Northpark theater, oldest in OKC, closes
Oklahoma City’s oldest continuously operating movie theater is dark this weekend with emails sent out by AMC Theaters notifying patrons the chain has closed the seven-screen discount cinema.
The theater represented the new wave of multi-screen cinemas when it opened as an anchor at the new Northpark Mall at NW 122 and May Avenue in 1973. At the time, the development was on the north fringe of the city. Memorial Road was a sleepy country corridor though Mercy Hospital was set to challenge assumptions about how far out the city might expand over the next decade.
The theater did well in those early years. When my family moved to Oklahoma City in 1977, my friends and I rode our bikes to see some movies at the Quail Twin at Hefner and May Avenue, but more often, went to Northpark Mall.
Newer theaters with more screens started popping up along Memorial Road and by the early 1990s Northpark was converted into a discount theater. In 1993 the cinemas were split up and the number of screens were increased from four to seven.
A lot of the discount theaters attempted during the arrival of stadium seating in the late 1990s ended up closing pretty quickly. But Northpark survived under different operators, most recently under AMC.
The chain improved the concession stand a bit and some broken seats were repaired. Air conditioning problems were addressed. Ticket prices went up a bit, but were still quite the deal compared to other theaters now charging $9 or more for a ticket.
Just after I published this post, a deaf rights activist I converse with on Twitter, Clint Reininger, responded this is also a loss for the city's deaf community. The theater showed closed caption movies for the community every Wednesday night. Maybe Tower Theater could come to the rescue? Or could this be a part of a new business strategy should Banquet Cinema reopen?
For now, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens next. Northpark Mall, still owned by the Morris family, has adapted pretty well to changing retail trends and changes in surrounding neighborhoods.
As an aside, truly authentic vintage movie going experiences can still be enjoyed at the Tower Theater in Uptown, and of course, Winchester Drive-in in south Oklahoma City is still going strong.