Menlo was twinned around 1976. Tha actual building was owned by Menlo Park Mall and General Cinema was renting. If I recall, the option of a new multiplex in the mall (twins were becoming unprofitable by the mid 80’s) was offered to GC, but the company had already decided that it was pulling back on it’s theater operations. There was no room to expand the old Menlo Cinema site. As an aside, Menlo was twinned after the GC theater at Route 9 and Ernston Road in Sayreville was twinned in late 1975. That theater was eventually torn down to make room for the Route 9 realignment. I worked at that theater a couple of times, notably during the first run showing of The Blues Brothers. Those of us who remember Menlo before it was twinned remember a 60' by 30' screen with great magnetic stereo sound on all of the “big pictures”. A truly great house.
Menlo Park cinema had Dolby Stereo in Cinema 1 from the time it was twinned. Cinema two was a straight mono cinema using a Kelmar amplifier until being revamped in the 80’s with Dolby optical stereo. Cinema 1 was also upgraded to run 70mm six track (magnetic) stereo, later THX. I worked there as a part time projectionist from 1975 until 1990.
I worked there as a “relief” projectionist in the late 70’s to mid 80’s. The theater had two Norelco 70/35mm projectors (originally equiped with carbon arc) and a 5 tier platter system which served both houses. Before the place was twinned, I shot numerous photos of the lobby and the auditorium, with the huge screen curtain closed and opened. “Rollercoaster”, in Sensuround, was one of the last big movies shown before the theater was ruined by twinning.
I worked there as a “relief” projectionist in the late 70’s to mid 80’s. The theater had two Norelco 70/35mm projectors (originally equiped with carbon arc) and a 5 tier platter system which served both houses. Before the place was twinned, I shot numerous photos of the lobby and the auditorium, with the huge screen curtain closed and opened. “Rollercoaster”, in Sensuround, was one of the last big movies shown before the theater was ruined by twinning.
Irv,
I share your memories of the “old Fords”! During the 1950’s and early 60’s it was a great town to grow up in! It truly was a classic American small town. I began working in Fords Radio and TV in 1965 and eventually bought the business, finally giving it up in 1988 and going back into TV broadcasting, where I still make my living. I also worked, part time, as a movie projectionist in the many area theaters during the 70’s and 80’s, mainly due to my love of movies! The Fords Theater was THE place to meet all your friends on Saturday afternoons when I was a kid. Spent many happy hours there watching many of the classic 50’s sci-fi flicks. A neighborhood theater, within walking distance, AND only 25 cents to get in! A kid’s dream come true back then! I remember a couple of butcher shops in town….Dambach’s was one and Sisolacs (spelling?) was the other. Of course, my memory gets worse with each passing year! Also, if your grandmother lived on Woodland Ave, I may have fixed her TV back in the 60’s! E-mail me at
Actually, his name was Ted Hawley. He was the business agent of Perth Amboy Local 379 during the time I worked at many of the local “houses”. I was involved in the installation of the film platters at the Amboy Mulitplexes when the theater was expanded from the original “6 plex” design in the mid 80’s. Up until that time, there were two projectors per theater utilizing 6000' reels instead of the normal 2000' reels. In this manner, only one change-over per showing was necessary, unless the movie ran over 2 hours. We removed one projector per theater and utilized these in the newly constructed “houses”. Then a film platter system was installed in each theater enabling a continuous run of the feature with no changeovers. Because of the platter system, an interlock system was made possible, allowing one print to be shown simultaneously in multiple auditoriums. Those always fun…..especially “threading up” the show! Fun days. :–)
Irv,
I grew up in Fords, but down on E. William street, which sent me to Keasbey School. This was because we were in the Keasbey “fire district”, and your fire district determined which school you would attend. After 6th grade, I entered Fords Junior High in 1960. I’m REALLY giving up my age now! LOL!
The Keyport Strand was a “neighborhood” theater located in the middle of Keyport. Believe it or not, I have nothing of the Amboy Drive-in! The projectionist who worked there was also the business agent for the local chapter of IATSE, the union which represented the local projectionists. After the drive-in closed and the multiplex was built, he worked there for many years, retiring in the early 90’s. He retired to Arizona and, sadly, passed away a few years later. He had some memorbilia from the old Amboys Drive-in, but I have no idea what became of his collection.
