Here is a photo of the Monroe Theatre in its pre-porn days (probably 1961, judging from the movie on the marquee.)
A book published in 2006, “Preserving Paradise: The Architectural Heritage and History of the Florida Keys,” by George Walter Born, gives the address of the Monroe Theatre as 623 Duval Street. The building currently at 612 Duval was clearly built long before 1995, while the building at 623 is clearly of modern construction, though built in a vintage style.
The Flickr photostream of the Florida Keys Public Libraries has three interesting vintage photos of the Strand.
This 1960 photo (the year “September Storm” was released) was taken for the local property appraiser’s office, and the caption says that the Strand was built in 1924.
However, this photo from the early 1920s shows the theater with the same basic form, but a rather different style of facade. The caption of this photo dates it to 1922, but the movie on the marquee was released in 1921. A banner over the entrance says “Our First Birthday,” so perhaps the theater opened in 1921 and brought the same movie it opened with back for its anniversary in 1922. Or perhaps the caption is wrong, and the theater opened in 1920 and had its anniversary in 1921, when “The Man From Lost River” was released.
In either case, the Strand was clearly operating before 1924, but equally clearly it had a rather extensive remodeling done to its facade, probably within a few years of its opening, going from what looks to me like a stripped-down version of American Art Nouveau, to the much more ornate Mannerist-Spanish Colonial style it retained throughout the rest of its history.
What prompted the early remodeling I don’t know. Maybe the original theater was destroyed and only the front wall survived to be incorporated into a rebuilt house, with the addition of a new parapet and decoration, though I haven’t been able to find any references on the Internet to such an event.
The third photo is this color postcard, a nocturnal view of Duval Street with the Strand’s marquee in the foreground. The postcard is undated, and there is no movie name on the Strand’s marquee, but the San Carlos Theatre can also be seen, down the block on the other side of the street, and in the largest size of the photo the name “Give a Girl a Break” can be read on it’s marquee. That movie was released in 1953.
The Lowell Theatre is not located on Main Street. It’s on Erie Street, in another business district (sometimes called Lowell, Arizona) a couple of miles southeast of downtown Bisbee. I’ve been unable to find the exact address, but it would have only two digits. The Zip Code is still 85603.
The building has been sold to an investment and development company called Greenfield Partners, which has been involved in a number of hotel projects. There is speculation that the Texaco-United Artists building is destined to become a boutique hotel. I’m not sure what such a conversion would portend for the theater itself, and Greenfield has made no announcements about their intentions.
Oops. I mistakenly updated Street View to the location of the current Varsity Theatre. The original Varsity was on the same side of the street in the next block east, near the corner of F Street. There’s a one-storey shop building with a hipped roof there now.
The CM Performing Arts Center has a web site. Its history section says that Creative Ministries began the renovation of the Oakdale Theatre in 1996, and that the old movie house had by then been vacant for nine years, so that fits moviegoer’s memory of the Oakdale closing in 1987. The renovated house reopened on May 23, 1997, with a production of “Man of La Mancha.”.
Street View has been set too far south. The Great Northern’s Broad Street entrance was immediately south of the “99 cent deal” sign that is just a short way south of Erie Avenue. There is a gap in Street View along the section of Broad Street just south of the theater’s location. It looks like something temporarily went wrong with the camera, and there’s nothing shown but an orange blur.
Philly History provides this 1925 photo of the Great Northern Theatre.
Another page at Philly History has a paragraph about the Great Northern, saying that it had entrances on both Broad Street and Germantown Avenue, that it was expanded from a nickelodeon on the site in 1912, and that the building was converted into a drug store in 1953. The paragraph does not mention the 1916 expansion designed by Henon & Boyle, which was noted in issues of The Moving Picture World and at least one other trade journal that year.
This Facebook page about businesses on Germantown Avenue lists the Strand, Temple, and Great Northern as the theaters on Germantown between Tioga Street and Erie Avenue. The Strand is listed at Cinema Treasures, but I don’t see a page for the Temple. I’ve been unable to find any other mentions of that house.
Another glimpse of the Broad Street entrance to the Great Northern Theatre can be seen at far left in this ca.1940 photo of the intersection of Broad Street and Erie Avenue. Some of the original details of the facade had been removed by this time, but the entrance is still recognizable.
It’s impossible to tell from Google’s current street view whether the entrance building has been entirely replaced, or just drastically remodeled. The Germantown Avenue side of the building, which has the front entrances of the three retail stores that now occupy the site, looks almost entirely modern, but the theater’s auditorium building appears to still be standing.
