A Sad Farewell

It's been a rough week for Huntington.

First my beloved Chili Willi's closed - a restaurant I've been visiting since it opened in a tiny venue next to the Cinema Theatre.

Then the Jolly Pirate on First Street closed - thankfully, the one on Route 60 is still around.

Then Friday came the word that the Cinema Theater had closed its doors.

That's sad, not just because it's the last of the three Fourth Avenue theaters, not just because I saw so many great (and some not-so-great) movies there, but because I have such fond memories of the people who worked there over the years.

When I was in college at Marshall I spent a couple of years working at the Keith-Albee Theater as a doorman and projectionist, and I sometimes worked with or assisted fellow employees at the Cinema and Camelot Theaters.

We'd assemble new movies late Thursday night (and sometimes "screen" the new releases after midnight), change the Marquee letters and the posters - it was a fun job (especially for a college kid), and I got to see lots of movies and eat lots of popcorn.

It'll be interesting to see what happens next for the Cinema. But I'll miss the old girl.

Here's the story about the closing from the Herald-Dispatch:

The Cinema at 1021 4th Ave. closed its doors for good on Thursday.

The discount theater was the last of the Huntington locations for Greater Huntington Theater Corp., and it closed because of a lack of business, according to a press release from the company.

"First, we would like to thank all our customers who have supported the Cinema over the many years we have been in business," the release said. "We have been carrying losses over the past several years in hopes we could turn things around and keep the Cinema open but that didn't happen. We found that with the first run theaters keeping the movies longer and the shorter time before the DVDs are released, the discount movie theater business just doesn't work."

The Cinema had eight employees.

Greater Huntington Theater Corp., run by President Derek Hyman of Huntington, still operates three other theaters in the region: Park Place Stadium Cinema in Charleston, Fountain Place Cinema 8 in Logan, and Pierce Point Cinema 10 in Amelia, Ohio. But the Cinema wasn't sustaining itself.

"There's so much money you need to run a building like that, and with discounted prices, we didn't manage to make enough to keep it open," Hyman said in an interview Friday morning.

In 2006, the company closed the historic Keith-Albee as a movie theater, as well as the Camelot movie theater, citing competition from the Marquee Cinema at Pullman Square, which opened in late 2004.

The Cinema was kept alive as a discount theater featuring second-run movies. It offered a variety of specials to attract movie-goers, such as free movies for kids in the summertime - which drew crowds of local day care children - and "Flashback Mondays," when they showed classic movies on the big screen, as well as offering "$2 Tuesdays."

Its closing marks the end of an era for a company that got into the entertainment business in downtown Huntington in the 1920s.

"I've known I'd do this for a couple of months and I thought I was prepared, but it's made me sad today," Hyman said.

The Greater Huntington Theatre Corp. was opened by Derek's grandfather, Abe Hyman, and great uncle Saul Hyman, who opened the ornate Keith-Albee Theatre in 1928. The theater corporation was handed down from Abe and Saul Hyman to Jack Hyman, who ran it until the 1990s, when Derek took over.

Along with the theaters downtown and its remaining current theaters, the business has had others as well, including the East Drive-In along U.S. 60 near the current site of HIMG. There also was Starlight in South Point.

The Cinema was once the Orpheum Theater, and it was in business years before the Keith-Albee opened in 1928, according to local historian Jim Casto.

"The Orpheum was built as a vaudeville theater," he said. "When movies came along, it featured both movies and vaudeville acts. Ultimately, like the nation's other theaters, it became strictly a movie house."

Before it was turned into a multiplex, it seated more than 1,300 people, Casto said.

Anyone holding gift cards with balances, valid gift coupons or valid advance tickets for The Cinema can contact its corporate office at 304-523-0185 for a refund.