The Susquehanna Heritage Area Management Plan of 2009 lists Herbert R. Brewster as the architect of the Binghamton Theatre. Brewster also designed the Empire Theatre in Brooklyn and the Jamaica Theatre in Jamaica, as well as two theater projects in Stapleton, Staten Island, and one in New London, Connecticut, none of which I’ve been able to identify. He also designed the Casino Theatre on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn, but it appears to have operated only as a burlesque house.
The Arcade Theatre’s auditorium can be seen behind the entrance building, on S. Fifth Street. It has been listed on LoopNet, though it is currently off the market. The auditorium has been entirely gutted.
I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before, but the brick auditorium is attached to the back of the Arcade Theatre’s entrance building, and satellite view shows that the Arcade’s entrance ran back a long way. The entrance had shop entrances along both sides, in the manner of an Italian galleria. It looks like LoopNet was right, and the red brick building is the Arcade’s auditorium. It’s just about the right size for 700 seats.
I’ve come across several references that place the Kentucky Theatre on North Fifth Street, between Broadway and Jefferson. One is page 112 of Paducah: Frontier to the Atomic Age, by John E. L. Robertson. Another is the advertising of the Williams Bicycle Co. in various issues of the Paducah Evening Sun in the 1900s, which give the shop’s address as “126-128 North Fifth St., Next to Kentucky Theater.” That would put the Kentucky Theatre on the east side of Fifth Street in the block north of Broadway.
If the Kentucky was on N. Fifth, that would leave the question of the brick theater at 111 S. Fifth, which this LoopNet listing insists is the Arcade Theatre. As the Arcade was on Broadway, this was clearly not it, but what theater was it?
For a while I thought it might be the missing Orpheum Theatre, which Leo Keiler was operating in the 1920s, but that turns out to have been the Kentucky Theatre itself. The Orpheum is mentioned as the former Old Opera House in Keiler’s 1958 obituary, and as the former Kentucky Theatre in John Keiler’s 1929 obituary. It was operating as the Orpheum in 1929, but I haven’t discovered when it returned to the name Kentucky Theatre.
The building at 111 S. Fifth doesn’t look large enough to have held the Kentucky’s original 1,600 seats, over 600 of which were in the gallery, according to the Cahn guide’s listings of the Kentucky Theatre. From the side view this theater doesn’t look as though it even had a gallery. It just isn’t tall enough.
The Star Theatre is mentioned in the October 24, 1908 issue of The Billboard, along with the Kozy Theatre (also a movie house) and a vaudeville house called the Paducah Theatre.
The Kozy Theatre is mentioned in the October 24, 1908 issue of The Billboard, along with the Star Theatre (also a movie house) and a vaudeville house called the Paducah Theatre.
Chuck, Leo Keiler (the more frequent spelling I’ve found for his surname) was a partner in the Strand Amusement Company, at least as of 1921 and in 1929. Here’s an article about a partnership formed with the Switlow interests of Louisville, which appeared in The Film Daily of January 21, 1921:
“Levy Closes Louisville Deal
“(Special to WID’S DAILY)
“Louisville — Col. Fred Levy, holder of the Associated First National Franchise for Kentucky, and Leo Keiler of Paducah, who control a chain of 19 theaters in Kentucky through the Strand Amusement Co., have completed negotiations for an affiliation with M. Switow in the ownership of three theaters here. Included in the deal is the new $200,000 theater erected by Switow on 4th St., directly across the street from the new Rialto. The Parkland and another neighborhood house are the others.
“The other theaters owned by Switow — two in Jeffersonville, three in New Albany, one in Bedford, Ind., and one in Salem, Ind., are not included in the deal.
“Among the properties operated by the Strand Co. are four in Louisville, in addition to the three secured through the Switow alliance, four in Paducah, three in Mayfield, three in Owensboro, one in Irvine and one in Princeton.”
An article in the same publication the following year noted that Leo Keiler and Harry Switow jointly oversaw construction of the new Columbia Theatre in Paducah.
The Sunday, June 15, 1930, issue of The Film Daily had an article about a pending deal between the Strand Amusement Co. and Warner Bros.:
“Kentucky Chain of 16 in Warner Theater Deal
“Louisville, Ky. — Deal for acquisition of the 16 houses in the Strand Amusement Co. by Warners is understood to be near stages of completion. Leo Keiler and Fred Levy, officers of the company, are said to be ready to turn over the houses as soon as terms are agreed upon. Keiler has three houses in Paducah which will most likely be included in the deal.”
