CRANFORD – The movie theater here has closed, less than two weeks after the nearby landmark Rialto Theatre in Westfield closed its doors.

Cranford Theatre, like the Rialto Theatre, is owned by New Vision Theatres. Also like the Rialto, the Cranford Theatre closed suddenly seemingly without any notice to the public.

New Vision Theatres confirmed in an email Thursday the Cranford Theatre's closing.

According to a report by TapInto, Cranford Theatre employees on Wednesday night were seen spelling out the theater's fate on the marquee one letter at a time: "CLOSED."

"Last week, Westfield was very surprised by the sudden closing of the Rialto Theater," Cranford Mayor Patrick Giblin wrote on his Facebook page Wednesday. "We proactively reached out to management regarding the rumors that its sister theater in Cranford was also closing."

Giblin said township officials "were given multiple assurances that the Cranford Theater would not be affected. Both movie theaters are operated by the same company, New Vision."

The mayor said he and his administration on Wednesday morning "were notified by a resident that the Cranford Theater was no longer selling tickets after tonight."

He said that he has "added this as an agenda for discussion at Monday’s Township Committee Workshop Meeting."

He said that New Vision Theatres was a tenet of the theater and that the property's owner expressed interest in trying to find another theater to take up the space.

"I'm confident that our township committee and DMC (Downtown Management Corporation) are going to do the best we can to work with the property owner to come up with some solutions, and hopefully we can do something," Giblin said. "The economics of movie theaters are definitely challenging."

Longtime Cranford resident Bernie Wagenblast, who runs Cranford Radio, said he's been to the Cranford Theatre more than 100 times.

"It's hard to count. I grew up here, so when I was kid I would go to the Saturday matinees when they would show some cartoons," he said. "When I was a kid, most people still didn't have color TVs, so that was the only time you'd get to see cartoons in color."

EARLIER:Westfield's Rialto Theater closes suddenly

Wagenblast said he has an old newspaper advertisement from when the theater first opened, which is dated Nov. 29, 1926.

He said when the theater first opened, it was called the Branford Theatre because there was already a Cranford Theatre.

The first movie shown at the location was a silent film called "Padlocked," which was accompanied by a Wurlitzer organ at the theater.

The Branford Theatre closed and a few months later, according to newspaper articles, "they had a ceremony where they took down the "B," put up a "C," and called it the New Cranford Theatre," Wagenblast said.

That was on Jan. 27, 1927, he said.

Wagenblast heard the last movie shown at the Cranford Theatre was "Fried Green Tomatoes" on Wednesday night.

He's hoping the theater may be able to reopen one day, pointing to Cranford's active downtown as incentive.

"I tend to be an optimistic person, so I'm hopeful that something will happen where it will be able to reopen," Wagenblast said.

New Vision Theatres owns theaters in Alabama, Oklahoma, Florida, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota and Sparta, New Jersey.

Staff Writer Nick Muscavage is an award-winning watchdog reporter whose work spans many topics and has spurred the creation of a state law. Contact him: 908-243-6615; ngmuscavage@gannettnj.com; @nmuscavage.