The Town and the adjacent Glen Cove were both designed by Queens architect Leon A. Miller, according to his biographical listing in the 1962 AIA Directory. The Glen Cove was the earlier project, built in 1959. The Town was built in 1961.
The Glen Cove Theatre and Town Theatre were both designed by the same architect, Leon A. Miller. His listing in the 1962 AIA Directory mentions both theaters, saying that the Glen Cove was built in 1959 and the Town in 1961. Miller also designed the Wantagh Theatre at Wantagh, NY, a 1960 project.
The Hippodrome was mentioned several times, though not by name, in various issues of The American Contractor in early 1910. One item in the May 14 issue, announcing the completion of the plans by the architectural firm of Muhlenberg Bros., gives the address of the proposed theater as 751-57 Penn Street. The theater was being built for a Mr. Abe Zable. The seating capacity was given as 960, so the 1925 expansion must have been fairly large.
I’ve been unable to discover the architect of the State Theatre project, but the Muhlenberg firm was still listed in the AIA directory at least as recently as 1962, so they would have been around in 1925 and could have designed the expansion as well.
The marquee is still on the building, which is at the northeast corner of Main and Carroll Street. For some reason, Internet searches for Street View-identifiable businesses on Main Street all return addresses on Market Street. The street apparently has two names. I wonder if it’s been recently changed?
In 1988 or 1989 (or perhaps both,) the Trace Theatre served as the venue for an updated version of “Romeo and Juliet” mounted by the Cornerstone Theater Company, a group from Yale University that has staged productions in small towns in many parts of the United States. I’ve found references to other live theater events in Port Gibson from the 1980s into the 1990s, but haven’t been able to determine if any of these were also held at the Trace Theatre.
For a while, the Trace Theatre was also the site of a night club called Westside. The club’s neon sign, between the entrance doors, can be seen lit up in this photo at Flickr, uploaded November 9, 2010, though I doubt it was taken that day.
Port Gibson has a community theater group, but their venue is called the Blue Barn Theatre, and I don’t think it’s the same building as the Trace Theatre.
The Star Theatre was built in 1923-24 by the Georgedes brothers, and was designed in the Classical Revival style by Salt Lake City architect J. A. Headlund. The theater was leased to a series of operators, In 1964, members of the Georgedes family sold the building to Duane and LaVerne Steele, who converted the theater into retail space.
Wikipedia has this modern photo showing the building’s remarkably well-preserved front.
This web page has a very small interior photo of the Star Theatre’s auditorium, published in the local high school’s yearbook in 1924 (it’s the ninth photo down in the left column.)
Ludington Street has a lot of handsome old buildings. It’s too bad the Rudalt Theatre is no longer among them.
The City of Columbus web site gives the address of the Police Department as 159 S. Ludington Street. The theater’s entrance was closer to the corner, so it might have been at 161 S. Ludington. The style of the Public Safety Building is late Midcentury Modern, with no hint of ‘80s postmodernism about it. I’d guess it was most likely built in the 1960s or 1970s, so the theater was probably demolished during one of those decades.
I’ve been able to move some street views up to a mile or so (unfortunately, these moves always leave the pin icon on the map in the old location.) But I’ve noticed that there are places where Google’s street view camera just didn’t go, and some places where there is a disconnection from one block to another. A couple of times I’ve been able to “take an alternate route” around a disconnection, getting access to a particular block from the opposite direction.
These situations are especially common in small towns, where the camera truck didn’t travel every street, and in old cities with very irregular street layouts. If the views you’ve been trying to move have been in such locations, that might be the problem. I’ve had to update several small town theaters with views from an intersection down the street, simply because Google’s camera truck didn’t cover the block the theater is on. It’s usually not a very good view, but it’s better than none at all.
I think Ken must have adjusted and reset the view for the Liberty early this morning. It was farther away last night.
If you move the street view down Charlotte Street, just past the brick apartment house, you can see the side wall of the Liberty’s auditorium with the large plants growing from the roof. If I lived in that house next door, I’d be reluctant to use my side yard for fear that a big chunk of the wall of the theater would collapse onto it. I’m surprised that the local authorities haven’t condemned the auditorium and ordered its demolition.
This theater is currently classified as Gothic Revival in style, but the round arch, dentilated cornice, fanlights in the doors and all are Classical elements. Was the interior Gothic? Funk & Wilcox usually favored the Adamesque or Italian Renaissance styles for theater interiors during this period.
