A few years ago I enjoyed walking across the parking lot towards the large exotic building, like I’ve come upon something honoring antiquity, then taking in the details of the lobby before and after a film.
If I remember correctly a depiction of a river (the Nile?) was part of the décor of the floor which I would follow to see where it went. Sometimes I’d sit and enjoy the lobby atmosphere for some time after the cinematic show I came to see was over.
This theater and the Muvico company are discussed on pages 122-127 in the book “The Community of Cinema: How Cinema and Spectacle Transformed the American Downtown” by James Forsher, published in 2003. Included are a photo of the lobby, the exterior, a child care center, with excerpts from an interview with Muvico president Hamid Hashemi from October 2001, woven into the text.
I’d see the marquee as my parents and I would occasionally drive past on our way to McDonalds just east of Bay Shore in Islip, and I’d wonder what the inside was like.
At one point, (in maybe May 1979 according to when Wikipedia says it was released), a movie version of “Battlestar Galactica”, one of my favorite television shows, was playing there, but left before I asked my parents to take me. (I may have been waiting for school to let out for summer, not knowing it wouldn’t still be showing. I also got the impression my parents were mildly reluctant to go there…. something in the tone of my mother’s voice as she mentioned the beautiful chandeliers, like she and my father had some bittersweet memory of the theater from an earlier time when their lives were different, that they didn’t want to relive.)
I assumed there would eventually be another reason for me to visit the theater …. then on one trip through Bay Shore, it was closed. Later I was shocked when it was suddenly a YMCA with the marquee and entrance completely gone.
Decades after, there are personal computers, then something called the internet, then Cinema Treasures… and whoa — suddenly I’m getting to see what the inside looked like when I never thought I would!
During what I called my “PA Trip ‘13”, I visited New Freedom on August 31st, 2013 to take a ride on the Steam into History train. (That day’s excursion had a Civil War theme.)
Before I arrived, I checked Cinema Treasures to see if there were any theaters listed for the town… and there was one — that was now an ice cream store — so I just had to go!
As I drove up, the place was cute as I expected, on a mostly residential street. Inside, the small lobby was now Bonkey’s Ice Cream. A convenience store-style drink refrigerator took up most of what had been the box office, beyond which the ticket seller would have had a pleasant view of the houses across the street. The ice cream counter was in front of two wooden doors that used to be the entrance to the auditorium.
I said to the three young women working there, “I had to come here just cause it used to be a movie theater”. They said through the doors behind them is what were the theater’s aisles but the seats and screen are gone, that there are still some seats upstairs and some film canisters but “it’s just creepy and we don’t go back there”. … I joked they should have popcorn flavored ice cream and they claimed they do sometimes have one that wasn’t out at the moment. I got a scoop of pumpkin flavor and said I felt like buying a movie ticket too.
I had arrived as the only customer, but as I turned around with cone in hand there were 7+ now waiting in line behind me out the front door. I thanked the ladies, took a last look at the little place, and consumed the cone at the benches just outside under the marquee.
The Bonkey’s chain homepage says the New Freedom location became the ice cream store in May 2004.
I would like to know more about the theater: people’s personal stories of seeing films or working there, when it closed, what other businesses occupied the location, if it‘s name was really New Theater…
The ice cream store is open seasonally from “St. Patrick’s Day, March 17 – Mid September 1st day of Fall” according to the “about” part of the Facebook page.
Across Aragon Avenue from what had been the location of the Coral is the Colonnade Hotel. At one point in its history many decades ago the hotel had been a movie studio. A few years ago I noticed a picture of the exterior of the building during its studio years included in some historic photos on the walls of the hotel’s second floor lobby.
Across Ponce de Leon Blvd from what would later become the location of the Coral was the Dream Theater, the city’s first cinema that opened and closed in the 1920’s.
To see the projection booth, position Google Street View in the ally on the left side of the bank. Enter the ally and proceed till there’s a parking lot on your right, then pivot right so that you see the bank’s drive-thru. Look for the two windows, one on top the other with blue awnings over them, in the short tower above the drive-thru. That’s the projection booth, adjacent to three other windows with blue awnings next to each other. The parking lot is where the outdoor theater, “reminiscent of a Spanish bullring” according to the museum’s display, would have been.
The Coral Gables Museum is one block away at 285 Aragon Avenue. (Actually, if you continue down the ally to its end on Street View, you’ll end up behind it.)
The Coral Gables Museum homepage is currently an image of the permanent exhibit about the founding of the city. The display about the Dream Theater is on the other end of the room under the word “DREAM” in neon light, with a man on a horse and a television screen below it.
A glimpse of the Dream Theater display can be seen on Youtube from 1:42 to 1:49 in the video “Coral Gables Museum: Year One“.
