This 2010 article in The Day gave the name of the architect of the Capitol Theatre as W. H. Lowe. I’ve been unable to find anything about Connecticut architects named either W. H. Lowe or W. H. Lane on the Internet, but I suspect that the author of the article got the name right.
This page from the Brownstoner weblog provides a brief history of the Normandy Theatre, which was built for Herman Weingarten in 1919, and was designed by the architectural firm Montrose Morris Sons.
The Utica is the only theater in the neighborhood that fits the timing and description of the proposed house mentioned in an April, 1919 issue of The American Architect:
:“A. Stockhammer, 1368 St. Johns Place, is having plans prepared by Carlson & Wiseman, Architects, 226 Henry Street, for two story theater, 100 x 120 ft., brick and steel, on St. Johns Place and Schenectady Avenue. $150,000.”
An item in the July 30, 1910, issue of The American Contractor said that Cincinnati architectural firm C. C. & E. A. Weber were working on plans for a theater at 6th and Monmouth Streets in Newport for J. J. Ryan. The project was to cost $45,000.
An earlier issue of the same publication had listed a smaller version of the same project, to cost only $10,000 and seat fewer than 500, but the plans were apparently scaled up. The Weber’s firm designed a number of theaters, including the Orpheum (RKO Orpheum) in Cincinnati and the Hiland Theatre in Fort Thomas, Kentucky. In 1910, they were also designing a theater at St. Louis for Ryan & Cornelius, the same brokerage firm behind the Temple Theatre project, but I’ve been unable to track down which St. Louis house this was. In 1917, the firm designed a theater at Bluefield, West Virginia, but again I’ve been unable to discover its name, or whether it was actually built.
There’s no evidence that either of the Weber brothers had any formal architectural training, and it is known that at least some of their major works were designed by employees or associates of the firm. This might have been the case with these theaters as well.
The July 16, 1910, issue of The American Contractor said that construction contracts had been let for a 7-storey office building and theater on South Salina Street in Syracuse. This had to have been the Empire Theatre.
The item said that the architects and engineers for the project were Taber & Baxter. I’ve found references to architect Wellington W. Taber, but haven’t found Mr. Baxter’s full name, or discovered if he was also an architect or was the engineer with the firm.
From what I’ve been able to puzzle out from a number of fragments in a long list of sources, a theater called the Temple was built on this site by a William Cahill in 1914, and was designed by a local architect named James A. Randall. In the late 1920s, it was leased to the Schine circuit, and in 1929 it was either remodeled or rebuilt to plans by Thomas Lamb, and became the Paramount.
The office building in front of the theater was called the Cahill Block, and dated from 1913-1914. The Temple Theatre’s auditorium seated about 1,200, so at the very least it had to have been expanded if it was converted into the larger Paramount. At least one source implies, though doesn’t state explicitly, that the Temple was demolished and replaced, while other sources imply, but don’t explicitly state, that the Temple was only remodeled.
I’m hoping somebody will be able to come up with other sources that solve this puzzle. I’ve pretty much exhausted the sources available on the Internet.
Various 1910 issues of The American Contractor had news about this theater, which was an existing music hall that was being remodeled and expanded. Some of the items mention J. B. Harris of Pittsburgh and Daniel Butler of Cincinnati being involved in the Family Theater & Amusement Company. Architects for the $25,000 project were Kennedy & Adkins.
The photo of the facade I uploaded was originally part of the biennial exhibit of the Washington State chapter of the AIA, held in Seattle in April, 1922. It was included in a portfolio of photos from the exhibit published in the May, 1922, issue of the San Francisco-based journal The Architect and Engineer. The magazine is in the collection of the San Francisco Public Library, which scanned and uploaded the issue to the Internet Archive.
This was the only photo of the Pantages in the portfolio, though there might have been others in the exhibit itself. The magazine does not credit the source of the photo, but it was most likely provided for the exhibit by the office of the architect, B. Marcus Priteca, who was a member of the Washington chapter of the AIA.
If you’d like a larger version of the scan, go to this link. You can enlarge the scan by clicking on the + icon in the toolbar at the lower right corner of the page. The scan can be made quite large before printing or digital artifacts begin showing up.
The Film Daily of March 9, 1925, said that Charles Ferguson had opened the new, 1500-seat Copeland Theatre. The only location given was Pittsburgh, though.
