I worked as a projectionist from 2008 to 2012 while I was in college, and my theatre switched over to full digital in 2011. This video broke my heart. 35mm was so magical and tactile. And there was an element of involvement. Getting a film print on 4 or 5 reels, splicing them together into a full print with trailers, threading up the projector, adjusting your framing and focus. It felt like you got to play a small part in making the movie magic. Then after things went digital it all ran itself off of the server and you never even needed to go into the booth except for maintenance. It became kind of soulless.
That's so cool!! I'm a bit too young for those ages, or at least to remember them (I was born in 2004 and didn't really get out of the house much) but that sounds like the perfect job! Does that mean you get to watch free movies? I bet it got pretty boring watching the same movie over and over again.
If you want to relive some of those days, I'd recommend visiting FT depot's channel. He posts high quality scans of 35mm movie trailers and those ad things daily, it's honestly super cool to see
I was also a projectionist for about a decade. In the end I got into servicing equipment and was involved in the first round of changeover to DLP. I also collected films for a time and had a running setup at my parent house. The magic of mechanical cinema is part nostalgia and part mechanics. You really do feel like part of the magic when you run a film. Most of the gear looks to be original from the mid to late 70's. I wonder how many of the drivers from the screen speakers and subs wound up in ghetto cars around the city. I appreciate the content, and thanks for putting this stuff out there.
You want a "warm" light? Try carbon arc and for brightness (not quiet) a simplex XL head. (circa 1940) it had a high speed intermittant and could put around 30% more light on the screen. I have only seen them in use at drive ins because they made such a racket. Ask me about my dream of a PORTABLE drive in theater.
Those Madagascar paintings might have been glass paintings where you add layer upon layer of paint on one side that makes a painting on the other, this could explain why the giraffe had no spots
That's what it is! Reverse glass painting technique goes as far back as at least the 18th century. The history of it is actually quite interesting if you ever decide to look into it!
I also came here to say this, we got to paint windows in middle school for Christmas at businesses around town and yeah painting backwards was kind of a mind stretch.
I worked there for 16 years and I am truly saddened by what is occuring. Was a projectionist there and seeing the booth again in that condition just makes me sad. Was better off as the drive-in it once was.
@@hmm8454 Its a pretty secluded sight only three or four high profile explorations have taken place at this Cinema and all have been recent. The first of these being in 2015 and the next few not happening until 2020. The most high profile thing to occur on this sight outside of Urban Exploring is that in 2015 an off duty cop committed suicide in the parking lot.
This is my childhood movie theater! Thank you so much for preserving it on film. It was just demolished last weekend. :(. The land will be repurposed for hotels and businesses.
You know, its kinda sad when you think that someone out there might've had their first date, job, heartbreak or kiss in this theatre and now its just falling back into the hands of nature.
Rather than that, I was thinking the different seat discolorations and varying level of decay may have occurred from the wide range of sweaty backs of the viewers, each leaving a different level of bacterium behind. The fact they kissed, held hands, or were on a date did not factor into those thoughts.
Thank you for keeping this one blurred guys, I live right by it and Im slowly watching it get more and more vandalized since it became open. Epic content as always!
It’s the fact that I live like 5 minutes away from this theater. Y’all don’t know how long I’ve wanted to see what it looked like in this theater. So thank you. 👏🏼😭
You’re right about those xenon bulbs. When we changed them we were supposed to wear a leather apron, heavy leather work gloves, and a full face shield. The reason you track hours is that at end of life they tend to explode. I had this happen twice, and each time it sounded like a bomb going off. Our lamp houses held the bulb vertically (yours were horizontal) and used a mirror to redirect the light through the projector. Whenever a bulb exploded, the top electrode trashed that super expensive mirror, and the quartz shards left dents and gouges in the metal salad-bowl-like reflector. In those horizontal lamp houses you showed, the bulb must occasionally be turned due to blackening; that’s why some makers used vertical bulbs and a mirror.
Yeah, those bulbs can go off with a boom. I had it happen to me once and it scared the bejezus out of me. I had just started the show and was walking away when it went off. My cinema had the horizontal type of lamp houses made by a company called Strong. When mine exploded, it dented the hell out of the metal reflector but the company was too cheap to replace it. I never could get that damn thing to focus the bulb properly after which made the picture in Cinema 4 even worse than it was normally because of the garbage projector it had. Being cheap was probably the reason it exploded too for they kept pushing the time in service long past the manufacturer's retirement time. If I recall correctly, that lamp had around twice the hours on it than it should have had. I always was nervous when the time came to change out the lamps with new ones and the company required that we destroy the old. Wrap it up in heavy canvas, place a board on top and wack it with a hammer. What could go wrong? I did that outside and it freaked me out the first time. It made a loud pop and there was damage to the canvas from the crystal shards but since it wasn't hot it wasn't nearly as energetic as would have been otherwise. Being a silly teenager/early 20 year old, I got the great idea to dispose of one by smashing it inside of a trash compactor by throwing it in there as hard as I could and ducking to the side. That made an impressively loud boom and one of the ends flew out of the compactor door and landed about 20 feet away. They might not be as energetic cold but there is still a lot of potential power in them. I didn't do that again.
There is a mirror at the back of the horizontal ones too. Rotating the bulb every 1/4 of the rated life is standard. But the real reason for the log (and hour meter)is that OSRAM (maker of most of the bulbs) Knows exactly the min hours that a lamp should run. A legit theater owner swaps it out when close to this time. Cheapskates? Run till it breaks. The proper gloves had chain mail. 4k watt bulb when hot was said to be close to a stick of dynomite. Betting the one that blew was due to cooling failure. There's warnings on each lamp house about do not open for X min after shut down.
I used to do the same thing when I was a projectionist. The projectionist before me would take the old bulbs, throw them in the industrial dumpsters and make them explode. (sounds just like a bomb). I was always so afraid to change the bulbs because of how fragile they are.
@@Solitaire1 yep the only word most owners know is CHEEP CHEEP (200lb canary) Strong made lamphouses for decades from carbon arc to xenon, I worked a drive in that had 7000watt xenons,
When i was a teenager one of my friend worked a theater in south Florida we would carry them up through the roof hatch and chuck them off the roof into a ten yard dumpster. Waaaaboom the dumb things we did when we were younger. Sounded like a cannon.
I am so psyched you went into this theater, I have been passing by this abandoned theater off the highway for sooooo long and I've always kept saying to myself this would be a great place for the Proper People to explore and now you did!! Awesome video guys!
I think that cinema will make a pretty strong comeback, even if only for a few weeks. What they need to do is have a grand reopening with deals to drive as many people in as possible. Blockbuster titles, snack deals, etc.
Same here. I was a teenager when the original Star Wars came out. And I was a little freaked out when I realized that some of those familiar titles were for remakes, not for the original films that I’m familiar with, such as House of Wax.
@@PRESTONRETURNS that was 4 months ago, it has sold since then 6and sold listings it stay up for 90 days) but just check eBay occasionally and another one will inevitably show up.
This was my childhood movie theater. Breaks my heart to see it like this. It may seem quaint now, but it definitely wasn't a "budget theater" - if you lived in this general area at the time, this was the place to be on a Friday or Saturday night. For a while when I was a kid, they would show older movies like the original Star Wars and Young Frankenstein on Saturday mornings for two dollars. If you were a child of the 80s growing up in the 90s, this was the only way you got to see a classic film from another era projected in an actual theater - there weren't things like Fathom Events showing anniversary editions in theaters back then. Amazing times. RIP AC.
Agreed! The comments they were making were annoying and I had to stop watching. I went to this theater when I was younger and still live around the area.
The clear film is called "leader" and is used for threading 35mm projectors to prep the film to play through the projector. It makes it so the print isn't damaged as you thread the machine, and easier to make sure it is threaded properly. The table before the stantions is a build table, you use it for building prints, the arm was an emergency stop, and the controls to work it should be on the bottom of the table. The autowind table is used to platter the print, and for breaking down prints. -Former Projectionist
Arm regulates take up tension. the emerg stop is twin micro switches right where the film exits the sound head. There was always a safety defeat sw to override this. BTW two switches because it was possible for film to split down the middle w/o breaking half onto the floor and half onto the take up platter!!
The leader also enables you to get your loops between the gate and the sound head correct so the sound is synchronised with the picture. Also if you are running on two machines it enables you to time your changeovers correctly. I ever worked in suburban short run cinemas. Not even six thousand foot spools and certainly no platter. Two ancient machines, carbon arcs and two thousand foot spools for me. I think the last session I ran was to cover for someone who needed a night off on short notice and that was about April, 1984.
@@davidberriman5903 on many machines there is no need of a house leader. The numbers and diamonds line up with various pad rollers etc. Simplex series and Brenkert are two of them. One time we went to a movie and I had shown the end of reel mark for manual change over to my friend and later he said "do you realize you get antsy and squirm in your seat just before the cue?" "then calm down after?" It's then I realized how ingrained it had become!!! lol cheers to all my fellow Operators out there!
