Amboy Multiplex Cinemas
US Highway 9 and State Route 35,
Sayreville,
NJ
08872
US Highway 9 and State Route 35,
Sayreville,
NJ
08872
15 people
favorited this theater
Showing 176 - 200 of 228 comments
Status need to be updated to closed
Hey there Steel, nice post!
I retired from National Amusements after having worked for that great compamy for 22 years, first as a projectionist and then as a manager/Managing Director/Asst DM.
When I first took over Amboy as Managing Director the theatre was full of crooks and thieves, my first job was to weed out all the bad eliments in both management and front of the house staff. I probably hired you to replace some of the managers I had to get rid off.
I loved your haunted theatre story, however the shows started on their own from time to time in several of the theatres, it was due to an aging automation system, not a ghost, but far be it for me to break the spirit at to all the ghost lovers who worked at the theatre. That automation system was a nightmare, the diodes (or pins)used to advance the steps of the programming often failed causing many disruptions in the shows. Parts were hard to come by since the company that manufactured it was no longer suppoting the system, they may even be out of business now.
You are so right about those smaller theatres which were carved out of larger ones, we used to call them “subway theatres” because of the shape, and when we installed surround sound, the speakers on the walls were like having your own pair of headphones.
I only stayed at Amboy about a year before I was asked to work the pre-opening, and eventualy helm, the Hazlet Muliplex.
I think the biggest problem with Amboy was the lack of holding areas in the small lobby, which as you wrote started out as a six plex. While screens were added, the looby space remained the same.
Plans were drawn up to increase the lobby space by eliminating the walkways ajacent to the sides of the building and moving the lobby walls out. In addition, two more bathrooms were planned, which was another problem the theatre had,there simply was not enough bathrooms. However, the plans never saw the light of day.
I just stumbled onto this website today. I never knew it existed. I worked for National Amusements from 2006 until last Nov. Actually the person who posts on here as “Vito” is my old managing director and the man who hired me. So, hi Mr. P. How you doing? Now that I’ve got that out of the way… Definitely the best times I had was while managing the Amboy Multiplex. Since leaving last November, I have fallen out of the loop and was searching around online trying to see if there where any new developments with the theater I loved.
After reading this page, I figured I would give you my first hand account of what happened the day Amboy closed its doors for good. As stated earlier, I was a manager at the Amboy multiplex. In fact, I was one of the two managers that got the call to close the theater. I was the one who locked the doors for the final time at The Amboy Multiplex. It was a very sad day for me. Not only was the theater that I went to as a kid closing, where I had countless memories, but also my current place of work was closing too. I didn’t know what it meant. I’m not going to lie; I was worried about my job.
There are so many stories I could tell you about Amboy. It’s been over 2 years but I’ll try to get some facts straight that I can remember. When the theater opened, it started out as a 6- plex. It later grew to 9, I think, and then later 12. Then theaters 9 and 10 (at the time) were divided in half to make the theater a 14-plex. Theater 9 became 9 and 10 and the then theater 10 became theaters 11 and 12. I must admit watching a movie in those 4 theaters wasn’t that much fun. The screen went from wall to wall. If you were in the back, it made the screen look so small. Theater 7 could run 70 MM film. The projector could run either 35 or 70. That was a pain to thread. There were rumors that theater 14 was haunted. I never did see anything, however, the project every once and a while would just start up on its own. Up until the day it closed, Amboy still used pin board automation. That too was also a pain. The last movie ever played at Amboy was Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. So that means ironically, the first movie ever played was the first movie in the Star Trek series and the last movie ever played was the last movie in the Star Wars saga. This theater most resembled the Saw Mill Multiplex in Hawthorne, NY. While Saw Mill is the closest, most National Amusement built theaters had the same lay out. Amboy’s shape, however, was very unique. I never worked at another theater that looked like Amboy.
That’s really all I can think of right now. I’ll post something new if I remember anything.
I remember seeing Star Trek: The Motion Picture here in December 1979, and thought it was in 70mm Dolby Stereo. Other films my dad took me to see here: Road Warrior, The Thing (1982) [70mm?], Twilight Zone: The Movie [70mm?], Outland, Dark Crystal, Kramer Vs. Kramer (with mom & sis). We moved out of the area in the summer of 1983. This was the first theater I recall having rocking chair seats. In the summer of 1990, a friend & I drove here from Wilkes-Barre, PA to see Wild at Heat and Mo Better Blues (what a double-feature that was) because those films would never play in northeast PA.
Don’t forget Atco Cinemas in South Jersey and Town Center in East Windsor, Central Jersey
That’s shocking. Now the only multiplex cinemas that are around are hazlet and edgewater.
It seems that Amboy is not the only Multiplex Cinemas to be closed. Now it seems that the All jersey Multiplex Cinemas (The former Redstone’s Newark Drive-In) is now closed.
Odds are the land is going to become part of a large river front redeveloplment project. The proposed use of the theater land seems to be a minor league ballpark and minor league hocky arena.