North Braddock, which Google Maps places southeast of Braddock, doesn’t appear to have a Fourth Street. Google Maps is fetching a street view of Fourth Street in Turtle Creek, some distance east of North Braddock. I’ve been unable to figure out where the theater was, but I’m guessing it was somewhere around either Braddock Avenue or Hawkins Avenue, in the northern part of Braddock, as most of the rest of Fourth Street appears to be residential. The name of a cross street near the theater would be a big help.
The October 11, 1913, issue of The Moving Picture World said that F. E. and W. S. Ketter, managers of the recently-opened Cozy Picture Palace in Bellefontaine, also had the “picture privilege” at the Grand Opera House.
Volume 1 of Memoirs of the Miami Valley, published in 1919, says that the Opera House opened on December 23, 1880, and was designed by Toledo architect D. W. Gibbs.
The design of this theater is usually attributed to architect Philip Edmunds, but the book A Guide To the Gilded Age in Westchester, published by the Hudson River Museum, cites an item in a contemporary issue of New York Real Estate Record and Guide which names Theodore W. E. De Lemos and Ernest W. Cordes as the actual architects. The firm of De Lemos & Cordes was formed in 1884.
The Grace Theatre presented vaudeville as well as movies in its early years. In her 1959 memoir Early Havoc, actress June Havoc recalled the Grace Theatre as one of the venues her family’s vaudeville act played. Havoc’s older sister achieved fame in her own right as stripper Gypsy Rose Lee, and young June was immortalized in the musical Gypsy as Baby June and Dainty June, the star of the struggling vaudeville act put together by her ambitious mother, Rose.
I’ve found a passing reference to the State Theatre in Winona from 1927, and an item about the reopening of the Winona Theatre in the November 30, 1929, issue of Movie Age said that improvements costing $5,000 were being made to the projection room of “…the atmospheric State Theatre in Winona.”
The name of one of the architects in the firm that originally designed the Lyric Theatre is misspelled as Ellerby. Franklin Ellerbe worked in partnership with Olin Round and William Sullivan for only a few years. In 1914 he established the independent practice that, taken over by his son Thomas Ellerbe in 1921, would eventually merge with the Los Angeles firm Welton Becket Associates to form the modern firm Ellerbe Becket, which is now operating as AECOM.
When the reopening of the Lyric Theatre under new management was noted in the January 23, 1925, issue of The Film Daily, the item mentioned the names of the other three theaters then operating in Virginia: the Rex, the Garrick, and the Royal.
The September 4, 1935, issue of The Film Daily said that construction bids had been taken for the new Lyric Theatre to be built in Casey, Illinois. The project had been designed by St. Louis architects Johnson & Maack.
Here’s something interesting from the April 10, 1932, issue of The Film Daily:
“EBERSON ARCHITECT LEAVES
“Alexandre Mercil, chief draftsman for John Eberson, architect, has sailed on the Ile de France for an
extended stay in Paris, where he will assume the duties of supervising the completion of Theatre Poissonniere in Paris which Eberson has designed
for Etablissements Jacques Haik. This theater is scheduled to open within the next four months. It
seats 3,000 and is one of the major theater operations in Paris.”
If Eberson had little to do with designing this theater other than to inspire its actual architect, why did he send his chief draftsman off to Paris to oversee its completion? It sounds like more of a collaboration to me. The article about Bluysen on French Wikipedia says he designed “Cinéma Le Grand Rex, à Paris (1932), en collaboration avec l'ingénieur John Eberson.” Even acting as engineer, Eberson would probably have had considerable input on the design of the building.
There were two houses called the Smalley Theatre on this site. Something apparently happened to the first one in the early 1930s, and it was replaced by a new building. Here’s an item from the May 16, 1932, issue of The Film Daily:
:“Norwich, N. Y. — A 900-seat house on the site of the former Smalley theater here is planned by William C. Smalley, head of the Smalley Chain Theaters, Inc. Victor A. Rigaumont is the architect and the house, designed in the French Riviera style of architecture, will have a stage and orchestra pit.”
Don’t ask me what the “French Riviera style of architecture” is. I have no idea.
If this theater was located in the BPO Elk’s building, then it is the house that opened on March 7, 1917, as the Elko Theatre. If that’s the case, then 1935 is probably the year it was renamed Bemidji Theatre. If it isn’t the same theater, then the Elko was very close by. The Elk’s building is at the corner of 4th and Beltrami.
