Comments from Joe Vogel

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Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel commented about Capitol Theatre on Dec 13, 2013 at 12:56 am

This brief biography of architect Bjarne H. Moe, from the Washington State Department of Archaeology & Historic Preservation, says that he was the architect for a remodeling of the Capitol Theatre in Walla Walla in 1938.

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel commented about Ambassador Theatre on Dec 10, 2013 at 1:32 pm

hanksykes said earlier that the Park Hall Theatre was built in 1913 by builders Moorman & John. The January 4, 1913, issue of The Moving Picture World ran an item saying that builders Moorman and John, of Oakley, Ohio, had commissioned architect Edward Sloctemyer to design a theater for them, which was to be built on Madison Road near Gilmore Avenue. No theater name was given, but it must have been the Park Hall/Ambassador.

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel commented about State Theatre on Dec 10, 2013 at 12:43 pm

The January 4, 1913, issue of The Moving Picture World had an item about the Sequoia Theatre. The house had opened on November 22, 1910, with 600 seats. It was exclusively a movie house, and the building was 36 feet wide by 130 feet deep, with a lobby 20 feet deep. The operator of the Sequoia was Isidor F. Morris.

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel commented about Bijou Dream on Dec 10, 2013 at 11:48 am

On this web page, Cezar Del Valle says that the Bijou Dream was at 106 Main Street East. The first theater in Rochester to be devoted exclusively to movies, it opened in 1906, and closed on February 28, 1913. The space was converted into a cigar store.

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel commented about Majestic Theatre on Dec 8, 2013 at 6:36 pm

The Majestic Theatre’s web site says that their house opened in August, 1913. Here is an item about an unnamed theater to be built in Corvallis, from the January 21, 1913, issue of Building and Industrial News:

“THEATRE— 2 story, and base, brick and concrete, $30,000. Corvallis. Ore. Architect, George Post, Salem. Owner, M. Porter. The building will contain a main auditorium seating in the neighborhood of 900 people. Construction will be of reinforced concrete with exterior walls of pressed brick and terra cotta. A central heating system will be installed. Interior will be finished in metal and ornamental plaster. Floors will be of concrete. Stage equipment will be let under a separate contract. Plans are now being prepared.”
The description fits the Majestic quite well, as does the timing. Salem architect George M. Post is not to be confused with the better known New York architect George B. Post.

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel commented about Globe Theatre on Dec 7, 2013 at 8:21 pm

The July 13, 1912, issue of The Moving Picture World had this item about the Globe Theatre:

“$55,000 MOVING PICTURE HOUSE FOR SAN PEDRO.

“Luke Kelley will erect on his property at Pablos [sic] Verdes and Sixth Street, San Pedro, Cal., for the Globe Amusement Company, a $55,000 moving picture theater to be known as the Globe Theater No. 5. This house will have large rooms over the auditorium, and will be one of the most beautiful structures in San Pedro. The architect is A. Lawrence Valk.”

A follow-up item appeared in the issue of July 20:
“San Pedro, Cal. — A. Lawrence Valk has completed plans for a $20,000 two-story brick moving picture theater building to be built on the corner of 6th and Palos Verdes Sts., for Luke Kelly.”
The September 7 issue had an item about the Globe Amusement Company itself:
“Announcement that the Globe Amusement Company has acquired another motion picture theater, making six in all, was made this week. The new house is the Starland Theater, located on the $1,000,000 Frazer pier at Ocean Park. It is one of the finest motion picture houses in California. J. M. Boland, former owner of the house, is to be retained as resident manager. The Globe Amusement Company is planning to build or acquire and to operate, 15 houses in and around Los Angeles. No. 1 is at Fifth and Los Angeles Streets, No. 2 at Central Avenue and Jefferson Street, No. 3 at Sunset Boulevard and Echo Park road, No. 4 at 18th and Main Streets and No. 5 at Sixth and Palos Verdes Street. All except the last named, which is in San Pedro, are in Los Angeles proper.”
Architect Arthur Lawrence Valk began practicing in New York City around 1885, as junior partner in has father’s firm, L. B. Valk & Son. His father, Lawrence B. Valk, was best known for his church designs, some of which were built as far afield as Louisiana, Ohio, and Michigan. By 1904, the Valks had moved to Los Angeles. There the firm continued to specialize in churches, but by 1913 Arthur Valk had become well enough known for his work on movie theaters to have been called a “motion picture specialist” by trade journal Southwest Contractor & Manufacturer.