The Ditmas! THAT was the name! My mom and dad always recalled seeing “Song Of The South” there. From what I was told, the theater burned down not long afterwords.
I took some 35mm photos of the interior of the theater after the seats were removed. I also have shots of the theater being demolished. This theater was equipped with 2 Norelco 35/70 projectors.
Was the exclusive theater showing “Deep Throat” in 1971, resulting in the continuous arrests of the manager AND projectionist! The law was changed eventually to exempt projectionists from prosecution when the theater was showing questionable material.
Joe,
Send me your E-Mail address and I will send you a few screen caps. I could tell you PLENTY of stories, but some of them could not appear here! :–) Some of the crazy stuff wasn’t only confined to the auditorium! LOL!
If memory serves me correctly, Menlo (along with Madison on Rt9 North) was twinned in 1976, much to my disapointment. The BIG disapointment was the sale of the Woodbridge Walter Reade to General Cinema and the subsequent twinning of THAT house. That was a great 70mm theatre with Norelco machines before the twinning. After the twinning, it never showed 70mm again and operated from a 5 tier platter system which fed both houses. Somewhere in my collection, I have a set of 35mm photos I shot of the Walter Reade before it was twinned.
TomR,
I found the tape of the “final night” and I captured a few frames. One is a shot of the Marquee with three people sitting on it..Monica is one and a guy with a mustache…you perhaps? E mail me at and I’ll send them to you.
A fact which needs to be remembered here, is by 1970, the demographics of New Brunswick, as well as many cities in NJ, ,had changed dramatically. The theater, by that time, reflected the tastes of its customers. Albany street, by the mid 70’s, was a very run down area. That area today bears NO resemblence to that time period.
Also….there WERE balconies located in the Fords Playhouse back in it’s “glory days”. They were located on each side of the projection booth and had about 20 seats apiece. Back in the early 50’s they were closed off due to structural problems and a wall was built across both, flush with the front wall of the projection booth, hiding them from view. I remember them being used for storage in later years.
I was there on closing night with my camcorder, covering the event for the TV station I worked for at the time. I have some footage of the booth, a short interview with the manager and some shots of the screen during the showing of the two closing movies. Very sad to see the closing of the last drive-in in NJ. I’ll see if I can find the tape so I can possibly post some screen captures. I also have the last night of operation of Menlo Park Twin Cinemas on tape.
Worked there one night in the 70’s showing “Let The Good Times Roll”. What a horror! The equipment was SO old that it truly was held together by chewing gum! I’ll always remember that night because the take-up belt on proj 2 broke AND a rectifier fried in the same night! Put those two events together with the fact that I was totally unfamilar with the booth and, well, you get the idea!
It’s amazing how well I can still remember what the interior of the Majestic looked like when I used to frequent the theater in the early to mid 60’s! Picture this, if you will…as you approached the front of the theater from the curb, you passed under a large marquee. Directly in front, situated between two sets of double doors of shiny stainless steel, was the ticket booth. The double doors doors opened into an outer lobby where people could remove their coats and hats, in general, a “transition” area where the walls were covered with posters and 8 by 10 photos of upcoming motion pictures. From there, as you moved forward toward the lobby, you passed through two more sets of double doors where the tickets were collected by an usher. That was where one entered the main lobby. The concession stand was straight ahead. However, to your immediate right and left were two curved grand staircases, with beautiful polished brass railings guiding you to the upper lounge area. Once you climbed those stairs, you entered a large room furnished with sofas and chairs on which one could relax during intermission. Tables and lamps ringed the room. The floor was covered with a luxurious red carpet inlayed with the Walter Reade logo and their trademark which were the masks of Comedy and Tragedy. There were rest rooms (a “powder room†for the ladies) also located at this level. On each side of this room two passageways, or “tunnelsâ€, were located which eventually led to the first level of the balcony which stretched the width of the building. On each side of this level of the balcony a step or two down, but located closser to the screen, were two “boxes†with 4 or 5 seats each. The balcony eventually reached the projection booth, about 8 stories from street level! From the upper balcony, the screen appeared as a mere speck, although it was about 50 feet long!
