As a CT multiplex enters its final weeks, former workers plan reunion for one last movie

Before the once-popular Connecticut multiplex shuts down Dec. 7, a few dozen employees and former employees are getting together to say goodbye with an event dubbed Funeral 1087.

As news of the Enfield Square Mall cinema closing spread this week, long-time patrons posted a flurry of sad farewell messages on social media. Two former workers did a bit more: They used Facebook to organize a night for a final get-together and one last movie screening.

“It was my first job as soon as I turned 16, and I ended up being there for 10 years,” said Samantha Eck, who started as a concessions clerk and later became an assistant manager before leaving in 2011. “It was like a family working there, we all made so many friends. Now we want to see one last movie there together.”

Movie-lovers from around north central Connecticut were saddened when they learned that the theater, currently known as the Enfield Cinemark 12, is closing after the last show Dec. 7.

Like many of its counterparts across the country, it was once a hub of pop culture excitement with full houses for new blockbusters.

When it opened as Hoyts Cinema 12 Stadium Megaplex in 1998, breathless ads promoted its super-modern features: “Incredible stadium-style seating; huge panoramic screens; plush, comfortable high-back chairs; Digital and Dolby sound.”

Jennifer Barry, who was just 16 when she was among the first employees hired, recalls the weeks before opening day had an excitement that stayed with the staff for years.

“I was there before they had seats or carpeting, before they had projectors. Our first staff meeting we sat on concrete steps,” recalled Barry, who hasn’t worked there since 2006. “For those of who were there in the early days, this felt like our theater, our building. For a lot of us, this closing is like a death.”

The theater went through many owners in the following years, starting with Hoyt’s and continuing with Rave, Showcase and Cinemark. For most of that time, it enjoyed a successful, symbiotic relationship with the mall’s stores as they shared a healthy stream of customers.

But the mall and the theater industries both hit hard times. In the past decade, a mix of streaming services, big-screen TVs in homes and a shortage of major new films hurt the Enfield theater, and its customer base never fully returned after the pandemic. The Fitch Ratings, a major corporate credit rating agency, in March downgraded Cinemark’s outlook from stable to negative.

At the same time, shoppers have largely abandoned the mall. Large sections of the building are vacant and anchor tenants Sears, Macy’s and JC Penney are long gone.

Eck and other former employees say they’re going to focus on the good times when they get together on Dec. 2. Even though most jobs during the theater’s nearly 25-year run were minimum wage and part-time, the 12-screen movie house was a special place to get started in the work world, they said.

Amanda Fede, who now lives in Arizona, said Thursday that she wishes she could get back for the reunion.

“Before I went on to become a registered nurse, I was hired at 16 and promoted to assistant manager at 18,” she said. “It has by far been the best job I’ve had to this day. I can’t say one bad thing about my experience there. My coworkers and I have become lifelong friends who I’m still in touch with to this day.”

Like Eck, she said the Enfield theater had a reputation for hiring people who liked to work there.

“We had a great team of knowledgeable and customer-oriented employees who loved their job as much as I did. My favorite aspect of working there was watching the joy and excitement on our patrons’ faces on their way to see a movie they’d been looking forward to,” Fede said. “Seeing families bonding together. Getting to know the elderly couples that come every senior Wednesday.”

When they heard of the theater’s approaching demise, Eck and former employee Paul Ferreira — who never worked together — had the same idea: A reunion for a final night at the movies. Eck began asking friends on Facebook if they’d be interested in getting together on Dec. 2, even as Ferreira was putting together a gathering for the same night.

They ended up with a joint plan called Funeral 1087, named in honor of the theater that was unit 1087 on Cinemark’s corporate list.

“Come say RIP to the legendary 1087,” says Ferreira’s post. “Former and current employees welcome!”

Eck, who hasn’t worked at the theater in 12 years, said the camaraderie in Enfield was unmistakable — and not the case everywhere else in the business.

“It was like family there. There was something about Enfield that was so different, we just had really good people who got along and helped each other out. When the East Windsor theater closed, they consolidated staff and I got moved to Eastfield. It was a different experience; I stayed for a couple years, but it was never the same,” she said.

Many employees were young, but the staff also included a few retirees and near-retirees picking up a few hours of work on weekends, she said.

“Everybody was friends, we used to do employee movie nights where half the staff showed up and stayed late into the night, seeing a new movie together,” she recalled. “If you were an employee, you could go to the movies for free, and we all saw every movie that came out. When Anchorman came out we got to see it the night before it premiered, and I ended up seeing it seven times in the theater. I was such a big Will Ferrell fan. I still am.

“We had a manager, Bob Tully, who was very good, then Tricia Aubin took over for him. To this day I still say she’s the bet boss I ever had: She was all business but all about fun, too,” she said. “It was the first job I ever applied for. When you’re 16 you don’t know what you’re getting into, but as a first job it was amazing.”

Barry, who worked selling tickets and concessions and later became the theater’s first female usher, recalled similar memories.

“We had midnight screenings for the staff, and finally we convinced the managers to let us do a sleepover. Everyone brought sleeping bags, they were in the birthday party room and the hallways,” she said. “In the morning I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth, I was in kind of loungy clothes and slippers and had a toothbrush in my mouth. Outside I saw one of the (early morning) mall walkers looking at movie times in the window — we just looked at each other.

“I’ve got a doctorate, I’ve worked in higher education. But there was never another job like the theater,” said Barry, now 41. “If they’d been able to pay full-time salaries, none of us ever would have left.”