I’m having a hard time picturing where this theater actually was. I work right in the area so was the Rivoli (roughly) where “Carolines” is now? If that’s so, Jesus…that’s a small parcel alright. And yes, the buildings that stand there now are awful.
The “Fantasy” was a large but not huge neighborhood theater. Though it was a big as the Lynbrook theater (another favorite of mine) it was very nicely decorated. The main theater was in a beige and had a small dome with a hanging light fixture (not quite a chandelier but close enough to impress an 8 year old). The nicest thing I remember was the curtain. Not sure if there’s a technical name for it but it rose from the “stage” and had a scalloped look to it.
When the multiplexing craze started in the early 80’s, this theater managed to avoid this. And for a long time I thought it might not be multiplexed at all. But in 1988, the entire theater was gutted out and multiplexed. Though the new theaters were OK, it was a mere shadow of what it once was. The last movie I saw there before they multiplexed it was “2010” in 1985 but it was still a single theater for another three years or so.
I just took a walk past these theaters and was wondering about the one with the American Girl ad. What was that one called? Jeez, so many theaters, one right after the other so close together.
Hi. I hope you all don’t mind that I post a question here on the Roxy portion of the site but there’s a theater in the neighborhood where I work in Manhattan that I cannot find the name of. I work on 7th Ave in the 50’s. There is an old movie theater on the eastern side of 7th Ave between 49th and 49th Street. The marquee is still there and it’s being advertised to be used as a store. There actually might be two of them. One has an ad for the American Girl doll store and the other is the next block down heading south. What are these? Thanks!
With the wall: what year would that be? I’m talking from about 1973 until the early 80’s. I remember this so well that you could walk throughout either the Blue area or the Red.
The main comment above from Robert R. is incorrect.
The theaters were divided but the lobby was open. You could, if you wanted to, walk in the lobby to the “other side”. It was just one lobby.
The gimmick was that one theater was blue and the other was red. When you entered into the lobby, if you were going to see a movie in the red theater, you entered on that side. Everything the lobby (the walls, carpet) were red. Then about halfway across the lobby, it would turn blue. The deocorations (curtains, carpet) exactly the same except they were blue. Even downstairs where the bathrooms were, it was the same. There was a set of stairs on either side of the lobby to go down there. And downstairs the red vs. blue motif continued. When I was a kid, if I was seeing a movie in the red area, I thought you might get in trouble if you “dared” to go over into the Blue zone.
This theater was a Times Square Store (remember these fellow Long Islanders?) until around 1968.
Wow! This theater is still open. Incredible. If I remember correctly, this theater is on a pretty busy street, right? Not in a strip mall or anything? Well, I remember seeing “Murder on the Orient Express” there in 1974 and “Apocolypse Now” in 1980. By that time the single screen theater was getting a little run down. But I thought it remarkable that I could see “Apocolypse Now” almost a full year after it came out in the summer of 1979.
From what my Mom told me, they said it was structurally unsound and had to remove it. She said it was tiny but comfortable. I don’t remember it but I do remember seeing the one set of stairs to the left of the consesssion stand that took you up to it. I saw a picture of the Century’s Baldwin in a photo book of the town. It showed the therater with a very elaborate marquee and it was showing “The Three Musketeers” with Gene Kelly. That was long gone by the time I saw it. It was a pretty remarkable theater because it was always very clean and neat and it was in a great location with lots of parking. That whole strip along Merrick Road back in the 70’s was very vital. But it started to go downhill in the early 80’s. When the theater closed in 1985, it really started to kill off the neighborhood. It was very, very sad.
A Long Island Legend? Doesn’t anyone remember this as one of LI’s porn houses? It was a porn house from the mid 70’s up until the 1980’s. In fact I saw my first porn here in 1983 (“Feels Like Silk”) The strange thing about the theater was that it was in a nice neighborhood.
I saw a lot of movies here in the 70’s. It was in a shopping center, no balcony. Not big, not small. Saw “The Sting”, “Hard Times”, “Obsession”, “Poltergeist” when it was doubled.
I remember this theater. I was on the north side of Merrick Road about a block or two west of the old catering hall that had a water wheel in it (it was a Carl Hoppel’s place…if you grew up on LI, you’d know the name). It was in a fairly large shopping center tucked away in the corner in the back. I didn’t see many movies there but my parent’s saw “The Exorcist” there. It was small and unremarkable.