Downstairs, in the rear of the auditorium, was a soundproof room, with a large glass window facing the screen. It was named the “party room†where groups could “rent†the space out and have their own little “get together†while watching the movie. It also provided a much needed place for new moms and their noisy infants! Eventually, during the Majestic’s porno era, this room became an auxillary projection booth and was equipped with 16mm projectors which could be remote controlled from the main 35mm booth. A little note on the 35mm booth: the power supply for the old carbon arc lamps was a motor/generator set. This unit was SO noisy that there was a thick steel door between it’s room and the booth, AND at the entrance to the booth!
I will always the remember the Majestic….seeing first run movies on it’s big screen with huge red velvet curtains, watching for the cue marks and then turning around to watch the light beams switch from one port hole to the other. I am so very proud that I eventually had the chance to work there a few times before it was closed as a theater forever. There will never be another like her.
Growing up in the 50’s and living in Fords, I would attend the Fords Playhouse. But, I could remember a few movie houses in Perth Amboy…The Majestic, a Walter Reade house(first run) on Madison Ave. The Royal, on Smith Street (right around the corner from the Majestic)and the Strand on lower Smith Street. I remember my dad talking about the Crescent (about where the Coney Island Lunch is) and the Diptmis(spelling?) which was across the street from the old high school. That theater burned down in the late 40’s, I believe. I remember going to the Strand and the Royal to see the Sci-Fi movies of the 50’s including Godzilla, Rodan and 20 Million Miles to Earth. The last movie I saw at the Majestic was “Paint Your Wagon”. I worked twice at the Majestic as a projectionist in the mid 70’s when she became a porno house. The “party room” (a sound proof room with a window facing the screen, below the balconey) was converted into a 16mm booth. The 35mm remained upstairs..about 8 stories from street level!!
As a kid growing up in Fords in the 50’s, the Fords Theatre was THE place to be! It was owned, at the time, by a lovely Hungarian couple, Mr.& Mrs. George Lang. The shows would run Sunday through Tuesday…Wednesday a Hungarian movie would run…Thursday though Saturday would bring another double feature. During the summer, special kiddie shows would run on Saturday afternoons, starting at 2 PM. In 1962, the Langs sold the theater. By the late 60’s it was showing Spanish language films. It reopened for awhile in the mid 70’s (I installed a new sound system), but closed not too long after. Conversion to retail space was begun by the family who owned the building, but the project was never completed. Oh, to have a time machine!
The Amboys Drive-in opened in 1959. They NEVER showed Deep Throat…that film was shown at the Keyport Strand with the manager AND projectionist being arrested almost everyday! I worked a few times at the Amboys Drive-in as a projectionist during the mid 70’s, but was a steady customer from the time I started driving in 1964.
WOW! You guys brought back MANY memories! Working some of those “dusk to dawn” shows was always fun! Leaders and tails would be gone from some of the reels, so you had NO idea which reel was which! How many “carbon savers” gave up their lives so we could burn the carbon stubs. :) Yep, broken belts, burned out feed motors, jammed curtain/masking motors, exploding rectifiers……God, I miss those days!
Stop and Shop is building a huge new building on the site of the Former Rutgers Plaza theatre. I moved into the Somerset area in 1972 and it was already a twin at that time. It was expanded in the late 70’s. The customer base became a little rough during the 80’s.
I have 4 theatre seats, the curtain motor, and a piece of the screen from this theatre! These items were used in my basement movie theatre which I built around 1976.
I worked at Menlo during the 70’s and 80’s as a part time projectionist. Many happy memories of that theatre, especially before it was, in my opinion, ruined by converting to a twin. I have some video I had shot of the interior of the theatre, including the booth, on the last night of operation. I will see if I can capture some screen shots and post them here. I feel a deep sense of loss everytime I travel past where the theatre once stood. Many good people worked there through the years, including Mr. Abe Levine and Mr.Joe Gazi, the original projectionists…two of the best!
