This article from the July 8, 1928, Reading Eagle says that the Princess Theatre had closed for renovations and would reopened as the Arcadia Theatre about July 23. The Princess had opened in 1913.
However, a January 28, 1968, Reading Eagle article said that “[a]nother downtown theater was the Crescent at 819 Penn St., opened in 1910, with the name changed to the Princess in 1913.” The same article says that the Ritz Theatre was torn down in the 1950s to make way for a city parking lot.
I still haven’t found anything explicitly stating that the Arcadia became the Ritz, but I’m sure the Crescent/Princess/Arcadia/Ritz were all the same theater.
The January 1, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World lists Carr & Schad’s Princess Theatre at 819 Penn Street (the correct address for the Ritz.) when the first Arcadia Theatre was demolished in 1928 to make way for the Astor Theatre, the Princess was renamed the Arcadia.
this article in the December 30, 1940, issue of theReading Eagle says that Carr & Schad were expending $15,000 for improvements to the Arcadia Theatre, which had been closed for many years. They later must have decided to rename the house the Ritz before reopening it in 1941.
Our description says the Astor opened in 1938. This must be a typo. It opened in 1928. The September 11 issue of the Reading Times said that the projected opening date was September 21.
A January 9, 1926, article in the Gettysburg Times listed a number of theaters recently completed, under construction, or under contract that had been designed in the office of Philadelphia architect William Harold Lee. Three houses were listed at Reading: the Colonial, the Strand, and a house called the Penn Street Theatre. All three projects were for Carr & Schad. I don’t see a Penn Street Theatre listed, so maybe it’s missing or it operated under a different name.
14 S. Oak Street looks to be a fairly modern building. Its facade is set back a bit from the sidewalk and there is a balcony at the second floor. It’s possible that a new front was built onto an old building, but it’s also possible that the Valentine Theatre building has been demolished and replaced.
Google’s camera car didn’t travel along 11th Street, so I’ve set Street View to look along the block. The State Theatre was in the first building facing 11th Street, next to the small park on the corner. The Avalon Theatre was in the third building on the block.
Google’s camera car didn’t travel along 11th Street. The Avalon Theatre is the middle building of the five facing 11th (the lowest one.) The State Theatre was in the first.
In late 1930, two of Huntingdon’s movie theaters suffered major fires. This item is from the Janaury 2, 1931, issue of The Film Daily:
“Huntingdon, Pa. — The Grand, closed for months following a fire, will be reopened about Feb. 1 by the Patriotic Order Sons of America, with Western Electric equipment. The Clifton was destroyed by fire recently.”
The March 5 issue of the same publication noted that the POSA had sold the Grand Theatre to A. N. Notopolous. The reopening of the Clifton Theatre was noted in the May 24 issue, in which it was listed as new theater. As it had taken over four months to get the Clifton reopened, the damage must have been quite extensive.
It’s possible that Century took over the project after the Regal signage had been installed but before the theaters had opened. That view with the crowd out front does look like it would be opening night, but it might be one of those very realistic digital renderings. In the daylight photo with the Regal name on the building it doesn’t look like the theater is open.
Benson & Bohl reconfigured their web site and the link I posted earlier no longer works. Maybe this one will stick around longer.
Thanks, Stick82. We mistakenly had the State listed on Oak Street. Now we can surmise that it’s address was probably 3 S. Hickory. If you would like to comment on the State Theatre, there is a link to its Cinema Treasures page in the “Nearby Theaters” field on the right side of this page. There is also a page for the Hollywood Theatre, and we just added a page for the Theatorium, with a couple of vintage photos from 1913 (though I don’t suppose you’d be old enough to remember that long-gone theater, which was probably closed by 1929.)
The building now at 112 S. Oak Street is probably the same building the Theatorium occupied, but William Harold Lee’s fancy facade, which can be seen in one of the 1913 photos I just uploaded, has been removed, probably in the late 1920s. It was probably considered too elaborate for ordinary retail use.
The May 21, 1936, issue of The Film Daily said that the Avalon Theatre in Lawrenceville, Illinois, had been transfered to D. Frisina by Mrs. Hurley Gould.
This weblog post from the Lawrence County Historical Society has two photos of the Avalon Theatre at 716 11th Street. The second of them is a view looking north along the east side of 11th Street toward State Street. I believe the Palace Theatre is in the last building on the block. There is a marquee and vertical sign, but I can’t quite make out the name on the vertical. That building must be at 710 11th Street, though, as it is about three doors north of the Avalon.
This weblog post from the Lawrence County Historical Society is titled Hurley Gould – Moving Picture Theatre Owner. Mrs. Gould owned a number of theaters in and around Lawrence, including the Avalon. There are two photos of the Avalon near the end of the post. The first must be from 1941, the year The Lady Eve was released. Judging from the parked cars, the second is from the 1920s.