Imagine you are at the grand opening of the Dream Theater as the film is about to begin…then click on this.
When I’ve visited they’ve had a small interesting collection of old film cameras and projectors on display on the second floor. (I hope they are still there.)
Next to Books & Books is the Coral Gables Museum with permanent exhibits about the history of the City of Coral Gables and periodically changing exhibits of local and statewide interest.
In the above Google Street View image The Absinthe House was in the part of the grey building that now says “ADC”.
At the time, as I remember, there may have been more open space with some plants where the window below the red awning is now, and the building was all red brick. … I walked by recently and only the shape of the building and entrance look the same, with seemingly nothing left of the theater on the inside.
The first time I visited in the mid 1990’s it was called the Alcazar Cinematheque. The entrance was at the end of the hallway that you can see flanked by plants in the Street View image. The front door resembled the front door to a house. A middle aged Latin American man to whom I paid admission was standing in a little rectangular opening just inside the front door on the right. Next to this ticket window was an open doorway to a room with a concession stand and some seating. If you walked straight a few feet instead of entering the room you would have reached the doors to the auditorium.
The next time I visited a couple years later it was the Absinthe House Cinematheque run by two guys in their 20’s, Johnny and Cesar. The ticket window/smaller concession stand was now next to the doors to the auditorium. The room where the concession stand had been was now reconceived by the guys into a space with couches, film posters, subdued lighting, multi-colored walls, and an artsy living room/den-type vibe. The rest of the lobby was a maroon/brick colored hue.
A few times I hung out in the artsy room after seeing a film and got to know the guys a little bit.… Once the projectionist, a middle aged man who spoke little English, sat there with us. He and I smiled at each other and I said he reminds me of the projectionist depicted in the Italian film “Cinema Paradiso”. Johnny understood I was referring to the man’s dedication and not just appearance, and translated what I had said for him. They exchanged a few sentences, then Johnny looked at me, and seemingly moved, said “That’s a compliment, man”.
On a later night, closer to the time the Absinthe closed for good, I recall a full house, perhaps for “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”. Cesar spoke to the crowd before the film, thanking them for their support. As he exited up the aisle for the start of the show, some of his friends in the audience chanted “Hail, Cesar!”, in appreciation of the work the guys were doing to keep the place running.
A Miami New Times article from August 6th, 1998: “The Intoxicating Absinthe”, about the opening of the Absinthe and its transition from being the Alcazar.
A Miami New Times article from July 1st 1999: “Off Camera”, about the then impending closing of the Absinthe, which was then delayed another year or so.
For a time the comedy troupe Just the Funny put on their performances in the space. The Absinthe House Cinematheque logo, with a depiction of perhaps a European-looking black cat, can be seen on this page about the troupe’s history.
The clothing store on the left of the hallway was the original location of the Miami Beach branch of Books & Books which has since moved down the hall into the former Alliance Cinema space.
Here are two articles from the Miami New Times that discuss the state of art house exhibition in Miami at the time they were written, including the Alliance Cinema and its situation with the Regal Cinema opening a few blocks away also on Lincoln Road:
I attended a live performance of the play “The Nether” here on January 30th, 2016.
There is one auditorium and another space used as a dance studio. I asked a person whom I was told was one of the owners and she said that “only the pit” from one of the original Riviera Cinema auditoriums was used which was then otherwise “completely redone” to create the Area Stage Company auditorium. … The staircase that goes left and right from the doorway to the auditorium down to the seating felt familiar to me but nothing else was recognizable.
The place is not in the business of exhibiting films though some digital projection was an element in the live performance I saw. (Also as I mentioned in my previous post I had seen a documentary there when an organization rented the auditorium for one evening some years ago.) A tech booth is next to the doorway/staircase (not where a projection booth would traditionally be in a cinema) with a digital projector suspended near the ceiling above the seats.
What had been the Riviera Cinema rear/side exit into the breezeway is actually now a rear exit of the Aleren women’s fashion store which occupies the former lobby of the cinema.
The entrance to the Area Stage Company is just beyond this former rear exit of the cinema at the end of the breezeway. There’s a small office building-type lobby with an elevator, staircase and menu board for offices upstairs (some for businesses unrelated to the stage company), with the doors to the stage company lobby at the back of the office building-type lobby.
On my way home I looked through the front doors of the Aleren women’s fashion store which had been the front doors to the Riviera Cinema. I could recognize the shape of the ceiling from the Riviera Cinema lobby where the guy I mentioned in my previous post had created his murals. The register in the center of Aleren is approximately where the Riviera’s concession stand had been.