The Franklin Park’s facade is very similar to that of the Strand Theatre in Columbia Street, which was also designed by Funk & Wilcox, and has the same sort of “triumphal arch” entrance. In fact, of the five Funk & Wilcox houses for which Cinema Treasures has either photos or street views available, all have designs firmly rooted in Classicism.
A 1979 booklet called “Living in Dorchester” (available at this link from Archive.org) cites architectural historian Douglass Shand Tucci as saying that Funk & Wilcox’s design for the Strand Theatre featured an Adamesque interior and a Classical Revival facade.
I’m not sure why it’s not working for you, Ron. As long as the “Update” button hasn’t already been used, and thus removed, I’ve always been able to reset the street views to the correct location. It might be a browser issue. I’ve only ever reset views using Opera, so I don’t know whether or not there are other browsers that don’t work properly with the Update feature.
The Capitol must have been the planned theater mentioned in the “Building News” section of the July 24, 1912, issue of The American Architect: “Altoona.-Architect Julian Millard is drawing plans for a theater to be erected for Gamble Bros, on the site of the property at the corner of Eleventh Ave. and Fourteenth St. Cost, $25,000.”
The NRHP has another typo in its information, pasted in lostmemory’s comment of July 31, 2005. The names of the architects were Osterman and Siebert, not Osreman and Siebert.
That the Liberty Theatre should have a somewhat Rhinelandish look is not surprising. Architect Henry Osterman was born near Essen, Germany, in 1862, and only arrived in the United States in 1889. He was a builder before setting himself up as an architect, and was largely self-taught. He practiced on his own until 1912, when he formed his partnership with Victor Siebert, then a recent graduate of the Boston School of Technology.
Osterman probably maintained considerable contact with Germany, to which his three brothers had all returned by 1896. He most likely read German publications and kept up with the stylistic trends of the old country.
I detect in the Liberty’s unusual design strong hints of the Jugendstil, the German form of Art Nouveau which flourished in the late 19th-early 20th century. We could do worse than to classify this theater as Art Nouveau. I think Tudor Revival is certainly less appropriate. The building doesn’t really have much of the Tudor about it.
Zoom in all the way on the photo KenLayton linked to, and it looks like there might be a ghost sign on the theater’s side wall. On the other hand, it might just be years of accumulated dirt. I can’t make out any actual letters, but either way, the building was already pretty old in 1929. From the architectural style of the facade, I’d guess that it was built no later than the early 1920s, and more likely sometime in the 1910s, and perhaps even earlier.
If the building dates from as early as 1908, it might be the 400-seat Opera House at Montesano which was included on a list of theaters published in the September 5 issue of The Billboard that year. I haven’t found a theater at Montesano listed in any editions of Julius Cahn’s Theatrical Guide, though.
You could well be right about the connection between the names Alkrama and Kramer, David. A scan of the newspaper item I cited in the description of the theater is available online here. Part of the scan is too dark to read, but the readable part of the article does mention a Mr. Kramer being involved in the project, though it doesn’t make any explicit any connection between the names Kramer and Alkrama. Noting some of the guests at the opening, the article includes
“…little Vera Scott, who has the honor of suggesting the name Alkrama, and to whom is due the fact that Elizabeth City’s new theatre has a new name- one that will hardly be found in other city or town and yet that is as euphonious as the best sounding of the old favorites.”
A few lines farther on, the article says
“…Messrs. Kramer and Nutter deserved praise for the enterprise with which they had carried out their project and for the faith they had shown in Elizabeth City.”
The 1913-1914 edition of Julius Cahn’s theatrical guide lists the Alkrama Theatre, Kramer & Nutter, managers. The newspaper article doesn’t say how old little Vera Scott was in 1912, but she is undoubtedly long gone now, so the story of how she arrived at the name Alkrama may be lost to history, unless it’s preserved in some old publication as yet unavailable on the Internet.
The 1912 newspaper article says that the Alkrama replaced the older Gaiety as Elizabeth City’s leading theater. The Gaiety was listed in the 1910-1911 Cahn guide as a 350-seat house that was at the time being used only for vaudeville and moving pictures. The manager of the Gaiety was John Nutter.
The New Nothing Cinema’s weblog hasn’t been updated since April, 2009.
There is also a Facebook page, but that was last updated on October 16, 2010, and that update is about an event taking place in New York City.
I did find one listing for a movie at the New Nothing Cinema, scheduled for April 20 this year, but I can’t find anything more recent. I don’t know if this means the place is no longer open, or is open only intermittently, or if they have just quit promoting it on the Internet.
