The Manhasset Cinemas, the three-screen movie house at 430 Plandome Road that has shown films since 1936, is getting a new operator. Assemble Cinemas, the company now behind the theater, says the building is closed for renovations and that its opening slate of films, which it calls the First Act, is a matter of weeks away.

The company describes the project plainly on its website: it is bringing the Manhasset Cinemas back to life. Alongside the renovation, it has posted a full roster of jobs for the reopened theater and is collecting email addresses from residents who want to be told when the doors open.

Ninety years of movies on Plandome Road

The theater sits in the middle of downtown Manhasset, a short walk from the Long Island Rail Road station, and has operated as a neighborhood movie house across nine decades and a series of owners. Assemble Cinemas dates the building's life as a cinema to 1936, and its three auditoriums have carried first-run films through the rise of the multiplex, the streaming era and more than one change of hands.

Assemble is leaning on that history as it prepares to reopen. The company is asking community members to send in their own memories and photographs of the Manhasset Cinemas, which it says will help honor the theater's past as the new chapter begins.

The hiring says the timeline is real

Six positions are posted on the company's jobs page, covering everything a working theater needs on day one. A full-time assistant manager, paying $70,000 to $75,000 a year, reports to the theater manager and oversees the box office, concessions and screenings. A part-time floor manager pays $23 an hour and asks for at least two years of supervisory experience, and a projectionist and audio-visual technician, at $23 to $25 an hour, covers all three auditoriums.

The rest of the roster is the front of the house: a shift lead at $21 an hour, ushers and concessions attendants at $18 an hour for applicants 16 and older, and a janitor and porter role at $19 an hour that deep-cleans the auditoriums, restrooms and public spaces each morning before the doors open.

What happens next

Assemble Cinemas has not announced an exact reopening date. Its website says the First Act lineup is coming within weeks, and the company is posting updates on Instagram and TikTok under the handle assemblecinemas. Residents can sign up for opening news, share memories of the theater or apply for the posted jobs at the company's website.

When the lights come back on, Manhasset will again have a movie theater it can walk to, in the same building where the village has been watching films for 90 years.

Sources