Central Plaza Cinema

This place wasn’t on my radar at all until now.

Whether it originally seated 1300-1400 or 1900, that’s big in any case for a theater built during this time period — larger than Westwood Village’s National, Pasadena’s Hastings and Manhattan’s “new” Ziegfeld, and rivaling Manhattan’s Astor Plaza and National.

The recently demolished National in Westwood Village was frequently cited as one of the last theaters of its size to be built. I wonder just how many single-screen cinemas with 1000+ seats were built in the Sixties and Seventies, after all.

Can anyone think of other examples? (There’s no seating capacity info given for the Totowa Cinema mentioned above. Was it really this large?)

The Totowa Cinema was similar to this one. I only saw it a couple of times passing by on the bus but I never went inside. As I recall it had the same tall glass lobby, and the CINEMA letters on the roof were the red cut-outs not the black-on-white as they are here. I think Totowa was a little newer.

Hey dave-bronx,

Was their Totowa cinema identical to Central Plaza?
And did it and any other area GCC theaters have the same waterfall like Central Plaza ?

Thank You.

Drop me a line soon at , I had ushered at Hartsdale 2.

To Mr. Pibbles. General Cinema doesn’t exsist anymore. They are now part of AMC. They went under in 2001 and AMC bought them in March of 2002. The fall of General Cinma came right after GC brought in a vp from AMC as vp and they went down fast.

My memories of the Central Plaza Cinema are so fond and cherished. I first saw David Lean’s “Dr. Zhivago” there when I was 9 years old. What a presentation. I remember coming out into the fabulous lobby with the cascading water during the intermission, and feeling as though I was in a modern day version of an old time movie palace. The James Bond movies were as thrilling as ever when shown on this grand screen. What a theater it was. Seeing movies there inspired me to want to make movies myself, and today, I am a very successful movie producer living in Los Angeles. Thanks to the old Central Plaza Cinema for feeding my dreams!!!

The architect of the Central Plaza Cinema was William Riseman Associates of Boston. The decor was changed when General Cinema was updating their older theatres, and they went to the darker colors. The “opulent” red carpet used in all GCC’s houses was actually cheap nylon that got flat real fast, and in that lobby, with floor-to-ceiling windows on two sides probably faded real fast also.

Yes, the two level cascading fountain as to your left when you enter into the lobby up the stairs. I have so many fond memories of this theater from growing up to it from it’s opening in late 1966. For a modern theater, it was absolutely one of the best without a doubt until it was twinned in 1974. The lobby was so special with that water fall turned on. The lobby even had a mini art gallery way back and a plaque was hung up in memory ot Mr. Belmont who was the first manager later killed in a fatal car accident. The plaque donated by the employees is nowhere to be found. Belmont Ave in Yonkers is named after his family. All this I know since I had worked for General Cinema’s nearby Hartsdale Cinema Two just up the road.
Anytime I visit Central Plaza, it’s both saddening and irritating to see it needlessly ruined without the water fall, the classy haninging globe lights were removed, the window curtains taken out in place of garish black tint, and that opulent red carpeting was removed. Even the planter of fake plants on the landing of stairway leading to the second level were removed, leaving a disgusting empty space. How hard is it to maintain fake plants??? The rubber on the stairs reminds me of a gymnasium somewhere. Why did they remove the beautiful red carpet ?

Tom Rossi
Yonkers

I was in this theatre once, must have been a great single screen house. It’s a shame they covered over the fountain.