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Cinema City Moving to Palace 17
posted by
Taxi
on
June 8, 2010 at 12:55 am
HARTFORD, CT — Cinema City will close its current location and relocate in a wing of the Palace 17.
The art house is moving from Brainard Road to the Bow Tie Palace 17 and Odyssey Theater at 330 New Park Ave., where it will reopen under the name Cinema City at the Palace. The new Cinema City will feature five screens, stadium seating, a new café, digital stereo sound and more parking. The South End theater has four screens and a smaller parking lot, said Joseph Masher, chief operating officer of Bow Tie Cinemas.
Cinema City shows a blend of independent and foreign films and higher-budget films.
“We realize they have a very loyal, very dedicated audience, and it’s because of that loyal fan base that we have done this,” Masher said Wednesday.
Read more in the Hartford Courant.
Comments (2)
Being a huge fan of Bow Tie Cinemas I’m very happy for you, Tomas Kent.
lol – those seats won’t be missed! Although they might have not been bad if there were re-apulstured, while the new Cinema City wing is said to contain artifacts of the old theater, I hope they don’t preserve the musty smell of the old place and pipe it in to the new Cinema City wing!
On a serious note: I do have confidence Bow Tie will be keeping the same programing, although the New Haven Criterion Cinemas started as mostly an art house and slowly slid more towards mainstream aside from the later added “digital screening rooms” – the theater started with 5 and grew to 9, although the screenings rooms originally were intended for private rentals). Of coarse it appears Cinema City itself is a little less daring (the enjoyable and beautifully shot Letters to Juliet is playing this week) with Showcase Cinemas East Hartford closed. I assumed historically Cinema City and East Hartford could not/did not play the same films at the same time. This agreement/booking territory probably extended way way back. Occasionally when they were under different ownership Cinema City (Hoyts) and the (Crown) Palace would show something day and date when it was of interest to their different markets – I remember Love Actually and Under the Tuscan Sun having books at Cinema City and not East Hartford in the Hoyts/Northeastern era.
If anything “Cinema City” can become a sort of brand, Crown tried that by calling it “ART @ Cinema City” – lame name if you ask me. I’m all for indie films getting more exposure and a label if it means more people will see them like “AMC Select” or the refreshed “AMC Independent” – but I’m not sure if the label helps without proper marketing. I’m more optimistic about a separate wing of Cinema City and wish it well, it has to succeed or you’ll be driving to New Haven or (sometimes for some flicks) Middletown to see these commercial indies.