I don’t think the address of 202 W. Main Street is correct. As can be seen in the Google Street View, the buildings currently at 202-204 W. Main Street are old, obviously predating the demolition of the theater.
I think the Princess had to have been across the street, at 203 W. Main, where there is now a business called the Java Garden, situated in a small, modern building set back behind an open area.
This photo, taken during a 1963 flood, shows the darkened marquee of the Princess at right. It can be seen that it was on a corner lot, which 203 W. Main is. I can’t find any other locations along Main Street that match the situation of the Princess.
KenLayton is correct. The Rex was at the southeast corner of Fourth and Franklin, and the building is still standing. Judging from the configuration of the building’s storefronts, the entrance to the Rex was probably at 408 Franklin Street SE. The wall there is closed up and has been plastered over, and doesn’t quite match the rest of the exterior. The entrance to the Franklin Apartments is adjacent to the south, with an address of 410 Franklin.
Here’s a link to the 1913 article about the Rex in the trade publication The Moving Picture World. There is a photo of the Rex’s entrance at the upper right corner of the page, and its clearly the same building still standing at 4th and Franklin.
The Google Street View above currently shows the State Theatre at Fourth and Washington. It will have to be reset.
The auditorium was still standing when Google’s and Bing’s satellite views were made, but it was in very rough shape. In fact there is shrubbery growing on the roof! In Google’s satellite view I actually thought the building had been demolished, the growth along the edges of the roof is so thick. Some of them appear to be young trees.
If this building hasn’t been at least stabilized since those pictures were taken, I can only imagine how bad its condition must be by now. Once large plants have taken root on a building’s roof, its collapse is very near. I doubt that there’s much hope for the Liberty Theatre’s survival.
A comment on the Noyo Theatre page says that before the Noyo opened Willits also had a 417-seat house called the Willits Theatre. Could that also have been an aka of the Colonial? If the Colonial only occupied half the width of its building it looks to small to have had 417 seats, but if the auditorium was the full width it might have been big enough.
Being on Center Street, the Grand Theatre wouldn’t have been around the corner from the Marlow Theatre. The Marlow was on Third Street just south of Park Avenue, which is the next street south of Center Street.
Odd numbers are on the north sides of streets in Ironton, and the north side of the block of Center Street between Third and Fourth is all parking lot or recent construction. The Grand must have been demolished.
In addition to the Grand and Marlow, and the Ro-Na theaters, Ironton once had a theater called the South Side (or Southside,) built in 1910; an Orpheum Theatre, opened in a former skating rink in 1920; an Empire Theatre, burned in 1920; and the Lyric Theatre, located on Second Street, which can be seen partly underwater in this photo taken during the 1937 flood.
The theater in the photo and in the current Street View is the Ro-Na, not the Marlow. The address of 206 S. Third Street belongs to the Marlow, though. The Marlow’s entrance was on Third just a few doors south of Park Avenue, but the Ro-Na is on 3rd between Vernon and Washington, the next block south.
The Marlow Theatre is adjacent to an office and commercial block called the Marlow Building, which is at the southwest corner of Park Avenue and S. 3rd Street. It once housed a department store on its first two floors and offices above. The theater is fairly large, and its original seating capacity might have been greater than that of the Ro-Na, but it had a rather narrow entrance. The building does not appear to have a stage house, but it must have had a stage of some sort, as I’ve found numerous references to boxing matches being held there during the 1920s.
The Marlow Building and Theatre was added to the National Register of Historic Places on March 6, 2008. NRHP classifies the theater’s architectural style as Classical Revival, but does not name an architect or builder. A small photo about halfway down this web page shows the Marlow Theatre at left. The taller building to the right, which has a marquee, was not a theater but a hotel, and has recently been renovated as an apartment building.
A timeline of events in Ironton says that the Marlow Theatre opened in 1920. The May 6, 1919, issue of The Brick and Clay Record has a line saying: “H.A. Marting is taking bids for a large theater and office building at Ironton, Ohio.” Other sources indicate that Marting was one of the backers of the Marlow Theatre project, so the item undoubtedly refers to this theater. The Marlow appears to have closed in 1952, which was three years after the Ro-Na Theatre opened.
The Willits News reported on June 3 this year that the city council had approved a resolution to change the name of Commercial Street to Seabiscuit Parkway. The date the name change will go into effect has not been set.
Ridgewood Ranch, just south of Willits, was the final home of the racehorse Seabiscuit, whose grave on the ranch has become a tourist attraction. The Noyo Theatre hosted a special premier of the movie “Seabiscuit” on the afternoon of July 19, 2003, a few hours before the official world premier took place at the Kentucky Theatre in Lexington.