This weblog post at Coal Region Notebook says that the State Theatre was at the southeast corner of Third and Hickory Streets. This comment by Stick82 on our Victoria Theatre page says that the State was located where the Post Office is now. The Post Office is indeed at the southeast corner of E. Third and Hickory Streets. The Post Office is at 1 S. Hickory, but I don’t know which street the theater fronted on.
This weblog post has two small photos of the Victoria Theatre. The building extend along W. Third Street from Pear Street to Maple Street, but the entrance was at the corner of Pear Street (which looks more like an alley to me.)
I think 1971 would have been too late. I wonder if somebody else ran a movie theater in the space before Odyssey moved in? That grille really looks familiar.
The thing with Google’s street views is very odd. The restaurant our image is trapped in isn’t even at the right address, and the address works fine at Google Maps itself. It must be some sort of error in their software that fetches the image to embed in our page.
This web page by architect Steven Ohlhaber has information about the Boulevard Cinemas. Ohlhaber was project architect for Strauss Architects (now SDG Architects,) designers of the building shell. The theater interior was designed by The Henry Architects, Seattle.
The Boulevard Cinemas project consisted of a large existing warehouse building with a modern addition. The large auditoriums are in the new part of the complex and the smaller auditoriums in the remodeled warehouse.
The page has several photos, but I find the application displaying them a bit cranky, creating double exposures (or maybe it’s just my browser.)
I think I might have been to this theater, but if I was it was probably no later than 1969, and maybe a year or two earlier. All I recall of the night is that a group of friends took me to see a revival of that version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in which Mickey Rooney played Puck. I remember it being a tiny storefront theater on the south side of Hollywood Boulevard some distance east of the freeway.
It was on the ground floor of a fairly large old building, and I think there was some fancy grillwork over the storefront such as this building has. If it wasn’t this theater, then there was another, similar storefront house somewhere along this stretch of the boulevard around the same time. I have no memory of the theater’s name, though.
(Here is a street view. The one on our page is trapped in a restaurant in the next block and you can’t get to the street from it. I’ve seen this Street View glitch on a couple of other Cinema Treasures pages recently, but I can’t remember which ones. It’s very annoying.)
The web site of Seattle architectural firm The Henry Architects lists the Sterling Cinema 6 in San Bernardino as one of their projects. There is one photo of it in their slide show.
The web site of Seattle architectural firm The Henry Architects lists the Pruneyard Cinema 7 as one of their projects. There is one photo of it on their slide show.
This article from the July 8, 1928, Reading Eagle says that the Princess Theatre had closed for renovations and would reopened as the Arcadia Theatre about July 23. The Princess had opened in 1913.
However, a January 28, 1968, Reading Eagle article said that “[a]nother downtown theater was the Crescent at 819 Penn St., opened in 1910, with the name changed to the Princess in 1913.” The same article says that the Ritz Theatre was torn down in the 1950s to make way for a city parking lot.
I still haven’t found anything explicitly stating that the Arcadia became the Ritz, but I’m sure the Crescent/Princess/Arcadia/Ritz were all the same theater.
The January 1, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World lists Carr & Schad’s Princess Theatre at 819 Penn Street (the correct address for the Ritz.) when the first Arcadia Theatre was demolished in 1928 to make way for the Astor Theatre, the Princess was renamed the Arcadia.
this article in the December 30, 1940, issue of theReading Eagle says that Carr & Schad were expending $15,000 for improvements to the Arcadia Theatre, which had been closed for many years. They later must have decided to rename the house the Ritz before reopening it in 1941.
Our description says the Astor opened in 1938. This must be a typo. It opened in 1928. The September 11 issue of the Reading Times said that the projected opening date was September 21.
A January 9, 1926, article in the Gettysburg Times listed a number of theaters recently completed, under construction, or under contract that had been designed in the office of Philadelphia architect William Harold Lee. Three houses were listed at Reading: the Colonial, the Strand, and a house called the Penn Street Theatre. All three projects were for Carr & Schad. I don’t see a Penn Street Theatre listed, so maybe it’s missing or it operated under a different name.
14 S. Oak Street looks to be a fairly modern building. Its facade is set back a bit from the sidewalk and there is a balcony at the second floor. It’s possible that a new front was built onto an old building, but it’s also possible that the Valentine Theatre building has been demolished and replaced.
Google’s camera car didn’t travel along 11th Street, so I’ve set Street View to look along the block. The State Theatre was in the first building facing 11th Street, next to the small park on the corner. The Avalon Theatre was in the third building on the block.
Google’s camera car didn’t travel along 11th Street. The Avalon Theatre is the middle building of the five facing 11th (the lowest one.) The State Theatre was in the first.
In late 1930, two of Huntingdon’s movie theaters suffered major fires. This item is from the Janaury 2, 1931, issue of The Film Daily:
The March 5 issue of the same publication noted that the POSA had sold the Grand Theatre to A. N. Notopolous. The reopening of the Clifton Theatre was noted in the May 24 issue, in which it was listed as new theater. As it had taken over four months to get the Clifton reopened, the damage must have been quite extensive.Linkrot repair: Architects Benson & Bohl have reconfigured their web site. Photos of the Pacific Culver Stadium 12 can now be found at this link.
