Apex 4d theater8/10/2023 ![]() ![]() The decision comes four months after its parent company Cineworld filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after the pandemic devastated the industry and public screenings. The Beaver Creek Stadium 12 theater in Apex is one of 39 theaters Regal Cinemas is closing across the United States. Twitter: previous columns, visit /johnkelly.APEX, N.C. Proving that everything old is new again, Warner Bros. The very last movie shown at the Apex was the sci-fi flick “Logan’s Run,” in which Michael York decides he doesn’t want to be killed when he turns 30, as is the practice in the overpopulated future dystopia. Now, most movie theaters are at shopping centers, with plenty of screens - and plenty of parking. When you had several screens, you could put it on a smaller screen and bring in something better for the bigger screen.” If the movie was a real bum and no one was going, you were stuck with it. “If you made an arrangement with a distributor to show a movie, you had to show it for a certain amount of time. “Right off the bat, they were single-screen theaters, and you couldn’t really afford a single-screen theater anymore,” Headley said. Why did most neighborhood theaters dwindle away? It was replaced by a six-story office building. The Apex closed in 1976 and - despite the entreaties of neighbors and art-deco buffs - was torn down in 1977. “In effect, I showed the same picture for 10 or 12 years different titles, different stars, but basically it was an indigenous British comedy,” Goldman told Headley. It became known for specializing in British films. In 1952, the K-B Theaters chain was purchased by Marvin Goldman, Fred Kogod’s son-in-law, and Fred Burka, Max Burka’s son. The Apex also hosted various non-cinematic offerings, including Hanukkah parties sponsored by Hadassah and early rounds of the Miss D.C. Headley, author of “Motion Picture Exhibition in Washington, D.C.: An Illustrated History of Parlors, Palaces and Multiplexes in the Metropolitan Area, 1894-1997.” You knew everyone who worked there,” said Baltimore native Robert K. “When I was growing up, a neighborhood theater was a very important place. Nixon went to movies at the Apex when he was vice president and his family lived in nearby Wesley Heights. Downtown theaters - the Keith, the Warner, the Metropolitan, the Ambassador, the Capitol, the Palace and the Columbia - had a lock on first-run films. Until the late 1950s, it showed second-run features. The Apex, in Spring Valley, was considered a “neighborhood” movie house. Their empire grew to more than a dozen theaters across the Washington area. They entered the movie business when the manager of a theater in one of their buildings left abruptly. The local chain was founded in the 1920s by Fred Kogod and Max Burka, Eastern European immigrants who started in the grocery trade and then moved into real estate. The Apex was the flagship of the K-B Theaters collection. Its blueprints were reportedly used for the Druid Theater in Damascus, Md., and the Naylor Theater on Alabama Avenue SE. The Apex was designed by leading theater architect John J. And at the back of the theater was a cool feature: two glass-fronted, soundproof compartments with room for 32 people, “from which the screen entertainment can be perfectly seen and heard and smoking and conversation indulged in without molestation of the rest of the audience.” And that’s all before you even entered the 1,200-seat auditorium, which was decorated in rich crimson, set off by deep blues, a fleur-de-lis motif woven into the thick pile carpets and wall tapestries.īehind the screen was a 15-foot stage. ![]() Wide doors at either side of the center box office lead into a walnut-paneled lobby decorated with a hand-painted frieze depicting the development of Washington from the days of the first settlers to its present status as one of the world’s great capitals.” Bell wrote that “the Apex presents an imposing front elevation, with its name high at the top of the facade in cutout letters and novel lighting suffusing the entire front of the theater with soft amber, blue and green tones. . . The theater’s handsome art deco design was celebrated in the pages of The Washington Post. In between, the Apex experienced the rise and fall of the American neighborhood movie house. That’s also where it was when it closed 36 years later. 20, 1940 - showing “Down Argentine Way” - the Apex Theater was at 4813 Massachusetts Ave. What was the exact location of the Apex Theater and when did it close?
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