@@n3glv I only ever ran from two thousand foot spools so I was changing over every eighteen minutes. The machines I was running needed from seven on the leader to get up to speed ready for the second cue. The heads were Simplex converted from front to rear shutter and the bases were Western Electric Universal Bases. The turntables were no longer on the bases unfortunately that would have made them even more eccentric. We had to move number two a bit once and it was a case of a car jack under the front and push. The night we closed it took the guy who bought them hours to reduce them to small enough parts that they could be carried down the stairs. They were very, very heavy.
@@TheCoolDave super cool! Doesn't sell anywhere because no one wants it, but man it's so cool to get inside one of these buildings and find it there in its "natural habitat" One other thing that always stands out is no matter how many years the place has been abandoned, grease and oil never go away. I found open cans with still perfectly usable industrial oil in places that had been closed for 20+ years
@@mostlypatrick that's another thing about old electronics: I don't know what most of them are 🤣 I do remember however seeing a similar device with pegs inserted on a rotating, round panel, and that was a timer.
Found it! It's a Cinemation MK-IV automation system. It automates things like house lights dimming for trailers, or coming back on at the end of a film. Cool stuff!
This brings me back to high school when I was the head projectionist, The christie autowind was to load the film on and off the platter systems. The clear film at 17:41 is called leader and was used to thread a projector (getting it ready to play) the Table at 18:25 was to help build a film you'd take the shipping reels (there would be 4 - 6 normally but that depended on the length of a movie) splice a move together on to house reels then use and autowind to put it on the patters.
Ahh, a fellow projectionist. I was going to comment about that too but you got there first. Spent a few years out of high school in a projection booth late 80's & early 90's. Was a fun job.
@@JoshImig So did I. When the original Die Hard came out, I cranked up the audio for a late night showing to an extreme volume and found out later from a mad security guard that the explosions kept setting off an alarm in a nearby store in the mall. I still get a chuckle remembering grumpy old Raymond's face when he found me as I was leaving. Good times!
The Proper People is my go to when it comes to urban exploration. Excellent videos, love all of them. Very professional production and editing. Thank you for the great content!
There were ZIP disks there so they probably had internet, most likely Windows 95/98 or 2000 on dial-up. Windows XP was around when they closed in 2005 but this place seems low budget so they probably were still running late 90s tech back then and couldn't afford to upgrade.
It's the "Multiplex Effect", where a number of movie theaters in the 1980s subdivided large cinema rooms into smaller ones so they could show more titles. The now-gone cinema in my home town went from three to eleven screens in the 80s. As home entertainment systems exploded thanks to VCRs, cinema audiences dwindled, so increasing the number of screens was a popular way of keeping revenues up.
And it wasn’t just the big chain or small chain theaters, either. A formerly wonderful art house theater in West Los Angeles turned one screening room into three, and ruined the theater in the process. Watching a movie in one of the newly created smaller screening rooms became a really unpleasant experience. I moved out of the area in 2017, and don’t miss that theater at all. Sad.
@@amyfisher6380 Where I currently live, there is an art house theater that stubbornly clings to having one screen, and one screen only. The past year has been extremely tough on them, as it has on all performance and screening venues.
We had one locally that divided them depth-wise instead of length-wise keeping two large screens albeit with minimal seating. Of course, the booth logistics for such is much more complex than a simple split down the middle.
The theater wasn't a budget theater, it had top films, alot of celebrities went there. I worked box office there, from 1989 to 1992, til the company built another theater, like this one which was 10 miles south, and alot bigger and more modern.
the way you capture these abandoned places on film and the music choices make these so eerie to watch. I really enjoy your channel for its simplicity and relaxation factor. I could watch these for a 1000 years and still be in awe of it. So, thank you for providing us with some worth while content. its hard to come by these days honestly. almost everything is either drama or clickbait.
All I can say is...if “structural problems” hadn’t permanently closed the building, and the operators just kept it going, and going, and going, the pandemic absolutely would have closed it for good.
Well you're not wrong, there are other events that would've forced this movie theater to close before covid-19. The 2008 recession, the switch to digital cinema, and what I would argue was the number one contribution to it closing, the wacked out foot print of of the cinema.
Closed in 2005, long before the 2019/20/21 pandemic. It was long shut and decaying before the modern crisis became a factor. People had large HD screens at home and they didn't cost too much and only got better and cheaper... We don't NEED to go to the cinema anymore and haven't had to for almost 20 years,, mabe more, it was solely for people who enjoy the cinema experience.(sticky seats, sticky floors, people laughing/talking/coughing and loudly eating to the point that you miss large sections of dialogue). This is what you would pay extra for, combined with the sour/vomit smell mixed with the rancid stench of stale popcorn, it made for a truly enjoyable experience, one that is no longer necessary.
As someone already said, the 2008 recession would have definitely killed it. On top of that despite it closing in 2005 the interior of the lobby hadn't been updated from the 80s or mid 90s judging from all the neon, and some of those theater rooms look like they're from the 70s. It's clear that it was running out of money even when it was open.
@@nothingmaster9432 as someone who went there quite often, business was always quite good. The structural issues really were that bad. Apparently that whole strip of land is messed up due to water making the ground unstable.
I was a film projector & sound technician for movie theatres since 1970, those projectors are Centrury SA came out in the early 1970s, the automation was a diode designed from Italy came out also in the 1970s, lamphouse for the light was a Christie came out in the mid 1980s, also the film platters was a Christie Autowind AW3 came out in the early 1980s... The projection equipment was probably installed in the late 1980s or early 1990s...The reel you mention was not a reel it was a special CD for cinemas only using DTS that was sync to the film using time code that out in the 1990s, the DTS Player was an add-on later. There was three to four sound tracks on the film, standard optical stereo sound, DTS time code, Dolby Digital & Sony SDDS.. Dobly digital was in-between the sprocket holes, Sony SDDS was on both side of the film on the edges, stanard optical & DTS time code was next to each other, DTS time code was dots & dashes.... Those gray or green platters was the film transport that could hold up to two 4-hrs of movie, there was three disc, one was for movie #1, one was for movie #2, & one was for rewind, you had to use two platter disc at any giving time, one to show the movie & one to rewind movie as it shown... I have a website that shows the projectors in use...www.commercialsoundservices.com I am now retire from the cinema industry since 2018..All 35mm film projectors are gone, there is no projectors in use since 2018, all cinemas today is Digital using a special server that is coded & decode to prevent movie pirating... these severs will not allow a movie to be recorded... If you are caught at a theatre using a camera or cell phone to record the movie, the police will be called & it is a felony & there will be jail time & a heavy fine...Do Not Record A Movie At A Cinema, the industry is not kind to anyone who get caught, no matter what your age or gender....
This theatre has a National Amusements feels to it with all the white tile/block. And the Madagascar paintings on the windows would have been sort of painted in reverse. Main details go down first and then you paint the solid colors over it. I worked for a NA theatre and that's how I painted the windows for the contests between theatres. Madagascar was actually my first window painting in 2005. Oh the memories. Still my favourite of the five chains I worked for.
Oh man that clear film brought back memories. When you splice together the reels of film to be one giant reel on the projector platters, you would put the clear film at the very beginning. You could make sure everything was aligned while feeding through the projector and make sure your loops in the projector were good so that when the movie starts you are all set and the audience doesn’t missing anything if it’s not aligned properly.
About the paintings on the windows from Madagascar: the artist painted them layer by layer. You'd have to see them from the other side but the windows are all boarded up.
(at 18:00 ) Movies were shipped to theaters on several reels, The editing station in the projection booth was to splice film and the trailers onto the large platters to feed the projector. It plays the film continuously (Before those were invented, a projectionist had to have 2 projectors and switch reels as the movie played.) Once the film's run is over the sections are broken apart and rewound to the reels for shipping back to the studio or the next theater.
I sat in many of those seats. That was one of my favorite movie theaters growing up, it was the biggest theater around. This video makes me happy, but sad because I had so many memories from there. Thanks for sharing your exploration.
I remember seeing Unleashed at a local theater, I was 15 at the time, went with some friends, one of which was 18 at the time, so he got us all in. But I usually knew someone that would sell me tickets from the time I was like 12 on til I was old enough to go in without ID... Man I miss the early 2000's... Ride my probably illegal powered by a chinese 25cc two stroke powered bicycle to the theater or wherever in town, headphones stuck in, Static-X blasting out my eardrums from the same CD player I'd had since middle school, paying zero attention to traffic or much else (I don't know how I didn't end up dead)... Good times... Nothing sketchier than pushing a already sketchy 2 stroke bicycle well beyond its limits with Static-X's "Push It", or "Burning Inside" playing... (RIP Wayne Static) And as a public service announcement, don't go exploring places alone people! I was screwing around in an old leather tannery that's long since been torn down and paved over, nearly fell into a flooded death pit in the dark. Also, I DID fall through the floor of a house into the basement, that was NOT fun... There where no stairs, or rather, the stairs had collapsed and become part of the floor... And I had to get very creative to get back out... Friend of mine went right through the floor of an abandoned barn, he assumed because the barn had cinderblock walls and no roof left, if there was a floor left to cave in, it would've... Nope... He was fine, I laughed my ass off and had to help get him out of that nasty flooded mess... Great video as usual, keep up the great work!
