The Holiday houses: Northcrest's twin and six-plex

1966 — 2005

The best room in town, by many accounts: Fort Wayne's Holiday was not a drive-in, as local memory sometimes makes it — it was the indoor house at the Northcrest Shopping Center, and for two decades it was, by the testimony collected in its Cinema Treasures record, the best place in Fort Wayne to see a movie. The Holiday Theatre at 949 Northcrest Shopping Center opened as a single-screen house with Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines — the advertisement-based record dates the opening to March 4, 1966, while a local summary gives 1969 — and a second auditorium was added in 1970 so carefully that the building looked, to its demolition, like a purpose-built twin. The Holiday I & II passed through Alliance, Cinecom, and Mallers-Spirou before Regal took it in the 1990s. Regal built its successor a few hundred feet away and closed the twin on August 31, 2000; the building sat vacant and was demolished in 2003.

The Holiday 6: The successor, the Holiday 6 at 931 Northcrest Shopping Center, opened on July 21, 1989, under Mallers-Spirou and passed to Regal. It outlived the twin by five years and changed character as the market moved: a first-run house into the 2000s, a sub-run discount theatre from April 2004, then a full-price house for independent and art films, until it closed on November 13, 2005. With it went the Northcrest name from Fort Wayne moviegoing — the center that had held a drive-in's listing, a twin, and a six-plex in the theatre directories held no screens at all.

Sources:

1. Cinema Treasures, Holiday I & II, 949 Northcrest Shopping Center — the March 4, 1966 opening attraction, the 1970 second auditorium, the Alliance–Cinecom–Mallers-Spirou–Regal succession, the August 31, 2000 closing, and the 2003 demolition; Holiday 6, 931 Northcrest Shopping Center — the July 21, 1989 Mallers-Spirou opening, the April 2004 discount conversion, and the November 13, 2005 closing.
2. ACGSI, Allen INGenWeb, H named places — the Holiday Theatre I & II summary, giving the 1969 opening and the Regal years, copied from Cinema Treasures discussion; carried in the entry against the opening-attraction record.