Autumn Years Winter 2023/24

ginning in Edgewater in 1977, Loews Showboat Quad opened on River Road. When it closed in 2001, its marquee was used to promote special events at the adjacent Binghamton’s ferry boat res taurant. In 1988, the Loews Ridgefield Park Tenplex opened next to the New Jersey Turnpike as part of the Hartz Mountain Overpeck Development. The colossal theater had 4,800 seats, and the three-story lobby is three-quarters the length of a football field. The theater’s largest auditorium was divided in 1993. Today it is AMC Ridgefield Park 12 and shows first-run movies. The 21st century As movie-going passed the 100-year mark in Bergen County, larger and new kinds of theaters opened. The Edgewater Multiplex Cinemas opened in 2000 as a 16-screen theater featuring stadium seat ing, digital sound and the “Movie Walk Cafe” that offered pizza, hotdogs, fries, fried dough and ice cream (later, it in cluded a Nathan’s and a Sbarro). It closed in 2018 and was demolished in 2019.

Ramsey’s Interstate Theatre closed in the summer of 2000. Ramsey’s other theater was the one on Main Street (mentioned in Part 1), originally opened in 1918 as The Superba Theatre . It was renamed Holly Theatre in the 1920s, then renamed Ramsey Theatre in 1936. Closed in 1952, it reopened as the Ramsey Cinema in 1960. In March 2020, with the Covid lockdown, the theater was forced to close. That closure became permanent in September 2020 after The 1970s brought three new theaters to the county. Cinema 35 opened in 1973 in a small shopping center on Route 4 in Paramus called Plaza 35. The small theater closed in 2004. In 1974, the Oakland Twin Cinemas opened in a shopping center in Oakland. It closed in 1991, and ShopRite expanded into the space. With new development be nearly 100 years of operation. The 1970s and 1980s

The Paramus shopping malls also had theaters. At Bergen Mall, the Mall Theatre opened in 1960 with The Mouse That Roared . The theater tended to show art films and foreign films, often in exclusive Bergen County engagements. It was made into a “twinplex” in 1978 and closed in January 1992. At Garden State Plaza, Century’s Paramus Theatre opened in 1965 with 2,000 seats. It was eventually converted to a “triplex” and closed in 2006. Some small towns followed suit and built theaters in their small shopping centers. Washington Township’s Washington Cinema is open today as the Township Theatre . Closter had its Closter Theatre , which was reborn but is now closed. Emerson’s Town Theater closed in 2010 and was demolished.

48 AUTUMN YEARS I WINTER 2023/24