Google has no street view for this building, and Bing Maps bird’s-eye view is nothing but a blur. It would help if somebody could post a photo.
There were at least two theaters called the Grand in Bemidji. There was a Grand Theatre advertised in the local newspaper as early as 1911, along with a Brinkman Theatre and a Majestic Theatre.
The second Grand opened sometime in September or October 1915, in the building that had been occupied by the Brinkman Theatre. This page has a large ad for the Grand Theatre from the December 9, 1915, issue of The Bemidji Daily Pioneer. This page has a photo of the building as the Brinkman Theatre, from the same publication’s issue of March 27, 1909. As near as I’ve been able to discover, the Brinkman Theatre opened about 1907, and was expanded in 1909.
The August 21, 1915, issue of The Moving Picture World said that J. H. French had sold the Grand Theatre building in Bemidji to A. T. Carlson. This item might have referred to the first Grand Theatre, which presumably closed when the new Grand opened.
In the address field, Third Street needs to be followed by NW. There are two different Third Streets in Bemidji, and Google Maps is sticking its pin icon on the wrong one.
David Gebhard and Tom Martinson’s Guide to the Architecture of Minnesota says that the Chief Theatre was designed by Liebenberg & Kaplan, and built in 1937. The finding aid to the Liebenberg & Kaplan papers at the University of Minnesota Libraries lists the Chief as a 1937-38 project. The style of the building is streamline modern.
The Rex Theatre at Bemidji was mentioned in the August 28, 1915, issue of The Moving Picture World. The operator was named Oliver Whaley, and he had just opened a second theater, located at Nymore, Minnesota.
A small photo of the Rex Theatre was published in the August 28, 1915, issue of The Moving Picture World. The caption says that the operator of the Rex, J. B. Quesinberry, had been among the magazine’s subscribers for several years.
If Mr. Quesinberry had been operating the Rex throughout that time (the caption doesn’t say,) this theater might have been opened even before 1910, and could now be one of the oldest operating movies theaters in the country.
The 1926 FDYB report of the seating capacity must have been an error. The caption of the 1915 photo says that the Rex had 300 seats.
The August 28, 1915, issue of The Moving Picture World said that the Blomburg Amusement Company’s new Strand Theatre on Patton Avenue at Lexington in Asheville had opened earlier that month.
This 2010 article in The Day gave the name of the architect of the Capitol Theatre as W. H. Lowe. I’ve been unable to find anything about Connecticut architects named either W. H. Lowe or W. H. Lane on the Internet, but I suspect that the author of the article got the name right.
This page from the Brownstoner weblog provides a brief history of the Normandy Theatre, which was built for Herman Weingarten in 1919, and was designed by the architectural firm Montrose Morris Sons.
The Utica is the only theater in the neighborhood that fits the timing and description of the proposed house mentioned in an April, 1919 issue of The American Architect:
An item in the July 30, 1910, issue of The American Contractor said that Cincinnati architectural firm C. C. & E. A. Weber were working on plans for a theater at 6th and Monmouth Streets in Newport for J. J. Ryan. The project was to cost $45,000.
An earlier issue of the same publication had listed a smaller version of the same project, to cost only $10,000 and seat fewer than 500, but the plans were apparently scaled up. The Weber’s firm designed a number of theaters, including the Orpheum (RKO Orpheum) in Cincinnati and the Hiland Theatre in Fort Thomas, Kentucky. In 1910, they were also designing a theater at St. Louis for Ryan & Cornelius, the same brokerage firm behind the Temple Theatre project, but I’ve been unable to track down which St. Louis house this was. In 1917, the firm designed a theater at Bluefield, West Virginia, but again I’ve been unable to discover its name, or whether it was actually built.
There’s no evidence that either of the Weber brothers had any formal architectural training, and it is known that at least some of their major works were designed by employees or associates of the firm. This might have been the case with these theaters as well.
The July 16, 1910, issue of The American Contractor said that construction contracts had been let for a 7-storey office building and theater on South Salina Street in Syracuse. This had to have been the Empire Theatre.
The item said that the architects and engineers for the project were Taber & Baxter. I’ve found references to architect Wellington W. Taber, but haven’t found Mr. Baxter’s full name, or discovered if he was also an architect or was the engineer with the firm.