Menlo was twinned around 1976. Tha actual building was owned by Menlo Park Mall and General Cinema was renting. If I recall, the option of a new multiplex in the mall (twins were becoming unprofitable by the mid 80’s) was offered to GC, but the company had already decided that it was pulling back on it’s theater operations. There was no room to expand the old Menlo Cinema site. As an aside, Menlo was twinned after the GC theater at Route 9 and Ernston Road in Sayreville was twinned in late 1975. That theater was eventually torn down to make room for the Route 9 realignment. I worked at that theater a couple of times, notably during the first run showing of The Blues Brothers. Those of us who remember Menlo before it was twinned remember a 60' by 30' screen with great magnetic stereo sound on all of the “big pictures”. A truly great house.
Menlo Park cinema had Dolby Stereo in Cinema 1 from the time it was twinned. Cinema two was a straight mono cinema using a Kelmar amplifier until being revamped in the 80’s with Dolby optical stereo. Cinema 1 was also upgraded to run 70mm six track (magnetic) stereo, later THX. I worked there as a part time projectionist from 1975 until 1990.
I worked there as a “relief” projectionist in the late 70’s to mid 80’s. The theater had two Norelco 70/35mm projectors (originally equiped with carbon arc) and a 5 tier platter system which served both houses. Before the place was twinned, I shot numerous photos of the lobby and the auditorium, with the huge screen curtain closed and opened. “Rollercoaster”, in Sensuround, was one of the last big movies shown before the theater was ruined by twinning.
I worked there as a “relief” projectionist in the late 70’s to mid 80’s. The theater had two Norelco 70/35mm projectors (originally equiped with carbon arc) and a 5 tier platter system which served both houses. Before the place was twinned, I shot numerous photos of the lobby and the auditorium, with the huge screen curtain closed and opened. “Rollercoaster”, in Sensuround, was one of the last big movies shown before the theater was ruined by twinning.
Irv,
I share your memories of the “old Fords”! During the 1950’s and early 60’s it was a great town to grow up in! It truly was a classic American small town. I began working in Fords Radio and TV in 1965 and eventually bought the business, finally giving it up in 1988 and going back into TV broadcasting, where I still make my living. I also worked, part time, as a movie projectionist in the many area theaters during the 70’s and 80’s, mainly due to my love of movies! The Fords Theater was THE place to meet all your friends on Saturday afternoons when I was a kid. Spent many happy hours there watching many of the classic 50’s sci-fi flicks. A neighborhood theater, within walking distance, AND only 25 cents to get in! A kid’s dream come true back then! I remember a couple of butcher shops in town….Dambach’s was one and Sisolacs (spelling?) was the other. Of course, my memory gets worse with each passing year! Also, if your grandmother lived on Woodland Ave, I may have fixed her TV back in the 60’s! E-mail me at
Actually, his name was Ted Hawley. He was the business agent of Perth Amboy Local 379 during the time I worked at many of the local “houses”. I was involved in the installation of the film platters at the Amboy Mulitplexes when the theater was expanded from the original “6 plex” design in the mid 80’s. Up until that time, there were two projectors per theater utilizing 6000' reels instead of the normal 2000' reels. In this manner, only one change-over per showing was necessary, unless the movie ran over 2 hours. We removed one projector per theater and utilized these in the newly constructed “houses”. Then a film platter system was installed in each theater enabling a continuous run of the feature with no changeovers. Because of the platter system, an interlock system was made possible, allowing one print to be shown simultaneously in multiple auditoriums. Those always fun…..especially “threading up” the show! Fun days. :–)
Irv,
I grew up in Fords, but down on E. William street, which sent me to Keasbey School. This was because we were in the Keasbey “fire district”, and your fire district determined which school you would attend. After 6th grade, I entered Fords Junior High in 1960. I’m REALLY giving up my age now! LOL!
The Keyport Strand was a “neighborhood” theater located in the middle of Keyport. Believe it or not, I have nothing of the Amboy Drive-in! The projectionist who worked there was also the business agent for the local chapter of IATSE, the union which represented the local projectionists. After the drive-in closed and the multiplex was built, he worked there for many years, retiring in the early 90’s. He retired to Arizona and, sadly, passed away a few years later. He had some memorbilia from the old Amboys Drive-in, but I have no idea what became of his collection.