Ripshin: Yes I had seen your comment that you had lived in San Remo, which is why I thought to mention I had lived two blocks behind the Riviera (in Chateau Riviera actually, next to San Remo, from 1991-98) in my original post. :) Both buildings are still there but I believe San Remo “went condo” a few years ago while Chateau is still apartments.
The Sunset Theater was already closed when I arrived in Miami in 1987, so I never got to see what the inside looked like when it was open for business.
In the late 1990’s, I visited the marine/boating supply store that was then still open immediately to the left of the defunct theater. A doorway shaped opening had been created through the wall shared by the store and theater near the front of the store, so I walked through.
The seats and screen were gone and the walls were black. A garage door had been installed below where the screen would have been, probably for the boat trailers that were then in the old back parking lot. Behind me there was no lobby, just the front doors and dusty ticket booth. (I’ve heard the lobby had been small or almost didn’t exist, or there may have just been a curtain a few feet in from the front door to separate it from the seating area?) To the left of the front doors was an abandoned popcorn machine. Above all this I could see the square hole through which the projector had shone its lamp. …. I tried to imagine having seen films here, but felt like I didn’t have enough to go on.
A couple years later I read a Miami Herald article saying that the Bacardi family owned the property and there was talk of maybe reopening the cinema and adding some stores behind it. Then at some point I noticed some new walls installed just inside the front doors and a decal with the words “Rum Bum” above the door. There may have been a banner hung and/or I may have read that a surf shop was to open there, but months later nothing more was done.
I used to enjoy fantasizing about running a cinema there as I would walk by on my way to Winn Dixie or downtown South Miami, but at some point in the early 00’s, maybe 2003, it (and the marine supply store) was demolished.
The land was vacant for several years and now a large grey office/business building has opened on the property. The older buildings next door including Fox’s Sherron Inn (bar/restaurant from the 1940’s) have recently been fenced off for probable demolition, meaning all the surrounding buildings from the time of the Sunset Theater will soon be gone.
I imagine it was fun, back in their day, to have dinner at Fox’s then see a movie at the Sunset, or for drinks at Fox’s after a movie.
This theater was demolished, as can be seen in the Google Street View image on this page, sometime after March of 2011.
To see what it looked like, type the street address into Google Maps, switch to Street View, then click on the arrow next to the clock icon below the address in the upper left corner of the screen, then choose 2008 or 2011. The theater is small with an awning over the door.
I knew it as the Astor Art Cinema and saw several foreign and independent films there in the 1990’s. I looked forward to going to the little cinema with a cute small lobby, down the block from a 7-11, on a street of one or two story office-like buildings that were closed in the evening, to buy a ticket and popcorn from what I remember as a nice older couple who ran it. … A standout experience was seeing Roberto Benigni’s “Life is Beautiful”, with the people sitting around me weeping as the credits rolled and the lights eventually came up.
The New Theater stage production company that occupied the building after it was a cinema now has an office on Coral Way and puts on its performances at the South Miami-Dade Cultural Arts Center in Cutler Bay.
By the early 00’s, the Oceanwalk 10 was demolished.
I’ve uploaded photos I took in January 2015 of the property still empty and landscaped with grass where the multiplex used to be.
In 1992 I visited the Hollywood Beach boardwalk for the first time when a group of friends from the University of Miami and I went for a drive and ended up there.
From the boardwalk I entered the then active Oceanwalk Mall (with businesses in most of its storefronts, unlike today), then exited through the opposite doors facing the mainland…. and there across a sort of service road was the entrance of this multiplex oddly placed between the mall, a parking garage, Ocean Drive/A1A, and the elevated end of Hollywood Blvd.
I approached the box office and saw into the lobby (typical-looking of the AMC theater chain in the 90’s) but never saw a movie there. (I vaguely remember a poster for “The Abyss” possibly being in one of the poster boxes.)
Years later I walked by and the theater was closed. A year or so after that I walked by again and saw rubble being cleared away.
When I’m in the area, I often think of that first visit in 1992…
Wow, the first place I ever saw a movie still exists!
When I was a little kid my mother brought me to the South Bay in maybe 1974 to see the cartoon feature “The Aristocats”. Though I had been attracted to the ads on tv or in the paper because I love cats, I was overwhelmed by how “big” the screen was (having never been to a cinema before) and we left early. In 1976 I urged my father to take me here to see “In Search of Noah’s Ark”, the second time I had ever gone to the movies. (To this day I still love documentaries.)
Later on in the 1980’s, I saw the “Back to the Future” films, “Dead Poet’s Society”, and others.
In the corner of the shopping center across the parking lot from the theater there was some nightclub in the 80’s called Les Jardins. While in high school I heard some other kids talking about it as if going there would be naughty or daring and some claimed to have gone themselves but I never went. (The club may have been open to people under 21 on some nights.)
