Ken, one comment on the Water Winter Wonderland page for the Lona Theatre does say that in its last years the Lona operated as the Family Theatre. Some of the commenters remember the Lona, but none mention the Owego. Some also note that the building in the photo on the page was not the Lona Theatre. I am wondering if the Owego could have been in that building?
Whoever uploaded the photo to Water Winter Wonderland might have been told that the building had once housed a theater, and the uploader could have assumed that it was the Lona, being unaware of the town’s earlier movie house. If the Owego closed about the time the Lona opened, then there would be very few people around who would still remember it, and probably very few of them would have Internet.
The 1915 reopening ad boasts of the Acme Theater’s comfortable opera chairs. Seating in J. St. Peter’s Acme Theater of 1908 was far different, judging from the photo of the auditorium at the bottom of page 180 of the November, 1908, issue of The Coast. The narrow aisles are lined with what appear to be wooden folding chairs.
Could the Owego Theatre have been the same house that is listed at Water Winter Wonderand as the Lona Theatre? It’s the only theater the site has listed for Mancelona. Various comments say that the Lona Theatre burned down in the late 1970s or early 1980s.
Irene Wildfong operated the Lona Theatre in the 1960s and early 1970s, according to her obituary. If the Owego was still listed in FDY in 1957, it seems likely that it became the Lona. An entirely new theater being opened in so small a town after 1957 would not be impossible, but it would be extremely unlikely.
A couple of decent photos of Mindlin’s Playhouse can be seen in the October 25, 1930, issue of Exhibitors Herald-World. The foyer is pictured at the bottom of this page, and the auditorium at the bottom of this page. The captions indicate that the house was designed by Michael and Beatrice Mindlin, the owners of the theater. The Motion Picture Times article I linked to in my previous comment says only that Beatrice Mindlin created the furniture and designed the decorations. I can find nothing else on the Internet indicating that Michael Mindlin was an architect.
A two page article about the Punch and Judy Theatre, complete with floor plans, followed by four pages of photos, appeared in the October 25, 1930, issue of Exhibitors Herald-World. It can be seen online at the Internet Archive (click on the + sign in the tool bar at the bottom to enlarge pages.)
A photo of the lounge of the Little Picture House in New York appeared as part of a portfolio of recent theater designs in the October 25, 1930, issue of Exhibitors Herald-World. It can be seen at the lower right of this page (click + sign in tool bar at bottom to enlarge.) The caption identifies the architects of the house as Pruitt & Brown.
The October 11, 1930, issue of Exhibitors Herald-World ran this article about theaters operated by the U.S. Army, and it features a photo of the theater at Fort Benjamin Harrison. There is also an interior photo of the theater at Fort Benning in Georgia.
If this house was originally operated by Walter Reade Theatres it must not have been opened until the 1960s. I believe that’s when that east coast chain first expanded into the California market.
As our Street View is currently set to the wrong location, here is a corrected view until it gets fixed. Now housing a restaurant, the building does indeed look like a former Bank of America branch, probably from the 1940s. They had a distinctive style.
And as ppetitclerc notes, the theater schedule currently on display above belongs on the Guild Theatre page. The Guild was called the Menlo Theatre until it was rebuilt and renamed in 1947.
The July 5, 1927, issue of The Film Daily listed the New Menlo Theatre, Menlo Park, California, as a new theater. A few weeks later, the August 25 issue announced that the New Menlo Theatre had been sold to A. Blanco of San Francisco.
Theatres of the San Francisco Peninsula, by Gary Lee Parks and Jack Tillmany, says that the Menlo Theatre was originally opened in 1923 and later rebuilt as the New Menlo Theatre.
The January 5, 1943, issue of The Film Daily ran an item about the partial demolition of the Menlo Theatre and its rebuilding as the Guild, necessitated by the widening of El Camino Real:
“Well, Half a House Is Better Than None
“Menlo Park, Calif.— Phrase, ‘half a house,’ has taken on a unique meaning here. To effect a public improvement, a new highway has been constructed. But to build the road necessitated cutting away half of the local Menlo Theater. Work is now completed, and the house has only half its original seating capacity, it’s operated by the Harvey Amusement Co.”
