Plaza Theatre
393 East Main Street,
Patchogue,
NY
11772
393 East Main Street,
Patchogue,
NY
11772
5 people
favorited this theater
Showing 76 - 100 of 202 comments
Thanks Georgy Girl:
Please visit us in Patchogue on July 16th. We’ll be in front of the Capital One Bank on Main Street. Thanks for filling out the survey. If you can spread the word far and wide, we’d appreciate it. If we can get enough surveys filled we’ll have something to show foundations of support and possible donors like the Baldwins.
I am also in the film business. Check out my latest endeavor at www.redwarriorfilms.com
Hi Possibilities – Just viewed the YouTube video. I admire your passion and dedication to this project; funny I was thinking of Alec Baldwin as a supporter and then his name was mentioned! It would be even more appropriate for him to support this facility as he is a L.I. boy! I work in the entertainment industry in So. Cal now but I don’t know him. At any rate, I’ll try and stop by on 7/16 when I am in town. When I lived in Patchogue, I used to go to the Huntington facility to view films..and of course hopped the train to NYC. This would be much better. Hope to see you next month. Oh I filled out the survey too.
Oh rvb thanks for offering to ask Hans about Jack & Jerry’s!
Hi again B'way – I haven’t looked at the Granada link you sent but will do so in a moment. Yup…that’s where “Jack & Jerry’s” was….in the Railroad and West Ave. neighborhood. I remember the distinct feeling of vertigo when I walked into that store. That had it be it in another incarnation!
Hi Bway – Regarding Morgan’s…again I have not been in Patchogue in a while but my recollection was it bordered the side of a printing company. I remember because when they tore down Morgan’s, you could still see the outline of the bldg. against the printing co.’s wall. It was in the area of East Main St., on the North side. Somewhere in the vicinity of what is now the Brickhouse but a little bit east of it. I know it existed because Brian Curry went to bat for me and I think looked up Property and Records info. and found it!
Hi possibilities – Yes I remember the street fair when I lived in Patchogue. Okay I will try and stop by on 7/16 as I’ll be on L.I. from 7/6 – 7/20. I live in So. Cal. now. Will check out your YouTube video too. Oh, I was shopping in Target yesterday and saw Fanta and Fresca…I had to laugh as there is a Fanta soda dispenser in the Plaza pics…I didn’t think it existed any longer either. How strange since the last movie I saw @ the Plaza was “Back To The Future”!! Oh and also I am amazed all of the letters on the front of the bldg. are intact…usually one or the other fall off in time.
Here’s a link for the Granada Theater:
/theaters/7424/
Great work “possibilities”, I would love to see this plan come to fruit.
Georgy Girl, where was this place in the 60’s you mention, where the Harbor Crab Bar is now?
Anyway, as for theaters, the Granada Theater was midway between Railroad Ave and West Ave, it was torn down when they built the court building on the corner of West and Main. Is that where the sloped floor store was?
Hi Georgy Girl:
“Alive After Five” is in all of Patchogue. We shut the streets down, all the stores pour their hearts out and their crafts and food services into the streets. You won’t believe it’s Patchogue. You’ve got five beer breweries coming in with all kinds of beer, and about twelve live bands. The place is hopping.
rvb: You’d be a welcome guest at our kiosk. We’ll interview both you and Georgy Girl on live video, and if it’s good, we’ll include you in our You Tube video. We are after all a Media Arts Center an our goal is to get the word out, and get the word in from people like yourselves who have a heart for the Plaza Theatre, now about to become the Plaza Media Arts Center.
Georgy Girl, Hans actually wrote two books. Neither addresses what happened to the Granada. In fact neither mentions the Granada. I was in touch with him and he gave me some photos of newspaper pieces on the theatre, including a photo. Next time I speak to him I’ll ask about Jack and Jerry’s.
Also…sort of related to this site…no theatre connection though. Any one remember a club named Morgan’s that was next to the Railroad Ave. bowling alley? It was torn down in the mid-60’s. I racked my brain trying to get info. on it but none of the “Patchoguians” knew of it. Finally connected w. Brian Curry of the L.I. Advance who did some detective work for me and turned it up. It was a “tiki” looking place…kind of a coffee house…rather odd for Patchogue at the time but then it was the 60’s so it was rather “in” as well. Ring a bell? I enjoy corresponding w. you all!!
Hi Possibilities…Thanks for the info. about the Alive After Five kiosk…I don’t live in the area any longer but will be back there during the 7/6 – 7/20 time frame and will try to make it on 7/16. Sorry where is the Alive After Five located? In the Patchogue Theatre?
Boy Broadway you really know your stuff. Yes used to go to the old CVS site when it was a liquidator…I have to Google “Jack & Jerry’s” as I’m sure that was the name of the “sloping floor” store. I have a book by Hans Henske of Patchogue history and perhaps it is in there.
I realize that the AID auto store was not a theatre. I said so. What I also said is that if any building looked like a theatre it was this one. I have no knowledge of the store Georgy Girl is talking about. We agreed that the auto store she was talking about had probably been the Granada Theatre because of the location and the sloping floor.
