Comments from tonysypa

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tonysypa
tonysypa commented about Beverly Theater on Aug 14, 2007 at 3:49 am

wow .. great history … when i worked there there was nothing over the beverly .. empty dirty dusty rooms with junk in them … scarola’s only recently closed in the last 5 years or so .. a real loss.. i barebly remember ebinger’s .. that was good !!! let’s see the only stores still standing are the carvel on the corner of e 2nd up the block from the beverly .. and korner pizzeria .. otherwise every single store has turned over .. the german deli with the awesome homemade rock candy … even silver rod’s pharmacy was just sold to walgreen’s … my brother in laws parents owned the flower shop on the other side of mcdonald ave .. there is a picture he has from the 60’s in front of it where you can see the beverly’s marquee in the backround .. big letters “ my fair lady” .. i’ll try to post it when i get the chance.

tonysypa
tonysypa commented about Beverly Theater on Nov 7, 2006 at 1:20 am

i believe i can put all wondering to rest… i was born, grew up and lived two blocks from the beverly…. i also worked there that last summer when it closed in september of 81 …

the beverly back in the 60’s until they “twinned” it was one of those big ol, grand theaters, with the big glass chandelier hanging in the lobby, huge screen, stage, orchestra “ pit” … the lobby was big, with one looong straight glass consession stand, and the old vending machines along the back wall.

my earliest memories are of my older sisters taking me to saturday afternoon matinee’s to see movies like the incredible mister limpit, or song of the south, complete with a few cartoons .. i remember they had a monster movie afternoon complete with monster themed cartoons and monster themed 3 stooge shorts and vincent price shorts … the show ended when some “ actor’s” in frankenstein and dracula comstumes got bum rushed when they came on stage. same thing when santa came to visit during a x-mas themed matinee of the christmas that almost wasn’t.

the beverly always got movies after they were already out the theaters for thier original release. and they almost always had double features, usually themed…. i remember a james bond marathon, a charles bronson double feature, disney days, stuff like that…

when i hit my teenage years we discovered the rules and the old biddy matrons who prowled the beverly in thier white uniforms and flashlights … always chasing the kids back to the children’s section from the adult section… my memory is a little fuzzy but i seem to remember them separating the boys and the girls too ( can someone confirm that ) there was the red headed marie who was nasty and unrelentless in her determination to hassle the kids… and there was an older white haired matron also who’s name i don’t remember. and of course i think every kid made some sort of stand the first time they had to pay adult price for a ticket… “ i paid for an adult ticket, i’m sitting in the adult section !!! "
we used to do mischevious teenage boy stuff like spend the afternoon filling the screen up with spitballs…. or attaching an m-80 to a lit cigarette and leaving it in the balcony waiting for the boom…. one of my favorite days was going ” ape for a day" and watching all 5 planet of the apes movies.. and when marie came to throw me out for being unaccompanied by an adult after 6 pm she got all pissed off because a niehbor of mine was there saw me getting thrown out for no reason and had me sit with him …

as for the xxx expierment, that happened back in 75…. they had “ deepthroat” and “ devil in miss jones” and me my mom and my sisters were part of the picket line chanting “ porno show, got to go ” apparently not too many people were crossing the picket line and that only lasted about two weeks before they gave up on the xxx idea.

in the spring of 1981, i quit my job at waldbaum’s and needing something to do that summer i got a job at the beverly as a usher. i met some new friends, and we used to hang out in the balcony with our beers on our nights off. used to love to get a bag of the old london pretzel nuggets and put some movie theater butter on them… by then the beverly was getting first run movies and i must have seen stripes, arthur, victory, and superman II 200 times each… one night, because my last name is sypa, ino one was paying attention and i switched the marquee to read “ sypaman II” instead of superman II “…we would have a girl in each theater and go back and forth between them making out with both of them … the guys would always fight to see who got to be the doorman that night, because when the right girls were in the ticket booth, we had a scam going… say a couple bought two tix and walked in.. the doorman would rip the tix and give them the stubs… then the next couple we would give the other half of the previously ripped tix, then give thier whole tix back to the ticket girl to resell … and we would split and pocket the money at the end of the night.. hey waddya want, we were making minimum wage…lol

chris and sylvia were the managers, and we had a great crew with paco, the wood brothers, barry, susan, carolina, teresa, gail, nunzio, victor, joey bradica and others whose names escape my memory…. where are you guys, drop me a line if you ever read this …. some of the best days of my life… and of course i worked with that ol' red haired nasty matron marie, who was really a doll … i used to tell her stories of her kicking us out and we’d laugh, then go hassle some kids for the fun of it…

so the beverly closed for good in sept of 81, although we knew a secret entrance to sneak in from the back … it was split up into different stores and that tech school… there was a big snow storm and the old roof couldn’t handle it and gave way to a big collapse … it was then cut off from and rebuilt into an annex for ps 230.

i hope that clears up some questions…. i loved and still miss that old theater….