In the 70’s I sort of remember smoking being allowed in this theater and seeing lit cigarettes in the darkness, then not in the 80’s. (Am I correct, does anyone remember?)
As an adjunct professor I believe Bill Cosford had an office on the first floor directly below the cinema when it was called the Beaumont. I remember walking by and seeing him at work in there through a window. (The film department offices have since moved to a new Communications building.)
I remember attending a Miami Film Festival seminar at Miami-Dade Community College in downtown Miami, probably about film criticism, where Bill Cosford participated as a panelist. ….. Less than a year later I heard he had suddenly passed away from an illness contracted during a ski trip vacation if I remember correctly.
When I was a University of Miami student from 1987-1991, the Beaumont was mostly for student use, for film premiers for the University community, for film students to screen their work, or as a classroom as needed, (though I had heard it was sometimes open to the public in the earlier 1980’s before I arrived).
Since being renamed in Bill Cosford’s honor, it has been open to the public on weekends as well as continuing to serve the students/University community.
Thanks Ken for adding this listing after I mentioned it!
On Google Streetview if you look a few yards north on US-1 to where there’s a red sign saying “AMC Sunset Place 24” above a blue sign saying “IMAX”, that’s what I was describing as the US-1 entrance to the Shops at Sunset Place. …. If one were to make the right turn under the Sunset Place logo sign and immediately look to the right, you’d see the LA Fitness.
Visited the Wolfsonian-FIU Museum at 1001 Washington Avenue, Miami Beach, FL 33139 once again last year. This time I finally read the caption for the interesting golden structure at the back of the museum lobby…. then had to look on Cinema Treasures and found this page for the Norris.
Look at the grille above the marquee in the historic photo above, then click on this:
A few years ago during a historic walking tour of downtown an older person told me what is now a perfume counter/store on the left side of the entrance extending into the lobby used to be the concession stand. … In this photo it looks like the concession was a little farther in, or maybe that’s what the person meant.
A few years ago during a historic walking tour of downtown an older person told me what is now a perfume counter/store on the left side of the entrance extending into the lobby used to be the concession stand. … In a photo posted here on the photos page it looks like the concession was a little farther in, or maybe that’s what the person meant.
Ugh, another cinema (along with The Carib) where I feel like I missed something by not getting to see it in its day.
I like walking by the façade… Then seconds later I’m walking by the Olympia.
I would have liked to have experienced the several theaters on one street atmosphere, especially at night, like on Flagler Street or Lincoln Road, like cities used to have back then.
Does anyone know of a city street anywhere in the world that still has several open theaters operating in almost a row with their lit up marquees?
This theater closed a few years ago and the official website listed here for the Retro no longer exists.
I visited Washington, GA in August 2009 to visit the Robert Toombs historic site and nearby Ruffin Flag Company, and also stopped by the Retro Cinema. I believe I spoke to Richard Kibbey.
The bottom of this Yelp page says the Kibbeys who owned the Retro moved to Madison, GA and reopened there as Ricky D’s which included a cinema at 139 E. Jefferson Street in 2014 with décor/a theme much like the Retro. The Yelp page says Ricky D’s is now closed.
A few years ago I enjoyed walking across the parking lot towards the large exotic building, like I’ve come upon something honoring antiquity, then taking in the details of the lobby before and after a film.
If I remember correctly a depiction of a river (the Nile?) was part of the décor of the floor which I would follow to see where it went. Sometimes I’d sit and enjoy the lobby atmosphere for some time after the cinematic show I came to see was over.
This theater and the Muvico company are discussed on pages 122-127 in the book “The Community of Cinema: How Cinema and Spectacle Transformed the American Downtown” by James Forsher, published in 2003. Included are a photo of the lobby, the exterior, a child care center, with excerpts from an interview with Muvico president Hamid Hashemi from October 2001, woven into the text.
The company’s Egyptian style theater in Maryland looks cool too.
Jeff M.: Thanks for posting these photos!
I grew up in West Islip, but did not get to see the inside of this theater before it closed.
(Looking at the photos, I believe I may have played in the nice entrance way around the box office and golden fixtures once for a minute during a stroll through town when the theater was not open, but that’s as close as I got.)
I’d see the marquee as my parents and I would occasionally drive past on our way to McDonalds just east of Bay Shore in Islip, and I’d wonder what the inside was like.