Harvey Amusement had taken over the Menlo Theatre in 1936, as reported in the May 6 issue of The Film Daily.
There is nothing on the Summit Hippodrome’s official web site but a rather cryptic message from what is probably the hosting company. Nothing is listed at web sites such as Box Office Mojo, either. I don’t think this theater is open.
Before it was merged with Union Hill in 1925, this section of Union City was called West Hoboken. The March 19, 1921, issue of The American Contractor had an item about the proposed theater:
“West Hoboken, N. J. Theater (M. P.):
“$225,000. S. E. cor. Summit av. & Courtland St., West Hoboken. Archt. W. E. Lehman, 738 Broad St.. Newark, N. J. Owner Roosevelt Theater Corp., R. Robinson, pres., 150 Summit av., West Hoboken. Drawing plans”
Courtland Street was later renamed 8th Street. The theater is still standing, at least in part, occupied by a CVS drug store. There is a parking lot in front of the building. I don’t know if CVS lopped off the front of the building, or if the parking lot was there when the theater opened, but I suspect that the lobby and foyer were removed and that the store occupies the auditorium space. The address of the CVS is 714 Summit Avenue, so that must have been the theater’s address as well.
Cinema Treasures currently has eight theaters listed as having been designed by architect William E. Lehman. There could be others that have not yet been identified.
The article RidgewoodKen linked to says that the theater was built “…in the early 1900s….” and notes that local resident John Carmazzi remembers going to the theater in 1939, the year before Warren Grimes bought the house and renamed it after his daughter.
Another article about the closing of the Urbana Cinema notes its connection to the Clifford Theatre, saying this: “In September of 1940, Urbana aviation lighting pioneer and industrialist Warren Grimes bought the building and tore out the decayed parts, remodeling the old structure into a premier motion picture house for Champaign countians.”
Mr. Carmazzi’s memory indicates that the Clifford Theatre was still operating (though he doesn’t mention the name) in the late 1930s. As I noted earlier, it’s pretty clear from the look of the building that it incorporates at least the side walls of the Clifford Theatre, built in 1905.
This house was mentioned as the Seneca Theatre in the January 24, 1945, issue of The Film Daily. It had just been sold to C. F. Sanders by John Panapoulos.
A Belington movie house called the Grand is mentioned in the January 15, 1928, issue of the same publication, and I’ve found a Grand Theatre mentioned in The Moving Picture World as early as September 14, 1918. I don’t know if it was the same theater that later became the Bellington/Seneca, or a different theater. The Seneca’s building does look old enough to have been around in the 1910s or even earlier.
The web site Jazz Age Chicago, to which I linked in a comment on January 25, 2010, has vanished from the Internet. Fortunately, the site’s article on the Star and Garter Theatre has been preserved by the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. It can be read at this link.
An architect named George H. Dieringer had his office in the Southern Theater Building, Wheeling, according to items in issues of The American Contractor in 1913. I’ve been unable to find references to the theater itself, though, and I don’t know if the Southern Theater Building of 1913 housed this theater or an earlier one of the same name.
The building in Adam’s photos does look old enough to have been around in 1913, though it also looks as though it might have been an ordinary commercial and office block that was altered to accommodate a theater at some point. It also seems unlikely that a busy architect would have had his office in this outlying neighborhood instead of downtown.
This photo of Baker Street circa 1930 includes the Rialto Theatre. Click on the image to enlarge, then follow instructions to zoom in. The Rialto is on the far corner of the intersection on the right.
Here is another photo showing the Princess/Ellis Theatre late in its history, during the 1960s, when it had become Mt. Zion Church.
From the same time period, the back of the theater, with the name Princess Theatre still painted on the stage house. Everything around it had already been demolished for an urban undo-all project, and the theater building would soon fall victim to the same folly.