Find a Grave has Leo Keiler’s obituary, and it confirms that Keiler and Levy sold their theater buisness to Warners. The Keiler family apparently retained at least part ownership of at least some the the theater buildings, though, through the Columbia Amusement and Realty Company, which had been formed in 1923. Strand Amusements must have leased the buildings from Columbia, which owned the Arcade, the Orpheum (formerly the Opera House) and the Columbia itself.
The NRHP registration form for the Mayfield Downtown Commercial District says that the Legion Theatre was built in 1930. The lower level contained meeting rooms, the second level had a basketball court with audience gallery, and the theater, which had a balcony, was on the top level. The theater was converted into a bowling alley in the 1960s.
American Legion Post 26 has a Restoration Committee that has a web site. There is a photo gallery, but I couldn’t get it to work with any of my browsers.
Milwaukee Movie Theaters, by Larry Widen, says that pioneer Milwaukee exhibitor Edward J. Wagner built the Garden Theatre in 1919 after selling his other theaters. He operated the Garden until his death in 1930.
Milwaukee Movie Theaters, by Larry Widen, says that the Happy Hour Theatre was one of the early houses operated by Edward J. Wagner. He sold his theaters in 1919 to concentrate his efforts on his new Garden Theatre, which he operated until his death in 1930.
Milwaukee Movie Theaters, by Larry Widen, says that the Park Theatre was one of the early houses operated by Edward J. Wagner. He sold his theaters in 1919 to concentrate his efforts on his new Garden Theatre, which he operated until his death in 1930.
Larry Widen’s Vintage Milwaukee Postcards has an advertising card made for Edward J. Wagner with a small photo of Wagner’s Theatre. The text of the card says that the theater opened on July 19th, 1913 (Google Books preview.)
The Princess Theatre opened sometime after the Star Theatre opened (around 1917) and before the Capitol Theatre opened in 1922. It was located near Sheridan Avenue, and must have had an address in the 1400 block of 119th Street.
Gayle Faulkner Kosalko’s brief history of Whiting’s theaters says that the Capitol Theatre opened in 1922. Owner A.J. Obreshk was already operating the Star Theatre, which he had opened around 1917.
The December 24, 1920, issue of Variety ran this notice:
“The A.J. Obreshk Theatre Co., of Whiting, Ind., has been incorporated in Indiana. Capital $100,000. Directors A.J. Obreshk, Alta Obreshk and Chris Petrof.”
A Rex Theatre was operating in Corry as early as 1919. I’ve also found a house called the Family Theatre which opened in December, 1913; a 526-seat house called the Lyric Theatre opened in 1914 and mentioned again in 1916; a Grand Theatre in operation in 1919; and an Amuse-U Theatre in operation in 1915 and 1926. The 1913-1914 Cahn guide lists a 731-seat, ground-floor house at Corry called the Library Theatre. The town appears to have had a fairly busy theatrical history, but the Rex is the only indoor house we have listed as yet.
In 2006, lostmemory posted th is comment on May 21:
“NYC issued a c/o to a 498 seat motion picture theater at this address in March of 1936. It was an existing building so this theater was most likely operating prior to that date. The owner at that time was Ben-Jim Amusement Corp.”
Then, on August 4, 2008, AlAlvaraez posted this:
“In early 1937 there was a 47th Street Cinema operating at 104 West 47th Street and showing Irish films. Could this have been the Miami?”
Now I’ve come across an item in The New York Clipper of December 6, 1913:
“THEATRE FOB SIXTH AVENUE.
“Walter J. Salamon, as president of Manhattan Fee Co., will build a one-story moving picture theatre at No. 821 Sixth Avenue, L shaped to Nos. 102-104 West Forty- seventh Street, New York, to seat five hundred and seventy-two. Thos. W. Lamb, as architect, filed plans for an outlay of $125,000.”
I don’t know if the address 821 Sixth Avenue was a typo or part of some earlier numbering system, but the place did apparently sit at least partly on the site of the 47th Street Cinema AlAlvarez mentioned. I wonder if these could all have been the same theater? As the 1913 building was L-shaped, the entrance might have been moved from one street to the other for a while.
The Oglethorpe Theatre was on the list of theaters opened the previous year that appeared in the January 19, 1970, issue of Boxoffice. The house most likely opened between September and December, 1969.
