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© St. Petersburg Times, published September 8, 2002
ST. PETERSBURG -- XXX closed down the AMC Crossroads 8 theater Monday night.
It wasn't that the action spy movie was so bad. It is the future. Plans call for the demolition of the theater, which was a neighborhood movie house for west St. Petersburg. Several buildings at the shopping center, including an empty Montgomery Ward, also will be torn down and a new Home Depot built.
The 8:30 p.m. screening of XXX was the last movie of the night and marked the end for Crossroads 8.
"It was just an average holiday crowd," said manager Patrick Hays of the Crossroads 8's last day.
"It was a nice day so we didn't have an extra large crowd," Hays said as he "babysat" the closed theater. He and other AMC managers will stay with the 15-year-old theater until everything is cleared out, including the seats.
"The equipment normally is sold to other theaters, some in South America or smaller chains around the nation," Hays said. Vendors pick up their own equipment, such as the drink and pretzel machines.
Some of it might go to Tyrone 6 at the nearby Tyrone Square Mall. Tyrone 6 also is an AMC theater. Hays said he was telling customers who were disappointed by the closing of Crossroads 8 to go to Tyrone.
"There was a group of women who were upset," Hays said of some regulars. "They don't like going downtown (to BayWalk); they don't like paying for parking. Some of them have been coming here since they were kids."
AMC did not make a big deal out of the closing. Hays said he and other employees will have jobs at other AMC theaters. Hays said he is going to Tyrone.
When completed in 1987, Crossroads 8 replaced a smaller theater that had been at Crossroads Shopping Center since 1965.
Renovation plans and the building of a new Home Depot were announced earlier this year as a revitalization of the Crossroads Shopping Center.