From what I’ve been able to puzzle out from a number of fragments in a long list of sources, a theater called the Temple was built on this site by a William Cahill in 1914, and was designed by a local architect named James A. Randall. In the late 1920s, it was leased to the Schine circuit, and in 1929 it was either remodeled or rebuilt to plans by Thomas Lamb, and became the Paramount.
The office building in front of the theater was called the Cahill Block, and dated from 1913-1914. The Temple Theatre’s auditorium seated about 1,200, so at the very least it had to have been expanded if it was converted into the larger Paramount. At least one source implies, though doesn’t state explicitly, that the Temple was demolished and replaced, while other sources imply, but don’t explicitly state, that the Temple was only remodeled.
I’m hoping somebody will be able to come up with other sources that solve this puzzle. I’ve pretty much exhausted the sources available on the Internet.
Various 1910 issues of The American Contractor had news about this theater, which was an existing music hall that was being remodeled and expanded. Some of the items mention J. B. Harris of Pittsburgh and Daniel Butler of Cincinnati being involved in the Family Theater & Amusement Company. Architects for the $25,000 project were Kennedy & Adkins.
The photo of the facade I uploaded was originally part of the biennial exhibit of the Washington State chapter of the AIA, held in Seattle in April, 1922. It was included in a portfolio of photos from the exhibit published in the May, 1922, issue of the San Francisco-based journal The Architect and Engineer. The magazine is in the collection of the San Francisco Public Library, which scanned and uploaded the issue to the Internet Archive.
This was the only photo of the Pantages in the portfolio, though there might have been others in the exhibit itself. The magazine does not credit the source of the photo, but it was most likely provided for the exhibit by the office of the architect, B. Marcus Priteca, who was a member of the Washington chapter of the AIA.
If you’d like a larger version of the scan, go to this link. You can enlarge the scan by clicking on the + icon in the toolbar at the lower right corner of the page. The scan can be made quite large before printing or digital artifacts begin showing up.
The Film Daily of March 9, 1925, said that Charles Ferguson had opened the new, 1500-seat Copeland Theatre. The only location given was Pittsburgh, though.
North Braddock, which Google Maps places southeast of Braddock, doesn’t appear to have a Fourth Street. Google Maps is fetching a street view of Fourth Street in Turtle Creek, some distance east of North Braddock. I’ve been unable to figure out where the theater was, but I’m guessing it was somewhere around either Braddock Avenue or Hawkins Avenue, in the northern part of Braddock, as most of the rest of Fourth Street appears to be residential. The name of a cross street near the theater would be a big help.
The March 9, 1925, issue of The Film Daily said that the new Maryland Theatre at Blawnox had been opened. It was owned by David and Muyra Boyd.
The October 11, 1913, issue of The Moving Picture World said that F. E. and W. S. Ketter, managers of the recently-opened Cozy Picture Palace in Bellefontaine, also had the “picture privilege” at the Grand Opera House.
Volume 1 of Memoirs of the Miami Valley, published in 1919, says that the Opera House opened on December 23, 1880, and was designed by Toledo architect D. W. Gibbs.
Here is an early postcard featuring the Opera House Block. Here is a photo from 2006.
Here is the first of five pages of photos depicting the Tarrytown Music Hall.
The design of this theater is usually attributed to architect Philip Edmunds, but the book A Guide To the Gilded Age in Westchester, published by the Hudson River Museum, cites an item in a contemporary issue of New York Real Estate Record and Guide which names Theodore W. E. De Lemos and Ernest W. Cordes as the actual architects. The firm of De Lemos & Cordes was formed in 1884.
The Grace Theatre presented vaudeville as well as movies in its early years. In her 1959 memoir Early Havoc, actress June Havoc recalled the Grace Theatre as one of the venues her family’s vaudeville act played. Havoc’s older sister achieved fame in her own right as stripper Gypsy Rose Lee, and young June was immortalized in the musical Gypsy as Baby June and Dainty June, the star of the struggling vaudeville act put together by her ambitious mother, Rose.
I’ve found a passing reference to the State Theatre in Winona from 1927, and an item about the reopening of the Winona Theatre in the November 30, 1929, issue of Movie Age said that improvements costing $5,000 were being made to the projection room of “…the atmospheric State Theatre in Winona.”
