Westcott Cinema

Growing up on the east side of Syracuse my neighborhood was dominated by the shopping district known as Westcott Street. The grocery store (A&P) was there, also a 5 and dime, a pharmacy, and the Westcott Cinema.

On Saturdays at 1:00 there was always a monster movie matinee. I would walk the few blocks over to the alley by the A&P parking lot and cut through to Westcott, emerging just by the theater. I'd be with or find the neighborhood kids - Russ Steenberg, Linda Baker, Priscilla Seimer - and we'd stand in line until it was time to go in. The owner took our quarters, we bought popcorn, and Fifi, the owner's wife, with the diamond glasses and very mature figure would yell at us for putting our feet on the backs of the seats ahead of us. We saw The Creature from the Black Lagoon and The Fly many times there.

In junior high I'd come with my parents to see movies on Saturday nights. Double features usually. I remember coming in at the end of "Night of the Iguana" with Ava Gardner, Sue Lyon and Richard Burton and being riveted by the last few minutes of the movie. My best friend, Annie, closed her eyes. The film wasn't approved by the Church. But the "Unsinkable Molly Brown" was and that was what we'd come to see.

I saw "Gone With the Wind" with my mother and Beverly, a friend who chided me for crying during the opening credits but I had read the book and was SO excited to be finally seeing the movie I broke down in tears.

Later I saw "A Man and a Woman" on a date and spent years afterward playing and replaying the score, learning rudimentary Portuguese so I could sing the words.

I was away for a long time, and when I returned to the area Westcott had become "The Westcott Nation," with head shops and bookstores and more recently wonderful restaurants. As always the theater remained, although Fifi was gone. It had become an art cinema, playing the sort of movies that weren't shown in the malls. I remember David Mamet films, in particular. Thought-provoking films.

It was always a good night, especially in summer. Dinner at Munjed's, then the show at 8:00, sticking to the floor in the restroom upstairs, but enjoying the peace of a not jam-packed theater. Walking back to the car on the side streets I used to roam as a kid, though not through the alley any more.

The Westcott Cinema closed today.