My Ghost Adventures - Cinema Ghosts

My previous encounters with what I thought might be ghostly spirits weren't very conclusive. My basement may or may not have been haunted and my dorm mates may have been pulling a prank on me. But my next encounter I'm sure was ghosts.

When I was in college I got an awesome job working at a movie theater. We had a four screen theater and two older one screen theaters downtown. The two downtown theaters were call the Ward and the Broadway, and they both were (are?) very haunted.

I worked mostly at the Ward which had the bathrooms down a level from the concession stand and the theater. Even though the bathrooms were on the same level, the women's bathroom was nearly always 10 degrees colder than the men's bathroom. I would hear noises sometimes when I was down there alone as well, but the Ward ghost wasn't scary. It was just there.

The Broadway theater's ghost on the other hand was scary. There was a feeling of gloom and the air was heavy in the Broadway. I always felt very uncomfortable there and was thankful that I only worked there a handful times. I did see Sleepy Hallow there and that movie is creepy on it's on, but the gloom and coldness got worse as the movie went on.

My boyfriend at the time was a manager at the theater and part of his job was to put the movie reels together. He'd have to watch the movie to make sure it was put together correctly. He and another manager were in the Broadway alone and they started hearing noises. They had a video camera with them because they were both Broadcasting majors at the college. They shot some video and when they reviewed it, there were voices on there that weren't theirs.

A big chain came in and built a 12 screen theater. They knocked the four screen theater down and sold the Ward and the Broadway. The Ward became a church and the Broadway ended up being a community theater.

After college, I went to visit my college best friend for the weekend. She was involved with the community theater and I helped her backstage with the current show. We started telling old stories about the Broadway to a friend of hers and as we did so the temperature got lower and lower. I felt very uneasy and I was very glad to get out of there. That was the last time I visited either theater.

I know without a shadow of a doubt those two old theaters were haunted. I didn't mind the Ward's ghost but there was something evil and menacing lurking at the Broadway.

Up Next - Office Hauntings!

My Very Own Empire Records

Image: Wikipedia.com

I love the movie Empire Records. If you aren't familiar with this wonderful example of the 90's, it's about a group of people working at a record store. The main conflict is that their store is about to be sold to a major chain, killing the indie vibe and the fun.

This morning I was thinking about how I'd like to watch it again. And then I realized that I had my own Empire Records when I was in college.

My favorite job in college was working at the local movie theater. Most of the time when I worked there, we had the Cinema Four, which obviously had four screens. We also had two one screen theaters downtown - the Ward and the Broadway. I usually worked at the Cinema Four or the Ward. I didn't like working at the Broadway - it was (is?) very haunted with no so nice spirits.

The head manager was an older guy who was a lot like Joe from Empire Records. He loved the theater and he loved movies. We had different people working there and we'd have a lot of time to talk while the movies were playing. It was an easy job and a ton of fun.

There was a Soul Calibur arcade machine along with other games. One of the other managers had rigged it so we could play games for free. My proudest moment at that job was when I actually beat one of the managers. I wasn't great but I had gotten good enough on one character to kick some butt.

Alas, our story didn't have a happy ending. A big 12 screen theater was built and the Cinema Four got knocked down. The last time I knew the Ward was a church and the Broadway was used by the community theater.

I worked at the big theater for a while. It wasn't the same at all and they didn't want to promote me because I was from the old crew. I ended up quitting out of frustration.

Real life is rarely like the movies. But for a short time, I had my own version of Empire Records and I'll always have fond memories of that time.