UA owned the property well after it was closed. There is an AM radio station located on the east side of the property. It is/was an interesting piece of property.
As a kid I was always in the Oakdale Shopping Center (back when the theater was with a Shoe Town, Ben Franklin, King Kullen and a Bowling Alley). The big shopping center is actually two seperate strip malls. The first runs from the cleaners next to the bank to the Post Office. The rest is owned by some other group. The section where the theater is located always has a decent amount of occupied stores, while the other end was a ghost town for much of the 1990’s.
Our local church (St. John Nepomucene) used to have Sunday services there (1978-1981) before they built a new building in Bohemia. I remember walking behind the curtain and seeing all the marquee letters lying all over the floor (and stepping on quite a few). I also remember the sticky floor… they never cleaned from the movie the night before and waited until we were done with church before cleaning for the Sunday afternoon movies… many times we’d come back to see the afternoon show.
I remember a HUGE lobby with a small concession stand in the front and a LOOOOONG walk to the bathrooms in the back (probably not as big now as I remember it as a kid).
The theatre started to show second run movies not long after the church stopped renting it for services. By 1987, it was showing 99 cent second runs (I remember seeing s second run of Summer Rental and the power going out in the middle. They gave us free passes for another movie). The theater closed for the first time in 1988 and then reopened around 1990 for a year or two, again as a second run house. This was about the time the shopping center started to fail. KFC closed in 1988/1989, Fotomat and Shoe Town closed just after. King Kullen closed in 1991 when they built the new one near K-Mart on Sunrise Hwy. Ben Franklin closed just after that in 1992. There was a fire in the bagel store and the bowling alley’s roof collapsed during a 1994 snowstorm (the bowling alley was a satelite building which is now a huge empty space at the east end of the shopping center). The theater was gone again by 1994.
When I moved out of Oakdale in 1999, not much was left. Glad to see it’s all being reborn (there is a new supermarket where King Kullen was, a Wendy’s, the Performing Arts Theatre, a card store, a travel agency and comic book shop, a furniture store, a liquor store etc)
What about the South Bay, up the road in West Babylon (I think it opened as a twin.. it now has 6 “screening rooms”). It’s somewhat rundown, but the movies are still cheaper than most (and it does show first one). Last movie I saw there was “Good Will Hunting.”
UA owned the property well after it was closed. There is an AM radio station located on the east side of the property. It is/was an interesting piece of property.
Some interesting stories of the Oakdale.
As a kid I was always in the Oakdale Shopping Center (back when the theater was with a Shoe Town, Ben Franklin, King Kullen and a Bowling Alley). The big shopping center is actually two seperate strip malls. The first runs from the cleaners next to the bank to the Post Office. The rest is owned by some other group. The section where the theater is located always has a decent amount of occupied stores, while the other end was a ghost town for much of the 1990’s.
Our local church (St. John Nepomucene) used to have Sunday services there (1978-1981) before they built a new building in Bohemia. I remember walking behind the curtain and seeing all the marquee letters lying all over the floor (and stepping on quite a few). I also remember the sticky floor… they never cleaned from the movie the night before and waited until we were done with church before cleaning for the Sunday afternoon movies… many times we’d come back to see the afternoon show.
I remember a HUGE lobby with a small concession stand in the front and a LOOOOONG walk to the bathrooms in the back (probably not as big now as I remember it as a kid).
The theatre started to show second run movies not long after the church stopped renting it for services. By 1987, it was showing 99 cent second runs (I remember seeing s second run of Summer Rental and the power going out in the middle. They gave us free passes for another movie). The theater closed for the first time in 1988 and then reopened around 1990 for a year or two, again as a second run house. This was about the time the shopping center started to fail. KFC closed in 1988/1989, Fotomat and Shoe Town closed just after. King Kullen closed in 1991 when they built the new one near K-Mart on Sunrise Hwy. Ben Franklin closed just after that in 1992. There was a fire in the bagel store and the bowling alley’s roof collapsed during a 1994 snowstorm (the bowling alley was a satelite building which is now a huge empty space at the east end of the shopping center). The theater was gone again by 1994.
When I moved out of Oakdale in 1999, not much was left. Glad to see it’s all being reborn (there is a new supermarket where King Kullen was, a Wendy’s, the Performing Arts Theatre, a card store, a travel agency and comic book shop, a furniture store, a liquor store etc)
What about the South Bay, up the road in West Babylon (I think it opened as a twin.. it now has 6 “screening rooms”). It’s somewhat rundown, but the movies are still cheaper than most (and it does show first one). Last movie I saw there was “Good Will Hunting.”
I remember seeing Robin Hood there in 1983 with my dad on the day before Easter. I was 8 at the time. Just a very vivid memory.
Actually, this is still standing. It is a Blockbuster and FYE (For Your Entertainment)