As a resident of this part of NJ I have seen this theater millions of times, and always wondered what the inside looked like. THANK YOU!!! I remember when it closed. The Garden State Parkway had construction, and rumor was that the ground had shifted leaving a sink hole in the lobby. Obviously that's not true. This chain had another theater in Hazlet, NJ which still exists. All of the theaters shut down at about the same time. Profitable ones being sold. Which leads me to believe there was a company wide problem. This site was rumored to get a minor league baseball team, but nothing has happened yet.
I used to go to this theater all the time. In the 80s and 90s when a big movie came out the place was packed and you couldn’t even get a ticket. There was an arcade next door that added to the luster of the time. People had parties there where you went to the arcade and went to the movies. The small theaters were for like movies that were aging and they’d move them down into the small theaters. Something about Mary started in the large theater and ended up in the small theater at its end. I remember seeing movies in the last small theater which at the time I liked the smaller one more Bc it was like your own little theater. That middle concession stand where the shrek bucket was, was never open to serve food. Like once in a blue moon it was open. I remember look whose taking too came out and on a Friday the line was wrapped around the building and we couldn’t get tickets to see the movie. Scream was like that too. Great theater for it’s time. So many memories and movies i saw there.
Comments like this ad to the video. I feel like every little town has a story of a theater and a little arcade in the same plaza and that's all fading away. The springs back memories of the old Angola Drive-In little south of Buffalo.
I am 58 years old and I have seen this happen twice. In the eighties when cable TV and video rentals were the new alternative and now with the internet, etc. So, for a relatively short time, in the 90's, there was a resurgence of popularity with the theaters. The next step would be incredible "interaction" with the experience. Virtual reality that would be too expensive for the average person to own at home. I'm talking about the whole body experience. I am sure someone is working on that.
The "Calibration" film, is actually leader tape. It's what you'd actually thread into the projector, while film it'll be attached to still sits safely on those platters. That table is a build table. It's where you take the individual 2k reels, that are the diameter of those DTS disc holder inserts, and splice them together to make a single length of film. Each 2k reel is about 20mins. So you'd splice 6 of them for something like a 120min film. I think those platters can hold a bit over 3hrs of film. Now, the ones at the theaters I worked at were newer. But I'm willing to bet, that board with the pins in it, is an early cue/automation controller. When the projectionist builds the film, they'll place metal foil on the edges of the film in certain spots, that when passed through a detector sends a signal or pulse to the controller. The rotary switch looking box likely steps from one spot to the next every time a foil passes through and activates a certain row on that board. The pins are probably to enable certain actions across that row, like half lights, or full or down all the way. Then so a pin is probably placed to set what light level, whether the curtains should be open or closed, whether the masking unit should be set to "flat"(narrow) or "scope"(widescreen), if the dowser (the shutter that allows the light to pass out the lens) is open or closed, if the sound system should be on or off, or triggered to a certain mode, etc. So you can press start, when the leader runs out, set a cue foil to open the dowser, set the curtains, and switch the sound system from the house music to the optical soundtrack on the film, and maybe lower the lights to half. Then the next one can switch between flat or scope as needed. Or maybe nothing needs to be done till your logo/safety trailer, so then it can lower the lights fully, and set the sound to digital, on the next cue foil. And another at the beginning of the credits to raise the lights to half. And 1 at the end to close the dowser to prevent a bright flash of light on the screen when the film runs out, and switch the sound system to house music, close the curtains, and raise the lights fully. All by placing a few pieces of foil tape and putting those pins in the right spots.
This theater is a few minutes from my house. Supposedly, the theater closed because people were complaining that the theater "felt like it was sinking into the water". The theater itself was right next to a bridge, and river. But its still standing all these years later. So clearly it didn't sink into the river.
This was the spot to be back when I was a kid. Go see a movie then end the night at Razz-A-Ma-Taz which was kinda like a chuckie cheese pizza place that was next to the theater. But yeah, it's located right near the Raritan Bay. I remember my dad saying when I was a kid that the foundation was sinking. They are actually supposed to be building a whole area over there called "The Point of Sayreville" which will stretch from the movie theater to Main Street extension. It's been in the works for years now..supposed to have shopping, housing, marina, bars, hiking trails, don't know if it will ever be completed though.
@@sorobotic i live about 2 miles north of here.. i remember many birthdays at razzmatazz with there animatronic shows. if that building was still standing it would be 10x more nastalgic for me. still have arcade tokens from there somewhere i think.
@@sorobotic Proper People - make sure to take time to blur the next one's locating identifiers too so Lisa here can run her yap in the comments with the grand reveal.
3:11 you are looking at the back side of that painting. The details are painted first, like spots, and then big areas are filled in last. You can tell by the backwards writing next to the characters. 5:00 I remember going to a tiny theatre in about 2006 that only had one screen/room about that size, in Wallingford Seattle. It wasn't in much better condition. The carpet was ripped, wallpaper peeling off, and The wood stage was half missing.
Kind of weird to think that this theater closed in 2005 BEFORE the crash of 2008 and BEFORE the Pandemic 2020- ! It got taken out "due to structural problems" BEFORE it could be financially WRECKED down the road !!!
I probably grew up about the same age, seeing something I grew up with stuck in time and decaying like this, no vandals, just the elements taking their toll. It seems like the harshest way of saying you're not a kid anymore
Live right by here. It’s pretty hard to get inside now, not to mention there’s a lot of activity nearby. Growing up with this building always there, I’ve always wondered what it looks like inside. Thanks for taking the time to explore this cinema.
The characters painted on the windows are primarily intended to be viewed from the outside. The spots are there, they're just underneath the background color so they're in front on the other side of the image.
There are some good Urbex channels out there but you guys are just the best. I love how you've consistently kept that eerie and atmospheric tone but are still down to earth, interesting, very chill and respectful. I am literally on the other side of the world and have never been there and am never likely to go there ever but this is fascinating nonetheless. Don't change please
The fact that Madagascar is a time capsule, those old logos, and the list of movies, makes me feel old, but I feel like it wasn’t that long ago, what is time? This video gave me major flashbacks to the summer of 05/06
At 18:30, this is a worktable for splicing the films together. The studio would deliver the movies in a big hexagonal canisters containing multiple reels. The theaters would manually connect the reels together in order, then disconnect them and put them back into the canister for the studios to pick up. You could also splice in or remove trailers from the starting reel. DTS movies had a CD that you put into the sound system that automatically synched with the film, though if it broke, the films still had a standard (usually dolby) audio encoded onto the film as a back up. Typically, the studio trailers were kept in (because they wanted you to advertise their movies), but you could add extras, or reels with PSAs or ads for the concession stand. Often, a portable splicer was used near the projectors, because you'd load the massive, fully spliced movie onto one of three large flat "platten" discs. You'd feed the film through sensors in the center of the platten, feed it up through the spools in front of the projector, down through the front gears behind the lens, and then back over to another of the three plattens. Every time you played the movie, it would end up loaded back up onto another platten, and be ready to go for the next showing. When you were done, and had disassembled the film, it would often sit for a long time. While the studios wanted them back to protect their IP, the films were worn out, and cost money to store, so the studios dragged their feet taking them back.
There used to be an arcade building in the same parking lot right next to the cinema sign. I always wanted to explore the inside of this theater for nostalgia, thank you for sharing your video.
Been meaning to subscribe for a while now. Watched all your videos, some truly fascinating and stunning places. Love the great quality of the overall footage and especially the cinematics, it really adds to the atmosphere. In fact, it was your channel that inspired me to start on the cinematic front a few months back. Incredible work guys!
yea, with the detuned piano and those weird dissonant sounds creeping in every now and then it creates a really eery, haunting feeling. It fits really well with the whole vibe of these places.
Loved the focus on the seats. So cool to see how each seat decays differently. Especially liked the ones with the seat backs completely folded and rotten backwards. Great filming for this one!
Great video, so many amazing things left behind, the Audio equipment, CRT monitors, projector lamps and those DTS soundtrack discs! What a place. Seems like there will be many more theatres going the way of this one in future.
I worked and serviced many of those booths in the day. That automation was a RANK automation used by General Cinema and National Amusements (Showcase) theatres for many years. You were looking at a Century SA projector with a Christie Xenon lamphouse. The design of that booth was kind of a template that was used in literally hundreds of their booths. GCC went bankrupt in March of 1992 and most of its theatres were sold to AMC. Feel free to contact for any explanations.
The first time I saw "Raiders of the Lost Ark," it was in a tiny theater not as long as the smallest ones they showed, about the same seating: four and six. There were open top garbage cans for trash on either side of the screen, but believe me, from the time the lights went down until the final scene of that huge warehouse, you forgot your surroundings! I'm sure many people, particularly the younger ones, had similar feelings about these. Stay safe.
