Pictures: Do You Remember the Point 4 Theatre in Somers Point, NJ?
Ready to head back in time to when you could see a new movie in Somers Point for six bucks? Let's take a look at the long-demolished Point 4 Theatre on MacArthur Blvd.
Lately, I've been having a lot of fun unearthing old cell phones and finding pictures on them from ten or fifteen years ago (you can see some of those below). Along that same line, I recently found my first digital camera from 2001, and on it are about 3,000 pictures from two decades ago.
As I've said before, while working for this radio station I am constantly taking pictures of random things and stuff that no one would have ever really documented. Case in point, I have dozens of pictures of the old Point 4 Theatre in Somers Point.
There's not a lot available online about this movie house, but long story short, this building was originally a bowling alley. In 1983, the Frank Theaters chain purchased it and converted it into a four-screen movie theater (it could have been five but they used one area for storage).
While you may or may not remember seeing any movies there, you may recall the giant mural that graced the front of the building at 24 MacArthur Blvd. The scene, which depicted many classic movies, was reportedly painted by local students and teachers.
I'm not exactly sure when the theater closed, but one person says they remember seeing "The Blair Witch Project" there in 1999. It was closed in 2002 when I took all of these pictures, so it would have been right around the time of Y2K.
I vaguely remember speaking to someone at the real estate firm that had the property listed for sale back then and I recall the asking price was around $1 million (which would be about $1.5 million today).
Sadly, there were no takers (and by then the building may have been in such poor condition that reopening it for movies would have been too costly) and it was demolished. In its place, an office building was built that is currently home to Shore Orthopaedics.
So, let's take a trip back to 2002 and reminisce about Somers Point's Point 4 Theatre. And if you have any memories of seeing movies there or know more about its history, feel free to drop me an e-mail.