Unfortunately, the last three months of that years' issues of Boxoffice are missing from the magazine’s online archive. The opening of the Oglethorpe Theatre might have been noted in one of those missing issues.
I was unaware that there had been two houses called the Lyric in Binghamton. As David W. Jones was the architect of the new Lyric Theatre of 1929, then Sanford O. Lacey had to have been the architect of the 1893 Bijou Theatre, which became the first Lyric in 1908.
Here is a brief biography of Jones, first published in 1924, which notes that he worked in the office of T.I. Lacey & Sons in 1919 and 1920.
Shellimcgeheegray: Thanks for your comment. I’m sorry it took so long for me to respond, but when this site was relaunched a couple of years ago all of our subscriptions to individual theater pages were canceled, so we no longer got notifications of new comments until we re-subscribed, and this is the first time I’ve been back to this page since then.
Another Cinema Treasures member found another Boxoffice article about the UltraVision Theatre in Charleston, and on this page of it there is a photo of five of the people involved in the project, including your Grandfather. The scan is a bit blurry, but I thought you would enjoy seeing it, if you haven’t already. And, perhaps for the only time, the magazine spelled your family’s name correctly in the caption.
Fans of Cinema Treasures are always glad to hear anything about the architects who designed the marvelous theaters we admire. Although I’ve never visited any of the regions where the theaters your Grandfather designed are located, I’ve been impressed by the photos I’ve seen of them, and the reports of other Cinema Treasures members who remember attending them.
This Yahoo Groups page lists a number of theaters that used the UltraVision process, with dates of opening, or of the installation of Ultravision in some cases (<Boxoffice is cited as the source for the information.)
The Oglethorpe Theatre was dated August, 1969, which must have been when its UltraVision equipment was installed, as the very first UltraVision Theatre wasn’t opened until September that year, at Charleston, South Carolina. The Savannah house must have opened not long after, as installation of the screen and projectors would have been done when the project was nearing completion.
Being among the first of its kind, it’s also likely that this theater followed the Charleston prototype closely, using the elliptical auditorium that was developed for UltraVision by architect William B. McGehee, of the firm Six Associates. If anyone recalls the Oglethorpe Theatre looking like the Charleston house as seen in this article from Boxoffice of September 29, 1969, I think we could safely credit William B. McGehee as its architect.
OCRon’s link. Both locations of the Esquire Theatre are listed, with small photos. This one, at 546 Main, was on a corner lot, while the second Esquire, in the former State Theatre, was mid-block.
In our photo section, all the exterior shots except this one depict the second Esquire. I don’t know which theater is shown in the single interior shot.
Lang’s Theatre had probably been closed for about four years when this 1943 photo was made, but the arched entrance that Henry Lang had built in 1920 was still intact.
Roddkay: Information about Shafter’s theaters has been hard to find. It’s good to hear from someone who knew them firsthand. Thanks for your contribution.
I found a 1947 directory for Kern County, and it lists the Shafter Theatre at 148 Central Avenue. However, the directory has the State Theatre listed at 634 James, while its current address is 726 James. Shafter must have changed its numbering system sometime after 1947, which means the Shafter Theatre might have been in what is now the 200 block, between James Street and Munzer Street. Is that where you remember it being?
The Susquehanna Heritage Area Management Plan of 2009 lists Herbert R. Brewster as the architect of the Binghamton Theatre. Brewster also designed the Empire Theatre in Brooklyn and the Jamaica Theatre in Jamaica, as well as two theater projects in Stapleton, Staten Island, and one in New London, Connecticut, none of which I’ve been able to identify. He also designed the Casino Theatre on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn, but it appears to have operated only as a burlesque house.
The Arcade Theatre’s auditorium can be seen behind the entrance building, on S. Fifth Street. It has been listed on LoopNet, though it is currently off the market. The auditorium has been entirely gutted.
I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before, but the brick auditorium is attached to the back of the Arcade Theatre’s entrance building, and satellite view shows that the Arcade’s entrance ran back a long way. The entrance had shop entrances along both sides, in the manner of an Italian galleria. It looks like LoopNet was right, and the red brick building is the Arcade’s auditorium. It’s just about the right size for 700 seats.