Street View has been “updated” to the wrong location. If you pan left, the move back down Fulton Street a few mouse clicks south, you can see a parking lot in between the gas station on the corner and the large development to the north. That’s where the Village Theatre was located. Looking directly at the parking lot, zoom in and you can recognize the buildings to either side of the theater looking almost exactly as they appear in the 2004 photo cubey linked to in an earlier comment.
Here is a link to the Heywood-Wakefield ad with the photo of the Village Theatre’s auditorium, in Boxoffice of April 1, 1950.
The 1945 boxoffice article with the three small photos of the National Theatre, cited in one of my earlier comments, has been moved to this link. The photos of the National are at the lower right corner of the page.
There’s a discrepancy between the address of this theater and the description. The description places the National Theatre at the corner of Commerce Street and Santa Rosa Avenue, but that intersection marks the boundary between the 400 and 500 blocks of Commerce Street. But 819 Commerce is just east of Frio Street, four blocks west of Santa Rosa. Either the description is wrong or the address is wrong.
After looking at a 1955 aerial view of both intersections at Historic Aerials, I’m inclined to believe that it’s the address that is wrong. A building on the northeast corner of Commerce and Santa Rosa had a roof that could have covered a large auditorium, plus a decorative tower near the corner of the building on the Commerce Street side, which the theater had. The buildings at Commerce and Frio didn’t have these features.
A Roxy Theatre in Lewiston was mentioned in published sources as early as 1941. I’d assume it was this theater. I’ve also come across mention of a Rex Theatre in Lewiston operating in 1932. Possibly an aka for the Roxy? The signage would have been cheap to change.
The Masonic Temple Theatre is listed in the 1905-1906 edition of Julius Cahn’s Official Theatrical Guide. A Temple Theater Company is mentioned in sources published as early as 1915. It probably operated the house under a lease from the Masons.
The original ground floor facade had five round arches, the central three slightly larger and surmounted by a classical balustrade. The exterior style, at least, is not Gothic, but Italianate Classical Revival.
The upper floors of this building still serve as the quarters of the Calam Temple of the Ancient Arabic Order of Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. As the place was built for the Masons, I would imagine that a lodge hall is located on the third floor, suspended above the auditorium, but I’ve been unable to discover any details about the building. The configuration of the fire escapes and fenestration (some of it now sealed) suggests a large room on the third floor, though.
Here is a fresh link to the March 1, 1947, Boxoffice item with architect Jack Corgan’s rendering of the proposed Texan Theatre in Gonzales, which was opened as the Lynn Theatre.
There’s a source with information that calls into question the claim that this theater was originally called the Rosenberg. Page 89 of “Asbury Park’s Glory Days: The Story of an American Resort,” by Helen-Chantal Pike, says:
“But when the St. James opened, its most noteworthy feature was located on the marquee. The name that topped the sign was Reade, and thereafter the father and his only son would be known, respectively, as Walter Reade Sr. and Walter Reade Jr.”
Also of note is this item in The Moving Picture World of August 5, 1916:
“Rosenberg Interested in Theater.
“Asbury Park.-The St. James Theater Company, Inc., has been formed with Henry Rosenberg, Helen L. Bergen, and Henry Sincer as incorporators. The registered office is at 300 Cookman avenue, and the authorized capital is $100,000.”
I don’t see why the St. James Theater Company would open their new house as the Rosenberg Theatre when Walter Rosenberg had already adopted the surname Reade by the time it opened. Also, in the whole wide Internet, this page of Cinema Treasures is the only place where the name “Rosenberg Theatre” appears. I’m not sure that Cinema Treasures is the most reliable source of information. ;–)
What a difference there is between the December, 2010, photo Andy linked to and the way the building looked when the Google Street View camera truck passed by sometime before the restoration took place! In the current Street View, the ground floor was all glass shop windows of the sort built in the 1950s and 1960s, and the upper floors were concealed behind a false front.
The new ground floor, at least, has to be a reconstruction rather than a restoration, as there was nothing there to restore. I don’t know how much remained of the original facade on the upper floors behind that false front, but as the center section was recessed a bit, and might have been merely concealed rather than removed, perhaps that part of the current facade is at least partly a restoration of the original. The cornice and marquee are certainly reconstructions, though.
Bill: Originally, parts of the current Chandler Boulevard, Van Nuys Boulevard, and Sherman Way were all named Sherman Way. The interurban cars of the Pacific Electric Railway ran down the center of the street, which was named for land developer and Pacific Electric bigwig Moses Sherman, one of Henry Huntington’s business partners.
