Aquarius Theatres IV
1500 S. Pleasant Valley Road,
Austin,
TX
78741
1500 S. Pleasant Valley Road,
Austin,
TX
78741
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An enormous apartment complex has been built on the site of the Aquarius Theatres IV. For the time being Google’s satellite views still show the theater if you zoom in, but they probably won’t last long.
Grand opening ad in the photo section and below
Aquarius theatres opening · Wed, May 30, 1973 – 75 · Austin American-Statesman (Austin, Texas) · Newspapers.com
Oh yeah, and I saw Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, The Thing, and Galaxy of Terror at the Aquarius IV. I loved this theater.
Hell yes I remember Games Galaxy! Late night on weekends and the stench of cigarette smoke while you played games on that technicolor blue carpet with all the funky patterns on it. By the way, I miss SportsPark- the Victorian building housing a two-story arcade and mini-golf, batting cages, and lastly a roller skating rink that eventually ended up a blazing inferno of fire one night. I always wanted to sneak back there and steal some of those cement fairy tale figures and rehab them for display in my yard, except I never had a yard to put them in. One day when I’m wealthy…
It was bought multiple times in the past 2 years. It currently sits vacant, and is going to be demolished within the next 60-90 days.
This is now the hottest new up and coming area and perfect for an entrepreneur to buy this gorgeous theater and return it to its glory on Lady Bird lake. With the parking space to make it a destination for art film on the east side of south Austin
I agree with Jr, Friday did play there for at least 2 years. I’ve always wondered who did the artwork for the giant Aquarius kneeling Mural that was inside the lobby. I love this place I didn’t care if it was a little run down it was somewhere to go and it always felt like the movie was playing just for me, I also really like the two theaters in the back they were huge. it hurts me now to see what it has become but at least I see it still standing and it feels like a piece of me is still standing in the Riverside area. I promise if I were to ever come into some kind of big money I will re-open it as what it’s supposed to be. I recently visited the old putt putt golf course that was next to it. The Huge T Rex is still standing Humpty Dumpty is still sitting on the wall. sadly I was too young to play there as a young child in the early 80’s before it closed down. Anyone remember Games Galaxy?
Remember it in first run…it always had such a dated look even by the early 80s. I remember a lot of brown and yellow permeating the design. This was in the first wave of lets clean up Riverside and give students who live over there something to do. The theater outlasted everything else. I remember when it went discount it had the movie Friday for what seemed like 2 years.
I saw “Sleepwalkers” there for a dollar in 1992-1993 so it was open at least that long. I remember the very high ceilings with ceiling fans, and sticky carpet…
I worked as a projectionist at the Aquarius in 1980 and 1981 while I went to school at the University of Texas. It was a first-run AMC theater then. It was not in the best part of town, and the theater had ushers posted in the parking lot at night to make sure that people didn’t have their car broken into. There was also an armed robbery at the box office.
I’ll never forget one weekend, when Austin was having huge floods and rain. The water was approaching the theater, but only cut off one road leading to the theater. A lot of people had to evacuate their homes, so they spent all day at the theater. We sold out just about every show.
The Aquarius IV was designed for Trans-Texas Theatres by Austin architect Earl J. Nesbitt Jr., who I believe is still in practice at Austin.
An article about the Aquarius IV (the marquee, like the Boxoffice articles about the theater, featured the Roman numeral, not the Arabic number) published in the September 17, 1973, issue of Boxoffice, some months after the house had opened, gave the seating capacity as 1,606. Auditoriums I and IV each had 254 seats, auditorium II had 656, and auditorium III 442.
i remember that this theatre was actually closed by the city of austin for several code issues like bad wiring. It was last used as a discount house all show were only $1.00 therefore the chain that owned it at the time i believe it was Presideo Theatres i might be wrong but whoever owned it just barly kept the place up. I went there once and my shows made that sqeeking sound as you walked on the carpet in the theatre cause of all the stains and gum on it the screen where it was torn was repaired with grey ductape beening placed from behind the screen real bad screen presentation the apature plate was way over cut so thelight overbeld way over that black border and only one speaker was working behind the screen(center speaker).