Garden Cinemas Closes, Ending Era Of Art House Movies In Norwalk

NORWALK, CT — Norwalk's Garden Cinemas, a staple for the art house movie crowd for more than 25 years, closed its doors Thursday night, falling victim to dwindling audiences as a nearby development project languished.

In an email to Patch on Friday, the cinemas property owner Richard Freedman, of Garden Homes Management Corp., said construction of the planned Wall Street Place development, which erased the cinemas' parking, took a toll.

"We kept the cinema open for as long as we could, but were never able to reverse the decline in business triggered by the loss of our parking in 2015 when construction started on the building across the street," Freedman said. "It just got worse over time, exacerbated by Isaac Street being a construction zone all these years."

The cinema building is under contract to be sold to the development company JHM Group, but Freedman said he does not have an update on the status of the sale of the building.

The status of the troubled Wall Street development project is unclear; JHM is proposing demolishing the cinemas building for a parking garage, writes The Hour.

Freedman said he was proud of the cinemas' tenure in Norwalk.

"Finally, I’d like to thank our patrons for making the Garden so successful for so many years," he told Patch. "It was our pleasure to provide people a comfortable place to see movies they couldn’t see anywhere else."