If you look at the picture in the article below you can see route 9 and the GSP just north (in the picture) of the baseball stadium.
View link
I don’t know. I can’t see what was written as I watched the traffic report on the driscoll bridge.
Drove past the Amboy Multi building this weekend for the first time in about six months and saw that there was a contractor’s banner hanging on the front. Anybody know what’s going on with that?
FWIW, its status should probably be changed to “closed.”
Well of course that'a a photo of the rear exit doors taken from the parking lot.
Amboy started as a 6 screen theater. The first Multiplex (>3 screens) in NJ, if not US. Went from 6 to 8 to 12 to 13 to 14. Seats approximate 1 â€" 100, 2-120, 3 â€" 200, 4-350, 5-500, 6-500, 7-550, 8-550, 9-230, 10-230, 11-230, 12-230, 13-550, 14-550. Original 6 are screens 7-14. Screens 9&10 and 11&12 used to be combined. Kramer vs. Kramer played at theater for about 1 year. Once 10 of 12 screens sold out. In late 80s and early 90s. Midnight shows were commonly busier then 9 o’clock shows. Unique to any National Amusement theater. In late 80’s during hey day, planes to built a second building across Route 35 with bridge walk way over highway emerged, never happened.
Oscar winning writer of “The Usual Suspects†work at Amboy as an armed security guard.
There are no plans to reopen the theatre
HAs this theater reopened? I rememebr when it was a drive in. I lived in NYC and would take the bus to Atlantic City and would pass it all summer.
To reiterate one of the comments above, when the Amboys Multiplex opened, it was state of the art. It was one of the first theaters in the area that offered the springy reclining seats. The theater interior itself was alway clean and bright, however I never did like the bare cinder block walls of the Amboys.
At the height of the Amboys popularity the Razz-ma-tazz restaurant opened in the corner of the parking lot, but it was pretty much a Chuck-e-cheese rip-off and never was much of a success, closing a couple of years after it’s opening. The abandoned restaurant sat pretty much as an abandoned eyesore in the parking lot for years.
In many ways, the opening of the Amboys was the start of the multiplex boom in Central Jersey and unfortunately the beginning of the end for many of the older single and twin cinemas in the area.
However, by 90’s the Amboys did go into of a state of decline. For whatever reason, the theater seemed to attract a somewhat rough crowd and as the link in one of the other posts showed, the theater gained somewhat of a bad reputation due to the car thefts and such that plagued the site. I know in my case, I just somehow drifted away from going to the Amboys in favor of the newer theaters that opened in the area.
Out of all those movies, Star Trek was a crowd pleaser!
Complex opened Dec. 7, 1979.
The initial bookings were:
Star Trek: The Motion Picture (opened Dec. 7 on two screens)
1941 (Dec. 14)
The Jerk (Dec. 14)
Kramer vs. Kramer (Dec. 19)
Going In Style (Dec. 25)
Yes, National Amusements is vey high on the Cinema Delux concept, Commack, Long Island will host one next year. With attendance numbers going down you can expect N.A to lead the way to new and exciting ideas to bring people back. You can also expect N.A. to include more IMAX theatres in their complexes.
One last note about the Amboy, demolition has begun next door on the old Razz which became Red Robin, a National Amusement property.
The Cinema De Lux concept is alive and well, but they have a diffrent feeling than The Bridge, which is like going to a trendy club or something. Both Bridge locations, one should note, came about when other chains devloping the sites went bankrupt- The LA Bridge was suposedly going to be an Edwards Cinema and the PA location was going to be Sundance Cinemas- both half constructed and adapted by designer Dyana Lee. I was hoping they’d adapt others this way, putting in stadium seating in their older houses, I imagine it could be done (in CT they updated two with stadium seating: Berlin and East Windsor). Cinema De Lux is a great concept, they’ve only opened one non-De Lux site in three years, but it only works in high income areas (I don’t know if this site is one). National Amusements seems to be shifting its focus on this high income areas (especially considering since in NJ they own the theatre with the highest ticket price, Edgewater).
There are only 2 theatres that National Amusements had built in “The Bridge” concept, The Bridge 17: Cinema De Lux and IMAX Theatre, in Los Angeles, CA, and The Bridge 6: Cinema De Lux, on the SW corner of 40th and Walnut Streets in Philadelphia, PA.
The land is far to valuable for that. For the most part, other than for use as a flea market, drive-in’s in areas with a winter climate sit vacant for most of the year, which is one main reason we lost Hazlet, Atco, Newark and others. The Multiplex Theatres built on those sites are much more profitable. Currently there are no plans to
to rebuild Amboy, although there have been plans in the past, one in 1992 to expand and renovate the exsisting building and another more recent one to tear it down and build a new one. Both plans have been scrubbed for now. If I hear any news I will post it.
They should be DARING and open a drive-in
Yes Garth, The theatre is not going to reopen. Plans are now underway to remove the contents. The future of the property, owned by National Amusements, have not been announced.
is the theatre officially toast?
saw ‘Kramer Vs. Kramer’ here.