I’m quite sure plenty of people had already checked the phones’ coin returns for loose change before Michael and Bryan showed up. 🤣 I do wonder if any change was left behind INSIDE the phones, or did the phone company get it all, and just leave the phones themselves behind? And do the phones have any value to collectors?
Ha ha, back when a quarter or a dime meant more than it does now, i was amazed at how much change i picked up in the 70's. Couple / few good hits would buy me a gallon of gasoline. I ALWAYS checked the slot after i finished a payphone call.
@@shaggytallboy4982 - It might be that because working payphones might have all but disappeared by the time these guys "came of age", they didn't know the protocol. Didn't one of them say they had never seen an intact payphone?
The roofs condition was most likely deteriorating when the theater closed in 2005. Water was trapped between the corrigations accelerating the corrosion. When Super Storm Sandy hit in 2012, those 80 to 100 MPH winds found those weak spots and ripped the rusted sheet metal off the trusses and further damaged the theaters. Horrible to see it in this condition. Like many others who commented here, this was my childhood.
I've been watching your videos for several years and this is the first time (as far as I know) you've explored a place I've actually been to, so I'm pretty stoked. I recognized it immediately from the exterior shot. I live in TN now but for many years I lived one town over from this theater. Even 20 years ago it was pretty run down and wasn't getting much traffic, likely due to newer, larger theaters in the area. It looks like it was pretty well cleaned out. There used to be a bunch of arcade games in the lobby. Not only was the building in bad shape, but the unstable ground beneath it was also a contributing factor to its closure, and is probably the reason no one's been eager to demo the building to make way for something new. There's not much else I can say about the place. Before the theater was built it was a drive-in theater, which probably accounts for the massive parking lot. I also remember at one time a restaurant right next to it, maybe a Ground Round? I barely remember. I was a little kid. This video was fun to watch. Thanks!
I think with the Madagascar characters on the window, you were meant to see them form the outside. Like when you make pancake art, you work your way backwards through the paint layers, so it's all a mess until you flipp them around.
I am afraid my go to my favorite regal now. Definitely go If you can since a lot are opening back up ...support them, most are at risk of dying now. As much as it’s easy to make my own popcorn and order a movie, sometimes I just like to get out of the house and go see one. It’s the experience. I don’t think it can be replaced
I remember this place when it opened. I lived a few miles from here and it was the go to place for a movie night. Before it was built it use to be a drive in. When I was a kid coming home from a day at the shore I remember seeing the drive in movie playing while we drove past. The movie complex was very popular for a good twenty years but from what I remember the foundation was unstable and it was condemned after being considered unsafe. It’s a shame because in its day it was really nice.
This place is gone. They've been tearing it down the past couple of weeks and the only thing standing right now is one or two outside walls up front and not much else
More narrations like how you started this video off is a must !! Very interesting I love it!! Also you guys are an inspiration for me to explore! Thanks
No the projectors are useless, no value at all due to no film to project, you would think there was value in these but in 2018 all theatres had to scraped the projectors for junk or just throw them in the dumpster which the did to make way for Digital projectors. Since 2014 Hollywood stop producing film & when the supply ran out, so did the film projectors. There is no value to any of this equipment, sad that an era is gone forever... since Thomas Edison first invented the projector it only change a little in 100yrs...the era of film we all grew up with is gone since 2018.... I was a cinema 35/70-mm projector service technician from 1970-2018, I saw an end to an era of reel to reel, carbon arc light, & then to digital... I have $25K in projector parts that is useless & will be sold for scrap for maybe $30.00 if I am lucky.... BTW a new film projector system cost $15K & would last 50 + yrs when properly maintain, the new digital projectors cost is $35K~$70K & last 15yrs & will need to be replace...
The amount of decay and the fact that it only closed in 2005 make me feel old. If I didnt know it closed then I would think it's been sitting abandoned for the past 40 years. I remember 2005 and I remember seeing Madagascar when it came out. Crazy how time left this theater in the past.
I don’t watch any other urbex channels, so any locations covered on this one are all fascinating to me. And these guys do their videos so well, that I feel like their explorations are the definitive ones.
7:17 Probably my favorite shot from this video. The light casting down onto forlorn empty chairs where people once sat captive in front of a bygone cinematic experience.
I worked as a projectionist from 2008 to 2012 while I was in college, and my theatre switched over to full digital in 2011. This video broke my heart. 35mm was so magical and tactile. And there was an element of involvement. Getting a film print on 4 or 5 reels, splicing them together into a full print with trailers, threading up the projector, adjusting your framing and focus. It felt like you got to play a small part in making the movie magic. Then after things went digital it all ran itself off of the server and you never even needed to go into the booth except for maintenance. It became kind of soulless.
That's so cool!! I'm a bit too young for those ages, or at least to remember them (I was born in 2004 and didn't really get out of the house much) but that sounds like the perfect job! Does that mean you get to watch free movies? I bet it got pretty boring watching the same movie over and over again.
If you want to relive some of those days, I'd recommend visiting FT depot's channel. He posts high quality scans of 35mm movie trailers and those ad things daily, it's honestly super cool to see
The quality of the films has also gone away
I was also a projectionist for about a decade. In the end I got into servicing equipment and was involved in the first round of changeover to DLP. I also collected films for a time and had a running setup at my parent house. The magic of mechanical cinema is part nostalgia and part mechanics. You really do feel like part of the magic when you run a film. Most of the gear looks to be original from the mid to late 70's. I wonder how many of the drivers from the screen speakers and subs wound up in ghetto cars around the city.
I appreciate the content, and thanks for putting this stuff out there.
You want a "warm" light? Try carbon arc and for brightness (not quiet)
a simplex XL head. (circa 1940) it had a high speed intermittant and
could put around 30% more light on the screen. I have only seen them
in use at drive ins because they made such a racket.
Ask me about my dream of a PORTABLE drive in theater.
Those Madagascar paintings might have been glass paintings where you add layer upon layer of paint on one side that makes a painting on the other, this could explain why the giraffe had no spots
But I don’t know if that type of painting was around at that time
That's what it is! Reverse glass painting technique goes as far back as at least the 18th century. The history of it is actually quite interesting if you ever decide to look into it!
@@bunnieroots3553 thank you for telling me!
@@imursins2891 You can do it with basically any paint that will stick to glass. Usually acrylic.
@@sarahcoleman5269 cool thanks!
The fact that 2005 was 16 years ago, makes me feel old
Try having a daughter going to be 16 this coming month
It’s also hard when you think about that 16 years suffice for it to look like that
@@SingerCommaMarla HERE'S THE ATTENTION YOU WANTED
My car is from 2005 and I got a negative bank balance today.
YEEEEEAH, me too! I was also 12 for the first half of 2005, and I was 13 for the second half.
3:00 they're painted from reverse like a film cel, if you could see theother side you'd see Marv had spots.
Hi Larry, I usually see you in retro gaming videos hehe
I also came here to say this, we got to paint windows in middle school for Christmas at businesses around town and yeah painting backwards was kind of a mind stretch.
Super sick that Larry watches this sort of thing
Yep - they needed to flip them over to see them.
I know, DUH! LOL Local Indian restaurants used this type of paint technique in their window display
I worked there for 16 years and I am truly saddened by what is occuring. Was a projectionist there and seeing the booth again in that condition just makes me sad. Was better off as the drive-in it once was.
I was wondering about the Drive-In screen at the beginning. Makes sense now! Thanks!
This is such a cool place. Great vid guys!
My mom and Uncle used to go to this place all the time in the 80s.
Now i have to believe that there is some un uploaded video where every urban adventure Channel explored a site only to all get caught.
@@hmm8454 Its a pretty secluded sight only three or four high profile explorations have taken place at this Cinema and all have been recent. The first of these being in 2015 and the next few not happening until 2020. The most high profile thing to occur on this sight outside of Urban Exploring is that in 2015 an off duty cop committed suicide in the parking lot.
Yo i was JUST on your channel and thought "ooh bsf --> proper people" and here you are.
I have been watching Proper People for a long time...and recently also discovered your channel! Awesome videos man, well done!
This is my childhood movie theater! Thank you so much for preserving it on film. It was just demolished last weekend. :(. The land will be repurposed for hotels and businesses.
They show Proper People videos in ceiling tile high school warning “this is what happens if you do rain and mold!”
Chocolate rainnnnnn
I like to say that ceiling tiles are "pre- bio-degraded", and to complete the process all you have to do is add water.
Chocolate rain
@@benja8686 im sure he's had enough of that by now man
Took me a second to get the joke....I was wondering why on earth there would be a school that teaches only ceiling tiling
You know, its kinda sad when you think that someone out there might've had their first date, job, heartbreak or kiss in this theatre and now its just falling back into the hands of nature.
Absolutely, I did all that and more in the 80's. Best years of my life.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
Rather than that, I was thinking the different seat discolorations and varying level of decay may have occurred from the wide range of sweaty backs of the viewers, each leaving a different level of bacterium behind. The fact they kissed, held hands, or were on a date did not factor into those thoughts.
This was my actual first job, at THIS theater. I was 15 and an usher.