The Pipe Organ Database of the Organ Historical Society has this page listing the 2-manual, 20-rank Austin organ that once served the Great Northern Theatre. The organ’s fate is currently unknown.
The March 16, 1918, issue of The Moving Picture World said that the new Rialto Theatre in Bremerton had opened on February 6. The house was operated by Eugene Oswald and Jack Rantz, who had been operating Bremerton’s Dream Theatre for several years. The new Rialto had been built at a cost of $50,000, and opened with two Paramount films: Mary Pickford in “Stella Maris” and Fatty Arbuckle in “Out West.”
The July 1, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World carried this announcement about the Shiloh Theatre:
“Beautiful Shiloh Theater Opened.
“Pittsburgh, Pa.—The Shiloh theater, a beautiful new house in the Mt. Washington district, Pittsburgh, was formally opened to the public last week In a most auspicious manner. It is owned by Henry Polk and replaces the old Shiloh theater, which was closed in April. Many exhibitors were present on the opening night and all congratulated Mr. Polk on the high standard he has set. The new Shiloh is up-to-date and complete in its appointments, as well as quite attractive throughout. A pipe organ supplies the music. Feature pictures are shown dally and the admission is 10 cents.”
An Orpheum Theatre was in operation in Kalispell in 1908, when it was mentioned in various issues of The Billboard. The magazine also mentioned three other theaters in Kalispell at the time; the McIntosh Opera House, the Arcade Theatre, and a recently opened house called the Oriental Theatre.
The March 23, 1910, issue of The American Architect had the following item datelined Lynn: “Plans have been prepared by Architect E. W. Maynard, 1226 Tremont St., Boston, for erection of proposed Central Square Theater.”
The July 3, 1897, issue of American Architect and Architecture had this report: “Springfield, Mass.—E. W. Maynard, of Boston has made plans for a $100,000 opera-house to be built on Main and Hampden Sts., for Nelson & Vinton.”
A trade journal called The Bookseller, Newsdealer and Stationer made reference in its issue of March 1, 1899, to “…Fred. Kettler, who painted the Nelson Theatre curtain….” having lately been hired as director of the decorative department of a Springfield outfit called the Old Corner Wall-Paper Company.
A Nelson Theatre was certainly in operation at Springfield in 1908, when part of its program was noted in the May 18 issue of the Springfield Republican that year: “The musical features of the week will include a ‘Kid song festival,’ in which Lillian Payette will be heard in three costume songs, with electrical effects and illustrated songs by Charles L. Taylor of New York, who on Wednesday and Thursday will sing ‘Take me out to the ball game.’”
Either this house was opened earlier than Edward Shear reported it to have been, or it replaced an earlier Nelson Theatre, probably on the same site. If it was the latter, what disaster befell the original Nelson Theatre?
I’m setting Street View to the northwest corner of Logan Boulevard and Burgoon Road. As the location of the Rivoli given above was North Logan Boulevard, it would have to have been at the northwest corner. Burgoon Road is the dividing line between North and South addresses on Logan.
The site is currently the location of the main office of Altoona First Savings Bank, with an address of 203 N. Logan, so that was most likely the Rivoli’s address as well. The bank building might or might not occupy the same footprint as the theater did, but I don’t think it’s the same building.
I saw an eBay listing of a ca.1913 postcard showing the New Britain Opera House building with a vertical sign reading Keeney’s. Keeney’s Theatre at New Britain is mentioned in the December 21, 1907, issue of The Billboard as well, so (assuming that Keeney’s didn’t switch locations during the period) this must have been the theater’s name for several years.
The 1899-1900 Cahn Guide lists the house as the Cosmopolitan Opera House, with New Britain Opera House as an AKA.
I believe that the section of Church Street on which the Lyric Theatre was located no longer exists. Google Maps is fetching a suburban residential neighborhood, but the Lyric was in a part of downtown New Britain that has apparently been redeveloped as a part of the campus of CCSU Institute of Technology.
The November 7, 1908, issue of The Moving Picture World said that the Lyric Theatre in New Britain had been leased by Cooney and Woolison, theater operators at Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and that the house had been closed so that extensive alterations could be made.
The building that the State’s entrance was in, at least, was still standing when Google’s street view truck went by. At that time, 63 N. Main Street was occupied by a comic book store called The Gaming Dungeon, and that store is still listed on multiple web sites, and has a Facebook page active as recently as last April. It was also the location of a CCG event scheduled for September 24 this year.
From Google’s satellite view, the building looks a bit small to have held an auditorium seating over 1,300. There’s a big parking lot behind it that could have been the site of a big auditorium, but it was a parking lot as long ago as 1969, according to an aerial view at Historic Aerials, so if the theater was still operating in the 1970s, as sgtjim says above, then it must have been in the building that shows up in the Google street and satellite views.
