Five Points Theater
327 Chestnut Street,
Union,
NJ
07083
327 Chestnut Street,
Union,
NJ
07083
4 people
favorited this theater
Additional Info
Previously operated by: Jerry Lewis Cinemas
Previous Names: Jerry Lewis Cinema
Nearby Theaters
Located at the Five Points intersection of Chestnut Street. The 350-seat Jerry Lewis Cinema opened on May 10, 1972 with Dustin Hoffman in “Straw Dogs”. It was twinned in 1985 and closed around 1997. There is now a Rite-Aid drugstore on the site.
Contributed by
Joe
Want to be emailed when a new comment is posted about this theater?
Just login to your account and subscribe to this theater.
Recent comments (view all 11 comments)
So the twinning did it in, in other words. I’ve seen that happen time and time again throughout my lifetime. For no matter how expert the twinning conversion, from a theatergoer perspective there’s just something unnerving about going to half of what had been a full theater before. So a great single screen theater gets twinned, people get turned off by it, and next thing you know it’s up for demolition. As in, hmmmm, I wonder why…?!
I think you make an interesting point. It is a little weird. Just to be fair, twin conversions can be very profitable. The Evanston Theatre in Evanston, IL did fantastic business after they split it up into four screens for many years afterwards. But the proportions of the converted cinemas were always a strange presentation for the senses.
I can see a newly built cinema built as a twin being successful. But how could any theatergoer expect a single-screen theater having been twinned as somehow being “better”? Where I grew up, the first multiplex to arrive on the scene was precisely that at the outset. A multiplex from the getgo. So people went to it without complaint and derived enjoyment from it because it was all so new and novel. But when the single-screen theaters around us began splitting up into twins and multiplexes to get with the new format, they really became pathetic. For it was impossible not to feel shortchanged from what they had been before. To sit squeezed into a mere slither of what had been a grand large-scale auditorium before. In the name of good taste and respect for the audiences, it just isn’t done. But in this case it was. And now every last one of those split up theaters, plus the multiplex-at-the-getgo that started the trend, is gone. No mystery why.
This theatre was VERY long and narrow after twinning. My T.V. set at home had a bigger screen.
I believe this one actually closed in 1997 – I was home for Christmas one year and remember the marquee read something along the lines of “Thanks for 25 Great Years”
I remember going here in ‘88 to see “Beetlejuice”, then snuck in to see “Above the Law”.
rivest266, can you possibly find an ad for the Jerry Lewis Twin in Carteret NJ which opened on June 7, 1972? The local paper at that time was the Perth Amboy Evening News. If you find it can you post it to the Carteret Twin Cinema page here on Cinema Treasures?
I saw some movies here has a kid the one i remember the most was Batman Returns in 1992 it was a lot of fun. Does anyone have pics of the this theater before it closed in 1995?
I went to see Evita here and that came out in December of 1996 so I don’t think it closed until 1997.
markp: the Jerry Lewis Cinema opened on May 10th, 1972 and twinned in 1985. Grand opening ad posted.