At one point, (in maybe May 1979 according to when Wikipedia says it was released), a movie version of “Battlestar Galactica”, one of my favorite television shows, was playing there, but left before I asked my parents to take me. (I may have been waiting for school to let out for summer, not knowing it wouldn’t still be showing. I also got the impression my parents were mildly reluctant to go there…. something in the tone of my mother’s voice as she mentioned the beautiful chandeliers, like she and my father had some bittersweet memory of the theater from an earlier time when their lives were different, that they didn’t want to relive.)
I assumed there would eventually be another reason for me to visit the theater …. then on one trip through Bay Shore, it was closed. Later I was shocked when it was suddenly a YMCA with the marquee and entrance completely gone.
Decades after, there are personal computers, then something called the internet, then Cinema Treasures… and whoa — suddenly I’m getting to see what the inside looked like when I never thought I would!
During what I called my “PA Trip ‘13”, I visited New Freedom on August 31st, 2013 to take a ride on the Steam into History train. (That day’s excursion had a Civil War theme.)
Before I arrived, I checked Cinema Treasures to see if there were any theaters listed for the town… and there was one — that was now an ice cream store — so I just had to go!
As I drove up, the place was cute as I expected, on a mostly residential street. Inside, the small lobby was now Bonkey’s Ice Cream. A convenience store-style drink refrigerator took up most of what had been the box office, beyond which the ticket seller would have had a pleasant view of the houses across the street. The ice cream counter was in front of two wooden doors that used to be the entrance to the auditorium.
I said to the three young women working there, “I had to come here just cause it used to be a movie theater”. They said through the doors behind them is what were the theater’s aisles but the seats and screen are gone, that there are still some seats upstairs and some film canisters but “it’s just creepy and we don’t go back there”. … I joked they should have popcorn flavored ice cream and they claimed they do sometimes have one that wasn’t out at the moment. I got a scoop of pumpkin flavor and said I felt like buying a movie ticket too.
I had arrived as the only customer, but as I turned around with cone in hand there were 7+ now waiting in line behind me out the front door. I thanked the ladies, took a last look at the little place, and consumed the cone at the benches just outside under the marquee.
The Bonkey’s chain homepage says the New Freedom location became the ice cream store in May 2004.
I would like to know more about the theater: people’s personal stories of seeing films or working there, when it closed, what other businesses occupied the location, if it‘s name was really New Theater…
A nice promotional photo of the exterior of the theater as Bonkey‘s Ice Cream.
Check out the Bonkey’s New Freedom location Facebook page.
The ice cream store is open seasonally from “St. Patrick’s Day, March 17 – Mid September 1st day of Fall” according to the “about” part of the Facebook page.
A different angle of the exterior.
Across Aragon Avenue from what had been the location of the Coral is the Colonnade Hotel. At one point in its history many decades ago the hotel had been a movie studio. A few years ago I noticed a picture of the exterior of the building during its studio years included in some historic photos on the walls of the hotel’s second floor lobby.
Across Ponce de Leon Blvd from what would later become the location of the Coral was the Dream Theater, the city’s first cinema that opened and closed in the 1920’s.
To see the projection booth, position Google Street View in the ally on the left side of the bank. Enter the ally and proceed till there’s a parking lot on your right, then pivot right so that you see the bank’s drive-thru. Look for the two windows, one on top the other with blue awnings over them, in the short tower above the drive-thru. That’s the projection booth, adjacent to three other windows with blue awnings next to each other. The parking lot is where the outdoor theater, “reminiscent of a Spanish bullring” according to the museum’s display, would have been.
The Coral Gables Museum is one block away at 285 Aragon Avenue. (Actually, if you continue down the ally to its end on Street View, you’ll end up behind it.)
The Coral Gables Museum homepage is currently an image of the permanent exhibit about the founding of the city. The display about the Dream Theater is on the other end of the room under the word “DREAM” in neon light, with a man on a horse and a television screen below it.
A glimpse of the Dream Theater display can be seen on Youtube from 1:42 to 1:49 in the video “Coral Gables Museum: Year One“.
Imagine you are at the grand opening of the Dream Theater as the film is about to begin…then click on this.
Here is a nice photo of the exterior on their website’s “History & Mission” page.
When I’ve visited they’ve had a small interesting collection of old film cameras and projectors on display on the second floor. (I hope they are still there.)
Books & Books, an independent bookstore named “Best Bookstore of the Year” in 2015 by Publishers Weekly is across the street, where there are author presentations every night.
Next to Books & Books is the Coral Gables Museum with permanent exhibits about the history of the City of Coral Gables and periodically changing exhibits of local and statewide interest.
The three make a nice cultural hub.
One block away on Miracle Mile is the Actors' Playhouse at the Miracle Theater.
The official website is http://www.gablescinema.com/
The Mercury was named Best Art Cinema by the Miami New Times in 2001.
In the above Google Street View image The Absinthe House was in the part of the grey building that now says “ADC”.