Among his other movie houses were the Argus Theatre (later the Strand) in Santa Barbara, and the Sunbeam Theatre in the Highland Park district of Los Angeles. As he also designed the Globe Theatre # 2 (later the Florence Mills Theatre), it’s possible that he designed other projects for the Globe Amusement Company, perhaps including the Globe # 1 at Fifth and Los Angeles Streets and the Globe # 3 (Holly Theatre) in Echo Park. If the Globe # 4 at 18th and Main is listed at Cinema Treasures under another name, I can’t find it.

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel commented about Lovejoy Theatre on Dec 6, 2013 at 6:33 pm

The address of the Lovejoy Theatre that was listed in city directories in the 1920s was 1002 Lovejoy Street, which is still the address on the Cricket Wireless building today.

This document (a Microsoft Word file) about some of Buffalo’s silent era theaters quotes the minutes of the common council meeting of March 1, 1909, containing this information about the first Lovejoy Theatre:

“Christian Mumenthaler and one, to build frame nickelodeon, 25x100x15 feet high, front of lot, northwest corner of Lovejoy and Davey streets.”
It also says that the architect of the Lovejoy Theatre was P.L. Cimini. It also lists him as the architect of the nearby Avon Theatre.

In addition, it says that the first Lovejoy Theater was demolished in the late 1940s, which I originally misread (or mis-remebered) as simply 1940.

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel commented about Lovejoy Theatre on Dec 5, 2013 at 7:48 pm

This .doc file (opens with Microsoft Word) lists some silent era theaters in Buffalo. It says that the first Lovejoy Theatre (originally called the Lovejoy Palace Theatre) was built in 1909 at the northwest corner of Lovejoy and Davey. The address was given as 1198 Lovejoy. It was in a newly-constructed wood framed building 25 x 100 feet.

In 1919, the Lovejoy Theatre was listed at 1202 Lovejoy, which is the modern address of the lot on the northwest corner of Lovejoy and Davey, so it looks as though there was only one Lovejoy Theatre before the one converted into a pool was built, but its address was changed sometime between 1909 and 1914 (for some reason, in the 1924 directory it was listed at 1196 Lovejoy, but the next year it was back at 1202.) My guess would be that it might have been remodeled or even substantially rebuilt around 1919, giving rise to the idea that there were three theaters called the Lovejoy.

The document says that the original Lovejoy Theatre was demolished in 1940 to make way for the Nu-Way Supermarket. The building now on the site is probably the one built in 1940, small though it is. Supermarkets were a lot smaller in those days than they are now. The building currently houses the office of Cricket Wireless.

Though Film Daily was still listing the Lovejoy at 1202 in 1950, if this document is correct the theater probably moved to the new building at 1171 Lovejoy sometime in the 1930s. The Streamline Modern lines of the building certainly look more pre-war than post-war. Film Daily still listing the house at the old address long after it had moved would no surprise to anyone familiar with that publication’s perennial failure to keep information up-to-date.

