Last Picture Show
Cinema City's last night, July 22, 2010
I moved into Hartford the year Cinema City was built. I have watched movies there for 37 years.
The theater closed on July 22, 2010 and has moved to Bowtie Cinema on New Park Avenue, Hartford.
Every fan of the movie house has a favorite memory. I've got a couple. First there was the benefit showing of John Sayles' brilliant film Matewan for the striking workers at Colt Firearms in the 1980s. The Applachian miners and townspeople (portrayed by James Earl Jones, Chris Cooper, and Mary McDonnell) did not win their 1920 strike, but the UAW Colt strikers did.
More on Hartford Movie Theaters
Read Hartford's Motion Picture Palaces from the Hog River Journal
Parsons' Theater, Hartford's first Union house (1901)
The State Theater from Cinema Treasures
Photos of Hartford movie theaters from Cinema Tour
Andrew Rosetti of Cinema City in the New York Times
IATSE Local 84, Hartford
My second memory also involves John Sayles, who in the mid-1990s drove up from his home in New Jersey to Cinema City for a screening of City of Hope. The showing was also a benefit, this time to help retire the debt of People For Change, Hartford's third party.
Cinema City was the last movie theater in the city to operate as a Union house. That means that its employees were trained professionals with decent wages and benefits. So when you curse the out-of-focus images on the screen at Bowtie, keep that in mind.
