Saturday, July 01, 2006

Some good news


The Beach Boys concert and traditional 4th of July fireworks featuring the Northeastern Pennsylvania Philharmonic have been called off because Kirby Park got flooded but the long awaited Wilkes-Barre movie theater is up and running. They decided to skip the ribbon cutting grand opening Thursday because our local officials had more pressing things to deal with.

Hopefully the movie theater will act as business magnet similar to the Arena project in W-B Twp. I know it won't produce a boom on that scale and it shouldn't. The big national retailers are probably not interested in investing in a downtown location so it's up to small business. And small businesses are taking the chance. Over the last year several new ventures have either opened or are planning to soon. Including a book store in the Woolworth building, a dance club, comedy club, upscale billiard hall and several bars and restaurants.

Wilkes-Barre Movies 14

So if you want to see a movie in a state of the art facility you don't have to wander up to Moosic anymore. The grand opening was timed to coincide with the release of Superman Returns which is the story of an illegal immigrant who assimilates and becomes the champion of Truth, Justice and the American Way.

Thanks to Mark for the pic. He has a slide show running on his home page that documents the whole project.

4 comments:

D.B. Echo said...

I just hope this doesn't go the way of all multiplexes - the latest Adam Sandler opus on seven screens, last week's Jim Carrey epic on four screens, last month's Tom Cruise blockbuster on two screens, and some other random movie that shows twice a day and will be pulled in a week on the remaining screen.

LVDem said...

The Boyd in Bethlehem is a one screen theater that still brings in tons of movie goers. It's not an anchor, but it's certainly a good part of the historic downtown.

A Big Fat Slob said...

Clever name -- "Movies 14". Wonder how much they paid a marketing consultant to come up with that one?

It is a step, but I was through there last week and most of the downstown storefronts are empty -- it seems more empty than even 5 years ago. I noticed that most of them als also owned by the same person. I wonder if there's a connection?

Gort said...

I agree that that the name could be better. There are a lot of empty storefronts downtown but you can't reverse 30+ years of neglect and mismanagement overnight. But things are looking up in W-B.