This is sad to me, but such is progress. I worked at General Cinema, Cinema V (that's how we used to answer the phone) from March 1988 to May 1989. It was my first job, and even though it was tedious at times and I longed for more money, I didn't always appreciate what a great job it was until I had moved on to greener pastures. Sometimes when I was having a frantic day at work, I longed for the simpler days when I was dishing out popcorn or taking tickets at the ticket stand. This theater opened in 1979 and stayed in operation into the 1990s. Before I left, they had become a dollar theater. The last big movie we had as a first-run theater was Die Hard in 1988, and it was a huge hit. I saw it many times and I have it on DVD today. We schlepped up and down those back stairs, bringing down bags of popcorn (it was popped once a week, on Tuesdays) in day-glo yellow bags that we emptied into the popcorn warmers. I did just about everything there except run the place. I used to love sneaking up to the projection room and watching the screen from up there.
The theater has been vacant for at least ten years, if not more, and it had just fallen into ruin. On December 23, 2009, demolition started on the building, and it was captured by this YouTube video. I'll always treasure my memories of working there and the fun we had.
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4 comments:
Noooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!
I know - I couldn't bring myself to watch the entire video. I kept picturing us in that cashier booth or working in the lobby. Very sad, but at least we have our memories.
Love you!
That is such a sad thing. I loved working there and referred to my position as "Popcorn Queen." Perhaps the demolition is more dignified than rotting away an inch at a time. I was so sad to drive past it on my visits to White Settlement and see that marquee bare.
There's a part of me that always wanted to go back and just take a peek inside. I read somewhere that GCC didn't take too much out of these theaters when they closed them, so who knows what might have been there before thieves and vandals broke in.
But sometimes when work has gotten to be too crazy, I've longed for those simple days where all we had to worry about was getting the trash picked up or keeping the popcorn bins filled. I didn't always think of it as a fun job at the time, but in retrospect, it was an awesome first job.
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