At the time, as I remember, there may have been more open space with some plants where the window below the red awning is now, and the building was all red brick. … I walked by recently and only the shape of the building and entrance look the same, with seemingly nothing left of the theater on the inside.
The first time I visited in the mid 1990’s it was called the Alcazar Cinematheque. The entrance was at the end of the hallway that you can see flanked by plants in the Street View image. The front door resembled the front door to a house. A middle aged Latin American man to whom I paid admission was standing in a little rectangular opening just inside the front door on the right. Next to this ticket window was an open doorway to a room with a concession stand and some seating. If you walked straight a few feet instead of entering the room you would have reached the doors to the auditorium.
The next time I visited a couple years later it was the Absinthe House Cinematheque run by two guys in their 20’s, Johnny and Cesar. The ticket window/smaller concession stand was now next to the doors to the auditorium. The room where the concession stand had been was now reconceived by the guys into a space with couches, film posters, subdued lighting, multi-colored walls, and an artsy living room/den-type vibe. The rest of the lobby was a maroon/brick colored hue.
A few times I hung out in the artsy room after seeing a film and got to know the guys a little bit.… Once the projectionist, a middle aged man who spoke little English, sat there with us. He and I smiled at each other and I said he reminds me of the projectionist depicted in the Italian film “Cinema Paradiso”. Johnny understood I was referring to the man’s dedication and not just appearance, and translated what I had said for him. They exchanged a few sentences, then Johnny looked at me, and seemingly moved, said “That’s a compliment, man”.
On a later night, closer to the time the Absinthe closed for good, I recall a full house, perhaps for “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”. Cesar spoke to the crowd before the film, thanking them for their support. As he exited up the aisle for the start of the show, some of his friends in the audience chanted “Hail, Cesar!”, in appreciation of the work the guys were doing to keep the place running.
Before the Absinthe closed, the guys opened the Mercury Cinema (later renamed Soyka) with a third guy, Ray, which was named Best Art Cinema by the Miami New Times in 2001 before it closed in 2003.
A Miami New Times article from August 6th, 1998: “The Intoxicating Absinthe”, about the opening of the Absinthe and its transition from being the Alcazar.
A Miami New Times article from July 1st 1999: “Off Camera”, about the then impending closing of the Absinthe, which was then delayed another year or so.
For a time the comedy troupe Just the Funny put on their performances in the space. The Absinthe House Cinematheque logo, with a depiction of perhaps a European-looking black cat, can be seen on this page about the troupe’s history.
Nat Chediak, who as mentioned above originally started the Miami Film Festival at this location, is now the nearby Coral Gables Art Cinema Director of Programming: “You’re Never Too Young or Old to Love Film”
The Alliance was at the end of the hallway pictured here.
The clothing store on the left of the hallway was the original location of the Miami Beach branch of Books & Books which has since moved down the hall into the former Alliance Cinema space.
Here are two articles from the Miami New Times that discuss the state of art house exhibition in Miami at the time they were written, including the Alliance Cinema and its situation with the Regal Cinema opening a few blocks away also on Lincoln Road:
“Missing the Big Picture” from June 17th, 1999.
“Reeling in the Year” from January 4th, 2001. The photo is of whom I remember as the Alliance projectionist at the time.
Joanne Butcher is mentioned in the articles, and here on Cinema Treasures she gives her own take in her comment above from December 20th, 2008.
In 2016, Miami is served by several art cinemas, most of which did not exist at the time the New Times articles were written.
I attended a live performance of the play “The Nether” here on January 30th, 2016.
There is one auditorium and another space used as a dance studio. I asked a person whom I was told was one of the owners and she said that “only the pit” from one of the original Riviera Cinema auditoriums was used which was then otherwise “completely redone” to create the Area Stage Company auditorium. … The staircase that goes left and right from the doorway to the auditorium down to the seating felt familiar to me but nothing else was recognizable.
Here is what their auditorium looks like.
The place is not in the business of exhibiting films though some digital projection was an element in the live performance I saw. (Also as I mentioned in my previous post I had seen a documentary there when an organization rented the auditorium for one evening some years ago.) A tech booth is next to the doorway/staircase (not where a projection booth would traditionally be in a cinema) with a digital projector suspended near the ceiling above the seats.
What had been the Riviera Cinema rear/side exit into the breezeway is actually now a rear exit of the Aleren women’s fashion store which occupies the former lobby of the cinema.
The entrance to the Area Stage Company is just beyond this former rear exit of the cinema at the end of the breezeway. There’s a small office building-type lobby with an elevator, staircase and menu board for offices upstairs (some for businesses unrelated to the stage company), with the doors to the stage company lobby at the back of the office building-type lobby.
