{"id":494,"date":"2010-06-26T11:57:55","date_gmt":"2010-06-26T11:57:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/?p=494"},"modified":"2010-06-26T12:00:08","modified_gmt":"2010-06-26T12:00:08","slug":"forgotten-cinema-the-niguel-theatre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/2010\/06\/26\/forgotten-cinema-the-niguel-theatre\/","title":{"rendered":"Forgotten Cinema: The Niguel Theatre"},"content":{"rendered":"
This month marked the forty fifth anniversary of a south county theatre which barely managed to leave a\u00a0discernible mark on local cinema history\u00a0during it’s brief fifteen year run.<\/div>\n
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The Niguel Theatre <\/a>opened\u00a0on June 9, 1965,\u00a0as an anchor for\u00a0the Monarch Bay Plaza commercial development, in\u00a0the, then new, planned community of Laguna Niguel.\u00a0Standing\u00a0between the borders of Laguna Beach and\u00a0present day Dana Point,\u00a0adjacent to the\u00a0Pacific Coast Highway, the\u00a0theatre was situated in a seemingly lucrative position; the only other area movie going destination being the Niguel’s sister theatre, Laguna’s South Coast Cinema<\/a>.<\/div>\n
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Designed\u00a0by local architect, Ricardo A Nicoli, the Niguel featured a Spanish theme exterior and 60’s modern interior. With white stucco walls, brick columns, and a red clay tile roof, the theatre closely matched the overall style of the\u00a0area during the period. Inside, the 6,600 square foot cinema offered\u00a0up a prototypical 60’s single screen experience, electing to focus on greater functionality, rather than design flourishes. While\u00a0exhibiting a rather bland appearance, the Niguel\u00a0stood as the only modern cinema, south of Santa Ana, until the turn of the next decade.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
Unfortunately, the Niguel’s affluent location and, period,\u00a0state of the art amenities\u00a0never managed to capture a steady audience. After struggling as an independent for a decade, the\u00a0venue was taken on by the Pacific Theatres chain, with equally disappointing results. Compounding ticket sales woes, the theatre was built at the base of a steep hillside, resulting in frequent\u00a0drainage issues. Between regular flooding closures and mounting water damage, the struggling cinema saw attendance trail off throughout the 70’s. By 1980, the\u00a0Niguel was deemed a total loss and quietly closed for redevelopment.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
Today, a set of retail establishments and a coffee house\u00a0have replaced the Niguel,\u00a0in the northern corner of\u00a0Monarch Bay Plaza. Virtually\u00a0lost to record and memory, the\u00a0Niguel Theatre’s very existence\u00a0is\u00a0commemorated by little more than a couple of black & white photos and a handful of one line blurbs in local history reflections.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This month marked the forty fifth anniversary of a south county theatre which barely managed to leave a\u00a0discernible mark on local cinema history\u00a0during it’s brief fifteen year run. \u00a0 The Niguel Theatre opened\u00a0on June 9, 1965,\u00a0as an anchor for\u00a0the Monarch Bay Plaza commercial development, in\u00a0the, then new, planned community of Laguna Niguel.\u00a0Standing\u00a0between the borders of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-theatre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=494"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":498,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494\/revisions\/498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}