The Rex Theatre was built in 1911 as the Novelty Theatre, as reported in the July 29 issue of The Moving Picture World:
“Work of construction was commenced last week at 410 South Fourth Avenue, Louisville, where The Novelty, a $30,000 theater, to be managed by the 3-Falls-Cities Amusement Company, will stand. The old building, which occupied this prominent downtown site, has been razed and by September 15, one of the handsomest moving picture houses in the South will have been reared. M. Switow, president of the 3-Falls-Cities concern, says that no expense will be spared to make the Novelty one of the most up-to-date establishments below the Mason & Dixon line.”
The Novelty suffered construction delays, and didn’t open until early 1912. Here is part of the article about the opening in The Moving Picture World:
“The newest, one of the largest and one of the most magnificent moving picture theaters in the entire South, was opened recently in Louisville, Ky., in the heart of the retail shopping district. The new showhouse is called The Novelty. The house is extremely novel from an architectural standpoint. The dimensions of the structure permit of its being a real theater. Its capacious lobby and commodious auditorium are richly furnished. The auditorium is a marvel of novelty. Comfortable seats, spaced well apart, broad aisles, and an interior that is as bright as day even while the pictures are being shown, combine to make the Novelty interior emblematic of the name of the house in the highest degree.”
After several changes of operators, the Novelty Theatre was remodeled and reopened as the Rex Theatre in 1916, as reported in the March 18 issue of The Moving Picture World:
“NEW REX OPENS
“The remodeled Novelty theater, of Louisville, under a new title, ‘The Rex,’ was re-opened to the public on Sunday, February 26 as an exclusive ‘Mutual Masterpicture De Luxe’ feature house.
“The theater has been thoroughly renovated, painted and decorated, and the seats have been covered with white canvas jackets. The house, now makes a very attractive appearance, and night admission prices have been advanced to fifteen cents. Manager Koch reports that the advanced price is being tried out, and it is probable that the old price of ten cents will be put back, as there are too many theaters in the district showing at ten cents.”
The building says “19-SWITOW-14” on the parapet. I suppose it’s possible that Mr. Switow was just commemorating his remodeling of an existing building, and locals have assumed that the date refers to its original construction. But then the facade of the Switow Building is plainer than those of the clearly Victorian buildings flanking it, and 1913 is the last year I’ve found the Crystal Theatre mentioned in the trade publications, so the building certainly could date from 1914.
In 1911, Michael Switow was operating three theaters at New Albany; the Grand, the Crystal, and a house called the Victoria. He also had two theaters in Jeffersonville and one in Louisville, with a second Louisville house under construction that summer.
In the early 1910s, New Albany also had theaters called the Lyric and the Hippodrome, the latter being the old opera house renamed. There might have been others, but I haven’t found any yet.
If Michael Switow actually demolished the Crystal Theatre building in 1914, he must have regretted the expense he’d gone to of fixing up the theater in late 1913, as he was reported to have been doing by the November 29 issue of The Moving Picture World:
“Switow’s Crystal Theatre, in New Albany, was closed down all last week for repairs, remodeling, and re-decoration. The house will be practically new when the work is completed, which is expected to be within a short time.”
The Switow Amusement Company itself had opened the 1,000-seat New Grand Theatre earlier that month, the Kerrigan Theatre had opened the same year, and there were other movie theaters operating in New Albany and in nearby Jeffersonville. In renovating and reopening the Crystal, Mr. Switow might have overestimated the demand for entertainment in New Albany.
I’m not sure if this item refers to this theater or some other early house in Atascadero, but this is what the July 31, 1915, issue of The Moving Picture World had to say:
“The theater recently opened at Atascadero, Calif, by Emil Clark has been taken over by the Atascadero Colony and Mr. Clark has been retained as the operator.”
There was a movie theater operating in Atascadero in November, 1918, as it was listed as one of the houses ordered to close by State officials due to the influenza epidemic, but the list didn’t give its name.
The June 22 article that OCRon uploaded confirms A. H. McCulloh as the architect of the Lyric Theatre. The June 25 article says that the theater was decorated in the Egyptian style, but also says that the Lyric was a “copy” of Grauman’s Million Dollar, and that house was not Egyptian at all.