I’ve come across several references that place the Kentucky Theatre on North Fifth Street, between Broadway and Jefferson. One is page 112 of Paducah: Frontier to the Atomic Age, by John E. L. Robertson. Another is the advertising of the Williams Bicycle Co. in various issues of the Paducah Evening Sun in the 1900s, which give the shop’s address as “126-128 North Fifth St., Next to Kentucky Theater.” That would put the Kentucky Theatre on the east side of Fifth Street in the block north of Broadway.
If the Kentucky was on N. Fifth, that would leave the question of the brick theater at 111 S. Fifth, which this LoopNet listing insists is the Arcade Theatre. As the Arcade was on Broadway, this was clearly not it, but what theater was it?
For a while I thought it might be the missing Orpheum Theatre, which Leo Keiler was operating in the 1920s, but that turns out to have been the Kentucky Theatre itself. The Orpheum is mentioned as the former Old Opera House in Keiler’s 1958 obituary, and as the former Kentucky Theatre in John Keiler’s 1929 obituary. It was operating as the Orpheum in 1929, but I haven’t discovered when it returned to the name Kentucky Theatre.
The building at 111 S. Fifth doesn’t look large enough to have held the Kentucky’s original 1,600 seats, over 600 of which were in the gallery, according to the Cahn guide’s listings of the Kentucky Theatre. From the side view this theater doesn’t look as though it even had a gallery. It just isn’t tall enough.
The Star Theatre is mentioned in the October 24, 1908 issue of The Billboard, along with the Kozy Theatre (also a movie house) and a vaudeville house called the Paducah Theatre.
The Kozy Theatre is mentioned in the October 24, 1908 issue of The Billboard, along with the Star Theatre (also a movie house) and a vaudeville house called the Paducah Theatre.
Chuck, Leo Keiler (the more frequent spelling I’ve found for his surname) was a partner in the Strand Amusement Company, at least as of 1921 and in 1929. Here’s an article about a partnership formed with the Switlow interests of Louisville, which appeared in The Film Daily of January 21, 1921:
An article in the same publication the following year noted that Leo Keiler and Harry Switow jointly oversaw construction of the new Columbia Theatre in Paducah.The Sunday, June 15, 1930, issue of The Film Daily had an article about a pending deal between the Strand Amusement Co. and Warner Bros.:
Find a Grave has Leo Keiler’s obituary, and it confirms that Keiler and Levy sold their theater buisness to Warners. The Keiler family apparently retained at least part ownership of at least some the the theater buildings, though, through the Columbia Amusement and Realty Company, which had been formed in 1923. Strand Amusements must have leased the buildings from Columbia, which owned the Arcade, the Orpheum (formerly the Opera House) and the Columbia itself.The NRHP registration form for the Mayfield Downtown Commercial District says that the Legion Theatre was built in 1930. The lower level contained meeting rooms, the second level had a basketball court with audience gallery, and the theater, which had a balcony, was on the top level. The theater was converted into a bowling alley in the 1960s.
American Legion Post 26 has a Restoration Committee that has a web site. There is a photo gallery, but I couldn’t get it to work with any of my browsers.
Milwaukee Movie Theaters, by Larry Widen, says that pioneer Milwaukee exhibitor Edward J. Wagner built the Garden Theatre in 1919 after selling his other theaters. He operated the Garden until his death in 1930.
Milwaukee Movie Theaters, by Larry Widen, says that the Happy Hour Theatre was one of the early houses operated by Edward J. Wagner. He sold his theaters in 1919 to concentrate his efforts on his new Garden Theatre, which he operated until his death in 1930.
Milwaukee Movie Theaters, by Larry Widen, says that the Park Theatre was one of the early houses operated by Edward J. Wagner. He sold his theaters in 1919 to concentrate his efforts on his new Garden Theatre, which he operated until his death in 1930.
Larry Widen’s Vintage Milwaukee Postcards has an advertising card made for Edward J. Wagner with a small photo of Wagner’s Theatre. The text of the card says that the theater opened on July 19th, 1913 (Google Books preview.)
The Princess Theatre opened sometime after the Star Theatre opened (around 1917) and before the Capitol Theatre opened in 1922. It was located near Sheridan Avenue, and must have had an address in the 1400 block of 119th Street.
Gayle Faulkner Kosalko’s brief history of Whiting’s theaters says that the Capitol Theatre opened in 1922. Owner A.J. Obreshk was already operating the Star Theatre, which he had opened around 1917.
