Mercury Theatre
6901 Pearl Road,
Middleburg Heights,
OH
44130
6901 Pearl Road,
Middleburg Heights,
OH
44130
2 people
favorited this theater
Showing 24 comments
Two screens on November 22nd, 1972. Another ad posted.
The Middleburg Heights history link above no longer works. The main website is still up, but the history.php part is now just history/ Doesn’t matter though, I cannot find any pictures or slide shows anymore.
07.03.14 Nice Site! First time visitor. The Mercury Was demolished and first replaced by a new Office Depot store. Office Depot did not last long, and the store is now occupied by JoAnn Fabrics. Growing up in nearby Parma Heights, I have many fond memories of the Mercury.
Mercury grand opening ad May 18th, 1950 uploaded in the photo section
The heading needs to be corrected: the address was 6901 Pearl Road; and as a twin it had 1400 seats, 700 each auditorium.
I remember when the Merc re-opened after twinning that the Cinema II side had seats installed only in the back third because they ran out of time. In fact they were still mopping the dust off the floor when the picture started, a Geo. C. Scott picture I forget the title. They finished the seat install during the night.
In the photos in the link above, along with slides 4, 15 and 16, check out slide 14. It shows the Pearl Road Drive-in theater.
For an old aerial view of the theatre go to
http://www.middleburgheights.com/history.php
Scroll down the page to the slide show
View slide show pics 04, 15, 16
Here are some nice pics from 1977, ‘82 & '83 http://americanclassicimages.com/Default.aspx?tabid=141&txtSearch=CATAdvancedSearch1,35,3,1830&catpagesize=25
May 18th, 1950 ad is at View link
May 18th, 1950 ad is at View link
Here is a fresh link to the August 5, 1950, Boxoffice article about the Mercury Theatre. It continues on the subsequent page (click their “next page” link.)
I remember hearing about a concert held in the theatre but I did not attend. I heard it was very crowded and unrully and the theatre got damaged—torn seats etc… so they never had another concert there again.
Back in the 60’s I believe Mercury held possibly it’s one and only rock concert which I attended.I swear it was the James Gang and King Crimson.Does anyone remember this or any concert?
Yeah! Lots of seats. I remember standing room only! People would stand along the side walls, and even in the lobby behind a short wall to see the movie. This was in the sixties. My first movie there was Mantis—a late fifties monster movie. I was about 9 then.
Ray
sigh. the mercury. best there ever was. far ahead of its time. i believe the theatre was set up stadium style and had larger seats than other places from back then. also accomodated more people too.
and i miss the cool intro before a movie began. last movie i saw there was singles, summer 1992.
Nice article from the Box Office magazine! Great pics also. I remember in the late 1950’s and 60’s the starlike-space designs on the walls and even over the drinking water fountains. And the large sofa in the lobby. The men’s restroom had a small sitting parlor in it with ash trays and chairs.
Ray Nageotte (Frenchy)
Midpark class of 69
An article about the Mercury Theatre appeared in Boxoffice of August 5, 1950. There are four photos. The decoration of the house was by the Hanns Teichert Studios of Chicago, and the architects were the Cleveland firm of Matzinger & Grosel (Paul Matzinger and Rudolph Grosel.)
The opening date of the Mercury Theatre was May 18, 1950. The style should be listed as Art Moderne rather than Art Deco. Boxoffice of May 20, 1950, gave the original seating capacity as a generous 1,600.
Nice pictures, they do not make them like that any more.
As kids, we snuck up to the adult smoking lounge to smoke. We felt really cool. No one complained. But we did get a warning at times by the ushers when they caught us smoking in the mens restroom lounge.
And now Joann Fabrics occupies the building where the Mercury Theater once stood.
I SAW MANY MOVIES AT THE mercury as a child and teen WAR AND PEACE (!) DADDY LONG LEGS, but usually went to the Berea. The Mercury had a nice style. What was really cool was the circular Peter Pan restaurant beside it in the parking lot. The Guggenheim of middleburg Hts. Too bad the only architecturally significant building in thne area are gone.Well, I hear Halle’s is still there at Souithgl;and. I’m in LA now so only occassionally get to check it out.
The building is not empty now—a mega JoAnn Fabric store.
I saw “The Wizard of Oz” in this theater and remember jumping out of my seat when the witch appeared! I ran to the back of theater and cowered behind the ‘walls’ that divided the seated area from the concession area (which I just a had a perfect vision of!).
…can’t imagine all the films I enjoyed here. A darn shame it and the spirit of a neighborhood theater couldn’t survive.
It’s not an Office Max. It was Office Depot. They tore down the Mercury to build an Office Depot. Office Depot left the Cleveland market a year later and the building has been empty ever since.
Does anyone have a photo (inside or out) they’d be willing to email to me? I remember a visit there during a GCC Manager Meeting tour in the late 1980’s. I wish I’d had the forsight to bring a camera with me during those years!