Southland Cinemas 5
24115 Southland Drive,
Hayward,
CA
94541
24115 Southland Drive,
Hayward,
CA
94541
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“The Dungeon” lol I love it! If you have any pictures of the theater from when you worked there, please post them!
Hey fellow treasure hunters!
I used to work at this theater in 1983!
The setup for the brand new 5 screen configuration at that time was as follows:
Cinema 1 was split. Cinema 2 became Cinema 3. Cinema 3 was split into 3 theaters. The loge was 2 tiny shoeboxes the orchestra was one big mess of a theater nicknamed by all the Hayward theaters as THE DUNGEON!
Each side had a Manager’s office and box office which were desks.
Restrooms were located on both sides as well as a candy and soda machine.
Later the box offices were moved to a central location.
The lobby was enormous! But the cinemas themselves were quite dark.
Lots of stairs. Exits and projection booths. No elevators.
BTW the elephant bar is also now closed and demolished as well. Southland mall looks like a ghost town or a prison now… Memories!
I saw Willy Wonka there, when I was six. My grandmother took me. She bought me popcorn in the mall and thought it would be a good idea to have me carry it as we walked across the parking lot. Needless to say, it was not a good idea. I wound up with less than half of it by the time we got inside. I guess they didn’t care so much about that, back then. Parts of the movie scared the bejesus out of me. I didn’t live anywhere near there, so I only went to a couple of other films, the whole time, but I’ve never forgotten the first time.
I just read on FB GENERAL CINEMA MEMORIES, CINEMA ONE SEATING 1276 AND CINEMA TWO WAS 836, THIS FROM MY OLD FRIEND AND ONCE MANAGER OF THIS UNTIE JIM SHEEHAM
The second manager of SOUTHLAND was JIM SHEEHAN just spoke to him and asked what the seating count was for the original twin before the spit into five theaters 1276 and 836, alway run by GENERAL CINEMA the theater is now gone.
Except for that ghost photo and one of the ad i place the other photos JIM SHEEHAN was the second manager of the theater while LARRY GLESON WAS DIVISION MANGER, both of them I work with at WESTGATE CINEMA in BROCKTON MA. we are all still friends today at one time while I was managing BROCKTON I vacationed out in Ca. visiting with both the theater at the time was a very high grossing theater, and remained that for many years, I well find out the seating next time I speak to JIM, I now am retired after forty wonderful years in theaters, and live in ABQ. N.M. DENNIS MAHANEY
I hated these theatres and that awful “shadowbox” screen concept (no curtain, no masking). General Cinema started the then new to California single feature policy and drove a lot of older downtown theatres out of business or into porn before their final demise, the Ritz and Hayward in this case. These theatres were poorly maintained and managed from the beginning and really went downhill when they sub-divided them into little shoe boxes. The last time I attended the film was so dim it looked like it was being projected with a 100 watt light bulb. I asked for my money back and never returned.
Century came in and drove this theatre as well as the Festival and UA complexes on Hesperian Blvd. out of business with their new and much larger San Leandro and Newark multiplexes. That left Hayward with no movie theatres at all until Century opened their multiplex downtown, just a few blocks from where the Hayward and Ritz once stood.
balconyclosed, yes, they took the two cinemas and split them into five. The screen set up you are talking about was called shadowbox and many General Cinemas had this shadowbox design.
I remember seeing The Godfather there when it was called the Cinema 1 & 2. It was nice inside and the cinemas were a good size. The screen looked like a huge bordered pictureframe. During the intermission the screen and border turned a pleasant light blue. I never went to it when more cinemas were added, I was curious if they took the original two and split those.
Does anyone have any photos of the theatre to post?
General Cinema opened the Southland Cinema I & II on December 21, 1967, according to an item in Boxoffice Magazine’s issue of January 1, 1968.
Sadly now an elphant bar now sits were it was.
I remember many a summer days at this theater in the early 80s. We would spend all day theater hopping. I wasn’t a bad kid… just poor.
Drove by this past Saturday & demolition has already begun.
Southland Mall is undergoing a renovation, and as of November 3 2005, demolition of the theater building was underway to make way for two new restaurants.
Sad to hear of this place closing down. I saw lots of movies there when I was growing up. Saw lots of Disney movies there including a re-release of “The Love Bug” where they actually had a VW Bug painted exactly like Herbie parked right in the theater lobby!
Still empty with all windows blacked out.
The GCC Southland was my favorite growing up. I spent many days and nights watching movies here. I preferred this to the other theatres in the area hands down, mostly due to the bizarre hallways and somewhat strange viewing angles created by the plexing of the theatre. They also used lots of fun colored lighting throughout the auditoriums and lobby.
In 1990 the theatre got a remodel, and the old GCC metal seats were replaced with the new high back blue GCC seats. Additionally, the metallic gray walls were painted dark red in auditoriums 1, 2, and 4. The lobby was also painted the new GCC red and gray staples and unfortunately, the got rid of the ‘60s style giant hanging lamps that used to hang in the large front window facade.
The theatre actually closed in October 1999. The last movie I saw here was “The Sixth Sense” in auditorium 2. It was a sold out showing!! Unfortunately, I guess this one movie alone couldn’t balance the declining attendance to the theatre after the Century 25 Union City opened.
This would have made an excellent art-house and specialty theatre, with the many colleges and multi-ethnic demographic in the area. It’s too bad GCC wasn’t in the art-house business. The city of Hayward should have done something to try to save this theatre and keep it operating. There are no art-house theatres in the area, and heck, now there aren’t even any movie theatres in Hayward period!
As of today, the building still stands empty.