The December 24, 1920, issue of Variety ran this notice:
A Rex Theatre was operating in Corry as early as 1919. I’ve also found a house called the Family Theatre which opened in December, 1913; a 526-seat house called the Lyric Theatre opened in 1914 and mentioned again in 1916; a Grand Theatre in operation in 1919; and an Amuse-U Theatre in operation in 1915 and 1926. The 1913-1914 Cahn guide lists a 731-seat, ground-floor house at Corry called the Library Theatre. The town appears to have had a fairly busy theatrical history, but the Rex is the only indoor house we have listed as yet.
In 2006, lostmemory posted th is comment on May 21:
Then, on August 4, 2008, AlAlvaraez posted this:Now I’ve come across an item in The New York Clipper of December 6, 1913:I don’t know if the address 821 Sixth Avenue was a typo or part of some earlier numbering system, but the place did apparently sit at least partly on the site of the 47th Street Cinema AlAlvarez mentioned. I wonder if these could all have been the same theater? As the 1913 building was L-shaped, the entrance might have been moved from one street to the other for a while.The Oglethorpe Theatre was on the list of theaters opened the previous year that appeared in the January 19, 1970, issue of Boxoffice. The house most likely opened between September and December, 1969.
Unfortunately, the last three months of that years' issues of Boxoffice are missing from the magazine’s online archive. The opening of the Oglethorpe Theatre might have been noted in one of those missing issues.
The Encyclopedia of New York State credits architect Sanford O. Lacey with the design of the Bijou Theatre (Google Books preview.)
I was unaware that there had been two houses called the Lyric in Binghamton. As David W. Jones was the architect of the new Lyric Theatre of 1929, then Sanford O. Lacey had to have been the architect of the 1893 Bijou Theatre, which became the first Lyric in 1908.
Here is a brief biography of Jones, first published in 1924, which notes that he worked in the office of T.I. Lacey & Sons in 1919 and 1920.
Shellimcgeheegray: Thanks for your comment. I’m sorry it took so long for me to respond, but when this site was relaunched a couple of years ago all of our subscriptions to individual theater pages were canceled, so we no longer got notifications of new comments until we re-subscribed, and this is the first time I’ve been back to this page since then.
Another Cinema Treasures member found another Boxoffice article about the UltraVision Theatre in Charleston, and on this page of it there is a photo of five of the people involved in the project, including your Grandfather. The scan is a bit blurry, but I thought you would enjoy seeing it, if you haven’t already. And, perhaps for the only time, the magazine spelled your family’s name correctly in the caption.
Fans of Cinema Treasures are always glad to hear anything about the architects who designed the marvelous theaters we admire. Although I’ve never visited any of the regions where the theaters your Grandfather designed are located, I’ve been impressed by the photos I’ve seen of them, and the reports of other Cinema Treasures members who remember attending them.
This Yahoo Groups page lists a number of theaters that used the UltraVision process, with dates of opening, or of the installation of Ultravision in some cases (<Boxoffice is cited as the source for the information.)
The Oglethorpe Theatre was dated August, 1969, which must have been when its UltraVision equipment was installed, as the very first UltraVision Theatre wasn’t opened until September that year, at Charleston, South Carolina. The Savannah house must have opened not long after, as installation of the screen and projectors would have been done when the project was nearing completion.
Being among the first of its kind, it’s also likely that this theater followed the Charleston prototype closely, using the elliptical auditorium that was developed for UltraVision by architect William B. McGehee, of the firm Six Associates. If anyone recalls the Oglethorpe Theatre looking like the Charleston house as seen in this article from Boxoffice of September 29, 1969, I think we could safely credit William B. McGehee as its architect.
OCRon’s link. Both locations of the Esquire Theatre are listed, with small photos. This one, at 546 Main, was on a corner lot, while the second Esquire, in the former State Theatre, was mid-block.
In our photo section, all the exterior shots except this one depict the second Esquire. I don’t know which theater is shown in the single interior shot.
Lang’s Theatre had probably been closed for about four years when this 1943 photo was made, but the arched entrance that Henry Lang had built in 1920 was still intact.
Roddkay: Information about Shafter’s theaters has been hard to find. It’s good to hear from someone who knew them firsthand. Thanks for your contribution.
I found a 1947 directory for Kern County, and it lists the Shafter Theatre at 148 Central Avenue. However, the directory has the State Theatre listed at 634 James, while its current address is 726 James. Shafter must have changed its numbering system sometime after 1947, which means the Shafter Theatre might have been in what is now the 200 block, between James Street and Munzer Street. Is that where you remember it being?