Me...this was MY first job. I used to fall asleep after shift in a theater watching a flick
Thank you for keeping this one blurred guys, I live right by it and Im slowly watching it get more and more vandalized since it became open. Epic content as always!
Gotta let ppl do their tagging somewhere 🤣
It saddens me to see my old world die. As a teenager we went there every weekend.
@@carbide1968 Where is this place? Would be cool to learn about the history
@@jaysmith179 trust me, you don't wanna know the history. the building is abandoned but the grounds are still very active...
@@danamarie2970 I really want to know the history now you've got me hooked
It’s the fact that I live like 5 minutes away from this theater. Y’all don’t know how long I’ve wanted to see what it looked like in this theater. So thank you. 👏🏼😭
Me too ! Always wondered what it looked like inside.
@Vincent Ludwig It’s the Amboy Cinemas in South Amboy, NJ.
Same!!
You’re right about those xenon bulbs. When we changed them we were supposed to wear a leather apron, heavy leather work gloves, and a full face shield. The reason you track hours is that at end of life they tend to explode. I had this happen twice, and each time it sounded like a bomb going off.
Our lamp houses held the bulb vertically (yours were horizontal) and used a mirror to redirect the light through the projector. Whenever a bulb exploded, the top electrode trashed that super expensive mirror, and the quartz shards left dents and gouges in the metal salad-bowl-like reflector. In those horizontal lamp houses you showed, the bulb must occasionally be turned due to blackening; that’s why some makers used vertical bulbs and a mirror.
Yeah, those bulbs can go off with a boom. I had it happen to me once and it scared the bejezus out of me. I had just started the show and was walking away when it went off. My cinema had the horizontal type of lamp houses made by a company called Strong. When mine exploded, it dented the hell out of the metal reflector but the company was too cheap to replace it. I never could get that damn thing to focus the bulb properly after which made the picture in Cinema 4 even worse than it was normally because of the garbage projector it had. Being cheap was probably the reason it exploded too for they kept pushing the time in service long past the manufacturer's retirement time. If I recall correctly, that lamp had around twice the hours on it than it should have had.
I always was nervous when the time came to change out the lamps with new ones and the company required that we destroy the old. Wrap it up in heavy canvas, place a board on top and wack it with a hammer. What could go wrong? I did that outside and it freaked me out the first time. It made a loud pop and there was damage to the canvas from the crystal shards but since it wasn't hot it wasn't nearly as energetic as would have been otherwise. Being a silly teenager/early 20 year old, I got the great idea to dispose of one by smashing it inside of a trash compactor by throwing it in there as hard as I could and ducking to the side. That made an impressively loud boom and one of the ends flew out of the compactor door and landed about 20 feet away. They might not be as energetic cold but there is still a lot of potential power in them. I didn't do that again.
There is a mirror at the back of the horizontal ones too.
Rotating the bulb every 1/4 of the rated life is standard.
But the real reason for the log (and hour meter)is that OSRAM
(maker of most of the bulbs) Knows exactly the min hours
that a lamp should run. A legit theater owner swaps it out
when close to this time. Cheapskates? Run till it breaks.
The proper gloves had chain mail. 4k watt bulb when hot was
said to be close to a stick of dynomite. Betting the one that blew
was due to cooling failure. There's warnings on each lamp
house about do not open for X min after shut down.
I used to do the same thing when I was a projectionist. The projectionist before me would take the old bulbs, throw them in the industrial dumpsters and make them explode. (sounds just like a bomb). I was always so afraid to change the bulbs because of how fragile they are.
@@Solitaire1 yep the only word most owners know is CHEEP CHEEP (200lb canary)
Strong made lamphouses for decades from
carbon arc to xenon, I worked a drive in that
had 7000watt xenons,
When i was a teenager one of my friend worked a theater in south Florida we would carry them up through the roof hatch and chuck them off the roof into a ten yard dumpster. Waaaaboom the dumb things we did when we were younger. Sounded like a cannon.
I am so psyched you went into this theater, I have been passing by this abandoned theater off the highway for sooooo long and I've always kept saying to myself this would be a great place for the Proper People to explore and now you did!! Awesome video guys!
Where is this theater?
@@cats400 Sayreville NJ, I already spotted how they got in, I used to work there
May be a lot more of these abandoned theaters after this last year..
Yes! One by me is only 4 years old and they closed it. So sad
Yeah, many of them unrespective of how old or new they might have been when the pandemic struck, it completely destroyed their business.
I think that cinema will make a pretty strong comeback, even if only for a few weeks. What they need to do is have a grand reopening with deals to drive as many people in as possible. Blockbuster titles, snack deals, etc.
yup the regel near me gone
With all the woke trash movies Hollywood is cranking out now a days, they deserve what ever is coming. Haven't paid to see a movie since 2014.
"Oh, Star Wars Episode 3, I was really little when that came out."
.....I remember the original trilogy when I was little. God, I feel old.
Same here. I was a teenager when the original Star Wars came out. And I was a little freaked out when I realized that some of those familiar titles were for remakes, not for the original films that I’m familiar with, such as House of Wax.
I remember seeing a trailer for episode 1. The people in the theater applauded. They applauded a trailer..that was how much hype there was.
The original trilogy were a bit before my time (just) but the prequels still seem "new" to me
Me too! I went to the theater to see Return of the Jedi as a little kid. I was so young it was super boring to me
@@jaimiebanks3179 I admit I was a little confused by ROTJ, except for the Big Reveal at the end. It seems like it was just scene after scene of Ewoks.
Shrek 2 popcorn bucket "This is Probably worth like 5 grand on eBay" actual listing $14.99 🤣
I want it
@@rachael5928 nope - I’ve looked through eBay & a few other sources and it’s averaging $15
@@GeekFilter can you send me the listing good sir
@@PRESTONRETURNS that was 4 months ago, it has sold since then 6and sold listings it stay up for 90 days) but just check eBay occasionally and another one will inevitably show up.
This was my childhood movie theater. Breaks my heart to see it like this. It may seem quaint now, but it definitely wasn't a "budget theater" - if you lived in this general area at the time, this was the place to be on a Friday or Saturday night. For a while when I was a kid, they would show older movies like the original Star Wars and Young Frankenstein on Saturday mornings for two dollars. If you were a child of the 80s growing up in the 90s, this was the only way you got to see a classic film from another era projected in an actual theater - there weren't things like Fathom Events showing anniversary editions in theaters back then. Amazing times.
RIP AC.
Agreed! The comments they were making were annoying and I had to stop watching. I went to this theater when I was younger and still live around the area.
I was going to comment this, but you beat me to it by a couple years.
The clear film is called "leader" and is used for threading 35mm projectors to prep the film to play through the projector. It makes it so the print isn't damaged as you thread the machine, and easier to make sure it is threaded properly. The table before the stantions is a build table, you use it for building prints, the arm was an emergency stop, and the controls to work it should be on the bottom of the table. The autowind table is used to platter the print, and for breaking down prints. -Former Projectionist
Arm regulates take up tension. the emerg stop is
twin micro switches right where the film exits the
sound head. There was always a safety defeat sw
to override this. BTW two switches because it was
possible for film to split down the middle w/o breaking
half onto the floor and half onto the take up platter!!
The leader also enables you to get your loops between the gate and the sound head correct so the sound is synchronised with the picture. Also if you are running on two machines it enables you to time your changeovers correctly. I ever worked in suburban short run cinemas. Not even six thousand foot spools and certainly no platter. Two ancient machines, carbon arcs and two thousand foot spools for me. I think the last session I ran was to cover for someone who needed a night off on short notice and that was about April, 1984.
@@davidberriman5903 on many machines there
is no need of a house leader. The numbers
and diamonds line up with various pad
rollers etc. Simplex series and Brenkert are
two of them. One time we went to a movie
and I had shown the end of reel mark for
manual change over to my friend and later
he said "do you realize you get antsy and
squirm in your seat just before the cue?"
"then calm down after?"
It's then I realized how ingrained it had
become!!! lol cheers to all my fellow
Operators out there!
@@n3glv I only ever ran from two thousand foot spools so I was changing over every eighteen minutes. The machines I was running needed from seven on the leader to get up to speed ready for the second cue. The heads were Simplex converted from front to rear shutter and the bases were Western Electric Universal Bases. The turntables were no longer on the bases unfortunately that would have made them even more eccentric. We had to move number two a bit once and it was a case of a car jack under the front and push. The night we closed it took the guy who bought them hours to reduce them to small enough parts that they could be carried down the stairs. They were very, very heavy.
sorry, spelling correction stanchion not stantion
I wonder how many people are now trying to get that Shrek bucket from there? I had a pager way back in 92 and my first cell phone in 93 or 94.
How could they resist taking that Shrek bucket home?;. It would have definitely gone in my bag
@@ianhosier4042 that's burglary
The electronics at around 13:00 are so cool, I always love seeing old school equipment you don't find anywhere anymore
Agreed... Old tech is always cool...