Linkrot repair: Benson & Bohl have reconfigured their web site. Photos of the Regal Cinemas in Oceanside are now here.
It’s possible that Century took over the project after the Regal signage had been installed but before the theaters had opened. That view with the crowd out front does look like it would be opening night, but it might be one of those very realistic digital renderings. In the daylight photo with the Regal name on the building it doesn’t look like the theater is open.
Benson & Bohl reconfigured their web site and the link I posted earlier no longer works. Maybe this one will stick around longer.
Thanks, Stick82. We mistakenly had the State listed on Oak Street. Now we can surmise that it’s address was probably 3 S. Hickory. If you would like to comment on the State Theatre, there is a link to its Cinema Treasures page in the “Nearby Theaters” field on the right side of this page. There is also a page for the Hollywood Theatre, and we just added a page for the Theatorium, with a couple of vintage photos from 1913 (though I don’t suppose you’d be old enough to remember that long-gone theater, which was probably closed by 1929.)
The building now at 112 S. Oak Street is probably the same building the Theatorium occupied, but William Harold Lee’s fancy facade, which can be seen in one of the 1913 photos I just uploaded, has been removed, probably in the late 1920s. It was probably considered too elaborate for ordinary retail use.
Stick82 says the State Theatre fronted on Hickory, the second building from the corner. The most likely address was thus 3 South Hickory Street.
The May 21, 1936, issue of The Film Daily said that the Avalon Theatre in Lawrenceville, Illinois, had been transfered to D. Frisina by Mrs. Hurley Gould.
This weblog post from the Lawrence County Historical Society has two photos of the Avalon Theatre at 716 11th Street. The second of them is a view looking north along the east side of 11th Street toward State Street. I believe the Palace Theatre is in the last building on the block. There is a marquee and vertical sign, but I can’t quite make out the name on the vertical. That building must be at 710 11th Street, though, as it is about three doors north of the Avalon.
This weblog post from the Lawrence County Historical Society is titled Hurley Gould – Moving Picture Theatre Owner. Mrs. Gould owned a number of theaters in and around Lawrence, including the Avalon. There are two photos of the Avalon near the end of the post. The first must be from 1941, the year The Lady Eve was released. Judging from the parked cars, the second is from the 1920s.
Stick82: Did the State Theatre front on Third Street, or on Hickory Street like the Post Office does?
This weblog post at Coal Region Notebook says that the State Theatre was at the southeast corner of Third and Hickory Streets. This comment by Stick82 on our Victoria Theatre page says that the State was located where the Post Office is now. The Post Office is indeed at the southeast corner of E. Third and Hickory Streets. The Post Office is at 1 S. Hickory, but I don’t know which street the theater fronted on.
This weblog post has two small photos of the Victoria Theatre. The building extend along W. Third Street from Pear Street to Maple Street, but the entrance was at the corner of Pear Street (which looks more like an alley to me.)
I think 1971 would have been too late. I wonder if somebody else ran a movie theater in the space before Odyssey moved in? That grille really looks familiar.
The thing with Google’s street views is very odd. The restaurant our image is trapped in isn’t even at the right address, and the address works fine at Google Maps itself. It must be some sort of error in their software that fetches the image to embed in our page.
This web page by architect Steven Ohlhaber has information about the Boulevard Cinemas. Ohlhaber was project architect for Strauss Architects (now SDG Architects,) designers of the building shell. The theater interior was designed by The Henry Architects, Seattle.
The Boulevard Cinemas project consisted of a large existing warehouse building with a modern addition. The large auditoriums are in the new part of the complex and the smaller auditoriums in the remodeled warehouse.
The page has several photos, but I find the application displaying them a bit cranky, creating double exposures (or maybe it’s just my browser.)
I think I might have been to this theater, but if I was it was probably no later than 1969, and maybe a year or two earlier. All I recall of the night is that a group of friends took me to see a revival of that version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in which Mickey Rooney played Puck. I remember it being a tiny storefront theater on the south side of Hollywood Boulevard some distance east of the freeway.
It was on the ground floor of a fairly large old building, and I think there was some fancy grillwork over the storefront such as this building has. If it wasn’t this theater, then there was another, similar storefront house somewhere along this stretch of the boulevard around the same time. I have no memory of the theater’s name, though.
(Here is a street view. The one on our page is trapped in a restaurant in the next block and you can’t get to the street from it. I’ve seen this Street View glitch on a couple of other Cinema Treasures pages recently, but I can’t remember which ones. It’s very annoying.)
The web site of Seattle architectural firm The Henry Architects lists the Sterling Cinema 6 in San Bernardino as one of their projects. There is one photo of it in their slide show.
The web site of Seattle architectural firm The Henry Architects lists the Pruneyard Cinema 7 as one of their projects. There is one photo of it on their slide show.