The unusual spelling of the architect’s surname, McCulloh, appears to be correct, as it is spelled that way in several trade journal items from 1921 and 1922. I can find only one instance of a Los Angeles architect called A. H. McCollough, that being from 1913, and that might not even be the same guy.
Plans for what would become the Rivoli Theatre were announced in the March 18, 1921, issue of Southwest Builder & Contractor. Greenberg & Siebert were the developers of the project, which was designed by the Architectural & Engineering Co., which had its offices in the Story Building in Los Angeles. I’ve been unable to discover anything about this generically-named firm.
The August 2, 1976, Boxoffice article about the Plaza Twin starts on this page. It was, as other comments have noted, a very spare theater, not at all Art Deco in style. It would be best described as Midcentury Modern, but Streamline Modern would be far more apt than Art Deco.
This web page says that the Rex Theatre first opened on May 30, 1940, operated as an independent, second-run house by Lucien Descoteaux. The Rex closed on November 15, 1958, but reopened on May 24, 1961, then apparently closed again in 1962.
Other sources indicate that at some point (probably 1962 or later), Descoteaux sold the house to the Shea circuit. Shea remodeled the Rex and renamed it the King Cinema. By 1980, it had been renamed again, to The Movies. As formermovieguy’s earlier comment notes that The Movies was still operating in the mid-1980s, that should probably be the way we list it, with Rex Theatre and King Cinema as aka’s.
The Silver Strand Theatre and its adjacent commercial, office, and residential buildings were another project built by John D. Spreckels, who had earlier built the Spreckels Theatre in downtown San Diego. The Silver Strand was not built as a playhouse, but was specifically designed for presenting motion pictures and live music.
The October, 1917, issue of The Santa Fe Magazine, published by the Santa Fe Railway as a rival of the Southern Pacific Railroad’s Sunset Magazine, had an article about Coronado which mentioned the Silver Strand Theatre several times, and describes it in this passage:
The Silver Strand Theater, erected at a cost of approximately $100,000, is a gem that would do credit to a city many times the size of Coronado. It’s equipment, including a $10,000 pipe organ, is magnificent. The indirect lighting system, by means of rich art glass ceiling panels, attracts universal comment. Although it is a motion picture theater, it is so elegant and the pictures shown are of such a high class, that it is quite a social fad to give loge parties there. During the coming winter many special musical programs, featuring stars of the first magnitude, will be arranged for the delectation of the cultured classes.“
Live music was one of the Silver Strand’s attractions from the beginning. At the formal opening on July 20, 1917, renowned contralto Ernestine Schumann-Heink sang several songs as part of a program benefiting the Red Cross. Another passage from the article praises the house thusly:
"In the Silver Strand, Coronado has undoubtedly one of the most beautiful moving picture Theaters in the whole of the United States, for Mr. Spreckels, owner of the building, has spared no expense in carrying the beautiful to the superlative degree, nor in erecting a theater which for convenience and acoustic properties cannot be surpassed. Only the finest quality of pictures will be shown and everyone in San Diego is sure of a satisfactory evening’s entertainment when he crosses the bay to Coronado.”
John Spreckels chose as architect for his Coronado project Harrison Albright, who, after a distinguished career in Philadelphia, West Virginia, and Indiana, had moved his practice to California in 1905, designing the Homer Laughlin Building (Grand Central Market) in Los Angeles, in which he established his offices. Here is an item about the letting of the contract for the Coronado project, from the June 17, 1916, issue of Southwest Contractor & Manufacturer
“CONCRETE BANK, STORES, THEATER —The Wurster Construction Co., 654 Spreckels Bldg., San Diego, has the contract to build a 2-story reinforced concrete bank and office building, 2-story store and apartment building, moving picture theater and garage at Coronado for the J. D. and A. B. Spreckels Securities Co. The site is now being cleared. Harrison Albright, architect, 532 Laughlin Bldg. The structure will have a frontage of 372 ft. on Orange Ave. and 211 ft. on Lorna Ave. The bank and office building will be 60x86 ft., garage 65x100 ft., and theater 52x130 ft., and will seat with gallery about 1000. The store building will contain 14 rooms averaging 20x50 ft. and 14 apartments of three rooms and bath each with built-in beds. The construction will be reinforced concrete with cast cement ornamentation and cement plastered exterior, composition roof, plate glass windows, mahogany and birch trim, marble and tile lobby in bank and theater, metal frames and sash and wired glass, metal skylights. There will be a steam heating and ventilating plant, auxiliary fire pump, automatic fire sprinkling system with two steel tanks of 16,000 gal. capacity, reinforced concrete bank vaults, vacuum cleaning, electric wiring.”