The original entrance of the Valentine Theatre on St. Clair Street still exists, though it now has only an awning instead of the marquee seen in the 1932 photo Chuck linked to earlier.
The Valentine was showing movies as early as 1908, when it was mentioned in an item in the July 25 issue of The Moving Picture World.
The Town and the adjacent Glen Cove were both designed by Queens architect Leon A. Miller, according to his biographical listing in the 1962 AIA Directory. The Glen Cove was the earlier project, built in 1959. The Town was built in 1961.
The Glen Cove Theatre and Town Theatre were both designed by the same architect, Leon A. Miller. His listing in the 1962 AIA Directory mentions both theaters, saying that the Glen Cove was built in 1959 and the Town in 1961. Miller also designed the Wantagh Theatre at Wantagh, NY, a 1960 project.
The Hippodrome was mentioned several times, though not by name, in various issues of The American Contractor in early 1910. One item in the May 14 issue, announcing the completion of the plans by the architectural firm of Muhlenberg Bros., gives the address of the proposed theater as 751-57 Penn Street. The theater was being built for a Mr. Abe Zable. The seating capacity was given as 960, so the 1925 expansion must have been fairly large.
I’ve been unable to discover the architect of the State Theatre project, but the Muhlenberg firm was still listed in the AIA directory at least as recently as 1962, so they would have been around in 1925 and could have designed the expansion as well.
The marquee is still on the building, which is at the northeast corner of Main and Carroll Street. For some reason, Internet searches for Street View-identifiable businesses on Main Street all return addresses on Market Street. The street apparently has two names. I wonder if it’s been recently changed?
In 1988 or 1989 (or perhaps both,) the Trace Theatre served as the venue for an updated version of “Romeo and Juliet” mounted by the Cornerstone Theater Company, a group from Yale University that has staged productions in small towns in many parts of the United States. I’ve found references to other live theater events in Port Gibson from the 1980s into the 1990s, but haven’t been able to determine if any of these were also held at the Trace Theatre.
For a while, the Trace Theatre was also the site of a night club called Westside. The club’s neon sign, between the entrance doors, can be seen lit up in this photo at Flickr, uploaded November 9, 2010, though I doubt it was taken that day.
Port Gibson has a community theater group, but their venue is called the Blue Barn Theatre, and I don’t think it’s the same building as the Trace Theatre.
The NRHP Nomination Form for the Star/Carbon Theatre building is available here in the pdf format, and here in Google Documents quick view form.
The Star Theatre was built in 1923-24 by the Georgedes brothers, and was designed in the Classical Revival style by Salt Lake City architect J. A. Headlund. The theater was leased to a series of operators, In 1964, members of the Georgedes family sold the building to Duane and LaVerne Steele, who converted the theater into retail space.
Wikipedia has this modern photo showing the building’s remarkably well-preserved front.
This web page has a very small interior photo of the Star Theatre’s auditorium, published in the local high school’s yearbook in 1924 (it’s the ninth photo down in the left column.)
Ludington Street has a lot of handsome old buildings. It’s too bad the Rudalt Theatre is no longer among them.
The City of Columbus web site gives the address of the Police Department as 159 S. Ludington Street. The theater’s entrance was closer to the corner, so it might have been at 161 S. Ludington. The style of the Public Safety Building is late Midcentury Modern, with no hint of ‘80s postmodernism about it. I’d guess it was most likely built in the 1960s or 1970s, so the theater was probably demolished during one of those decades.
I’ve been able to move some street views up to a mile or so (unfortunately, these moves always leave the pin icon on the map in the old location.) But I’ve noticed that there are places where Google’s street view camera just didn’t go, and some places where there is a disconnection from one block to another. A couple of times I’ve been able to “take an alternate route” around a disconnection, getting access to a particular block from the opposite direction.
These situations are especially common in small towns, where the camera truck didn’t travel every street, and in old cities with very irregular street layouts. If the views you’ve been trying to move have been in such locations, that might be the problem. I’ve had to update several small town theaters with views from an intersection down the street, simply because Google’s camera truck didn’t cover the block the theater is on. It’s usually not a very good view, but it’s better than none at all.
I think Ken must have adjusted and reset the view for the Liberty early this morning. It was farther away last night.
If you move the street view down Charlotte Street, just past the brick apartment house, you can see the side wall of the Liberty’s auditorium with the large plants growing from the roof. If I lived in that house next door, I’d be reluctant to use my side yard for fear that a big chunk of the wall of the theater would collapse onto it. I’m surprised that the local authorities haven’t condemned the auditorium and ordered its demolition.
