The Bow Tie Cinema in Roslyn was recently purchased and taken over by Gilman Management Corporation, a real estate investment and property management corporation located in Great Neck.
Along with the Roslyn location, two other Bow Tie Cinema locations in Great Neck and Manhasset were also purchased and are now under new management. The cinema closed for a week in mid April, with a goal of re-opening before the popular movie, Avengers was released.
Sharif Arshad is the new manager of the Manhasset and Roslyn Cinema’s. Arshad has worked for Gilman for 10 years and previously worked at cinemas in the Queens area. Arshad was notified of the change in locations about a week before he was going to take over the management for the Roslyn and Manhasset locations.
Many of the employees were relocated to the other Bow Tie locations in Franklin Square and Herricks. “We gave everybody an opportunity to work here, unlike Bow Tie, which is a very big company. We do things a bit differently, we have about half the staff. [Gilman is] family owned. We don’t have the money to have so many people working here like Bow Tie did.”
The theatre does intend to hire more employees during the summer, when more people are expected to be visiting the theatre.
Cory Judd, assistant manager of the Roslyn Cinema said no changes or renovations are expected to take place now that the theatre is under new management. More concessions are expected to be added during the coming months. Customers will see items such as ice cream, nachos and cheese, and a possible slushy machine added to the menu. Less popular items such as coffee will be dropped from the menu.
Customers can also expect to see prices drop to about a dollar less than theaters owned by Bow Tie Cinemas. The theaters hope to attract more kids by bringing in more mainstream movies, especially to the Manhasset location, which is known for its art films. “Roslyn has four screens, so any movies that we don’t get, we will always try to push it over there, which gives [people] the option if they missed out on a movie [in Manhasset],” Arshad said.
Today, Bow Tie Cinemas is “a four generation family-owned company,” that is dedicated to “bringing style and elegance back to the movie going experience,” states their website.
The history of Bow Tie Cinemas dates back to the 1900s, in the “era of Nickelodeon, when B.S. Moss began his career. The business quickly gave way to Vaudeville, which was the heart of the Moss Theaters. During the 1930s, Moss sold his last Vaudeville Theatre and dedicated himself to building and operating motion picture theatre.”
Currently, Bow Tie Cinemas has 50 locations and approximately 400 screens. Two of those cinemas are still located on Long Island, in New Hyde Park and Franklin Square.
The Roslyn News reached out to Gilman Management Corporation for comment, but did not receive a reply by press time.