It is unfortunate that Harrison Albright’s original interior for the Silver Strand Theatre has been lost, but at least the building itself has survived. Still, I have to wonder if any of the auditorium’s original features were intact when the dark house was taken over by the Lamb’s Players in 1994. It wouldn’t be the first time a theater company had opted for an economical “black box” configuration rather than bankroll a costly restoration of vintage features.
I’ve set Street View to the approximate location of the Vaudette Theatre. Google chooses to number that spot 124 Georgia State Bicycle Route 45, but it’s still Peachtree Street SW.
Google Maps will be unable to find the correct location from the old address. A long stretch of what is now Peachtree Street SW used to be Whitehall Street (from Spring Street SW north to the railroad tracks about midway between Marietta Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Drive.)
In addition to the renaming, the numbers have been changed. Comparing the 1911 Sanborn Map (in Volume 4, on sheet 465,) what was then 82 Whitehall St. SW did not become 82 Peachtree St. SW, but is in the next block south, between MLK JR. Drive (formerly Hunter Street) and Mitchell Street.
That block now has addresses from 100 to 134, but the entire even side of the block has been rebuilt with a massive single project, so the modern address would be a guess. The Sanborn map shows 82 about the middle of that block, which then had numbers from 66 to 102 Whitehall. If the lot the Vaudette was on still had its own number it would probably be approximately 116 Peachtree St. SW.
The 1911 map also shows movie theaters in buildings at 98 and 100 Whitehall SW. Whatever theaters they were would have modern addresses of approximately 128 and 130 Peachtree SW.
Sanborn Maps for Georgia can be found at this page of the Digital Library of Georgia, but the format they are presented in does not make them very easy to use. I’m grateful to DLG for making them available, but I wish they’d used a format more like the one the University of North Carolina uses for their collection.
This is interesting. The May, 1917, issue of The Cornell Countryman, a University publication, published a reminiscence about earlier days at the College of Agriculture that has these lines:
“Our largest auditorium was what was then known as Library Hall. This hall is in the Cornell Library Building in Ithaca, and is the room now occupied by the Happy Hour moving picture theatre.”
This page from the University web site has information about the early days of the Cornell Public Library, but doesn’t mention the Happy Hour Theatre. It does say that the building was designed by Albany architect William Hodgins. The text under the thumbnail of a photo of the library (top of sidebar, right) says that the building was sold to a bank in 1960 and demolished shortly after.
Dave Kenney’s Twin cities Picture Show tells how Liebenberg & Kaplan got the job of remodeling the Arion Theatre in 1923. The Arion was then owned by Louis Rubenstein and Abe Kaplan, and Abe Kaplan was architect Seeman Kaplan’s brother. It was a serendipitous bit of nepotism that launched Liebenberg & Kaplan’s long, distinguished career as theater architects.
Dave Kenney’s Twin cities Picture Show says that the Calhoun Theatre was converted into a ballroom by owners Finkelstein & Rubin. They had taken over the house in 1918, and then took over the larger and newer nearby rival, the Lagoon Theatre, shortly after.
Sometime between 1930 and 1935, the building was converted from a ballroom into a showroom for a Nash automobile dealer. The Hennepin County Library has a photo made at the time of the conversion (I don’t know if this link will work, as the library doesn’t provide designated permalinks.)
Text on the photo’s page gives the address as 1400 W. Lake Street, which is certainly the correct current address. The building is still standing, but has had additional windows punched into it, and Clifford McElroy’s beautiful tapestry brick facade has been painted over.
In a classified advertisement in the May 9, 1914, issue of shoe trade journal Boot and Shoe Recorder, the Refowich Brothers offered for rent: “Store room in the new Refowich Vaudeville Theatre, Freeland, Pa. Best corner in town, best town for its size- 7,000 population.”