This was a single screen movie theater that opened in the mid to late 50’s on the site of an old car dealership on Long Beach Road. It wasn’t very big or memorable as a single screen theater but I did see a lot of movies here. It did not have a balcony. In the early 80’s it was turned into a twin. What little charm this theater might’ve had as a single theater was destroyed. The last time I was there in the early 90’s it had all the ambience of a bomb shelter. Terrible place.
I saw a lot of movies at this little, cute theater. It was around the block from the big Lynbrook theater on Merrick Road. It tended to show more arty films especially later in it’s life. One of my best movie going experienes was here: having the living crap scared out of me by “Alien” in the fall of 1979.
This theater was strange because it was kind of off the beaten path. But even in the early 80’s it played big first run films. “E.T.” played there during it’s initial run and this is how I found it. All the other theaters playing it (like those two awesome double theaters in Hicksville) were sold out. We then found this Wantagh Theater. Back in 1982, it was still in decent shape and the price was very reasonable. Too bad it fell into decline.
This was another big Long Island movie house. It closed down way before the multiplexing thing started because the neighborhood went into a steep decline in the early to mid 70’s. I saw a movie called “Bednobs and Broomsticks” here around 1971. About a year or so later, it closed. Then in the late 70’s, it actually reopened as a nightclub/danceclub or sorts and was actually fairly popular. It finally closed for good in the early 80’s but I cannot remember when it was demolished.
The building is still there but it’s an office building. You really can’t tell that it was a movie theater anymore.
I lived in Baldwin until the early 90’s. This movie theater was small but it was great. It did have a very small balcony but in 1969, it closed for about three months or so. When it re-opened, the balcony was gone. You could still use the stairs to go up to the restrooms and such but no balcony. I must’ve seen countless films there through the 70’s right up to the 80’s. The last film to be shown there was “Rambo: First Blood, Part II” in 1985. I know because I worked in a vitamin shop right down the street from it.
I’m having a hard time picturing where this theater actually was. I work right in the area so was the Rivoli (roughly) where “Carolines” is now? If that’s so, Jesus…that’s a small parcel alright. And yes, the buildings that stand there now are awful.
The “Fantasy” was a large but not huge neighborhood theater. Though it was a big as the Lynbrook theater (another favorite of mine) it was very nicely decorated. The main theater was in a beige and had a small dome with a hanging light fixture (not quite a chandelier but close enough to impress an 8 year old). The nicest thing I remember was the curtain. Not sure if there’s a technical name for it but it rose from the “stage” and had a scalloped look to it.
When the multiplexing craze started in the early 80’s, this theater managed to avoid this. And for a long time I thought it might not be multiplexed at all. But in 1988, the entire theater was gutted out and multiplexed. Though the new theaters were OK, it was a mere shadow of what it once was. The last movie I saw there before they multiplexed it was “2010” in 1985 but it was still a single theater for another three years or so.
I just took a walk past these theaters and was wondering about the one with the American Girl ad. What was that one called? Jeez, so many theaters, one right after the other so close together.
Hi. I hope you all don’t mind that I post a question here on the Roxy portion of the site but there’s a theater in the neighborhood where I work in Manhattan that I cannot find the name of. I work on 7th Ave in the 50’s. There is an old movie theater on the eastern side of 7th Ave between 49th and 49th Street. The marquee is still there and it’s being advertised to be used as a store. There actually might be two of them. One has an ad for the American Girl doll store and the other is the next block down heading south. What are these? Thanks!
With the wall: what year would that be? I’m talking from about 1973 until the early 80’s. I remember this so well that you could walk throughout either the Blue area or the Red.
Do you remember the colors?
The main comment above from Robert R. is incorrect.
The theaters were divided but the lobby was open. You could, if you wanted to, walk in the lobby to the “other side”. It was just one lobby.
