The Sunday Memory Drawer - The Third Mount Vernon Movie Theater

Many times on these viral pages, I have fondly recalled the movie theaters of my hometown, Mount Vernon, New York.  The two biggies were the RKO Proctor's and the Loews (pronounced "Lowees"), both situated in the downtown area and were literally a block away from each other.   These were wonderful palaces with three levels, lounges, and lobbies that featured the marvelous aroma of popping corn.

Since these theaters were in the downtown area, they were pretty much in the center of the city and were easily accessible by everybody.   From my house on South Fifteenth Avenue, it was an easy twenty minute walk to the movies.  I made the trip many times with my mom or my dad or my neighborhood buddies.  Some combination of that did that at least once a week when I was eight or nine or ten years old.

But there was the legend that there was a third movie theater in Mount Vernon.  As I always scanned the movie pages of the Daily News or the local Daily Argus, I would see it show up in the section where they listed "show times."   Hmmm.

I remember asking my dad.   What's this theater in Mount Vernon called "The Parkway?"  He responded by resorting to one of his tried-and-true answers to my many questions.

"It's too far."

So was everything.   

Indeed, I guess my father considered the Parkway as if it were on the moon. Realistically, it was on the north side of Mount Vernon in the city section called Fleetwood.  The theater didn't have all the marquee lights and gaudiness that RKO or Loews had.   Actually, it looked like just another store front nestled amongst a bunch of other...well...store fronts.

Now my mother didn't necessarily have an aversion to distance as she liked to get around Mount Vernon via Tony Maurino's cab company.  So it would be her who brought me to my virgin visit at the Parkway.  On a school night, nonetheless.   It was my birthday and she had gathered a few of my school friends and their mothers for the exclusive Westchester showing of "Mary Poppins."

As I walked into this movie theater, it certainly didn't look like the ones I had been going to before.   It was one level.   The lobby was nice but certainly not opulent.  You had to go downstairs for the bathrooms.

And also the lounge, which was amazing because it had this ultra-mod circular couch.   I had never seen anything like it.   It gave the Parkway a cozy style that the other bigger places couldn't achieve because of their size.

I always thought the Parkway was a fairly new theater.  For this blog, I did a little research and discovered it was a bit older than I thought when I was ten.  I mean, the films in this ad came out in the mid to late 40s.

The visits to the Parkway were few and far between, until I became a teenager and my friends and I would walk anywhere in town.   It was probably a four mile hike from my house to the Parkway, but my buddies and I would do it if they had something we wanted to see.   I can remember going with my best neighborhood friend Leo to see "The Exorcist" when it came out.   

When I was an adult, the Parkway Theater used to feature movies that had just finished their initial runs at the bigger theaters.   So it was a perfect place to catch up with something you had missed.   I think one such film was "Ferris Bueller's Day Off."   There were others.   And, every time I went, I made a trip to the lounge downstairs where that circular and enormous sofa still had a home.  

The Parkway lasted into the late 80s and had existed long after the two downtown showplaces had shuttered in the late 60s.  But, inevitably, all good things come to an end and the Parkway probably lost its life to the mega movieplexes on Central Avenue in Yonkers.

Ironically, the facade is still there, but, instead, of next week's feature, there is a board listing who is reposing in what room.  Yep, all the Mount Vernon funeral homes had merged into one conglomerate and taken over the Parkway.
When it was a movie theater, this was the entrance way.

It looked very similar today as a mortuary.   But, oh, so different.

I actually want to have an excuse to go there now.   Not only to relive memories, but to address my nagging question...

Is the circular sofa still there?

Dinner last night:  Sausage pizza from Maria's.