES YELLOW SUBMARINE, HIGH WINDS IN JAMAICA, KRAKATOA – EAST OF JAVA, THE CHRISTMAS THAT ALMOST WASN’T, 2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY, and many more. As noted earlier the big change for me came with LIVE AND LET DIE. At that time an old retired school bus, painted blue, ran an irregular service from downtown Berkeley Heights to Blue Star. The problem was that you were almost always guarantied that the bus would pick you up by the Berkeley Heights police station get you to the Blue Star Shopping Center, but the bus schedule was far less reliable when you needed a return trip. For the Bond movie my parents attended the same showing, but my brother, a couple friends and I insisted on walking down to the bus stop and making our own way to the theater.
I have a lot of memories from that second phase of movie going. THE EAGLE HAS LANDED, STAR TREK THE MOTION PICTURE, BLACK SUNDAY, THE ELECTRIC COWBOY, HEAVEN CAN WAIT, were just a few of the movies I had the pleasure of seeing at Blue Star. In fact, I saw APOCALYPSE NOW during the cinema’s New Year’s Eve late show. I also caught THE BIG RED ONE on the big screen.
At the time I worked at the Berkeley Cinema and we supposedly had an agreement with Blue Star that their employees could enter our theater free of charge and that we could do the same at Blue Star. The managers traded lists of their employee names. Unfortunately I found out, much to my chagrin, that when I showed up for a movie at Blue Star, announced my name at the ticket booth and explained I worked for the Berkeley Cinema I was met with, “So what do you want, a medal?”
For some reason that free trade agreement never worked for me.
Sadly one of the last movies I saw at Blue Star was PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES. By that time I was in the Army serving here, there and everywhere. I made it home less often. On one of my ever rarer leaves home I met with friends and went to see John Candy and Steve Martin. About the only regret I had was that PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES is a holiday movie and the film premiered during the summer. Whenever I see the movie on cable television I am very much reminded of my last visit to General Cinema’s Blue Star Cinema.
Cinema 2 was actually split in September 1982 during the run of An Officer and a Gentleman. I was working there at the time.
I first went to the Blue Star Cinema in 1965 when I was 9 years old. I remember seeing Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines. The cinema was very close to where I lived so my family went to the movies quite often. Some of the other films I remember seeing were The Dirty Dozen, You Only Live Twice, 2001 A Space Odyssey and Dr. Zhivago. Back then, it was a single theater with a balcony that seated about 1000. For an additional charge, you could sit in the balcony and smoke. In 1973, I went to work at the theater as an usher and I also worked as an early morning cleaner for a while. About a year later, Cinema 2 was built next door. It had about 750 seats with no balcony; however, the left side of the theater was for smokers. (Times have changed, huh?) The big films for the Christmas season of 1974 were The Towering Inferno and in Cinema 2, the Man With The Golden Gun. In about 1975-76, they put a wall down the center of both theaters, splitting them in two. Now there were 4 cinemas. The theaters were not designed to be multi-plexes and as a result, there was no real crowd control. It was relatively easy for people to walk from one theater to the other. It wasn’t the same after the split.
The cinemas are no longer there. They were gutted in the late 1990’s and ‘blended in’ to the rest of the strip mall where they were located. A Michaels Craft store is now on the spot of the old Cinema 1. Also, contrary to the notation in the Star Ledger article of August 18, 1998, Jaws didn’t play at the Cinema, at least not in 1975. I worked there at the time.
My God – this was my main movie theatre that I went to as a child and a teenager. So many films and I remember a bunch.
LifeGuard
Hearts of the West
Bad News Bears
New York, New York
That’s Entertainment
The Way We Were
Funny Lady
Animal House
HAIR!
The Main Event
Flashdance
Kramer vs. Kramer
The world according to Garp
Little Darlings
The Muppet movie
Friday the 13th
Mommie Dearest
Pennies from Heaven
What a great house – I’m sure I’m leaving out some films. I learned a great deal about movies there!
Also listed in the 1970 FDY as a GCC theater (under a Plainfield location).
Just goes to show that even the FDY’s aren’t 100% accurate.
This was never a Walter Reade Theatre. It was always GCC.
Walter Reade however did own the Strand in nearby Plainfield.
One look at Blue Star and that shadowbox screen and you would know for sure it was a General Cinema Theatre.
Listed as a Walter Reade Theater in the 1970 Film Daily Yearbook.
I worked as a projectionist on and off from 1977 till it’s closing in 1998. It was open as early as 1963 because I remember seeing It’s a Mad,Mad,Mad,Mad World there. Bonnie and Clyde, Easy Rider,The Godfather, Blazing Saddles and The Towering Inferno and many others graced it’s large GCC “shadowbox” screen.Ironically, given it’s prestige at the time, it was a straight 35mm house, no 70mm. In 1973 they added a 500 seat auditorium to complement the main auditoriums 1100 seat capacity. In 1977 they did the 70’s split thing and put a wall directly down the middle of the main auditorium resulting in two bowling alleys. In September of 1982 the 500 seater was also split.By 1998 competition and changing demographics finally took it’s toll and in August of that year closed permanently.
