Galaxy 3

This theatre opened circa 1981 as the Pajaro Showplace. It was a triplex from the beginning. Originally, the boxy structure was painted in a couple of shades of brown. The three identical auditoriums were very plain, with raked seating, turquoise blue soundfold on the walls, and a cubist art deco carpet pattern in shades of blue. When the theatre was built, an article and architect’s rendering appeared in the Register-Pajaronian newspaper heralding the theatre as the beginning of a revival for downtown Watsonville. This really didn’t pan out. Our family lived in nearby Aptos, but both we and our friends nearly always went north to Santa Cruz for our movies. I do remember seeing “Gandhi” at this theatre, and I know I went there a couple of other times in the early and mid 1980s. I’m not sure of the exact year, but I remember it being renamed sometime in the 1990s as the Galaxy, at which time the exterior was given a teal color scheme.
With the opening of the Green Valley cinemas, and the triplexing of the 1923 Fox in the 1990s, perhaps there was too much competition. In the early 1980s when the Pajaro Showplace opened, there was only the Fox and Centre (the latter since demolished) operating downtown, and both were single-screen Spanish language houses. The only other firstrun movie venue at that time was the Starlite Drive-In (long since demolished).