Here is a photo of the Rialto which appears to be from the 1930s. The second of two frame houses up the block appears to still be standing in Google street view.
The Auditorium Theatre operated as a movie house from 1931 to 1954, according to this web page about entertainment in Freeland. There is a photo, the caption of which says that, after closing as a theater, the building was converted into a recreation center. Google has no street view for the location, but a Bing Maps bird’s eye view shows that the building is no longer there. It appears to have been replaced by a modern structure.
The renovation of the Alamo Theatre for Northeast Historic Film was designed by Boston architect Thomas Bakalars. Bakalars was a member of the Board of Directors of NHF. The Winter, 2001, issue of the organization’s newsletter, Moving Image Review, featured an article about the project (PDF here.) A digitized archive of the newsletters from Winter, 1988, through Winter, 2007, is also available here from the Internet Archive and Open Library.
The firm Thomas Bakalars Architects has designed numerous theaters, including at least two for Hoyts.
The Westborough Stadium 12 was one of at least two multiplexes designed for Hoyts Cinemas by the Boston firm Thomas Bakalars Architects. There are a few photos at the firm’s web site. There are also photos of Hoyts Cinema 10 in Augusta, Maine.
Thomas Bakalars also designed the renovation of the Alamo Theatre in Bucksport, Maine, as the headquarters of Northeast Historic Film.
According to Architect, the magazine of the AIA, the entire Patriot Place complex, including the cinema, was designed by the Boston architectural firm Arrowstreet, Inc.
Arrowstreet designed several multiplexes for Hoyts America from the mid-1990s until 2003, when most of that circuit’s locations were sold to Regal Entertainment.
A 1917 photo of the Champlain Theatre in Swanton appears in the Summer, 2003, issue of Northeast Historic Film’s newsletter, Moving Image Review: Archive.org.
The Rex Theatre was built in 1911 as the Novelty Theatre, as reported in the July 29 issue of The Moving Picture World:
The Novelty suffered construction delays, and didn’t open until early 1912. Here is part of the article about the opening in The Moving Picture World: After several changes of operators, the Novelty Theatre was remodeled and reopened as the Rex Theatre in 1916, as reported in the March 18 issue of The Moving Picture World:The building says “19-SWITOW-14” on the parapet. I suppose it’s possible that Mr. Switow was just commemorating his remodeling of an existing building, and locals have assumed that the date refers to its original construction. But then the facade of the Switow Building is plainer than those of the clearly Victorian buildings flanking it, and 1913 is the last year I’ve found the Crystal Theatre mentioned in the trade publications, so the building certainly could date from 1914.
In 1911, Michael Switow was operating three theaters at New Albany; the Grand, the Crystal, and a house called the Victoria. He also had two theaters in Jeffersonville and one in Louisville, with a second Louisville house under construction that summer.
In the early 1910s, New Albany also had theaters called the Lyric and the Hippodrome, the latter being the old opera house renamed. There might have been others, but I haven’t found any yet.
If Michael Switow actually demolished the Crystal Theatre building in 1914, he must have regretted the expense he’d gone to of fixing up the theater in late 1913, as he was reported to have been doing by the November 29 issue of The Moving Picture World:
The Switow Amusement Company itself had opened the 1,000-seat New Grand Theatre earlier that month, the Kerrigan Theatre had opened the same year, and there were other movie theaters operating in New Albany and in nearby Jeffersonville. In renovating and reopening the Crystal, Mr. Switow might have overestimated the demand for entertainment in New Albany.I’m not sure if this item refers to this theater or some other early house in Atascadero, but this is what the July 31, 1915, issue of The Moving Picture World had to say:
There was a movie theater operating in Atascadero in November, 1918, as it was listed as one of the houses ordered to close by State officials due to the influenza epidemic, but the list didn’t give its name.The June 22 article that OCRon uploaded confirms A. H. McCulloh as the architect of the Lyric Theatre. The June 25 article says that the theater was decorated in the Egyptian style, but also says that the Lyric was a “copy” of Grauman’s Million Dollar, and that house was not Egyptian at all.