The Washington Theatre, which was across Main Street from the State, has definitely been demolished, though. Maybe that’s the theater spectrum was thinking of.
In May, 1921, The Bridgemen’s Magazine reported that bids would soon be taken for a theater to be built on Main Street in New Britain for the William Fox company. The projected cost of the project, designed by architect Thomas Lamb, was “about $500,000.”
Could this have been the theater that became the Strand? The item described the house as being two storeys, and 105x130 feet. A photo of the Strand’s exterior would help. The interior photos in the book shoeshoe cited earlier show that the house was certainly ornate enough to have been a Lamb design, though I don’t know if it would have cost half a million dollars.
The March 2, 1918, issue of The American Contractor published a notice saying that work had started on a one-storey theater that was being built on Washington Street in Canton. The project had been designed by local architect S. L. Milton. The owner’s name was not mentioned.
As the MGM report Ron Salters cited says that the Strand was built “about 1915,” it seems possible that it was this project. Canton had fewer than 6,000 people in 1920, so could conceivably have supported two theaters, but being a commuter suburb of Boston there would have been fairly easy access to that city’s many theaters, which makes it more likely that it would have had only one of its own.
Scott Schaut’s book “Historic Mansfield” says that the Madison Theatre was demolished in 1986.
The book also mentions a Majestic Theatre, located on Walnut Street, which was in operation by 1925, and says that the first permanent movie theaters in Mansfield, opened in 1908, were the Orpheum, the Arris, and the Alvin.
The current address of 427 North Main Street would be an unlikely location for a movie house. It’s in an industrial district, and across the street from a railroad line. The 1956 newspaper item Ken quoted above says that the Ritz was “…in the business district….” I suspect that either the address is wrong, or that Mansfield underwent a drastic renumbering at some point. The block of Main Street north of 4th Street currently has addresses with two or three digits, but I suspect that this was historically the 400 block.
The current address of the Mansfield Eagles lodge is 129-135 N. Main Street, but I don’t know if the lodge is still in the same building it was in when it was mentioned in the 1956 article. The building looks considerably more modern than the others on the block, but it does look old enough to have been in existence in 1956. In any case, it’s very likely that this is the block the Ritz was actually in. The lodge hall has parking lots on either side of it, and one or the other of those could have been the site of the Ritz.
Here is a photo of the Monroe Theatre in its pre-porn days (probably 1961, judging from the movie on the marquee.)
A book published in 2006, “Preserving Paradise: The Architectural Heritage and History of the Florida Keys,” by George Walter Born, gives the address of the Monroe Theatre as 623 Duval Street. The building currently at 612 Duval was clearly built long before 1995, while the building at 623 is clearly of modern construction, though built in a vintage style.
The Flickr photostream of the Florida Keys Public Libraries has three interesting vintage photos of the Strand.
This 1960 photo (the year “September Storm” was released) was taken for the local property appraiser’s office, and the caption says that the Strand was built in 1924.
However, this photo from the early 1920s shows the theater with the same basic form, but a rather different style of facade. The caption of this photo dates it to 1922, but the movie on the marquee was released in 1921. A banner over the entrance says “Our First Birthday,” so perhaps the theater opened in 1921 and brought the same movie it opened with back for its anniversary in 1922. Or perhaps the caption is wrong, and the theater opened in 1920 and had its anniversary in 1921, when “The Man From Lost River” was released.
In either case, the Strand was clearly operating before 1924, but equally clearly it had a rather extensive remodeling done to its facade, probably within a few years of its opening, going from what looks to me like a stripped-down version of American Art Nouveau, to the much more ornate Mannerist-Spanish Colonial style it retained throughout the rest of its history.
What prompted the early remodeling I don’t know. Maybe the original theater was destroyed and only the front wall survived to be incorporated into a rebuilt house, with the addition of a new parapet and decoration, though I haven’t been able to find any references on the Internet to such an event.
The third photo is this color postcard, a nocturnal view of Duval Street with the Strand’s marquee in the foreground. The postcard is undated, and there is no movie name on the Strand’s marquee, but the San Carlos Theatre can also be seen, down the block on the other side of the street, and in the largest size of the photo the name “Give a Girl a Break” can be read on it’s marquee. That movie was released in 1953.
Here is a 1927 photo showing the original facade of the Pasadena Theatre, prior to the remodeling by Clifford Balch.
Here is a photo of Warner’s Photoplay Theatre. The correct opening year was 1914, not 1915 as I wrote in the introduction.