The name of one of the architects in the firm that originally designed the Lyric Theatre is misspelled as Ellerby. Franklin Ellerbe worked in partnership with Olin Round and William Sullivan for only a few years. In 1914 he established the independent practice that, taken over by his son Thomas Ellerbe in 1921, would eventually merge with the Los Angeles firm Welton Becket Associates to form the modern firm Ellerbe Becket, which is now operating as AECOM.
When the reopening of the Lyric Theatre under new management was noted in the January 23, 1925, issue of The Film Daily, the item mentioned the names of the other three theaters then operating in Virginia: the Rex, the Garrick, and the Royal.
The correct address of the Roxy Cinema is 231 Main Street.
The official web site is now at this link.
The September 4, 1935, issue of The Film Daily said that construction bids had been taken for the new Lyric Theatre to be built in Casey, Illinois. The project had been designed by St. Louis architects Johnson & Maack.
Here’s something interesting from the April 10, 1932, issue of The Film Daily:
If Eberson had little to do with designing this theater other than to inspire its actual architect, why did he send his chief draftsman off to Paris to oversee its completion? It sounds like more of a collaboration to me. The article about Bluysen on French Wikipedia says he designed “Cinéma Le Grand Rex, à Paris (1932), en collaboration avec l'ingénieur John Eberson.” Even acting as engineer, Eberson would probably have had considerable input on the design of the building.There were two houses called the Smalley Theatre on this site. Something apparently happened to the first one in the early 1930s, and it was replaced by a new building. Here’s an item from the May 16, 1932, issue of The Film Daily:
Don’t ask me what the “French Riviera style of architecture” is. I have no idea.If this theater was located in the BPO Elk’s building, then it is the house that opened on March 7, 1917, as the Elko Theatre. If that’s the case, then 1935 is probably the year it was renamed Bemidji Theatre. If it isn’t the same theater, then the Elko was very close by. The Elk’s building is at the corner of 4th and Beltrami.
Google has no street view for this building, and Bing Maps bird’s-eye view is nothing but a blur. It would help if somebody could post a photo.
There were at least two theaters called the Grand in Bemidji. There was a Grand Theatre advertised in the local newspaper as early as 1911, along with a Brinkman Theatre and a Majestic Theatre.
The second Grand opened sometime in September or October 1915, in the building that had been occupied by the Brinkman Theatre. This page has a large ad for the Grand Theatre from the December 9, 1915, issue of The Bemidji Daily Pioneer. This page has a photo of the building as the Brinkman Theatre, from the same publication’s issue of March 27, 1909. As near as I’ve been able to discover, the Brinkman Theatre opened about 1907, and was expanded in 1909.
The August 21, 1915, issue of The Moving Picture World said that J. H. French had sold the Grand Theatre building in Bemidji to A. T. Carlson. This item might have referred to the first Grand Theatre, which presumably closed when the new Grand opened.
In the address field, Third Street needs to be followed by NW. There are two different Third Streets in Bemidji, and Google Maps is sticking its pin icon on the wrong one.
David Gebhard and Tom Martinson’s Guide to the Architecture of Minnesota says that the Chief Theatre was designed by Liebenberg & Kaplan, and built in 1937. The finding aid to the Liebenberg & Kaplan papers at the University of Minnesota Libraries lists the Chief as a 1937-38 project. The style of the building is streamline modern.
The Rex Theatre at Bemidji was mentioned in the August 28, 1915, issue of The Moving Picture World. The operator was named Oliver Whaley, and he had just opened a second theater, located at Nymore, Minnesota.
A small photo of the Rex Theatre was published in the August 28, 1915, issue of The Moving Picture World. The caption says that the operator of the Rex, J. B. Quesinberry, had been among the magazine’s subscribers for several years.
If Mr. Quesinberry had been operating the Rex throughout that time (the caption doesn’t say,) this theater might have been opened even before 1910, and could now be one of the oldest operating movies theaters in the country.
The 1926 FDYB report of the seating capacity must have been an error. The caption of the 1915 photo says that the Rex had 300 seats.
The August 28, 1915, issue of The Moving Picture World said that the Blomburg Amusement Company’s new Strand Theatre on Patton Avenue at Lexington in Asheville had opened earlier that month.