Art Theatre
2025 E. 4th Street,
Long Beach,
CA
90814
2025 E. 4th Street,
Long Beach,
CA
90814
21 people
favorited this theater
Showing 26 - 50 of 50 comments
I live right down the street from this place and as of this week the whole front is covered in scaffolding and tarp. It is good to see that the work is going quickly. I’m very much looking forward to being walking distance from a restored 1920’s movie theatre!
Ken MC… Good but tragic photographs… I wish you could have captured the auditorium.
How about someone contacting the City of Long Beach Library’s collection and sharing with us former locals now living out of state? Pretty please?????
Man Ken MC those pictures make it look bad just a month after closing.
Status should now be “renovating” in that case.
Yes-the renovation and reopening definitely will happen. The lobby, bathrooms, stage and stage are being remodelled, while the projector, sound system, screen and seats are all being replaced. We plan a grand opening in july or august. Please get me your contact info for an official invitation. We will be showing the same great movies as always, but with a nicer place to hang out. Improvements will include a coffee house as well as a wine bar to round out your experience at the New Art. Updates will be on atlb.biz as always. Thanks for your support in the polishing of this jewel of a theater.
I’m all for it, if it happens.
I was in the gutted Art theatrre yesterday and one of the workers said the art is being remodeled and will reopen in about 8 months.
Status should be changed to closed.
These may be the last photos of the Art. I don’t think it’s long for this world:
http://tinyurl.com/27ht62
http://tinyurl.com/253l8o
http://tinyurl.com/yt8sfe
http://tinyurl.com/247fcn
http://tinyurl.com/ywbwzy
http://tinyurl.com/yup3aq
http://tinyurl.com/2cq49a
http://tinyurl.com/yv6mpa
The Art Theater is closed as of March 8th 2008. A developer has bought the property. He claims in several local newspaper stories that he is going to restore the theater to its early glory days.
The Linns ( who I have known for 30 years) told me that he is going to demolish the whole building.
I am working on a Documentary Film about the Old Movie Theaters in Long Beach and I would be interested in talking to anyone who has any stories or pictures of the old theaters. You can contact me at
Story for “retro”-fitting the Art:
http://www.presstelegram.com/news/ci_6634813
New seats would be a welcome feature. Last time I was there, it was very hard staying for a double feature.
A 1981 story in the LA Times profiles owners Howard and Florence Linn. Anyone know their current status since last mentioned in 2004? Do they still own the theater?
Here is a 1951 newspaper ad for the Art:
http://tinyurl.com/y2vow6
The Art located just a few blocks east of Downtown L.B. is the only theatre still standing where I used to go see movies during the 60’s and 70’s. The West Coast, UA, Imperial, State, and Rivoli were all demolished decades ago. The Art is truly a survivor.
Hello,
My name is Scott Boardman and I am a journalist from California State University, Long Beach. I am currently researching and writing a story on The Art Theater and its history. I am looking for some people who know a lot or a little about the theater that are able to talk to me about it.
If you know anything about the theater please let me know by email.
Thanks,
Scott Boardman
The theater must have opened as the Carter. Southwest Builder and Contractor of August 22nd, 1924, names the owner of the proposed theater as J.W. Carter.
By 1933, in an article saying that Schilling & Schilling were taking bids for repairing earthquake damage to the theater, the April 14th issue of the same publication names the owner (or perhaps operator) as E. H. Lee.
In an announcement of the remodeling of the theater in its May 16th, 1947 issue, SB&C says that the work is being done for Milton Arthur. Presumably, the house had changed hands, or management, again by then.
The Art Theatre in Long Beach is still going strong. They have a new website at www.atlb.biz Check it.
When I was a young'un growing up in Long Beach, The Art was where I had my education in cinema. I would regularly shop at Dodd’s Book Store on Second Street, on my way home from school (despite the store being many blocks off my route) to get the latest calendar of films scheduled to play, which I would tack up on my bedroom wall next to my desk. It may have had a tiny lobby and a rinky-dink popcorn popper, but The Art was like a second home between the ages of nine and fourteen, where an impressionable lad could catch the likes of The Ruling Class and Harold and Maude, films that still remain favorites nearly thirty years on. Should I ever live in Los Angeles again, I will make an effort to support The Art with my patronage no matter what part of the area I live in, as I last did when I lived there in the late 1990s. So many fond memories.
My first thought… of Ralph Kramden telling Alice he went to the Nortons' to play poker with Ed… BANG…ZOOM!!! (Oh hell, it IS a Friday afternoon and I really AM getting tired, aren’t I? ;–)
How would it sound to just say “I went to Art last night?
Oh, and this was alternately named the Lee (1935 – 1955) and Carter Theatre (1930s).
Seats 636 and the architects were Schilling & Schilling; Hugh Gibbs executed a 1947 remodel of the marquee.
originally built in 1925, major modifications in 1933 & 1947; bought in 1973 by four Long Beach State faculty members & current owner Howard Linn, as a venue to screen movies for film studies classes
I remember watching movies like “White Heat”, “Harold and Maude”, and “Where’s Poppa?” in the 70’s. A great place to watch a movie.
This is the only true arthouse screen (no pun intended) in the Long Beach area, as it has been for many years.