The Lowell Theatre is not located on Main Street. It’s on Erie Street, in another business district (sometimes called Lowell, Arizona) a couple of miles southeast of downtown Bisbee. I’ve been unable to find the exact address, but it would have only two digits. The Zip Code is still 85603.
The building has been sold to an investment and development company called Greenfield Partners, which has been involved in a number of hotel projects. There is speculation that the Texaco-United Artists building is destined to become a boutique hotel. I’m not sure what such a conversion would portend for the theater itself, and Greenfield has made no announcements about their intentions.
Oops. I mistakenly updated Street View to the location of the current Varsity Theatre. The original Varsity was on the same side of the street in the next block east, near the corner of F Street. There’s a one-storey shop building with a hipped roof there now.
The CM Performing Arts Center has a web site. Its history section says that Creative Ministries began the renovation of the Oakdale Theatre in 1996, and that the old movie house had by then been vacant for nine years, so that fits moviegoer’s memory of the Oakdale closing in 1987. The renovated house reopened on May 23, 1997, with a production of “Man of La Mancha.”.
Street View has been set too far south. The Great Northern’s Broad Street entrance was immediately south of the “99 cent deal” sign that is just a short way south of Erie Avenue. There is a gap in Street View along the section of Broad Street just south of the theater’s location. It looks like something temporarily went wrong with the camera, and there’s nothing shown but an orange blur.
Philly History provides this 1925 photo of the Great Northern Theatre.
Another page at Philly History has a paragraph about the Great Northern, saying that it had entrances on both Broad Street and Germantown Avenue, that it was expanded from a nickelodeon on the site in 1912, and that the building was converted into a drug store in 1953. The paragraph does not mention the 1916 expansion designed by Henon & Boyle, which was noted in issues of The Moving Picture World and at least one other trade journal that year.
This Facebook page about businesses on Germantown Avenue lists the Strand, Temple, and Great Northern as the theaters on Germantown between Tioga Street and Erie Avenue. The Strand is listed at Cinema Treasures, but I don’t see a page for the Temple. I’ve been unable to find any other mentions of that house.
Another glimpse of the Broad Street entrance to the Great Northern Theatre can be seen at far left in this ca.1940 photo of the intersection of Broad Street and Erie Avenue. Some of the original details of the facade had been removed by this time, but the entrance is still recognizable.
It’s impossible to tell from Google’s current street view whether the entrance building has been entirely replaced, or just drastically remodeled. The Germantown Avenue side of the building, which has the front entrances of the three retail stores that now occupy the site, looks almost entirely modern, but the theater’s auditorium building appears to still be standing.
The Pipe Organ Database of the Organ Historical Society has this page listing the 2-manual, 20-rank Austin organ that once served the Great Northern Theatre. The organ’s fate is currently unknown.
The March 16, 1918, issue of The Moving Picture World said that the new Rialto Theatre in Bremerton had opened on February 6. The house was operated by Eugene Oswald and Jack Rantz, who had been operating Bremerton’s Dream Theatre for several years. The new Rialto had been built at a cost of $50,000, and opened with two Paramount films: Mary Pickford in “Stella Maris” and Fatty Arbuckle in “Out West.”
The July 1, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World carried this announcement about the Shiloh Theatre:
An Orpheum Theatre was in operation in Kalispell in 1908, when it was mentioned in various issues of The Billboard. The magazine also mentioned three other theaters in Kalispell at the time; the McIntosh Opera House, the Arcade Theatre, and a recently opened house called the Oriental Theatre.
An 1896 book called The Planning and Construction of American Theatres attributes the design of the Castle Square Theatre to architect E. W. Maynard.
The March 23, 1910, issue of The American Architect had the following item datelined Lynn: “Plans have been prepared by Architect E. W. Maynard, 1226 Tremont St., Boston, for erection of proposed Central Square Theater.”
The July 3, 1897, issue of American Architect and Architecture had this report: “Springfield, Mass.—E. W. Maynard, of Boston has made plans for a $100,000 opera-house to be built on Main and Hampden Sts., for Nelson & Vinton.”
A trade journal called The Bookseller, Newsdealer and Stationer made reference in its issue of March 1, 1899, to “…Fred. Kettler, who painted the Nelson Theatre curtain….” having lately been hired as director of the decorative department of a Springfield outfit called the Old Corner Wall-Paper Company.
A Nelson Theatre was certainly in operation at Springfield in 1908, when part of its program was noted in the May 18 issue of the Springfield Republican that year: “The musical features of the week will include a ‘Kid song festival,’ in which Lillian Payette will be heard in three costume songs, with electrical effects and illustrated songs by Charles L. Taylor of New York, who on Wednesday and Thursday will sing ‘Take me out to the ball game.’”
