Mamaroneck Playhouse to close Sunday

Mamaroneck Playhouse will close Sunday, 89 years after the former vaudeville theater showed its first film.

Bow Tie Cinemas L.L.C., which owns the theater, will keep the old-fashioned facade and marquee intact but will knock down the building there, with plans of putting up condominiums or rentals at the site, according to Mamaroneck officials.

Mamaroneck Mayor Norman Rosenblum said that building residential units at the site, in the heart of the village”™s downtown on Mamaroneck Avenue, would be compliant with existing code.

“It”™s sad, but I think you got to be realistic too,” he told the Business Journal. “The reality is they are the landowners and they have a certain right.”

Rosenblum and other village officials met with Bow Tie executives several months ago, he said, and discussed the possibility of converting the four-screen theater into a boutique theater that would include stadium seating, classic movies, and full food and drink service. On April 9, though, Bow Tie met with Mamaroneck officials again, this time saying the theater was not economically viable and couldn”™t compete with nearby multiplexes in Port Chester and White Plains.

The number of U.S. movie screens has increased in the last two decades, though the number of cinema sites continues to decline, according to the National Association of Theatre Owners. In 1995, there were 26,679 screens in the country, while 39,662 screens were in use by 2012, the last year for which the association listed data. Yet, the number of U.S. cinema sites dropped, most likely due to large multiplexes, from 7,744 in 1995 to 5,683, according to the association.

Many Hollywood studios are expected to begin distributing their movies exclusively in digital formats. For many older theaters that would mean either spending to upgrade to digital projectors and equipment, or not showing the latest blockbuster films. Hundreds of small theaters were expected to close due to the switch, with “The Wolf of Wall Street” the first big studio picture to be distributed solely in a digital projection format.

The Mamaroneck Playhouse opened in 1925 as a single-screen playhouse with a balcony. The first film projected onto its screens was “Wild, Wild Suzanne,” according to a March 2013 article in the Sound & Town Report, a weekly newspaper.

Rosenblum, 71, said he remembers visiting the theater as a child when it still had a stage and a piano and watching Roy Rogers and Gene Autry films. In those days, he said, admission to a double feature was a quarter and newsreels and cartoons would be broadcast. For its last day, the theater will charge $11.25 for an adult ticket.

The theater was renovated in the late 1970s under the ownership of United Artists, which expanded the theater to have four screens and a second story. The building was operated in recent years by Clearview Cinemas, which sold the Mamaroneck Playhouse and 40 others to Bow Tie last June. Bow Tie planned to renovate the theaters and convert all of its locations to digital projection.

The mayor said he expected the company to apply for demolition permits in the next several weeks and he hoped the property wouldn”™t stay vacant for long. Since it is an old building, he said there may be the need to remove asbestos or other materials.

“My concern is having an empty hole there,” he said. A call to Bow Tie’s corporate offices in Ridgefield, Conn., was not immediately returned.

For its last day of operation, the theater is scheduled to show “Muppets Most Wanted,” “Divergent, “Rio 2” and “Captain America 2: The Winter Soldier.” When the credits roll on Sunday”™s 7:15 p.m. showing of “Captain America,” so will the credits roll on the playhouse.

Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that the movie theater would close Thursday, April 17. The date of Thursday was corroborated by those interviewed for the article, though the theater was said to have pushed its closing date until after the holiday weekend.