@@TheCoolDave super cool! Doesn't sell anywhere because no one wants it, but man it's so cool to get inside one of these buildings and find it there in its "natural habitat"
One other thing that always stands out is no matter how many years the place has been abandoned, grease and oil never go away. I found open cans with still perfectly usable industrial oil in places that had been closed for 20+ years
I could be wrong, but that seemed like a lighting system that could be timed to the films. Anyone know more info?
@@mostlypatrick that's another thing about old electronics: I don't know what most of them are 🤣
I do remember however seeing a similar device with pegs inserted on a rotating, round panel, and that was a timer.
Found it! It's a Cinemation MK-IV automation system. It automates things like house lights dimming for trailers, or coming back on at the end of a film. Cool stuff!
This brings me back to high school when I was the head projectionist, The christie autowind was to load the film on and off the platter systems. The clear film at 17:41 is called leader and was used to thread a projector (getting it ready to play) the Table at 18:25 was to help build a film you'd take the shipping reels (there would be 4 - 6 normally but that depended on the length of a movie) splice a move together on to house reels then use and autowind to put it on the patters.
Knew if I read into the comments far enough, I'd find someone that knew what all the equipment was!
Ahh, a fellow projectionist. I was going to comment about that too but you got there first. Spent a few years out of high school in a projection booth late 80's & early 90's. Was a fun job.
@@Solitaire1 yeah had a ton of fun building and watching after hours movie's.
@@JoshImig So did I. When the original Die Hard came out, I cranked up the audio for a late night showing to an extreme volume and found out later from a mad security guard that the explosions kept setting off an alarm in a nearby store in the mall. I still get a chuckle remembering grumpy old Raymond's face when he found me as I was leaving. Good times!
Spot on sir, you win 35mm of magnetic sense tape!
14:23 "A sweet looking lens" This man appreciates vintage lenses and I appreciate that.
6:22 "It's so small.
Yeah, this is like straight out depressing."
The Proper People is my go to when it comes to urban exploration. Excellent videos, love all of them. Very professional production and editing. Thank you for the great content!
I love their maturity and how f'n chill they are
"Coming soon MADAGASCAR"
So this theater never got to see the age of internet overflowed with the Penguins meme.
I don't even think this place got connected to the internet.
It closed 5/28/2005.
There were ZIP disks there so they probably had internet, most likely Windows 95/98 or 2000 on dial-up. Windows XP was around when they closed in 2005 but this place seems low budget so they probably were still running late 90s tech back then and couldn't afford to upgrade.
It's the "Multiplex Effect", where a number of movie theaters in the 1980s subdivided large cinema rooms into smaller ones so they could show more titles. The now-gone cinema in my home town went from three to eleven screens in the 80s. As home entertainment systems exploded thanks to VCRs, cinema audiences dwindled, so increasing the number of screens was a popular way of keeping revenues up.
And it wasn’t just the big chain or small chain theaters, either. A formerly wonderful art house theater in West Los Angeles turned one screening room into three, and ruined the theater in the process. Watching a movie in one of the newly created smaller screening rooms became a really unpleasant experience. I moved out of the area in 2017, and don’t miss that theater at all. Sad.
@@amyfisher6380 Where I currently live, there is an art house theater that stubbornly clings to having one screen, and one screen only. The past year has been extremely tough on them, as it has on all performance and screening venues.
I have yet to see a 37ft diagonal tv
in a room built for the sound system.
Or has room for 100 of your friends
to watch the latest comedy film.
I was about to Google this.
We had one locally that divided them depth-wise instead of length-wise keeping two large screens albeit with minimal seating. Of course, the booth logistics for such is much more complex than a simple split down the middle.
It would be awesome to watch back some of the security footage, like a time capsule
sounds boring
The theater wasn't a budget theater, it had top films, alot of celebrities went there. I worked box office there, from 1989 to 1992, til the company built another theater, like this one which was 10 miles south, and alot bigger and more modern.
I like that you didn't realize they were meant to be viewed from outside, the spots are on the other side
Came to the comments for this.
I was just about to comment this😅lol
Lol
the way you capture these abandoned places on film and the music choices make these so eerie to watch. I really enjoy your channel for its simplicity and relaxation factor. I could watch these for a 1000 years and still be in awe of it. So, thank you for providing us with some worth while content. its hard to come by these days honestly. almost everything is either drama or clickbait.
All I can say is...if “structural problems” hadn’t permanently closed the building, and the operators just kept it going, and going, and going, the pandemic absolutely would have closed it for good.
Well you're not wrong, there are other events that would've forced this movie theater to close before covid-19. The 2008 recession, the switch to digital cinema, and what I would argue was the number one contribution to it closing, the wacked out foot print of of the cinema.
Closed in 2005, long before the 2019/20/21 pandemic. It was long shut and decaying before the modern crisis became a factor. People had large HD screens at home and they didn't cost too much and only got better and cheaper... We don't NEED to go to the cinema anymore and haven't had to for almost 20 years,, mabe more, it was solely for people who enjoy the cinema experience.(sticky seats, sticky floors, people laughing/talking/coughing and loudly eating to the point that you miss large sections of dialogue). This is what you would pay extra for, combined with the sour/vomit smell mixed with the rancid stench of stale popcorn, it made for a truly enjoyable experience, one that is no longer necessary.
It must have been a serious problem if it closed when Star Wars episode 3 was out
As someone already said, the 2008 recession would have definitely killed it. On top of that despite it closing in 2005 the interior of the lobby hadn't been updated from the 80s or mid 90s judging from all the neon, and some of those theater rooms look like they're from the 70s. It's clear that it was running out of money even when it was open.
@@nothingmaster9432 as someone who went there quite often, business was always quite good. The structural issues really were that bad. Apparently that whole strip of land is messed up due to water making the ground unstable.
I was a film projector & sound technician for movie theatres since 1970, those projectors are Centrury SA came out in the early 1970s, the automation was a diode designed from Italy came out also in the 1970s, lamphouse for the light was a Christie came out in the mid 1980s, also the film platters was a Christie Autowind AW3 came out in the early 1980s... The projection equipment was probably installed in the late 1980s or early 1990s...The reel you mention was not a reel it was a special CD for cinemas only using DTS that was sync to the film using time code that out in the 1990s, the DTS Player was an add-on later. There was three to four sound tracks on the film, standard optical stereo sound, DTS time code, Dolby Digital & Sony SDDS.. Dobly digital was in-between the sprocket holes, Sony SDDS was on both side of the film on the edges, stanard optical & DTS time code was next to each other, DTS time code was dots & dashes.... Those gray or green platters was the film transport that could hold up to two 4-hrs of movie, there was three disc, one was for movie #1, one was for movie #2, & one was for rewind, you had to use two platter disc at any giving time, one to show the movie & one to rewind movie as it shown... I have a website that shows the projectors in use...www.commercialsoundservices.com I am now retire from the cinema industry since 2018..All 35mm film projectors are gone, there is no projectors in use since 2018, all cinemas today is Digital using a special server that is coded & decode to prevent movie pirating... these severs will not allow a movie to be recorded... If you are caught at a theatre using a camera or cell phone to record the movie, the police will be called & it is a felony & there will be jail time & a heavy fine...Do Not Record A Movie At A Cinema, the industry is not kind to anyone who get caught, no matter what your age or gender....
This theatre has a National Amusements feels to it with all the white tile/block.
And the Madagascar paintings on the windows would have been sort of painted in reverse. Main details go down first and then you paint the solid colors over it. I worked for a NA theatre and that's how I painted the windows for the contests between theatres. Madagascar was actually my first window painting in 2005. Oh the memories. Still my favourite of the five chains I worked for.
Yes it was a National Amusements Theater
I have never seen a theater room so long yet narrow before! Those first two were so narrow it was genuinely the size of a plane cabin--fascinating!
Oh man that clear film brought back memories. When you splice together the reels of film to be one giant reel on the projector platters, you would put the clear film at the very beginning. You could make sure everything was aligned while feeding through the projector and make sure your loops in the projector were good so that when the movie starts you are all set and the audience doesn’t missing anything if it’s not aligned properly.
The Proper People intro song just makes me so happy. Love the content guys!
About the paintings on the windows from Madagascar: the artist painted them layer by layer. You'd have to see them from the other side but the windows are all boarded up.
About smoking crack. It’s whack
🙏
I was thinking the same thing.
(at 18:00 ) Movies were shipped to theaters on several reels, The editing station in the projection booth was to splice film and the trailers onto the large platters to feed the projector. It plays the film continuously (Before those were invented, a projectionist had to have 2 projectors and switch reels as the movie played.) Once the film's run is over the sections are broken apart and rewound to the reels for shipping back to the studio or the next theater.
I sat in many of those seats. That was one of my favorite movie theaters growing up, it was the biggest theater around. This video makes me happy, but sad because I had so many memories from there. Thanks for sharing your exploration.