The Ditmas! THAT was the name! My mom and dad always recalled seeing “Song Of The South” there. From what I was told, the theater burned down not long afterwords.
Jerry Kampo
I took some 35mm photos of the interior of the theater after the seats were removed. I also have shots of the theater being demolished. This theater was equipped with 2 Norelco 35/70 projectors.
Was the exclusive theater showing “Deep Throat” in 1971, resulting in the continuous arrests of the manager AND projectionist! The law was changed eventually to exempt projectionists from prosecution when the theater was showing questionable material.
Joe,
Send me your E-Mail address and I will send you a few screen caps. I could tell you PLENTY of stories, but some of them could not appear here! :–) Some of the crazy stuff wasn’t only confined to the auditorium! LOL!
If memory serves me correctly, Menlo (along with Madison on Rt9 North) was twinned in 1976, much to my disapointment. The BIG disapointment was the sale of the Woodbridge Walter Reade to General Cinema and the subsequent twinning of THAT house. That was a great 70mm theatre with Norelco machines before the twinning. After the twinning, it never showed 70mm again and operated from a 5 tier platter system which fed both houses. Somewhere in my collection, I have a set of 35mm photos I shot of the Walter Reade before it was twinned.
Jerry
Jerry
Jerry
TomR,
I found the tape of the “final night” and I captured a few frames. One is a shot of the Marquee with three people sitting on it..Monica is one and a guy with a mustache…you perhaps? E mail me at and I’ll send them to you.
Jerry
A fact which needs to be remembered here, is by 1970, the demographics of New Brunswick, as well as many cities in NJ, ,had changed dramatically. The theater, by that time, reflected the tastes of its customers. Albany street, by the mid 70’s, was a very run down area. That area today bears NO resemblence to that time period.
Also….there WERE balconies located in the Fords Playhouse back in it’s “glory days”. They were located on each side of the projection booth and had about 20 seats apiece. Back in the early 50’s they were closed off due to structural problems and a wall was built across both, flush with the front wall of the projection booth, hiding them from view. I remember them being used for storage in later years.
I was there on closing night with my camcorder, covering the event for the TV station I worked for at the time. I have some footage of the booth, a short interview with the manager and some shots of the screen during the showing of the two closing movies. Very sad to see the closing of the last drive-in in NJ. I’ll see if I can find the tape so I can possibly post some screen captures. I also have the last night of operation of Menlo Park Twin Cinemas on tape.
Worked there one night in the 70’s showing “Let The Good Times Roll”. What a horror! The equipment was SO old that it truly was held together by chewing gum! I’ll always remember that night because the take-up belt on proj 2 broke AND a rectifier fried in the same night! Put those two events together with the fact that I was totally unfamilar with the booth and, well, you get the idea!
It’s amazing how well I can still remember what the interior of the Majestic looked like when I used to frequent the theater in the early to mid 60’s! Picture this, if you will…as you approached the front of the theater from the curb, you passed under a large marquee. Directly in front, situated between two sets of double doors of shiny stainless steel, was the ticket booth. The double doors doors opened into an outer lobby where people could remove their coats and hats, in general, a “transition” area where the walls were covered with posters and 8 by 10 photos of upcoming motion pictures. From there, as you moved forward toward the lobby, you passed through two more sets of double doors where the tickets were collected by an usher. That was where one entered the main lobby. The concession stand was straight ahead. However, to your immediate right and left were two curved grand staircases, with beautiful polished brass railings guiding you to the upper lounge area. Once you climbed those stairs, you entered a large room furnished with sofas and chairs on which one could relax during intermission. Tables and lamps ringed the room. The floor was covered with a luxurious red carpet inlayed with the Walter Reade logo and their trademark which were the masks of Comedy and Tragedy. There were rest rooms (a “powder room†for the ladies) also located at this level. On each side of this room two passageways, or “tunnelsâ€, were located which eventually led to the first level of the balcony which stretched the width of the building. On each side of this level of the balcony a step or two down, but located closser to the screen, were two “boxes†with 4 or 5 seats each. The balcony eventually reached the projection booth, about 8 stories from street level! From the upper balcony, the screen appeared as a mere speck, although it was about 50 feet long!