On my way home I looked through the front doors of the Aleren women’s fashion store which had been the front doors to the Riviera Cinema. I could recognize the shape of the ceiling from the Riviera Cinema lobby where the guy I mentioned in my previous post had created his murals. The register in the center of Aleren is approximately where the Riviera’s concession stand had been.
Ripshin: Yes I had seen your comment that you had lived in San Remo, which is why I thought to mention I had lived two blocks behind the Riviera (in Chateau Riviera actually, next to San Remo, from 1991-98) in my original post. :) Both buildings are still there but I believe San Remo “went condo” a few years ago while Chateau is still apartments.
The Sunset Theater was already closed when I arrived in Miami in 1987, so I never got to see what the inside looked like when it was open for business.
In the late 1990’s, I visited the marine/boating supply store that was then still open immediately to the left of the defunct theater. A doorway shaped opening had been created through the wall shared by the store and theater near the front of the store, so I walked through.
The seats and screen were gone and the walls were black. A garage door had been installed below where the screen would have been, probably for the boat trailers that were then in the old back parking lot. Behind me there was no lobby, just the front doors and dusty ticket booth. (I’ve heard the lobby had been small or almost didn’t exist, or there may have just been a curtain a few feet in from the front door to separate it from the seating area?) To the left of the front doors was an abandoned popcorn machine. Above all this I could see the square hole through which the projector had shone its lamp. …. I tried to imagine having seen films here, but felt like I didn’t have enough to go on.
A couple years later I read a Miami Herald article saying that the Bacardi family owned the property and there was talk of maybe reopening the cinema and adding some stores behind it. Then at some point I noticed some new walls installed just inside the front doors and a decal with the words “Rum Bum” above the door. There may have been a banner hung and/or I may have read that a surf shop was to open there, but months later nothing more was done.
I used to enjoy fantasizing about running a cinema there as I would walk by on my way to Winn Dixie or downtown South Miami, but at some point in the early 00’s, maybe 2003, it (and the marine supply store) was demolished.
The land was vacant for several years and now a large grey office/business building has opened on the property. The older buildings next door including Fox’s Sherron Inn (bar/restaurant from the 1940’s) have recently been fenced off for probable demolition, meaning all the surrounding buildings from the time of the Sunset Theater will soon be gone.
I imagine it was fun, back in their day, to have dinner at Fox’s then see a movie at the Sunset, or for drinks at Fox’s after a movie.
This theater was demolished, as can be seen in the Google Street View image on this page, sometime after March of 2011.
To see what it looked like, type the street address into Google Maps, switch to Street View, then click on the arrow next to the clock icon below the address in the upper left corner of the screen, then choose 2008 or 2011. The theater is small with an awning over the door.
I knew it as the Astor Art Cinema and saw several foreign and independent films there in the 1990’s. I looked forward to going to the little cinema with a cute small lobby, down the block from a 7-11, on a street of one or two story office-like buildings that were closed in the evening, to buy a ticket and popcorn from what I remember as a nice older couple who ran it. … A standout experience was seeing Roberto Benigni’s “Life is Beautiful”, with the people sitting around me weeping as the credits rolled and the lights eventually came up.
The New Theater stage production company that occupied the building after it was a cinema now has an office on Coral Way and puts on its performances at the South Miami-Dade Cultural Arts Center in Cutler Bay.
Still, I miss the cuteness of the Astor.
The Silver Moon Drive-in can be glimpsed momentarily by passengers on passing Amtrak trains. : )
(I just uploaded a photo.)
By the early 00’s, the Oceanwalk 10 was demolished.
I’ve uploaded photos I took in January 2015 of the property still empty and landscaped with grass where the multiplex used to be.
In 1992 I visited the Hollywood Beach boardwalk for the first time when a group of friends from the University of Miami and I went for a drive and ended up there.
From the boardwalk I entered the then active Oceanwalk Mall (with businesses in most of its storefronts, unlike today), then exited through the opposite doors facing the mainland…. and there across a sort of service road was the entrance of this multiplex oddly placed between the mall, a parking garage, Ocean Drive/A1A, and the elevated end of Hollywood Blvd.
I approached the box office and saw into the lobby (typical-looking of the AMC theater chain in the 90’s) but never saw a movie there. (I vaguely remember a poster for “The Abyss” possibly being in one of the poster boxes.)
Years later I walked by and the theater was closed. A year or so after that I walked by again and saw rubble being cleared away.
When I’m in the area, I often think of that first visit in 1992…
Wow, the first place I ever saw a movie still exists!