Ken, one comment on the Water Winter Wonderland page for the Lona Theatre does say that in its last years the Lona operated as the Family Theatre. Some of the commenters remember the Lona, but none mention the Owego. Some also note that the building in the photo on the page was not the Lona Theatre. I am wondering if the Owego could have been in that building?
Whoever uploaded the photo to Water Winter Wonderland might have been told that the building had once housed a theater, and the uploader could have assumed that it was the Lona, being unaware of the town’s earlier movie house. If the Owego closed about the time the Lona opened, then there would be very few people around who would still remember it, and probably very few of them would have Internet.
The 1915 reopening ad boasts of the Acme Theater’s comfortable opera chairs. Seating in J. St. Peter’s Acme Theater of 1908 was far different, judging from the photo of the auditorium at the bottom of page 180 of the November, 1908, issue of The Coast. The narrow aisles are lined with what appear to be wooden folding chairs.
Could the Owego Theatre have been the same house that is listed at Water Winter Wonderand as the Lona Theatre? It’s the only theater the site has listed for Mancelona. Various comments say that the Lona Theatre burned down in the late 1970s or early 1980s.
Irene Wildfong operated the Lona Theatre in the 1960s and early 1970s, according to her obituary. If the Owego was still listed in FDY in 1957, it seems likely that it became the Lona. An entirely new theater being opened in so small a town after 1957 would not be impossible, but it would be extremely unlikely.
The Canadian Register of Historic Places identifies the architect of the Granada Theatre in Montreal as D. J. Crighton, as does the caption of a photo of the Granada’s lobby in the October 25, 1930, issue of Exhibitors Herald-World.
A couple of decent photos of Mindlin’s Playhouse can be seen in the October 25, 1930, issue of Exhibitors Herald-World. The foyer is pictured at the bottom of this page, and the auditorium at the bottom of this page. The captions indicate that the house was designed by Michael and Beatrice Mindlin, the owners of the theater. The Motion Picture Times article I linked to in my previous comment says only that Beatrice Mindlin created the furniture and designed the decorations. I can find nothing else on the Internet indicating that Michael Mindlin was an architect.
A two page article about the Punch and Judy Theatre, complete with floor plans, followed by four pages of photos, appeared in the October 25, 1930, issue of Exhibitors Herald-World. It can be seen online at the Internet Archive (click on the + sign in the tool bar at the bottom to enlarge pages.)
A photo of the lounge of the Little Picture House in New York appeared as part of a portfolio of recent theater designs in the October 25, 1930, issue of Exhibitors Herald-World. It can be seen at the lower right of this page (click + sign in tool bar at bottom to enlarge.) The caption identifies the architects of the house as Pruitt & Brown.
The October 11, 1930, issue of Exhibitors Herald-World ran this article about theaters operated by the U.S. Army, and it features a photo of the theater at Fort Benjamin Harrison. There is also an interior photo of the theater at Fort Benning in Georgia.
If this house was originally operated by Walter Reade Theatres it must not have been opened until the 1960s. I believe that’s when that east coast chain first expanded into the California market.
As our Street View is currently set to the wrong location, here is a corrected view until it gets fixed. Now housing a restaurant, the building does indeed look like a former Bank of America branch, probably from the 1940s. They had a distinctive style.
And as ppetitclerc notes, the theater schedule currently on display above belongs on the Guild Theatre page. The Guild was called the Menlo Theatre until it was rebuilt and renamed in 1947.
The July 5, 1927, issue of The Film Daily listed the New Menlo Theatre, Menlo Park, California, as a new theater. A few weeks later, the August 25 issue announced that the New Menlo Theatre had been sold to A. Blanco of San Francisco.
Theatres of the San Francisco Peninsula, by Gary Lee Parks and Jack Tillmany, says that the Menlo Theatre was originally opened in 1923 and later rebuilt as the New Menlo Theatre.