Georgy Girl, the La Strada Restaurant used to be further over in the shopping center. They had to move the restaurant when Waldbaums expanded about 10 years ago, and at that time, they moved next to Howard’s Cafe, in the old theater space. Howards Cafe also had been in another store in the same shopping center, until Rockbottom expanded, and needed the old Howards Cafe space, that’s when Howards moved into the old theater space. You are correct, it was a carpet store before all that.
RVB, the auto store you are talking about west of 112 on the north side of Main is AID Auto stores, but that building is a new building built specifically for them about 15 or so years ago. The auto store georgy girl is talking about has to be an older store that no longer exists. The old CVS site is at the foot of Route 112, and that was a county liquidators before that. The drug store propr to CVS tore down whatever building was there before to build the drug store which CVS eventually took over. They have since moved out, and it’s now a Advance Auto Parts store.
Hi Georgy Girl and rvb:
If any of you are interested, the PlazaMAC team (Plaza Media Arts Center) will be hosting a kiosk at the “Alive After Five” this summer for four Fridays 5-10PM on July 2, 16th, 30th and August 13th. Stop by and have a look at all our plans. We’re really into it. You can visit our website to see the work we’ve done already and look at our video to see the demonstrations and pictures of what the old theatre looks like and the new rendering. BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY we need people like you to fill out our on-line survey so we can bring this all back and make a dream a reality so you can come back to Patchogue and see great independent films in your old neighborhood, and take a class or two to make your own films.
www.plazamac.org
Thanks again to this site for keeping the history and the interest alive.
Don’t “do” Patchogue that often. Don’t know the CVS reference.
Hi rvb!
I just remembered the name of the store with the “slanted floor”. Jack & Jerry’s. It was an auto supply store, sort of in the mode of Pep Boys nowadays. It was on the south side of West Main Street. Not sure about what you are referring to….is it the bldg. that used to (still does..haven’t been in town in a while) be a CVS? There was never a movie theatre there as far as I know. I concur.
Georgy Girl the Granada was on the south side of West Main. I think the auto store you’re referring to is just west of 112 on the north side of the street. From the exterior it looks like it had been a movie theatre. I have been assured that it was not.
Hi Possibilities – I like the positive tone of your e-mail name! Okay sure will check out the video and also the website. The building is so far gone though it would be hard to renovate, no? Looking at the pictures reminds of the Titanic….the Fanta soda dispenser, the reels of film on the floor, the seats with no one sitting in them….very eerie…as if it too is on the bottom of the sea, frozen in time. And yeah, I wonder what film it was scattered on the floor…or maybe it was a preview reel. At any rate, eeerie.
Hey Georgy Girl:
I like all of your comments. Anything that feeds into the history of the old Plaza Theatre. I have been working with a group of local businesses, community groups, cinephiles, Town of Brookhaven and media arts people to build a Media Arts Center in this location. Check out our website and our youtube video at www.plazamac.org We’d love to include you and your comments to a renewal of this old theatre. Thanks to Cinema Treasures there is now a record. Keep it coming.
I was going to say this site is fun; I just sent the link to a friend who used to live in Patchogue and she is loving it as well. She asked about True Value/Rollic – I told her to check out these comments!
I also remember the “powder room” at the Patchogue Theatre….it had a curtain at the “door” and then there was a living room type of situation with a long mirror on the wall, followed by the bathrooms in the next room. Wonder if they kept that. Movie theatres used to be regal and quite an experience. Now they’re all cookie cutter models.
Hi rvb – Oh sorry I stand corrected about the Multiplex…also, I remember going into I think an auto parts store on East Main Street and the floor sloped…it was rather disorienting – almost like a “vertigo” feeling. This was in the late 1950’s. I was just a kid, but someone said that it used to be a movie theatre..so that must have been the Granada? Do you remember the store that was there?
Hi Bway – Well that Italian restaurant is La Strada which was there at the same time as the Sunwave…it later was a carpet store I remember that (Sunwave that is). This site is fun!
This
I remember the Sunwave Theater in the Waldbaum’s shopping center at Waverly and Sunrise. Currently Howards Cafe Bar and an Italian Restaurant occupy the former theater space. From the outside you can still see it’s theater past, if not only for the higher part of the building where Howards Bar is.
Georgy Girl there is nothing at the Multiplex site other than the pylon and a fence. What’s going on behind is an unknown. Is the building still there? Is something else being built?
Also my memories go back further to the Granada which, even when I was a child was closed. See CT for details. The court complex is on or about that site.
Oh and lets not forget the Sunwave Theatre which was on the corner of Sunrise Highway and Waverly Avenue in the 1970’s – 1980’s, in the Waldbaums strip mall! That also succumbed to the times.
And the Patchogue Drive-In which eventually became an indoor multiplex, only to close just a few years ago. I believe a condo. complex is there now. Sunrise Highway.