The unusual spelling of the architect’s surname, McCulloh, appears to be correct, as it is spelled that way in several trade journal items from 1921 and 1922. I can find only one instance of a Los Angeles architect called A. H. McCollough, that being from 1913, and that might not even be the same guy.
Plans for what would become the Rivoli Theatre were announced in the March 18, 1921, issue of Southwest Builder & Contractor. Greenberg & Siebert were the developers of the project, which was designed by the Architectural & Engineering Co., which had its offices in the Story Building in Los Angeles. I’ve been unable to discover anything about this generically-named firm.
Clickable version of David’s link. The page says that the Scarboro Theatre opened in 1936 and was designed by Herbert George Duerr.
There are a few small photos of the Santikos Northwest Six Theatres illustrating this single-page article in Boxoffice of August 2, 1976.
The August 2, 1976, Boxoffice article about the Plaza Twin starts on this page. It was, as other comments have noted, a very spare theater, not at all Art Deco in style. It would be best described as Midcentury Modern, but Streamline Modern would be far more apt than Art Deco.
This web page says that the Rex Theatre first opened on May 30, 1940, operated as an independent, second-run house by Lucien Descoteaux. The Rex closed on November 15, 1958, but reopened on May 24, 1961, then apparently closed again in 1962.
Other sources indicate that at some point (probably 1962 or later), Descoteaux sold the house to the Shea circuit. Shea remodeled the Rex and renamed it the King Cinema. By 1980, it had been renamed again, to The Movies. As formermovieguy’s earlier comment notes that The Movies was still operating in the mid-1980s, that should probably be the way we list it, with Rex Theatre and King Cinema as aka’s.
The Silver Strand Theatre and its adjacent commercial, office, and residential buildings were another project built by John D. Spreckels, who had earlier built the Spreckels Theatre in downtown San Diego. The Silver Strand was not built as a playhouse, but was specifically designed for presenting motion pictures and live music.
The October, 1917, issue of The Santa Fe Magazine, published by the Santa Fe Railway as a rival of the Southern Pacific Railroad’s Sunset Magazine, had an article about Coronado which mentioned the Silver Strand Theatre several times, and describes it in this passage:
Live music was one of the Silver Strand’s attractions from the beginning. At the formal opening on July 20, 1917, renowned contralto Ernestine Schumann-Heink sang several songs as part of a program benefiting the Red Cross. Another passage from the article praises the house thusly:John Spreckels chose as architect for his Coronado project Harrison Albright, who, after a distinguished career in Philadelphia, West Virginia, and Indiana, had moved his practice to California in 1905, designing the Homer Laughlin Building (Grand Central Market) in Los Angeles, in which he established his offices. Here is an item about the letting of the contract for the Coronado project, from the June 17, 1916, issue of Southwest Contractor & Manufacturer It is unfortunate that Harrison Albright’s original interior for the Silver Strand Theatre has been lost, but at least the building itself has survived. Still, I have to wonder if any of the auditorium’s original features were intact when the dark house was taken over by the Lamb’s Players in 1994. It wouldn’t be the first time a theater company had opted for an economical “black box” configuration rather than bankroll a costly restoration of vintage features.I’ve set Street View to the approximate location of the Vaudette Theatre. Google chooses to number that spot 124 Georgia State Bicycle Route 45, but it’s still Peachtree Street SW.
Google Maps will be unable to find the correct location from the old address. A long stretch of what is now Peachtree Street SW used to be Whitehall Street (from Spring Street SW north to the railroad tracks about midway between Marietta Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Drive.)
In addition to the renaming, the numbers have been changed. Comparing the 1911 Sanborn Map (in Volume 4, on sheet 465,) what was then 82 Whitehall St. SW did not become 82 Peachtree St. SW, but is in the next block south, between MLK JR. Drive (formerly Hunter Street) and Mitchell Street.
That block now has addresses from 100 to 134, but the entire even side of the block has been rebuilt with a massive single project, so the modern address would be a guess. The Sanborn map shows 82 about the middle of that block, which then had numbers from 66 to 102 Whitehall. If the lot the Vaudette was on still had its own number it would probably be approximately 116 Peachtree St. SW.
The 1911 map also shows movie theaters in buildings at 98 and 100 Whitehall SW. Whatever theaters they were would have modern addresses of approximately 128 and 130 Peachtree SW.
