Loew's College Theatre
262 College Street,
New Haven,
CT
06510
262 College Street,
New Haven,
CT
06510
3 people
favorited this theater
Additional Info
Previously operated by: Loew's Inc., Poli, Shubert Brothers Theater Company
Functions: Retail
Styles: Neo-Classical
Previous Names: Carll's Opera House, Hyperion Theatre, College Theatre
Nearby Theaters
Opened as Carll’s Opera House on September 20, 1880. It had a seating capacity for 2,128. Closed in the mid-1970s, Only the lobby seems to remain of the former Loew’s College Theatre. The auditorium may have been demolished as it is no longer visible.
Contributed by
Roger Katz
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Recent comments (view all 18 comments)
I like the name.
In New Haven 1960s you only needed three theaters [four, if you include the POST DRIVE-IN] to get the best out of ‘60s movies: the CROWN, LAWRENCE and LOEW’S COLLEGE, so named because it was on [surprise !] College Street which itself was named for Yale, which was a half-block away. We lived on Lake Place, back of the Payne-Whitney Gym, so I could walk to the COLLEGE and did, often. LOEW’S COLLEGE was THE REAL DEAL for getting the goodness from '60s movies, here’s just a few that I can remember seeing in this biggest/best downtown theater [the Paramount, around the corner was bigger, but its bookings could NOT compare]:GOLDFINGER, TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE, A STRANGER IN TOWN, STRANGER RETURNS, DEVIL DOLL, BURN !, CROSS & THE SWITCHBLADE, WHERE’S POPPA ?—-the term “eclectic” does not do justice to the canyon-wide variety of the COLLEGE’S offerings. Now, I’m not a sentimental man: I never go back, it’s not healthy. But I had some family business which took me back to New Haven for the first time in decades. Not only had they closed the COLLEGE, they’d turned the lobby into an Organic Health Food store [hawk-ptoo]—-with lots of activist/advocate posters, flyers, etc. And hipsters ! In my theater lobby ! [ Question: Why do these health-food characters always look like they’re in the final stages of some fatal wasting disease ? ] I hadn’t carried a gun in years, but I thought, “Me and my M-16, oh yeah, this is worth jail.”
Boxoffice magazine, August 7, 1961, has a photo of the interior.
View link
Thanks for the boxoffice photo Gerald.
The Moving Picture World of October 4, 1912, reported that the Hyperion Theatre had begun its final season as a legitimate house. It was to be operated by the Shuberts until May 1, 1914, when the lease would expire, and then be taken over by S. Z. Poli, to be operated as a movie and vaudeville house (the new Shubert Theatre opened in 1914.) The Hyperion’s career as a stage house was not entirely over, though, as I’ve found references to a repertory season being presented there by Poli in 1920.
Here is a fresh link to the 1951 Boxoffice item with photo that Gerald DeLuca linked to earlier. The item says that the seating capacity of Loew’s recently-remodeled Poli-College Theatre had been reduced from 1,400 to 1,250.
let’s not forget the Roger Sherman theater on College st.
Andrew Craig Morrison’s Theaters says that the Carll’s Opera House/Hyperion/College Theatre was at 1030-1032 Chapel Street. So does This plan of Carll’s. A 1921 New York Times article about the fire at the Rialto Theatre on College Street also says that the Hyperion Theatre was located “…around the corner from the Rialto, in Chapel Street….”
Sometime after 1921, the entrance was reoriented to College Street. This article (which Lost Memory linked to in an earlier comment) about the partial collapse of the Hyrperion Theatre in 1998 indicates that the theater had already been condemned and that preparations for demolition had been begun at the time of the collapse. The auditorium is gone, but the 1920s College Street entrance built for Loew’s is still there.
The nomination form for the Chapel Street Historic District says that the entrance to the College Theatre was not moved to College Street until 1933:
The nomination form also notes that the building that became the new entrance to the theater was an existing structure built in 1915:The College Theatre was still standing when the nomination form was written in 1984.1961 newspaper photo added courtesy of Marc Friedland.
Additional photos of downtown New Haven can be found by searching the below site. Copy & paste to view.
http://www.magrissoforte.com/
hello we are making a documentary on Poli and Poli’s theater, and we are looking for anyone who worked there or used to go to Poli’s theaters often. Please email me () we want to hear from you. Luca