By JASON NARK
An old, dusty witch stood in the former Century Theater on Monday,stirring her cauldron for possibly the last time. Scattered beneathher tattered dress were plastic machine guns, a rubber RichardNixon mask and hairy werewolf hands.
Long the storage warehouse for Capas Creative and PerformingArts Supplies, the 82-year-old theater on Kings Highway and theWhite Horse Pike will be torn down this week to make room for an Eckerddrugstore.
`She's really seen better days,' said co-owner Lynne Campbell-Mullin,standing atop a balcony in the dilapidated theater. `She's thegrand, old lady ready to come down.'
A staple in South Jersey for Halloween pandemonium, Capas willcontinue its costume business at the former Atlantic Book Warehouseon Kings Highway in Cherry Hill. (The bookstore is now located acrossKings Highway in the Ellisburg Shopping Center.)
The 1,300-seat theater once hosted vaudeville acts and films.It closed briefly in the 1960s and reopened as the Coronet Theater,showing first-run movies until a Philadelphia-based theaterchain bought and closed it in 1979.
The Campbell family of Audubon purchased the building in 1979and after a few attempts at attracting live performances, the familydedicated the entire theater to storage for their booming costume,dance and theatrical supply store.
Audubon historian Craig Burgess has spent the last two daysat the theater, taking pictures and videotaping for the historicalsociety.
`I've lived here my whole life. I grew up about six blocks downthe road,' said Burgess, president of the society. `It's a littlemore depressing to see it go, knowing there's already so many drugstoresaround here. I guess that's progress though.'
Co-owner Tom Campbell gave Burgess a theater seat for the historicalsociety.
The 11,347-square-foot Eckerd drugstore will sit directlyacross Kings Highway from a new CVS megastore in Haddon Heights.Another Eckerd drugstore operates in Audubon's Acme ShoppingCenter.
Audubon Mayor Anthony Pugliese said he was told the Eckerd Corp.would maintain both stores.
`The last thing we heard, there were no immediate plans to closethe shopping center pharmacy,' he said. Spokesmen for Eckerd Corp.did not return phone calls for comment Monday, but Pugliese andTom Campbell said the company would build an aesthetically pleasingstore, rather than the typical stucco boxes.
`I hear it's going to be gorgeous. They're going to use red brickwith a lot of woodwork,' said Campbell.
On Monday, several of the Campbells were in the theater and adjacentstore, dismantling equipment and taking costumes out to the parkinglot where they sat next to a wooden guillotine.
As classical music echoed through the theater, workers cutexpansive wire and rope rigging, sending sandbags and lightingpoles crashing down from the seven-story catwalk.
`A lot of the old-timers have poked their heads in to wish us luck,'said 83-year-old Warren Campbell. `A lot of them had some memoriesin here.'
Tom Campbell is past feeling nostalgic about the old theater,saying utility costs and disrepair have overtaken it.
`When I see it, I see a lot of overhead,' he said. `The previous owner gutted almost everything out of here that was architecturally significant.
`I think people are generally sad to see us go, but I started thinkingabout this eight years ago. It will be a great move for us.'
Pugliese said he regrets the Campbell family's departure,but can understand their predicament.
`A lot of people drive by and think, `What a great old building,'but the truth of it is the building is no longer feasible to operate,'said Pugliese. `The Campbells tried to get it going as a theater,but they found costs were too high.'
Lynne Campbell-Mullin said her children and grandson havespent nights and days here, running up and down the aisles of gildedcostumes and frightening masks.
`I went on my first date here,' she said. `I don't want to date myself, but I think it was Love Me Tender.'
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