I remember seeing Unleashed at a local theater, I was 15 at the time, went with some friends, one of which was 18 at the time, so he got us all in. But I usually knew someone that would sell me tickets from the time I was like 12 on til I was old enough to go in without ID... Man I miss the early 2000's... Ride my probably illegal powered by a chinese 25cc two stroke powered bicycle to the theater or wherever in town, headphones stuck in, Static-X blasting out my eardrums from the same CD player I'd had since middle school, paying zero attention to traffic or much else (I don't know how I didn't end up dead)... Good times... Nothing sketchier than pushing a already sketchy 2 stroke bicycle well beyond its limits with Static-X's "Push It", or "Burning Inside" playing... (RIP Wayne Static)
And as a public service announcement, don't go exploring places alone people! I was screwing around in an old leather tannery that's long since been torn down and paved over, nearly fell into a flooded death pit in the dark. Also, I DID fall through the floor of a house into the basement, that was NOT fun... There where no stairs, or rather, the stairs had collapsed and become part of the floor... And I had to get very creative to get back out... Friend of mine went right through the floor of an abandoned barn, he assumed because the barn had cinderblock walls and no roof left, if there was a floor left to cave in, it would've... Nope... He was fine, I laughed my ass off and had to help get him out of that nasty flooded mess... Great video as usual, keep up the great work!
As a resident of this part of NJ I have seen this theater millions of times, and always wondered what the inside looked like. THANK YOU!!! I remember when it closed. The Garden State Parkway had construction, and rumor was that the ground had shifted leaving a sink hole in the lobby. Obviously that's not true. This chain had another theater in Hazlet, NJ which still exists. All of the theaters shut down at about the same time. Profitable ones being sold. Which leads me to believe there was a company wide problem. This site was rumored to get a minor league baseball team, but nothing has happened yet.
I used to go to this theater all the time. In the 80s and 90s when a big movie came out the place was packed and you couldn’t even get a ticket. There was an arcade next door that added to the luster of the time. People had parties there where you went to the arcade and went to the movies. The small theaters were for like movies that were aging and they’d move them down into the small theaters. Something about Mary started in the large theater and ended up in the small theater at its end. I remember seeing movies in the last small theater which at the time I liked the smaller one more Bc it was like your own little theater. That middle concession stand where the shrek bucket was, was never open to serve food. Like once in a blue moon it was open. I remember look whose taking too came out and on a Friday the line was wrapped around the building and we couldn’t get tickets to see the movie. Scream was like that too. Great theater for it’s time. So many memories and movies i saw there.
Comments like this ad to the video. I feel like every little town has a story of a theater and a little arcade in the same plaza and that's all fading away. The springs back memories of the old Angola Drive-In little south of Buffalo.
Interesting that they never cared to remodel it and went bankrupt when the sales were right
@@viciousyeen6644 the foundation was supposedly sinking so they never remodeled.
I am 58 years old and I have seen this happen twice. In the eighties when cable TV and video rentals were the new alternative and now with the internet, etc. So, for a relatively short time, in the 90's, there was a resurgence of popularity with the theaters. The next step would be incredible "interaction" with the experience. Virtual reality that would be too expensive for the average person to own at home. I'm talking about the whole body experience. I am sure someone is working on that.
I guess that means you remember Sensurround. :)
The "Calibration" film, is actually leader tape. It's what you'd actually thread into the projector, while film it'll be attached to still sits safely on those platters. That table is a build table. It's where you take the individual 2k reels, that are the diameter of those DTS disc holder inserts, and splice them together to make a single length of film. Each 2k reel is about 20mins. So you'd splice 6 of them for something like a 120min film. I think those platters can hold a bit over 3hrs of film.
Now, the ones at the theaters I worked at were newer. But I'm willing to bet, that board with the pins in it, is an early cue/automation controller. When the projectionist builds the film, they'll place metal foil on the edges of the film in certain spots, that when passed through a detector sends a signal or pulse to the controller. The rotary switch looking box likely steps from one spot to the next every time a foil passes through and activates a certain row on that board. The pins are probably to enable certain actions across that row, like half lights, or full or down all the way. Then so a pin is probably placed to set what light level, whether the curtains should be open or closed, whether the masking unit should be set to "flat"(narrow) or "scope"(widescreen), if the dowser (the shutter that allows the light to pass out the lens) is open or closed, if the sound system should be on or off, or triggered to a certain mode, etc. So you can press start, when the leader runs out, set a cue foil to open the dowser, set the curtains, and switch the sound system from the house music to the optical soundtrack on the film, and maybe lower the lights to half. Then the next one can switch between flat or scope as needed. Or maybe nothing needs to be done till your logo/safety trailer, so then it can lower the lights fully, and set the sound to digital, on the next cue foil. And another at the beginning of the credits to raise the lights to half. And 1 at the end to close the dowser to prevent a bright flash of light on the screen when the film runs out, and switch the sound system to house music, close the curtains, and raise the lights fully. All by placing a few pieces of foil tape and putting those pins in the right spots.
Thanks for sharing. Love hearing about obscure insider experience. It's as much a part of the story of this place and the objects within it.
This theater is a few minutes from my house. Supposedly, the theater closed because people were complaining that the theater "felt like it was sinking into the water". The theater itself was right next to a bridge, and river. But its still standing all these years later. So clearly it didn't sink into the river.
This was the spot to be back when I was a kid. Go see a movie then end the night at Razz-A-Ma-Taz which was kinda like a chuckie cheese pizza place that was next to the theater. But yeah, it's located right near the Raritan Bay. I remember my dad saying when I was a kid that the foundation was sinking. They are actually supposed to be building a whole area over there called "The Point of Sayreville" which will stretch from the movie theater to Main Street extension. It's been in the works for years now..supposed to have shopping, housing, marina, bars, hiking trails, don't know if it will ever be completed though.
@@sorobotic i live about 2 miles north of here.. i remember many birthdays at razzmatazz with there animatronic shows. if that building was still standing it would be 10x more nastalgic for me. still have arcade tokens from there somewhere i think.
It closed because the construction from the bridges vibrated the structure and the foundation was deemed too unstable.
@@sorobotic Proper People - make sure to take time to blur the next one's locating identifiers too so Lisa here can run her yap in the comments with the grand reveal.
I remember reading something about how they went to open for the day and the floor had collapsed in one area
Watching videos about closed up and abandoned movie theaters is both exciting and sad at the same time.
3:11 you are looking at the back side of that painting. The details are painted first, like spots, and then big areas are filled in last. You can tell by the backwards writing next to the characters.
5:00 I remember going to a tiny theatre in about 2006 that only had one screen/room about that size, in Wallingford Seattle. It wasn't in much better condition. The carpet was ripped, wallpaper peeling off, and The wood stage was half missing.
Kind of weird to think that this theater closed in 2005 BEFORE the crash of 2008 and BEFORE the Pandemic 2020- ! It got taken out "due to structural problems" BEFORE it could be financially WRECKED down the road !!!
I probably grew up about the same age, seeing something I grew up with stuck in time and decaying like this, no vandals, just the elements taking their toll. It seems like the harshest way of saying you're not a kid anymore
Live right by here. It’s pretty hard to get inside now, not to mention there’s a lot of activity nearby. Growing up with this building always there, I’ve always wondered what it looks like inside. Thanks for taking the time to explore this cinema.
The characters painted on the windows are primarily intended to be viewed from the outside. The spots are there, they're just underneath the background color so they're in front on the other side of the image.
There are some good Urbex channels out there but you guys are just the best. I love how you've consistently kept that eerie and atmospheric tone but are still down to earth, interesting, very chill and respectful. I am literally on the other side of the world and have never been there and am never likely to go there ever but this is fascinating nonetheless. Don't change please
These videos are amazing to me. Hopefully at some point I can explore places like this with friends!!
I need friends first
@@isaiahgrandt5305 yeah same
We are all now urban exploration friends
@@n3bula127 yes
The fact that Madagascar is a time capsule, those old logos, and the list of movies, makes me feel old, but I feel like it wasn’t that long ago, what is time?
This video gave me major flashbacks to the summer of 05/06
Dude, I loved going to Amboy Cinemas as a kid (Razzmatazz as well.). Shame they couldn’t revive or fix it up due to the foundation not being settled.
Ambience, sounds and the music are just perfect in the video. It's like I was there exploring with you guys. Amazing video! 🤩
Revenge of the sith and Madagascar that just shows how well the time was
At 18:30, this is a worktable for splicing the films together. The studio would deliver the movies in a big hexagonal canisters containing multiple reels. The theaters would manually connect the reels together in order, then disconnect them and put them back into the canister for the studios to pick up. You could also splice in or remove trailers from the starting reel. DTS movies had a CD that you put into the sound system that automatically synched with the film, though if it broke, the films still had a standard (usually dolby) audio encoded onto the film as a back up.
Typically, the studio trailers were kept in (because they wanted you to advertise their movies), but you could add extras, or reels with PSAs or ads for the concession stand. Often, a portable splicer was used near the projectors, because you'd load the massive, fully spliced movie onto one of three large flat "platten" discs. You'd feed the film through sensors in the center of the platten, feed it up through the spools in front of the projector, down through the front gears behind the lens, and then back over to another of the three plattens. Every time you played the movie, it would end up loaded back up onto another platten, and be ready to go for the next showing.
