Garden Cinema owner blames lack of parking for Norwalk theater’s demise
NORWALK — After two years operating at a loss, the Garden Cinema screened its final movies Thursday night.
The theater has struggled in recent years after the Isaacs Street parking lot was lost in 2015 when work began on the first phase of the nowstalled Wall Street Development project, according to Richard Freedman, of Garden Homes Management, which owned and operated the theater.
“The impact in 2015 was immediate when that parking lot closed. Business dropped significantly within the month,” said Freedman, whose group operated State Cinema in Stamford until its 2018 closing and still runs Empire Cinemas in Brewster, N.Y. “There’s a general decline in moviegoing that’s affected everybody. It’s affected Garden Cinema as well. But the circumstances around the closing of the Garden are specific to that theater.”
The future of the theater has frequently been a question in recent years, as ticket sales slowed. Freedman estimated the loss of the parking lot caused a 50 percent drop in the theater’s business.
“It just created an impossible situation,” Freedman said. “It’s just not possible to run a business under those conditions, especially one that relies on people coming from a distance and at least having some convenience.”
In 1994, Freedman’s group purchased the theater, which he said was built in the mid1960s, from owners who feared the Garden Cinema could not compete with the SoNo Regent theater, which was being built at the time.
Not only did Garden Cinema compete, it also built a sizable following, earning a reputation for playing independent movies not often screened in larger theaters.
“We ran a different kind of theater than our larger competition and we carved out a successful niche,” Freedman said. “We had quite a big following. People really liked the theater. They liked going there, they liked the kind of movies we showed there. We were fine until circumstances out of our control.”
In March, Freedman announced the theater was under contract to be sold to Stamfordbased developer JHM Group, which has been in closeddoor talks with the city to restart the stalled development. Initial plans, presented by JHM in the spring, included the razing of the theater to make way for required parking. In response, more than 14,000 signed an online petition to save the theater.
In July, two members of the Wall Street Neighborhood Association — Marc Alan, director of marketing and publicity at the Factory Undergound, and Frank Farricker, owner of the Wall Street Theater — proposed alternate plans for the building, which they said could become an arts nonprofit.
That same month, the Common Council voted to table talks about the proposed development. It has not been discussed publicly since. Freedman said he did not know the status of the project.
“I’m not involved in that process at all,” Freedman said. “I view myself really as just an innocent bystander to all the histrionics that are going on in downtown Norwalk.”
After 25 years in Norwalk, Garden Cinema closed its doors Thursday night after showing “The Two Popes” and “Marriage Story.”
“I just want to thank our customers who supported the theater for so many years,” Freedman said. “We had wonderful customers who came over and over and over again. Without them we wouldn’t have had a business.”