The gimmick was that one theater was blue and the other was red. When you entered into the lobby, if you were going to see a movie in the red theater, you entered on that side. Everything the lobby (the walls, carpet) were red. Then about halfway across the lobby, it would turn blue. The deocorations (curtains, carpet) exactly the same except they were blue. Even downstairs where the bathrooms were, it was the same. There was a set of stairs on either side of the lobby to go down there. And downstairs the red vs. blue motif continued. When I was a kid, if I was seeing a movie in the red area, I thought you might get in trouble if you “dared” to go over into the Blue zone.
This theater was a Times Square Store (remember these fellow Long Islanders?) until around 1968.
Saw a lot of movies here.
Wow! This theater is still open. Incredible. If I remember correctly, this theater is on a pretty busy street, right? Not in a strip mall or anything? Well, I remember seeing “Murder on the Orient Express” there in 1974 and “Apocolypse Now” in 1980. By that time the single screen theater was getting a little run down. But I thought it remarkable that I could see “Apocolypse Now” almost a full year after it came out in the summer of 1979.
From what my Mom told me, they said it was structurally unsound and had to remove it. She said it was tiny but comfortable. I don’t remember it but I do remember seeing the one set of stairs to the left of the consesssion stand that took you up to it. I saw a picture of the Century’s Baldwin in a photo book of the town. It showed the therater with a very elaborate marquee and it was showing “The Three Musketeers” with Gene Kelly. That was long gone by the time I saw it. It was a pretty remarkable theater because it was always very clean and neat and it was in a great location with lots of parking. That whole strip along Merrick Road back in the 70’s was very vital. But it started to go downhill in the early 80’s. When the theater closed in 1985, it really started to kill off the neighborhood. It was very, very sad.
A Long Island Legend? Doesn’t anyone remember this as one of LI’s porn houses? It was a porn house from the mid 70’s up until the 1980’s. In fact I saw my first porn here in 1983 (“Feels Like Silk”) The strange thing about the theater was that it was in a nice neighborhood.
I saw a lot of movies here in the 70’s. It was in a shopping center, no balcony. Not big, not small. Saw “The Sting”, “Hard Times”, “Obsession”, “Poltergeist” when it was doubled.
I remember this theater. I was on the north side of Merrick Road about a block or two west of the old catering hall that had a water wheel in it (it was a Carl Hoppel’s place…if you grew up on LI, you’d know the name). It was in a fairly large shopping center tucked away in the corner in the back. I didn’t see many movies there but my parent’s saw “The Exorcist” there. It was small and unremarkable.
This was a single screen movie theater that opened in the mid to late 50’s on the site of an old car dealership on Long Beach Road. It wasn’t very big or memorable as a single screen theater but I did see a lot of movies here. It did not have a balcony. In the early 80’s it was turned into a twin. What little charm this theater might’ve had as a single theater was destroyed. The last time I was there in the early 90’s it had all the ambience of a bomb shelter. Terrible place.
I saw a lot of movies at this little, cute theater. It was around the block from the big Lynbrook theater on Merrick Road. It tended to show more arty films especially later in it’s life. One of my best movie going experienes was here: having the living crap scared out of me by “Alien” in the fall of 1979.
This theater was strange because it was kind of off the beaten path. But even in the early 80’s it played big first run films. “E.T.” played there during it’s initial run and this is how I found it. All the other theaters playing it (like those two awesome double theaters in Hicksville) were sold out. We then found this Wantagh Theater. Back in 1982, it was still in decent shape and the price was very reasonable. Too bad it fell into decline.
This was another big Long Island movie house. It closed down way before the multiplexing thing started because the neighborhood went into a steep decline in the early to mid 70’s. I saw a movie called “Bednobs and Broomsticks” here around 1971. About a year or so later, it closed. Then in the late 70’s, it actually reopened as a nightclub/danceclub or sorts and was actually fairly popular. It finally closed for good in the early 80’s but I cannot remember when it was demolished.
The building is still there but it’s an office building. You really can’t tell that it was a movie theater anymore.
I lived in Baldwin until the early 90’s. This movie theater was small but it was great. It did have a very small balcony but in 1969, it closed for about three months or so. When it re-opened, the balcony was gone. You could still use the stairs to go up to the restrooms and such but no balcony. I must’ve seen countless films there through the 70’s right up to the 80’s. The last film to be shown there was “Rambo: First Blood, Part II” in 1985. I know because I worked in a vitamin shop right down the street from it.