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel commented about Paris Theatre on Dec 5, 2013 at 2:18 pm

The Portola Theatre rated several lines in a July 15, 1916, article about San Francisco’s movie theaters in The Moving Picture World:

“The Portola theater on Market street, near Fourth, is one of the most interesting houses in the city. When first opened it was devoted to vaudeville and moving pictures, but has been showing the latter exclusively for several years. Under the able direction of Eugene Roth it was been made a great success with its never varying policy in regard to prices and the selection of attractions. It has a seating capacity of 1,100 and has shown many of the greatest films produced, at ten and twenty cents. So marked has been the success of this house that a company known as the Market Street Realty Company has been formed to erect a moving picture theater at Fourth and Market streets with a seating capacity of about 3,000, this house to be one of the finest in America. This company has taken over the Portola theater, as well as the Market Street theater, two blocks further up the street. This latter house, which has been conducted since its erection by Hallahan & Getz, has a seating capacity of 1,100, so that when the new theater is ready Mr. Roth will have charge of three houses within two blocks, with a total of about 5,200 seats.”
The proposed theater at Market and Fourth opened in November, 1917, as the California Theatre, and was later known as the State Theatre.

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel commented about Unique Theater on Dec 5, 2013 at 1:03 pm

There were two Market Street houses called the Unique Theatre, one before the fire and one after. The pre-fire house was the one operated by the Graumans and located on the north side of Market between Mason and Taylor. The house at 757 Market, which was on the south side of the street opposite the end of Grant Avenue, was built after the fire and was not operated by the Graumans. Here is a paragraph from the July 15, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World that mentions the second Unique Theatre:

“Probably the second house to be opened on Market street [after the fire] was the Gold Palace of I. H. Lichtenstein, about opposite Sixth street. This, however, did not prove to be a success. Then came the Unique theater on Market opposite Grant avenue. This house occupied the entire building in which it was located and was the first one that was not merely a converted store. It is still conducted by the same company that originally built it, in conjunction with the Odeon theater a few doors below, under the direct management of Joe Huff. Both of these places have been kept thoroughly abreast of the times in the matter of equipment and furnishings and a little over a year ago changed from a five-cent to a ten-cent policy. Paramount pictures are now being shown, together with Chaplins, of which a feature are made. These houses have a combined seating capacity of about 700.”
If the Unique and the Odeon had a combined seating capacity of about 700, we’ve overestimated the capacity of the Unique, unless it was later enlarged (which doesn’t seem likely if it “…occupied the entire building in which it was located….”)

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel commented about Hub Theater on Dec 5, 2013 at 12:20 pm

An article about San Francisco’s movie theaters in the July 15, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World had this paragraph about the Silver Palace Theatre:

“The first moving picture house to be opened on Market street following the fire of 1906 was the Silver Palace, just above Third, with a seating capacity of about 400. This house, which was conducted by the late Benjamin Michaels and Harry M. Lichtenstein, was fitted up at a heavy expense and at the time was considered quite a wonderful place. It is still being operated and is now under the management of N. K. Herzog, who also has charge of the Pastime theater in the same block. Both of these houses make a daily change of program and charge an admission of five cents.”

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel commented about Embassy Theatre on Dec 5, 2013 at 11:15 am

Here is an item about renovations from the March 25, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World:

“The announcement is made that the Rialto theater, on the site of the old American on Market street, will be opened early in April, when improvements costing in excess of $70,000 will have been completed.”
An article about San Francisco’s movie theaters in the July 15 issue of the same publication had a slightly longer item about the Rialto:
“The latest and one of the largest houses to enter the downtown field is the Rialto theater on Market street, above Seventh. This theater occupies the site of the old American and is conducted by the Western Theater Company, under the management of Howard J. Sheehan. It has a seating capacity of 1,600 and is showing a Metro program, with an International Film Service serial and news pictorial at ten, twenty and thirty cents.”

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel commented about Hippodrome Theatre on Dec 5, 2013 at 10:24 am

The photos show two different buildings. The Stockton theaters page has three listings for houses at 21 Sutter, two with one of the photos and one with the other photos.

The round-cornered building is listed as the Aliskey Theatre, with the aka’s Empire, Unique, Forrest, and Garrick, with the address 21 N. Sutter.

The same photo then accompanies the listing for the Garrick Theatre, with the aka’s Strand and Hippodrome, but with the address 21 S. Sutter instead of 21 N. Sutter.

The building with VAUDEVILLE on the marquee is then listed as the Hippodrome with the aka’s Unique and Garrick, and with the address 21 S. Sutter in the heading and 21 N. Sutter in the text.

