Category:Lehigh Valley Mall Cinema, Allentown, Pennsylvania

The Lehigh Valley Mall Cinema opened on February 6th, 1977 at Lehigh Valley Mall in Whitehall Township. It was located in a satellite building at the mall, in the northeast corner of the parking lot accessed through the Grape Street entrance. It was in a strip center outside of the ring road that surrounded the mall. It was the first theater of its kind in the region.

The theater opened as a tri-plex. The entrance lobby was at the extreme left side of the theater property. The entrance doors were flush with the building line. You then entered a shallow vestibule and went through a 2nd set of doors into the main lobby. Just inside the doors was a large island type open counter box office. The lobby was L shaped and went off to the right behind the oriental restaurant. The original refreshment stand was around the corner to your right as you made the turn into the L. The 3 auditoriums were then to your left. If you continued on to the right beyond the concession stand there were stairs that took you up to the rest rooms. The largest auditorium was straight ahead behind the box office area and sat over 500 people. The other two that were to the right that held between 250 and 350 people.

On opening day, the first films shown at the multiplex were "Freaky Friday", "The Seven Percent Solution", and "The Cassandra Crossing". In March 1978, a Friday midnight show of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show", was added, which was shown continuously once a week for "Freaky Friday".

The theater was expanded over the years to 5-screens in 1980, and 8-screens in 1984. With the additional three screens, it was remodeled with an addition being added creating an entirely new entrance and lobby. The entrance was on the corner with a conventional box office with a window to the outside, and entrance doors on either side. The original entrance to the theater was used as an exit only to keep most of the exiting traffic out of the new lobby. They added a first floor handicap rest room at this time as well. In the 1990s, the theater was remodeled and the lobby was re-carpeted with a dark blue carpet and the ceiling tiles were also painted a dark blue and the lobby was literally filled with video games giving it the feel more of an arcade than a theater lobby.

Along with the movies, the theater was the home of the Hope Wesleyan Church, which conducted services in the theater starting in September 2000 for a 10:00am Sunday service; the theater seats were the pews and religious slides and films shown on the screen during services.

In March 2002, the theater was renamed Lehigh Valley Mall 8 when it was purchased by AMC Entertainment when General Cinema went bankrupt. However after 24 years, it became a dinosaur in a world of stadium-seating theaters with digital sound and pictures. There was another AMC 14-plex nearby, and the company believed an n 8-plex was becoming obsolete in the new millennium.

The theater closed its doors for the last time on January 5, 2003 and was torn down. It was later replaced by an H H Greg Appliance store. That closed in 2017 and was replaced by a Bob's Discount Furniture.