This theater is currently classified as Gothic Revival in style, but the round arch, dentilated cornice, fanlights in the doors and all are Classical elements. Was the interior Gothic? Funk & Wilcox usually favored the Adamesque or Italian Renaissance styles for theater interiors during this period.
The Franklin Park’s facade is very similar to that of the Strand Theatre in Columbia Street, which was also designed by Funk & Wilcox, and has the same sort of “triumphal arch” entrance. In fact, of the five Funk & Wilcox houses for which Cinema Treasures has either photos or street views available, all have designs firmly rooted in Classicism.
A 1979 booklet called “Living in Dorchester” (available at this link from Archive.org) cites architectural historian Douglass Shand Tucci as saying that Funk & Wilcox’s design for the Strand Theatre featured an Adamesque interior and a Classical Revival facade.
I’m not sure why it’s not working for you, Ron. As long as the “Update” button hasn’t already been used, and thus removed, I’ve always been able to reset the street views to the correct location. It might be a browser issue. I’ve only ever reset views using Opera, so I don’t know whether or not there are other browsers that don’t work properly with the Update feature.
Architect Julian Millard (not Hillard) was apparently also the designer of the Capitol Theatre at Altoona, Pennsylvania.
The Capitol must have been the planned theater mentioned in the “Building News” section of the July 24, 1912, issue of The American Architect: “Altoona.-Architect Julian Millard is drawing plans for a theater to be erected for Gamble Bros, on the site of the property at the corner of Eleventh Ave. and Fourteenth St. Cost, $25,000.”
The NRHP has another typo in its information, pasted in lostmemory’s comment of July 31, 2005. The names of the architects were Osterman and Siebert, not Osreman and Siebert.
That the Liberty Theatre should have a somewhat Rhinelandish look is not surprising. Architect Henry Osterman was born near Essen, Germany, in 1862, and only arrived in the United States in 1889. He was a builder before setting himself up as an architect, and was largely self-taught. He practiced on his own until 1912, when he formed his partnership with Victor Siebert, then a recent graduate of the Boston School of Technology.
Osterman probably maintained considerable contact with Germany, to which his three brothers had all returned by 1896. He most likely read German publications and kept up with the stylistic trends of the old country.
I detect in the Liberty’s unusual design strong hints of the Jugendstil, the German form of Art Nouveau which flourished in the late 19th-early 20th century. We could do worse than to classify this theater as Art Nouveau. I think Tudor Revival is certainly less appropriate. The building doesn’t really have much of the Tudor about it.
Zoom in all the way on the photo KenLayton linked to, and it looks like there might be a ghost sign on the theater’s side wall. On the other hand, it might just be years of accumulated dirt. I can’t make out any actual letters, but either way, the building was already pretty old in 1929. From the architectural style of the facade, I’d guess that it was built no later than the early 1920s, and more likely sometime in the 1910s, and perhaps even earlier.
If the building dates from as early as 1908, it might be the 400-seat Opera House at Montesano which was included on a list of theaters published in the September 5 issue of The Billboard that year. I haven’t found a theater at Montesano listed in any editions of Julius Cahn’s Theatrical Guide, though.
You could well be right about the connection between the names Alkrama and Kramer, David. A scan of the newspaper item I cited in the description of the theater is available online here. Part of the scan is too dark to read, but the readable part of the article does mention a Mr. Kramer being involved in the project, though it doesn’t make any explicit any connection between the names Kramer and Alkrama. Noting some of the guests at the opening, the article includes
A few lines farther on, the article saysThe 1913-1914 edition of Julius Cahn’s theatrical guide lists the Alkrama Theatre, Kramer & Nutter, managers. The newspaper article doesn’t say how old little Vera Scott was in 1912, but she is undoubtedly long gone now, so the story of how she arrived at the name Alkrama may be lost to history, unless it’s preserved in some old publication as yet unavailable on the Internet.The 1912 newspaper article says that the Alkrama replaced the older Gaiety as Elizabeth City’s leading theater. The Gaiety was listed in the 1910-1911 Cahn guide as a 350-seat house that was at the time being used only for vaudeville and moving pictures. The manager of the Gaiety was John Nutter.
The New Nothing Cinema’s weblog hasn’t been updated since April, 2009.
There is also a Facebook page, but that was last updated on October 16, 2010, and that update is about an event taking place in New York City.
