Amboy Cinemas

There are a handful of abandoned buildings in New Jersey history that could be considered "iconic". Your mind might jump to the old Pabst brewery with its rusty, bottle shaped water tower. Maybe your first thought is the Hydro Proof warehouse off the turnpike prominently featured in the Sopranos introduction. Among these old subjective eyesores would have to be the old Amboy Cinemas building right off the Garden State Parkway.

The land between the Parkway and Rt. 35 was once a very large drive in theater which opened in 1957. One may think they would have cleverly hidden the screen so nobody got distracted but that is not the case. The large screen was directly visible to motorists for quite a long span.

 

Before long the business began to decline, and like many other theaters the drive in apparently began showing adult films. Local legend has it that this would cause massive traffic delays, since there was never a wall obstructed to keep the folks on the highway from watching. This has been substantiated by former emplyees whose comments can be found in the Cinema Treasures article. Allegedly they were ordered to stop screening porn, and the drive in closed in 1979.

 

After a few short months the large screen was demolished a 10 screen theater opened up on the land adjacent to where the old projection house was. Between 1981 and 1985 the theater underwent several additions, eventually hosting 14 different auditoriums. 

The theater went on to show movies for another 20 years. I even attneded the theater myself in 2004 to see the SpongeBob SquarePants movie, although unfortunately I cant really remember much about the experience. 

Unfortunately the building was condemned just a few months later on May 28th, 2005 due to a sinkhole forming under the lobby. Even though the building was closed with no chance of re-use, it wasn't demolished. For more than a 15 years nearly 300,000 motorists passed by the deteriorating structure every single day, watching it rot away from the Driscoll Bridge. It always struck me as a strange juxtaposition; the small inferior theater building next to the widest motor vehicle bridge in the world. 

Despite the mild curiosity I never really took the time to figure out how to access the building. However after years of knocking better theaters off my "want to see" list I eventually formulated a plan to visit. I parked my car on a quiet Perth Amboy street, grabbed my bag, and headed towards the Victory Bridge. For whatever reason when they replaced the Victory Bridge in 2004 they decided to include a sidewalk on the side that leads exclusively to the movie theater parking lot. maybe they thought it would help bring business to the ailing theater, though it clearly didn't help. It was super convenient for me though, as I made it to the parking lot just as the sun began to rise. 

 The cinema was suprisingly intact inside. Each auditorium still had its seating, which I did not remember being green when I visited nearly two decades before. I got a kick out of the movies that were displayed on the interior marquis, some of which I don't even remember. After poking around several of the nearly identical auditoriums I set off to find the projection rooms. 

I was excited to find that all of the equipment was lined up in a single room. Despite being gutted of everything but their cases, it was very neat to see so many machines together. 

After about an hour I headed out before traffic got too bad. I'm very glad I visited when I did though. Demolition finally started on the rotting building that had stood for so long in July of 2023. By the end of the month, the lot was clear.

It will be weird driving over the Driscoll Bridge and not seeing Amboy Cinemas anymore. It goes on to join the long list of landmarks from my childhood demolished and built over.