When I was a little kid my mother brought me to the South Bay in maybe 1974 to see the cartoon feature “The Aristocats”. Though I had been attracted to the ads on tv or in the paper because I love cats, I was overwhelmed by how “big” the screen was (having never been to a cinema before) and we left early. In 1976 I urged my father to take me here to see “In Search of Noah’s Ark”, the second time I had ever gone to the movies. (To this day I still love documentaries.)
Later on in the 1980’s, I saw the “Back to the Future” films, “Dead Poet’s Society”, and others.
In the corner of the shopping center across the parking lot from the theater there was some nightclub in the 80’s called Les Jardins. While in high school I heard some other kids talking about it as if going there would be naughty or daring and some claimed to have gone themselves but I never went. (The club may have been open to people under 21 on some nights.)
In the 70’s I sort of remember smoking being allowed in this theater and seeing lit cigarettes in the darkness, then not in the 80’s. (Am I correct, does anyone remember?)
As an adjunct professor I believe Bill Cosford had an office on the first floor directly below the cinema when it was called the Beaumont. I remember walking by and seeing him at work in there through a window. (The film department offices have since moved to a new Communications building.)
I remember attending a Miami Film Festival seminar at Miami-Dade Community College in downtown Miami, probably about film criticism, where Bill Cosford participated as a panelist. ….. Less than a year later I heard he had suddenly passed away from an illness contracted during a ski trip vacation if I remember correctly.
When I was a University of Miami student from 1987-1991, the Beaumont was mostly for student use, for film premiers for the University community, for film students to screen their work, or as a classroom as needed, (though I had heard it was sometimes open to the public in the earlier 1980’s before I arrived).
Since being renamed in Bill Cosford’s honor, it has been open to the public on weekends as well as continuing to serve the students/University community.
Thanks Ken for adding this listing after I mentioned it!
On Google Streetview if you look a few yards north on US-1 to where there’s a red sign saying “AMC Sunset Place 24” above a blue sign saying “IMAX”, that’s what I was describing as the US-1 entrance to the Shops at Sunset Place. …. If one were to make the right turn under the Sunset Place logo sign and immediately look to the right, you’d see the LA Fitness.
I believe I was told by a local historian that a young Fidel Castro once made a fundraising speech here before taking over Cuba.
Visited the Wolfsonian-FIU Museum at 1001 Washington Avenue, Miami Beach, FL 33139 once again last year. This time I finally read the caption for the interesting golden structure at the back of the museum lobby…. then had to look on Cinema Treasures and found this page for the Norris.
Look at the grille above the marquee in the historic photo above, then click on this:
http://www.wolfsonian.org/explore/collections/window-grille-norris-theater-norristown-pennsylvania#
Window panels from the lounge.
More window panels from the lounge.
I wonder how these items from Pennsylvania ended up in Miami.
A few years ago during a historic walking tour of downtown an older person told me what is now a perfume counter/store on the left side of the entrance extending into the lobby used to be the concession stand. … In this photo it looks like the concession was a little farther in, or maybe that’s what the person meant.
A few years ago during a historic walking tour of downtown an older person told me what is now a perfume counter/store on the left side of the entrance extending into the lobby used to be the concession stand. … In a photo posted here on the photos page it looks like the concession was a little farther in, or maybe that’s what the person meant.
Ugh, another cinema (along with The Carib) where I feel like I missed something by not getting to see it in its day.
I like walking by the façade… Then seconds later I’m walking by the Olympia.
I would have liked to have experienced the several theaters on one street atmosphere, especially at night, like on Flagler Street or Lincoln Road, like cities used to have back then.
Does anyone know of a city street anywhere in the world that still has several open theaters operating in almost a row with their lit up marquees?
This theater closed a few years ago and the official website listed here for the Retro no longer exists.
I visited Washington, GA in August 2009 to visit the Robert Toombs historic site and nearby Ruffin Flag Company, and also stopped by the Retro Cinema. I believe I spoke to Richard Kibbey.
The bottom of this Yelp page says the Kibbeys who owned the Retro moved to Madison, GA and reopened there as Ricky D’s which included a cinema at 139 E. Jefferson Street in 2014 with décor/a theme much like the Retro. The Yelp page says Ricky D’s is now closed.
The Ricky D’s webpage says Ricky D’s is now for sale, with a video tour that includes the cinema.
The building that once housed Retro Cinema and Books is now an events space called The Retro
Within the events space the cinema space still physically exists to be rented out.
Here is a history of the building.
I’ve heard that R.E.M.(they’re from Athens) shot their video for “Shiny Happy People” (1991) at this theater.
I visited Athens in August of 2009 and saw the theater in its burned state.
Glad to see it has reopened.
The link to the official site listed on this page didn’t work for me when I clicked on it but this one did.