Sunnyside Center Cinemas is likely to be demolished in the coming years, since the Queens Boulevard-facing plot of land on which it sits was sold to an Astoria developer back in December for $6.675 million. The Sunnyside Post reports that the developer hasn't yet decided what to do with the site?which includes a Dime Savings Bank, set to close this summer, and Irish pub P.J. Horgan's, which has been operating for 40 years and has a lease till 2018?but guesses that it's likely to be razed in the name of a presumably more lucrative residential project.
Movie theater owner Rudy Prashad tried to save his historic, down-at-the-heels domain, putting in a failed $5.2 million bid.
"It's a neighborhood theater and I wanted to keep it," Prashad told the Post. "It's a place where working families can take their kids to the movies and not spend too much." Sunnyside itself has a long history, dating back to 18th-century French Huguenot settlers. Forgotten NY chronicled two old-school movie houses, the Bliss Theater and the Sunnyside Theatre, which closed in the 1960s. Hey, at least Center Cinemas survived those! Some breathing room?Prashad's current lease runs until December 2014, so go see a movie at Sunnyside Center Cinemas while you still can.
·Sunnyside Move Theater Likely To Be Demolished [Sunnyside Post, via Queens Crap]
·A Detailed History of Sunnyside [Forgotten NY]
·The plot's former listing [Sunnyside Post archive]
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