Downstairs, in the rear of the auditorium, was a soundproof room, with a large glass window facing the screen. It was named the “party room†where groups could “rent†the space out and have their own little “get together†while watching the movie. It also provided a much needed place for new moms and their noisy infants! Eventually, during the Majestic’s porno era, this room became an auxillary projection booth and was equipped with 16mm projectors which could be remote controlled from the main 35mm booth. A little note on the 35mm booth: the power supply for the old carbon arc lamps was a motor/generator set. This unit was SO noisy that there was a thick steel door between it’s room and the booth, AND at the entrance to the booth!
I will always the remember the Majestic….seeing first run movies on it’s big screen with huge red velvet curtains, watching for the cue marks and then turning around to watch the light beams switch from one port hole to the other. I am so very proud that I eventually had the chance to work there a few times before it was closed as a theater forever. There will never be another like her.
Growing up in the 50’s and living in Fords, I would attend the Fords Playhouse. But, I could remember a few movie houses in Perth Amboy…The Majestic, a Walter Reade house(first run) on Madison Ave. The Royal, on Smith Street (right around the corner from the Majestic)and the Strand on lower Smith Street. I remember my dad talking about the Crescent (about where the Coney Island Lunch is) and the Diptmis(spelling?) which was across the street from the old high school. That theater burned down in the late 40’s, I believe. I remember going to the Strand and the Royal to see the Sci-Fi movies of the 50’s including Godzilla, Rodan and 20 Million Miles to Earth. The last movie I saw at the Majestic was “Paint Your Wagon”. I worked twice at the Majestic as a projectionist in the mid 70’s when she became a porno house. The “party room” (a sound proof room with a window facing the screen, below the balconey) was converted into a 16mm booth. The 35mm remained upstairs..about 8 stories from street level!!
As a kid growing up in Fords in the 50’s, the Fords Theatre was THE place to be! It was owned, at the time, by a lovely Hungarian couple, Mr.& Mrs. George Lang. The shows would run Sunday through Tuesday…Wednesday a Hungarian movie would run…Thursday though Saturday would bring another double feature. During the summer, special kiddie shows would run on Saturday afternoons, starting at 2 PM. In 1962, the Langs sold the theater. By the late 60’s it was showing Spanish language films. It reopened for awhile in the mid 70’s (I installed a new sound system), but closed not too long after. Conversion to retail space was begun by the family who owned the building, but the project was never completed. Oh, to have a time machine!
The Amboys Drive-in opened in 1959. They NEVER showed Deep Throat…that film was shown at the Keyport Strand with the manager AND projectionist being arrested almost everyday! I worked a few times at the Amboys Drive-in as a projectionist during the mid 70’s, but was a steady customer from the time I started driving in 1964.
WOW! You guys brought back MANY memories! Working some of those “dusk to dawn” shows was always fun! Leaders and tails would be gone from some of the reels, so you had NO idea which reel was which! How many “carbon savers” gave up their lives so we could burn the carbon stubs. :) Yep, broken belts, burned out feed motors, jammed curtain/masking motors, exploding rectifiers……God, I miss those days!
Stop and Shop is building a huge new building on the site of the Former Rutgers Plaza theatre. I moved into the Somerset area in 1972 and it was already a twin at that time. It was expanded in the late 70’s. The customer base became a little rough during the 80’s.
I have 4 theatre seats, the curtain motor, and a piece of the screen from this theatre! These items were used in my basement movie theatre which I built around 1976.
I worked at Menlo during the 70’s and 80’s as a part time projectionist. Many happy memories of that theatre, especially before it was, in my opinion, ruined by converting to a twin. I have some video I had shot of the interior of the theatre, including the booth, on the last night of operation. I will see if I can capture some screen shots and post them here. I feel a deep sense of loss everytime I travel past where the theatre once stood. Many good people worked there through the years, including Mr. Abe Levine and Mr.Joe Gazi, the original projectionists…two of the best!