Westchester Mall I-IV
3131 E. Main Street,
Mohegan Lake,
NY
10547
3131 E. Main Street,
Mohegan Lake,
NY
10547
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GCC operated the Westchester Mall I-IV throughout most of its life until United Artists took the quad over from General Cinema in 1994. UA operated the theater for another four additional years until closing in mid-September 1998.
Since the theater that replaced this is now slated for closure, I happened to find this article when searching for info. The information about the theater being inside the old Westchester Mall is incorrect, It was a freestanding building towards the front of the old mall building (which wasn’t really a major mall, just a few stores anchored by a Pergament and Jamesway, and an Alexanders department store prior to that). Also, it was definitely a UA theater before closing when the new 11-screen theater opened. That is inside the mall, such as it is.
This theatre opened as a triplex. The manager of this theatre transferred to NJ sometime after it opened to the GCC Menlo Park Twin in Edison NJ. I remember him talking about it.
This opened on May 29th, 1974. Grand opening ad posted.
I grew up in nearby Putnam Valley in the 80s to mid-90s so I frequented the Westchester Mall (now the Cortlandt Town Center) on a weekly basis. I remember the theater was in a separate building from the rest of the mall, you’d have to walk or drive across the mall parking lot to get to either building. My father and I saw “Home Alone” here during Christmas of 1990, “Home Alone 2”, “Stuart Saves His Family”, “Vampire in Brooklyn” and the last movie I saw twice with each of my parents was “The Birdcage” in June of 1996 before we moved to Atlanta, GA. I’m sorry I didn’t see more movies at this theater because it was a comfy little place compared to all the multiplexes that have sprung up in the last 20 years. It was a General Cinema theater until the mid-90s when they switched ownership to United Artists.
I have a close personal connection to this place i worked there starting in 1995 till it closed then worked at the jv mall theatre in between and then the cortlandt town center one from 1998-2004 good times were had
I’ve learned that UA operated this theatre up until the Cortlandt Town Center 11 opened. GCC stopped running it around 1994, UA around 1998.
Well, it’s only taken me about 11 years to correct this. I confused this shopping center with one called ‘The Westchester’ in White Plains. The Westchester Mall I was referring to was in the town of Cortlandt Manor but the address was E.Main St. Mohegan Lake NY 10547. In 1997 the closed and partially demolished mall was redeveloped and renamed ‘Cortlandt Town Center’, a big-box store paradise with Home Depot, Walmart, Pet Smart, and others. The GCC is long gone but an 11-screen UA theatre is there now. The Westchester Mall Cinema I-IV opened in 1975, and GCC’s usual initial lease was 15 years. I had never been there, but I’d seen photos of it in internal company propaganda promoting some program or another. CT moderator: Could you please change the location to E.Main St. Mohegan Lake NY 10547? Thanks.
I worked at the GCC movie theater in the old westchester mall in Mohegan Lake in the mid 80’s and I know that from when I moved near there in 1976 until it was tore down early 90’s it was always a GCC
Aha! I think we’re getting closer to the truth. I may have been wrong about the Westchester Mall Cinema being a UA theater; I was probably thinking it was because the Jefferson Valley Mall Cinema, also on Route 6 further east, is a UA theater. So the quad in Mohegan Lake was a GCC theater, and so was the Galleria Mall Cinema. Now the only question is, was the Galleria Mall always a twin, or was it ever a quad? And if it was a twin, where the heck were you? It seems likely you were indeed in the Galleria, since I can’t think of any other inside-mall theaters, and I seem to recall that it was a quad. On the other hand, if the Galleria was a quad, where was the White Plains Cinema I & II?
I think Joe Masher is correct and I’m confused. I remember going here when I worked for GCC in the late 1970s, and it was fairly new, inside of a mall, not free-standing. The marquee in the mall had a 1-2-3-4 title board and the word ‘CINEMA’ in small letters, sideways, on the #1 section of the sign. I was visiting from the midwest and not familiar with the area, and I wasn’t the one driving so I didn’t know where the hell we were. Since I’ve been in NYC for a while now I thought “The Westchester” and “Westchester Mall” were one-and-the-same. To further complicate matters, a recently-found list of all of GCC’s theatres in 1983 lists Westchester Mall Cinema I-IV in Mohegon Lake, and White Plains Cinema I & II in White Plains. The exact addresses are not listed.