Century's Baldwin Theatre

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.

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.