The January 5, 1943, issue of The Film Daily ran an item about the partial demolition of the Menlo Theatre and its rebuilding as the Guild, necessitated by the widening of El Camino Real:
Harvey Amusement had taken over the Menlo Theatre in 1936, as reported in the May 6 issue of The Film Daily.There is nothing on the Summit Hippodrome’s official web site but a rather cryptic message from what is probably the hosting company. Nothing is listed at web sites such as Box Office Mojo, either. I don’t think this theater is open.
Before it was merged with Union Hill in 1925, this section of Union City was called West Hoboken. The March 19, 1921, issue of The American Contractor had an item about the proposed theater:
Courtland Street was later renamed 8th Street. The theater is still standing, at least in part, occupied by a CVS drug store. There is a parking lot in front of the building. I don’t know if CVS lopped off the front of the building, or if the parking lot was there when the theater opened, but I suspect that the lobby and foyer were removed and that the store occupies the auditorium space. The address of the CVS is 714 Summit Avenue, so that must have been the theater’s address as well.Cinema Treasures currently has eight theaters listed as having been designed by architect William E. Lehman. There could be others that have not yet been identified.
The article RidgewoodKen linked to says that the theater was built “…in the early 1900s….” and notes that local resident John Carmazzi remembers going to the theater in 1939, the year before Warren Grimes bought the house and renamed it after his daughter.
Another article about the closing of the Urbana Cinema notes its connection to the Clifford Theatre, saying this: “In September of 1940, Urbana aviation lighting pioneer and industrialist Warren Grimes bought the building and tore out the decayed parts, remodeling the old structure into a premier motion picture house for Champaign countians.”
Mr. Carmazzi’s memory indicates that the Clifford Theatre was still operating (though he doesn’t mention the name) in the late 1930s. As I noted earlier, it’s pretty clear from the look of the building that it incorporates at least the side walls of the Clifford Theatre, built in 1905.
This house was mentioned as the Seneca Theatre in the January 24, 1945, issue of The Film Daily. It had just been sold to C. F. Sanders by John Panapoulos.
A Belington movie house called the Grand is mentioned in the January 15, 1928, issue of the same publication, and I’ve found a Grand Theatre mentioned in The Moving Picture World as early as September 14, 1918. I don’t know if it was the same theater that later became the Bellington/Seneca, or a different theater. The Seneca’s building does look old enough to have been around in the 1910s or even earlier.
The web site Jazz Age Chicago, to which I linked in a comment on January 25, 2010, has vanished from the Internet. Fortunately, the site’s article on the Star and Garter Theatre has been preserved by the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. It can be read at this link.
Adam Martin has photos of the Southern Theatre at CinemaTour.
An architect named George H. Dieringer had his office in the Southern Theater Building, Wheeling, according to items in issues of The American Contractor in 1913. I’ve been unable to find references to the theater itself, though, and I don’t know if the Southern Theater Building of 1913 housed this theater or an earlier one of the same name.
The building in Adam’s photos does look old enough to have been around in 1913, though it also looks as though it might have been an ordinary commercial and office block that was altered to accommodate a theater at some point. It also seems unlikely that a busy architect would have had his office in this outlying neighborhood instead of downtown.
In late 1909, the National Theatre was being advertised in San Francisco newspapers as a Sullivan & Considine vaudeville house.
Here is a photo of the Victory Theatre dated 1909.
Here is a photo of downtown Dinuba with the Strand Theatre as it appeared in the 1920s.
Here is a photo of the New Alcazar Theatre dated 1907.
Here is a photo of the Optic Theatre in Whitter dated 1909.
This photo of Baker Street circa 1930 includes the Rialto Theatre. Click on the image to enlarge, then follow instructions to zoom in. The Rialto is on the far corner of the intersection on the right.
Here is a photo of the Tivoli Theatre dated 1917.
Here is a 1925 photo of Market Street with the Pompeii Theatre at the left.
Here is another photo showing the Princess/Ellis Theatre late in its history, during the 1960s, when it had become Mt. Zion Church.
From the same time period, the back of the theater, with the name Princess Theatre still painted on the stage house. Everything around it had already been demolished for an urban undo-all project, and the theater building would soon fall victim to the same folly.