The VAUDEVILLE building is mid-block, next to an alley, so the address 21 makes sense, but the theater entrance in the round-cornered building is very close to the corner, so I would expect it to have either a higher or a lower number. I think that’s the building the Stockton theaters page misidentified. The address was probably misidentified, and the theater names might have been as well. Too bad the scan is so blurry that the theater’s name is unreadable.

I’m pretty sure the address 21 N. Sutter is correct for the VAUDEVILLE building. It was probably almost directly across the street from the old Kress store which is still standing at 20 N. Sutter. The building now on the site looks to have been built in the 1920s. The alley was probably closed off to accommodate that building’s extra width.

I’m still trying to figure out where the round-cornered building was, and what theater(s) occupied it.

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel commented about State Theater on Dec 3, 2013 at 6:55 pm

The Bender Theatre opened on Christmas Day, 1912, according to an item in an early 1913 issue of Variety. Originally operating as a stock house, the 1913-1914 edition of the Cahn guide lists it as playing vaudeville with movies.

Austin Bender, operator of the theater, was sued by the city for showing movies on Sunday. The documentation of the suit gives the address of the theater as 325 Bleecker Street. A newspaper article from the period says that the Bender Theatre was on Bleecker Street at the foot of Academy Street, and that’s just about where 325 is, so the address probably hasn’t changed since that time.

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel commented about Central Theatre on Dec 3, 2013 at 1:29 pm

The Gayety Theatre mentioned by WAJWAJ three comments back was a different house, listed here as the Shubert Theatre. The November 20 opening of the Imperial Theatre was noted in the November 25, 1911, issue of Variety.

Will, I haven’t found any period references to a Central Coliseum or Coliseum Theatre in DC, but as this house didn’t become the Central until 1922 it was probably unrelated to the 1916 house.

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel commented about Shubert Theatre on Dec 3, 2013 at 12:47 pm

Here is an informative article about the Gayety Theatre by John DeFerrari. There are several photos of the Gayety and nearby theaters and restaurants.

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel commented about Utica Theatre on Dec 3, 2013 at 12:09 pm

The November 25, 1911, issue of Variety said that the Lumberg Theatre in Utica would open on Monday, November 27. The two-a-day vaudeville house would be booked by the Loew agency.

The Lumberg was one of six Utica theaters listed in the 1913-1914 edition of the Cahn guide. It had 1,446 seats, and was operated by brothers Barney and Harris Lumberg. Vaudeville was presented the first three days of the week and burlesque the last three days. The Lumberg had a fairly large stage for a vaudeville house, being 70 feet between side walls and 33 feet from the footlights to the back wall, with a proscenium 36 feet wide. The Lumberg had three Wilmer & Vincent houses as competition; the Majestic, the Orpheum, and the Shubert. Two other houses, the Hippodrome and the Bender, played vaudeville with movies.

The Lumberg Theatre was being altered in 1916. The June 10 issue of The American Contractor said that architect Leon Lempert had prepared the plans for the $4,000 project. The project also got a brief mention in the July 8 issue of The Moving Picture World.

The latest mention I’ve found of the Luberg Theatre in Utica is from 1919. The earliest occurrence I’ve found of the name Gaiety Theatre in Utica is from early 1922. The Gaiety was then being run as a vaudeville and movie house by Wilmer & Vincent.

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel commented about Ohio Theatre on Dec 2, 2013 at 8:12 pm

This house opened on November 24, 1907, as the New Sun Theatre. It was built by Gus Sun. Sun had arrived in Springfield in October, 1904, as head of a troupe of minstrels, and later that month opened the Little Orpheum Theatre in the Fisher Building. This was the beginning of the Sun Circuit, which would grow to an extensive chain. Sun maintained his headquarters in Springfield, though the circuit had a booking office in New York City.

Before the New Sun Theatre was built, Gus Sun had formed a partnership with O. G. Murray, a broker from Richmond, Indiana. By 1908, the firm of Sun & Murray controlled ten vaudeville houses in Ohio and Indiana, and the circuit would eventually grow to some 275 houses.