Sanborn Maps for Georgia can be found at this page of the Digital Library of Georgia, but the format they are presented in does not make them very easy to use. I’m grateful to DLG for making them available, but I wish they’d used a format more like the one the University of North Carolina uses for their collection.
This is interesting. The May, 1917, issue of The Cornell Countryman, a University publication, published a reminiscence about earlier days at the College of Agriculture that has these lines:
This page from the University web site has information about the early days of the Cornell Public Library, but doesn’t mention the Happy Hour Theatre. It does say that the building was designed by Albany architect William Hodgins. The text under the thumbnail of a photo of the library (top of sidebar, right) says that the building was sold to a bank in 1960 and demolished shortly after.Dave Kenney’s Twin Cities Picture Show says that the 1932-33 rebuilding of the Strand Theatre was the work of architects Liebenberg & Kaplan.
Dave Kenney’s Twin cities Picture Show says that in the early 1930s the Faust Theatre was given a modern makeover designed by Liebenberg & Kaplan.
Dave Kenney’s Twin cities Picture Show tells how Liebenberg & Kaplan got the job of remodeling the Arion Theatre in 1923. The Arion was then owned by Louis Rubenstein and Abe Kaplan, and Abe Kaplan was architect Seeman Kaplan’s brother. It was a serendipitous bit of nepotism that launched Liebenberg & Kaplan’s long, distinguished career as theater architects.
Dave Kenney’s Twin cities Picture Show says that the Calhoun Theatre was converted into a ballroom by owners Finkelstein & Rubin. They had taken over the house in 1918, and then took over the larger and newer nearby rival, the Lagoon Theatre, shortly after.
Sometime between 1930 and 1935, the building was converted from a ballroom into a showroom for a Nash automobile dealer. The Hennepin County Library has a photo made at the time of the conversion (I don’t know if this link will work, as the library doesn’t provide designated permalinks.)
Text on the photo’s page gives the address as 1400 W. Lake Street, which is certainly the correct current address. The building is still standing, but has had additional windows punched into it, and Clifford McElroy’s beautiful tapestry brick facade has been painted over.
In a classified advertisement in the May 9, 1914, issue of shoe trade journal Boot and Shoe Recorder, the Refowich Brothers offered for rent: “Store room in the new Refowich Vaudeville Theatre, Freeland, Pa. Best corner in town, best town for its size- 7,000 population.”
Here is a photo of the Rialto which appears to be from the 1930s. The second of two frame houses up the block appears to still be standing in Google street view.
The Auditorium Theatre operated as a movie house from 1931 to 1954, according to this web page about entertainment in Freeland. There is a photo, the caption of which says that, after closing as a theater, the building was converted into a recreation center. Google has no street view for the location, but a Bing Maps bird’s eye view shows that the building is no longer there. It appears to have been replaced by a modern structure.
The renovation of the Alamo Theatre for Northeast Historic Film was designed by Boston architect Thomas Bakalars. Bakalars was a member of the Board of Directors of NHF. The Winter, 2001, issue of the organization’s newsletter, Moving Image Review, featured an article about the project (PDF here.) A digitized archive of the newsletters from Winter, 1988, through Winter, 2007, is also available here from the Internet Archive and Open Library.
The firm Thomas Bakalars Architects has designed numerous theaters, including at least two for Hoyts.
The Westborough Stadium 12 was one of at least two multiplexes designed for Hoyts Cinemas by the Boston firm Thomas Bakalars Architects. There are a few photos at the firm’s web site. There are also photos of Hoyts Cinema 10 in Augusta, Maine.
Thomas Bakalars also designed the renovation of the Alamo Theatre in Bucksport, Maine, as the headquarters of Northeast Historic Film.
According to Architect, the magazine of the AIA, the entire Patriot Place complex, including the cinema, was designed by the Boston architectural firm Arrowstreet, Inc.
Arrowstreet designed several multiplexes for Hoyts America from the mid-1990s until 2003, when most of that circuit’s locations were sold to Regal Entertainment.
A 1917 photo of the Champlain Theatre in Swanton appears in the Summer, 2003, issue of Northeast Historic Film’s newsletter, Moving Image Review: Archive.org.