I did find one listing for a movie at the New Nothing Cinema, scheduled for April 20 this year, but I can’t find anything more recent. I don’t know if this means the place is no longer open, or is open only intermittently, or if they have just quit promoting it on the Internet.
Street View has been “updated” to the wrong location. If you pan left, the move back down Fulton Street a few mouse clicks south, you can see a parking lot in between the gas station on the corner and the large development to the north. That’s where the Village Theatre was located. Looking directly at the parking lot, zoom in and you can recognize the buildings to either side of the theater looking almost exactly as they appear in the 2004 photo cubey linked to in an earlier comment.
Here is a link to the Heywood-Wakefield ad with the photo of the Village Theatre’s auditorium, in Boxoffice of April 1, 1950.
The 1945 boxoffice article with the three small photos of the National Theatre, cited in one of my earlier comments, has been moved to this link. The photos of the National are at the lower right corner of the page.
There’s a discrepancy between the address of this theater and the description. The description places the National Theatre at the corner of Commerce Street and Santa Rosa Avenue, but that intersection marks the boundary between the 400 and 500 blocks of Commerce Street. But 819 Commerce is just east of Frio Street, four blocks west of Santa Rosa. Either the description is wrong or the address is wrong.
After looking at a 1955 aerial view of both intersections at Historic Aerials, I’m inclined to believe that it’s the address that is wrong. A building on the northeast corner of Commerce and Santa Rosa had a roof that could have covered a large auditorium, plus a decorative tower near the corner of the building on the Commerce Street side, which the theater had. The buildings at Commerce and Frio didn’t have these features.
A Roxy Theatre in Lewiston was mentioned in published sources as early as 1941. I’d assume it was this theater. I’ve also come across mention of a Rex Theatre in Lewiston operating in 1932. Possibly an aka for the Roxy? The signage would have been cheap to change.
The Masonic Temple Theatre is listed in the 1905-1906 edition of Julius Cahn’s Official Theatrical Guide. A Temple Theater Company is mentioned in sources published as early as 1915. It probably operated the house under a lease from the Masons.
The original ground floor facade had five round arches, the central three slightly larger and surmounted by a classical balustrade. The exterior style, at least, is not Gothic, but Italianate Classical Revival.
The upper floors of this building still serve as the quarters of the Calam Temple of the Ancient Arabic Order of Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. As the place was built for the Masons, I would imagine that a lodge hall is located on the third floor, suspended above the auditorium, but I’ve been unable to discover any details about the building. The configuration of the fire escapes and fenestration (some of it now sealed) suggests a large room on the third floor, though.
Here is a fresh link to the March 1, 1947, Boxoffice item with architect Jack Corgan’s rendering of the proposed Texan Theatre in Gonzales, which was opened as the Lynn Theatre.
There’s a source with information that calls into question the claim that this theater was originally called the Rosenberg. Page 89 of “Asbury Park’s Glory Days: The Story of an American Resort,” by Helen-Chantal Pike, says:
Also of note is this item in The Moving Picture World of August 5, 1916:I don’t see why the St. James Theater Company would open their new house as the Rosenberg Theatre when Walter Rosenberg had already adopted the surname Reade by the time it opened. Also, in the whole wide Internet, this page of Cinema Treasures is the only place where the name “Rosenberg Theatre” appears. I’m not sure that Cinema Treasures is the most reliable source of information. ;–)What a difference there is between the December, 2010, photo Andy linked to and the way the building looked when the Google Street View camera truck passed by sometime before the restoration took place! In the current Street View, the ground floor was all glass shop windows of the sort built in the 1950s and 1960s, and the upper floors were concealed behind a false front.
The new ground floor, at least, has to be a reconstruction rather than a restoration, as there was nothing there to restore. I don’t know how much remained of the original facade on the upper floors behind that false front, but as the center section was recessed a bit, and might have been merely concealed rather than removed, perhaps that part of the current facade is at least partly a restoration of the original. The cornice and marquee are certainly reconstructions, though.
Bill: Originally, parts of the current Chandler Boulevard, Van Nuys Boulevard, and Sherman Way were all named Sherman Way. The interurban cars of the Pacific Electric Railway ran down the center of the street, which was named for land developer and Pacific Electric bigwig Moses Sherman, one of Henry Huntington’s business partners.
Here’s a web page about street names in the Valley.
The original entrance of the Valentine Theatre on St. Clair Street still exists, though it now has only an awning instead of the marquee seen in the 1932 photo Chuck linked to earlier.
The Valentine was showing movies as early as 1908, when it was mentioned in an item in the July 25 issue of The Moving Picture World.