When Sun’s Regent Theatre opened in 1920, it became the chain’s flagship house. I haven’t found the year the New Sun was renamed the Band Box, but it was probably around the time the Regent opened.

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel commented about Princess Nickelodeon on Dec 2, 2013 at 7:56 pm

Springfield, Ohio: A Summary of Two Centuries, by Tom Dunham, gives the address of the Princess Theatre as 17 West Main Street.

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel commented about Fairbanks Theatre on Dec 2, 2013 at 7:17 pm

I’m sure the auditorium is gone. There’s a big parking lot behind the L-shaped Fairbanks Building now, where the theater must have been. The office building itself isn’t big enough, or the right shape, to have housed a theater.

I don’t know where the story that the Fairbanks Building was originally a hotel started, but it’s all over the Internet. Period sources (1907, 1911, 1922) all indicate that it was an office building with a theater and a few shops from the beginning. A brief biography (published 1911) of Newton Hamilton Fairbanks, who built the building, describes it as “…one of the largest bank, store and office buildings (fireproof) in Ohio; this building also contains Fairbanks Theater.”

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel commented about Majestic Theater on Dec 2, 2013 at 6:53 pm

The January 24, 1914, issue of The Moving Picture World said that the Majestic Theatre in Springfield had opened on Christmas Day:

“A Whole Page.

“‘Some ad,’ is the comment William Lord Wright makes on a full page advertisement from the Springfield, Ohio, Sun that he sends in, and we echo ‘Some ad.’ It announces the opening of the Majestic Theater on Christmas day and takes up an entire page, with an ornamental frame in line cut and four half tones of the players that might have been better printed. This is a 900 house, a sister theater to the Princess, which shares the advertisement and the fact that the Majestic will open Christmas a made to stand out like the proverbial sore thumb.”

The line “a 900 house” is probably missing the word “Seat.”

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel commented about Princess Nickelodeon on Dec 2, 2013 at 6:09 pm

A 1917 photo on page 34 of Springfield, by Harry C. Laybourne (Google Books preview), shows that the Princess Theatre was on the south side of West Main Street a few doors east of Fisher Street, across the street from the Fairbanks Building.

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel commented about Hathaway's Theatre on Dec 2, 2013 at 2:52 pm

In the later 1910s, this house sported an enormous “M&C” logo on it, for McCue & Cahill. There’s a photo at Card Cow. As of 1916, Joseph Cahill controlled three of Brockton’s five theaters, including the City and the Brockton Strand. I found a couple of references to a vaudeville comedy team called McCue & Cahill from around 1904-1905. I wonder if it was the same pair? It was not unusual for vaudeville performers to “cross the footlights” and become theater operators.

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel commented about Park Theatre on Dec 1, 2013 at 8:21 pm

Somehow I left a word out of my previous comment. It should start “Cinema Treasures member Cinemalover….” The link was posted on the page for the Palace Theatre, which was previously misidentified as being the same house as the Park.

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel commented about Carlton Theatre on Dec 1, 2013 at 6:32 pm

On October 17, 2005, lostmemory commented:

“NYC issued a C/O to a New building at 292 Flatbush Avenue on March 22, 1927. The first architects name is H. G. Wiseman. The second architects name is Hugo ‘something’. I can’t read the last name.”
This was probably either Hugo Taussig, or Hugo Magnuson of the firm Magnuson & Kleinert. Wiseman worked with both at various times following the 1920 death of his partner Arthur Carlson.

Ruth Anne Phillips' book Pre-Columbian Revival attributes the design of the 1923 Cameo Theatre to Wiseman and Hugo Taussig. Cezar del Valle’s Brooklyn Theatre Index attributes the Sanders Theatre to Wiseman with Magnuson & Kleinert.

As the C/O for the Carlton names only two architects, it was probably Taussig who worked with Wiseman on this house. In any case, the firm of Carlson & Wiseman was long gone by the time the Carlton Theatre was designed.