When you were done, and had disassembled the film, it would often sit for a long time. While the studios wanted them back to protect their IP, the films were worn out, and cost money to store, so the studios dragged their feet taking them back.
There used to be an arcade building in the same parking lot right next to the cinema sign. I always wanted to explore the inside of this theater for nostalgia, thank you for sharing your video.
Been meaning to subscribe for a while now. Watched all your videos, some truly fascinating and stunning places. Love the great quality of the overall footage and especially the cinematics, it really adds to the atmosphere. In fact, it was your channel that inspired me to start on the cinematic front a few months back. Incredible work guys!
That music at the beginning is creepy. Nice!
I like the music
yea, with the detuned piano and those weird dissonant sounds creeping in every now and then it creates a really eery, haunting feeling.
It fits really well with the whole vibe of these places.
Loved the focus on the seats. So cool to see how each seat decays differently. Especially liked the ones with the seat backs completely folded and rotten backwards. Great filming for this one!
The room where Kingdom of Heaven was in showcase, actually makes sense to have light shine trough it.
Great video, so many amazing things left behind, the Audio equipment, CRT monitors, projector lamps and those DTS soundtrack discs! What a place. Seems like there will be many more theatres going the way of this one in future.
These give me early Lockdown vibes as I use to watch you so much during early lockdown
I worked and serviced many of those booths in the day. That automation was a RANK automation used by General Cinema and National Amusements (Showcase) theatres for many years. You were looking at a Century SA projector with a Christie Xenon lamphouse. The design of that booth was kind of a template that was used in literally hundreds of their booths. GCC went bankrupt in March of 1992 and most of its theatres were sold to AMC. Feel free to contact for any explanations.
When you have a 4 screen theatre complex and split it up to 14 auditoriums, some of them are small.
The first time I saw "Raiders of the Lost Ark," it was in a tiny theater not as long as the smallest ones they showed, about the same seating: four and six. There were open top garbage cans for trash on either side of the screen, but believe me, from the time the lights went down until the final scene of that huge warehouse, you forgot your surroundings! I'm sure many people, particularly the younger ones, had similar feelings about these. Stay safe.
I could tell which theater this is right from the start! So cool that there is a video of the inside now. Always wanted to see it.
Not checking the pay phone’s change slot left me hanging...😆
I’m quite sure plenty of people had already checked the phones’ coin returns for loose change before Michael and Bryan showed up. 🤣 I do wonder if any change was left behind INSIDE the phones, or did the phone company get it all, and just leave the phones themselves behind? And do the phones have any value to collectors?
Ha ha, back when a quarter or a dime meant more than it does now, i was amazed at how much change i picked up in the 70's. Couple / few good hits would buy me a gallon of gasoline. I ALWAYS checked the slot after i finished a payphone call.
😁 you can't walk by without checking, it's just not right
@@shaggytallboy4982 - It might be that because working payphones might have all but disappeared by the time these guys "came of age", they didn't know the protocol. Didn't one of them say they had never seen an intact payphone?
@@cmans79tr7 So you're saying we're old?
Awesome explore. Crazy that some theaters were so tiny, obviously quite old. Neat to see the transition to some that were larger.
6:15 Good point. Dividing it into two was quite a "fail", so narrow.
Another outstanding video! Photography, music and editing are spot on. Why your series is not on Netflix is beyond me.
I have been following you guys since 2015 and inspired me to get into urbex. The fact you’re in my hometown is crazy, I wish I could meet you guys
The roofs condition was most likely deteriorating when the theater closed in 2005. Water was trapped between the corrigations accelerating the corrosion. When Super Storm Sandy hit in 2012, those 80 to 100 MPH winds found those weak spots and ripped the rusted sheet metal off the trusses and further damaged the theaters. Horrible to see it in this condition. Like many others who commented here, this was my childhood.
Loll bro i worked here in high school during the summer of 2002. This is surreal haha
Where is this theater?
Dang, I was three months old in summer 2002. xD
I've been watching your videos for several years and this is the first time (as far as I know) you've explored a place I've actually been to, so I'm pretty stoked. I recognized it immediately from the exterior shot. I live in TN now but for many years I lived one town over from this theater. Even 20 years ago it was pretty run down and wasn't getting much traffic, likely due to newer, larger theaters in the area. It looks like it was pretty well cleaned out. There used to be a bunch of arcade games in the lobby. Not only was the building in bad shape, but the unstable ground beneath it was also a contributing factor to its closure, and is probably the reason no one's been eager to demo the building to make way for something new. There's not much else I can say about the place. Before the theater was built it was a drive-in theater, which probably accounts for the massive parking lot. I also remember at one time a restaurant right next to it, maybe a Ground Round? I barely remember. I was a little kid. This video was fun to watch. Thanks!
I was only 15 in 2005...this really really takes me back 🥺🥺 kinda breaks my heart a bit knowing that I can't relive those days
I remember when Shrek 1, and the Stuart Little came out... This video is making me feel so old.
16 years ago? What do you mean? 2005 was only a few years ago though... Right?
God I'm old
Ya 16 years ago lmao
I've got _socks_ older than that! I'm absolutely _ancient!_
Yes. How did this happen? When did this happen?
I remember watching Tokyo drift at the movies in 06 and wtf that was 15 years ago?
What.
To
HECK MAN
OMG right? that was a great reality-check brick to the face moment lmao
Yeah the mid-2000s don't seem that long ago for me.
I watch proper people in the dark before bed to relax.
Cinematography and good music choices always make these a good time.
Closure must have been circa 2005. Great Video guys!!
Being in that cinema is like going back in time, being back in the early 2000s. That's a cool experience for sure.
Great video! It's also pretty much perfect to take those liminal spaces photos.
Driven past here 1000’s of times and always wanted to go in. Amazing how un-vandalized it is for being in such a densely populated area.
Where is this theater?
I think with the Madagascar characters on the window, you were meant to see them form the outside. Like when you make pancake art, you work your way backwards through the paint layers, so it's all a mess until you flipp them around.
the videos that you guys make, give me a nostalgic vibe even tho i never went to those places. good job 👍🏼 you earned a new subscriber
Just looking at the first camera angle and it looks amazing!
How an hour ago?
@@ieatshortpeople6825 - probably Patreon
@@ieatshortpeople6825 I’m a Patron
@@EllicottCity1 yep lol
The paintings of the Madagascar characters are nightmare fuel, I love it. Thank you for enduring this for us.
I am afraid my go to my favorite regal now. Definitely go If you can since a lot are opening back up ...support them, most are at risk of dying now. As much as it’s easy to make my own popcorn and order a movie, sometimes I just like to get out of the house and go see one. It’s the experience. I don’t think it can be replaced
I remember this place when it opened. I lived a few miles from here and it was the go to place for a movie night. Before it was built it use to be a drive in. When I was a kid coming home from a day at the shore I remember seeing the drive in movie playing while we drove past. The movie complex was very popular for a good twenty years but from what I remember the foundation was unstable and it was condemned after being considered unsafe. It’s a shame because in its day it was really nice.
This place is gone. They've been tearing it down the past couple of weeks and the only thing standing right now is one or two outside walls up front and not much else
More narrations like how you started this video off is a must !! Very interesting I love it!! Also you guys are an inspiration for me to explore! Thanks
Those projectors are valuable...collectible. What a waste. Great video as always. Love you guys!
No the projectors are useless, no value at all due to no film to project, you would think there was value in these but in 2018 all theatres had to scraped the projectors for junk or just throw them in the dumpster which the did to make way for Digital projectors. Since 2014 Hollywood stop producing film & when the supply ran out, so did the film projectors. There is no value to any of this equipment, sad that an era is gone forever... since Thomas Edison first invented the projector it only change a little in 100yrs...the era of film we all grew up with is gone since 2018.... I was a cinema 35/70-mm projector service technician from 1970-2018, I saw an end to an era of reel to reel, carbon arc light, & then to digital... I have $25K in projector parts that is useless & will be sold for scrap for maybe $30.00 if I am lucky.... BTW a new film projector system cost $15K & would last 50 + yrs when properly maintain, the new digital projectors cost is $35K~$70K & last 15yrs & will need to be replace...
You guys deserve more support. You guys are amazing. Keep up the good work. ✌️
About time. When I saw the Research Park video I knew you'd be stopping by here.
To see you guys travel the world exploring abandoned things and then end up on my back doorstep is surreal
loved the music in the theater with the hole in the roof
The amount of decay and the fact that it only closed in 2005 make me feel old. If I didnt know it closed then I would think it's been sitting abandoned for the past 40 years. I remember 2005 and I remember seeing Madagascar when it came out. Crazy how time left this theater in the past.
This is the 3rd channel that has featured this abandoned Movie Theater.
I'm just saying; I am not complaining.
I don’t watch any other urbex channels, so any locations covered on this one are all fascinating to me. And these guys do their videos so well, that I feel like their explorations are the definitive ones.
7:17 Probably my favorite shot from this video. The light casting down onto forlorn empty chairs where people once sat captive in front of a bygone cinematic experience.