Although I lived in Hillside, I remember going to this theater in the mid to late 60s and early 70s but the only film I can remember seeing was “The Getaway”. This shopping center
was anchored by EJ Korvette’s and I also remember a little restaraunt called Howie’s opposite
from the theater. An interesting thing about the name “Blue Star”. I believe the Somerset Bus
Company, which had it’s depot on Rt 22 in Mountainside also used “Blue Star” as it’s logo.
Their buses ran primarily along Rt 22 to and from the Port Authority terminal in NYC.
When I was I kid, I found an empty Somerset Bus Company money bag as I was walking along Rt
22 over to the Two Guys store (anyone remember that?)in Union. Can’t remember where I put it, but the logo on the bag looked like the logo on the theater.
Sorry to ramble.
1969 ad for 2001 courtesy of Bill Huelbig:
View link
Was a GC theater back then as well.
saw ‘The Way We Were’ here.
Another article on the closing:
The Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ), August 18, 1998 p027
Closing of neighborhood theater leaves movie patrons feeling blue. (UNION)
Full Text: COPYRIGHT 1998 The Star-Ledger. All rights reserved. Reproduced with the permission of The Star-Ledger by the Gale Group, Inc.
Byline: Cathy Bugman
Some moviegoers saw “Jaws” there. Some took a date who eventually became their spouse. Still others went as children and years later took their own children.
Many have memories linked to the Blue Star cinema in Watchung, which closed Sunday after a 36-year run.
``This is really, really sad,“ Edna Wilks of Plainfield said just hours before the theater screened its final film, the thriller "Snake Eyes,” at 10:10 p.m.
``I’ve been coming here since the ‘70s. This is right in the neighborhood."
The white brick-and-tinted glass movie house in the Blue Star Shopping Center on Route 22 was a neighborhood theater for many years after the closings of the Strand, Liberty, Paramount and Oxford theaters in nearby Plainfield over the decades. ``This was the one that was left that was fairly convenient to get to,“ said Hope Thompson of Plainfield.
And, finding a parking space in the shopping center lot was no problem, other patrons pointed out.
General Cinema pulled the plugs on the projectors in the four-screen theater because of sagging ticket sales.
``It was not as competitive as we needed it to be,“ said Brian Callaghan, spokesman for General Cinema, with headquarters in Chestnut Hill, Mass.
Area multiplexes – like the 10-screen Loews in Mountainside and six-screen Rialto in Westfield – brought pressure on Blue Star.
Among its many patrons were senior citizens, who enjoyed the quiet, unhurried atmosphere.
``I don’t like to see it closed,“ said Marie Murphy, president of the Watchung Seniors, who last was in the theater a few weeks ago.
``I don’t see why it should be. It was nice that it was open during the afternoons, so you didn’t have to run to the Bridgewater Commons, which is some distance, or Mountainside, which is not exactly around the corner."
Some patrons appeared surprised to learn of the theater’s closing Sunday. About a half-dozen signs, printed on 9-by-11-inch paper, hung on the box office window and doors announcing the closure.
``Attention, Attention!!!!! To our loyal customers and guests, Blue Star General Cinema’s last day of operation will be Aug. 16,“ it read. "The managers and staff would like to take this time to thank you for your patronage over the years. Thanks, and hope to see you at the movies.”
Watchung Mayor Anthony Addario called the theater’s closing unfortunate.
``I’m sorry to see it go, but it’s a sign of the times,“ he said. "It’s being replaced by more multiplexes.”
Plans have been approved for another theater less than a mile away with 16 screens, part of the proposed Watchung Square Mall.
While Crystal Jenkins of Union Township is sentimental about small theaters like Blue Star, calling them “quaint,” the developer of Watchung Square does not share that emotion.
``There are a lot of things in the world to be sad about, but the closing of the Blue Star cinema does not move me in the least,“ developer Sal Davino said.
Some businesses in Blue Star are preparing for a loss of customers as a result of the closing.
``I’m sure it will hurt us; it will hurt all of us,“ said Nalda Ciani, who along with her husband, Richard, owns the Baskin-Robbins ice cream parlor in the shopping center.
She and Robert Castro, manager of Frank’s Pizzeria a few doors down, expressed frustration that planned improvements to the entire complex’s facade and landscaping were promised by mall management two years ago, but nothing has been done.
``Who wants to come to an unattractive place?“ Castro asked.
Jeanne Connor, vice president of marketing for Federal Realty and Investment Trust of Rockville, Md., which has a lease on the property, said tenants can look forward to an upgrade soon.
CAPTION(S):
Aubrey Dancy, manager of the Blue Star cinema in Watchung, packs up unsold candy for shipment to other theaters.
Article CJ81683138
Closed in 1998.
Yes, LM, that appears to be the correct address. It is also the current address for the Michaels Craft store as TomR reported above:
View link
Attached newspaper ad shows that the cinema was part of General Cinema and open as of 4/30/79:
View link
The building was not demolished, but the interior was gutted for retail space. Michael’s Craft Store is in the space now.
The single screen was twinned by an addition to the east side of the building. Both the original auditorium and the addition where later split down the middle creating a quad.
We used to go to the blue star. It was probably from the late 60’s or early 70’s. The lobby was double height with a glass wall. Nothing special.
What stores now exist at Blue Star Shopping Center now? All I can remember is that Blue Star Cinema was twinned, triplexed, and quadded in the same building. Is that true?
there were plain to make that area regal cinemas in that mall but there went bancrupt
The building was demolished, to my understanding.