Either this house was opened earlier than Edward Shear reported it to have been, or it replaced an earlier Nelson Theatre, probably on the same site. If it was the latter, what disaster befell the original Nelson Theatre?
I’m setting Street View to the northwest corner of Logan Boulevard and Burgoon Road. As the location of the Rivoli given above was North Logan Boulevard, it would have to have been at the northwest corner. Burgoon Road is the dividing line between North and South addresses on Logan.
The site is currently the location of the main office of Altoona First Savings Bank, with an address of 203 N. Logan, so that was most likely the Rivoli’s address as well. The bank building might or might not occupy the same footprint as the theater did, but I don’t think it’s the same building.
Replaced by a parking lot, alas.
I saw an eBay listing of a ca.1913 postcard showing the New Britain Opera House building with a vertical sign reading Keeney’s. Keeney’s Theatre at New Britain is mentioned in the December 21, 1907, issue of The Billboard as well, so (assuming that Keeney’s didn’t switch locations during the period) this must have been the theater’s name for several years.
The 1899-1900 Cahn Guide lists the house as the Cosmopolitan Opera House, with New Britain Opera House as an AKA.
I believe that the section of Church Street on which the Lyric Theatre was located no longer exists. Google Maps is fetching a suburban residential neighborhood, but the Lyric was in a part of downtown New Britain that has apparently been redeveloped as a part of the campus of CCSU Institute of Technology.
The November 7, 1908, issue of The Moving Picture World said that the Lyric Theatre in New Britain had been leased by Cooney and Woolison, theater operators at Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and that the house had been closed so that extensive alterations could be made.
The building that the State’s entrance was in, at least, was still standing when Google’s street view truck went by. At that time, 63 N. Main Street was occupied by a comic book store called The Gaming Dungeon, and that store is still listed on multiple web sites, and has a Facebook page active as recently as last April. It was also the location of a CCG event scheduled for September 24 this year.
From Google’s satellite view, the building looks a bit small to have held an auditorium seating over 1,300. There’s a big parking lot behind it that could have been the site of a big auditorium, but it was a parking lot as long ago as 1969, according to an aerial view at Historic Aerials, so if the theater was still operating in the 1970s, as sgtjim says above, then it must have been in the building that shows up in the Google street and satellite views.
The Washington Theatre, which was across Main Street from the State, has definitely been demolished, though. Maybe that’s the theater spectrum was thinking of.
In May, 1921, The Bridgemen’s Magazine reported that bids would soon be taken for a theater to be built on Main Street in New Britain for the William Fox company. The projected cost of the project, designed by architect Thomas Lamb, was “about $500,000.”
Could this have been the theater that became the Strand? The item described the house as being two storeys, and 105x130 feet. A photo of the Strand’s exterior would help. The interior photos in the book shoeshoe cited earlier show that the house was certainly ornate enough to have been a Lamb design, though I don’t know if it would have cost half a million dollars.
The March 2, 1918, issue of The American Contractor published a notice saying that work had started on a one-storey theater that was being built on Washington Street in Canton. The project had been designed by local architect S. L. Milton. The owner’s name was not mentioned.
As the MGM report Ron Salters cited says that the Strand was built “about 1915,” it seems possible that it was this project. Canton had fewer than 6,000 people in 1920, so could conceivably have supported two theaters, but being a commuter suburb of Boston there would have been fairly easy access to that city’s many theaters, which makes it more likely that it would have had only one of its own.
Scott Schaut’s book “Historic Mansfield” says that the Madison Theatre was demolished in 1986.
The book also mentions a Majestic Theatre, located on Walnut Street, which was in operation by 1925, and says that the first permanent movie theaters in Mansfield, opened in 1908, were the Orpheum, the Arris, and the Alvin.
The current address of 427 North Main Street would be an unlikely location for a movie house. It’s in an industrial district, and across the street from a railroad line. The 1956 newspaper item Ken quoted above says that the Ritz was “…in the business district….” I suspect that either the address is wrong, or that Mansfield underwent a drastic renumbering at some point. The block of Main Street north of 4th Street currently has addresses with two or three digits, but I suspect that this was historically the 400 block.
The current address of the Mansfield Eagles lodge is 129-135 N. Main Street, but I don’t know if the lodge is still in the same building it was in when it was mentioned in the 1956 article. The building looks considerably more modern than the others on the block, but it does look old enough to have been in existence in 1956. In any case, it’s very likely that this is the block the Ritz was actually in. The lodge hall has parking lots on either side of it, and one or the other of those could have been the site of the Ritz.