By JOSEPH KELLARD
³It was a plus when Mitchell¹s Diner made beautiful renovations and the Oceanside Motel came down and we¹d heard rumors something would be done with the supermarket,² Anne said. ³But meanwhile we had problems with our patrons¹ cars being towed if they parked in the empty Foodtown lot, so we were always on an uphill battle in Oceanside. Then the fire came.²
The Stampfels¹ ties to Oceanside Theater extend well before they purchased the movie house in 1994. In 1978, the year Anne graduated from Oceanside High School, she worked assisting the person who booked the films, and Henry was the projectionist. The night they first meet, the newly-renovated theater had just reopened and Henry showed ³The Goodbye Girl.² But for Anne, memories of the then single screen movie house stretch even further, to when she attended Saturday matinees of Disney movies as a young girl.
³It makes me sad that we had to close,² she said. ³It¹s like the end of an era.²
The couple from Seaford, who also own the Malverne Cinema and Arts Center and the Bellmore Theater, now encounter Oceanside regulars who tell them how they had their first date or first kiss at the theater and other great memories. ³There are certain people who will say, oh, it was an old movie house,² Henry said. ³But you know what, they were the best.²
The Stampfels purchased their first old movie house, the then Lido Theater in Long Beach, in 1985, and the Bellmore Theater, the last single screen theater in Nassau County, a year later. From that time onward, other neighboring theaters expanded into multiplexes, and the Stampfels bought the Malverne theater in 1990 and the former Calderon Theater in Hempstead in 1997.
Opened in 1954, the Oceanside Theatre was among the dying breed of single or double screen theaters when the Stampfels bought it in the mid-1990s. The theater became one the first to incorporate open caption pictures for the deaf on Long Island, and under the Stampfels was known for showing strictly second-run movies, both of the mainstream and artsy varieties. This was due to theaters in Rockville Centre and Lynbrook having clearance on new films. The Stampfels worked to legally negotiate to absolve this clearance. ³It was frustrating,² Henry recalled.
³There were times when a movie you wanted to see had passed you by, you would usually find it in Oceanside,² said Tom Burn, an East Rockaway resident who was a regular at Oceanside Theatre for a quarter-century.
When discussing his and Anne¹s receipt for success, Henry said second-run theaters in the age of the multiplex required considerably budget watching, and that they kept the Oceanside Theatre open by ³watching our pennies very carefully.² One factor weighing in their favor were movies that became popular from word of mouth rather than from initial good reviews.
³We showed ŒMy Big Fat Greek Wedding¹ in Oceanside for two months,² Henry said, ³and that was after it played a Malverne for like five months. Certain films like that definitely supported the Oceanside theater.²
In recent years, however, a significant trend the Stampfels wrestled with was the increasingly shrinking time span between films going from movie houses to video or DVD. ³It was getting to the point where a movie would show in Rockville Centre,² Henry said, ³and after it closed, there was a two or three week window before it went to video.²
Back in 2003, after the couple negotiated an extension on their lease, the Stampfels invested in their long-term goal to renovate the Oceanside Theatre inside and out and to begin featuring some first-run movies. While they accomplished these goals, they still had more renovations in store when the Foodtown fire hit.
Allen Rosenberg, owner of Alrose Group, a Manhattan-based redeveloper of shopping mall properties, purchased the supermarket property and the building that houses the theater, a barber shop and a memorabilia store. He proposes to build a King Kullen and either a CVS or Walgreens on these sites, and said the Stampfels were very eager for him to buy them out of their lease. ³Well, we weren¹t anxious to sell the theater, but we saw the handwriting on the wall,² Anne said.
³Let¹s put it this way,² Henry said, ³if the property owner had said, Œlook let¹s work out a deal and get you a four-plex here,¹ I would have been equally eager.²
Now, with their Oceanside movie house gone, the Stampfels will continue to run their remaining two theaters in Malverne, known for its artsy movies and reasonable prices, and in Bellmore, which also stages theatrical and musical acts.
Calling the theater in Malverne ³a unique place,² Henry continued, ³I love operating that theater, love the town, and Annie and I decided to bring back the art movies there, and it¹s been working out very nicely. I¹m very happy with it. People love going there.²
Asked if they¹d consider buying another theater, Anne said, ³No, but you never know. I can say no today, and think the opposite tomorrow.²
