The Union Station Theaters are closed. As of October 12. The move had been planned for quite a while but I was still surprised to finally see the yellow tape and semi-destruction going on behind the glass doors. The theatres were sold to Phoenix in 2005 when the original owners (AMC + Lowes) merged and were forced to sell off some theatres for approval.Looks like the biggest loss will be for the National Community Church. The NCC (which runs Ebenezers Coffee) had used the church for Sunday service for 13 years. The closing also means that Northwest is now the only quadrant with a first run, commercial movie theatre.
I tried watching a movie there several times with the last being the LOTR: Return of the King, on it's its first week of release. During the move, at a pivotal moment, the lights went up and the movie went off. There was a fire alarm going sounding. We all exited, orderly-like, and learned the culprit halfway down the hallway; an overworked popcorn maker had overheated and smoked the place out. Fine, it happens. Half hour later, we're back in the theatre, but that break sort of killed the flow. And also made seeing that movie a near-four hour experience. That was the last time I saw a movie at Union Station. Not soon after, the massive Regal Gallery Place theatres opened and was much closer for people living in Mount Pleasant.