The comment by saps, December 20, 2006, suggests that the Lido Theatre might have been demolished and replaced by an entirely new building. Judging from the bird’s-eye view of the building at Bing Maps, the original theater building’s shell, including the roof, still exists.
The Cinema 4 occupies two buildings, and it looks like the one at the corner of Long Beach Boulevard could be of recent construction, but the original auditorium building still has a gabled roof, the peak of which can be glimpsed in this 1951 photo (the same photo lost memory linked to early in this thread.) An entirely new building would not have that sort of roof.
The photo shows only a small part of the corner building, but it’s clear that it was once lower than the theater. The current street view shows that it is now the same height. My guess would be that the original corner building was demolished, rather than extended upward, and an addition to the theater was built on its site.
I also suspect that, as the theater’s footprint was just about doubled by the addition, its current seating capacity is probably more than the 540 this page currently lists, even taking into consideration the likelihood that the current seats are larger than the Lido’s seats were, and the rows probably spaced farther apart.
Thanks to BillCounter for tracking down the address of the Arcadia Theatre, and its original name. The L.A. County Assessor’s office says that the building at 40 E. Huntington (which would include addresses from 40 to 44) was built in 1947, with an effectively-built date of 1980. As the fire which destroyed the Arcadia Theatre took place in 1942, when wartime building restrictions were imposed, a post-war new construction date of 1947 for the building that replaced it is not surprising.
An item on this page of Boxoffice, December 7, 1964, said that ground had been broken for a new theater at Padanaram Road and Hayestown Avenue. Completion was expected by Memorial Day, 1965. The house was to be called the Cinema, and was to be operated by the Stanley Warner circuit. A rendering of the colonial-style building matches the photo of the Crown Twin on display at CinemaTour.
Google Maps won’t fetch the correct location for this theater unless the phrase “North Street Shopping Center” is removed from the address. 1 Padanaram Road is the address the Internet gives for the Super Foodmart that the overview says replaced the theater.
Rivest’s ultimate list of movie theatres. It’s a useful resource for some purposes, but has only limited information about most of the theaters, and a lot of tentative surmises (usually followed by question marks.)
Boxoffice of December 7, 1964, ran this brief item about the air conditioning system in the new Cobb Center Theatre. There is a photo of the auditorium. The caption places the theater in Marietta rather than Smyrna, but it must be this house.
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I’ve checked the County Assessor’s web site, and it says that the building at this address was built in 1932, with an effectively-built date of 1933. This might be one of the cases in which the early property records have been lost, and the build date given is only the earliest record on file. Several nearby buildings also have effectively-built dates of 1933 or 1934, and I suspect that this reflects repairs that had to be made to the structures following the 1933 Long Beach earthquake, which did considerable damage in parts of the San Gabriel Valley, especially in areas such as El Monte, situated on soft alluvial soil near the rivers.
Despite the 1932 build date, I’m still 99% certain that this is the building that once house the Rialto/Valley Theatre, and the current address of the storefront that once served as the theater’s entrance is 10818 Valley Mall.
The University of North Carolina’s “Going to the Show” web feature includes the first known newspaper advertisement for the Ottoway Theatre. The brief three line ad was published in the Charlotte Daily Observer of July 7, 1911.
Wolfgirl: The only source in which I’ve found the Youngstown Orpheum mentioned is Richard Abel’s book Americanizing the Movies and “Movie-Mad” Audiences, 1910-1914, which mentions it briefly a few times. The book indicates that the Orpheum was operating at least as early as 1912.
1535 Market Street is now a Honda dealer’s showroom and garage. The back and side walls of the building look like they could be fairly old construction, but if this is the same structure that once housed the Liberty Theatre it has been drastically altered, and the interior must have been gutted.
It appears that El Monte’s old numbering system began at Tyler Avenue, the main north-south street, and as Sanborn’s El Monte Theatre was at the historic address 110 E. Valley, and it was in the first block east of Tyler, that means the addresses must have started with three digit numbers rather than single digit numbers. That would put the Valley Theatre somewhere about three blocks west of Tyler (the cross streets are spaced irregularly.)
Examining that neighborhood with Google Maps' satellite view reveals that there is a building at 10818 Valley Mall, between Palm Court and Lexington Avenue, which has a rear section that is taller than the rest of the building. This section could have been an auditorium. Street View shows that the building has a three-bay facade, with the center bay somewhat taller than the side bays. The center bay was probably the entrance to the theater. The building was modernized sometime after the photo Ken linked to was taken.
Adjacent buildings as seen in Street View have also been remodeled, but their sizes are perfect matches for the nearby buildings seen in the historic photo. I’m 99% certain that the building at 10818 Valley Mall, with its center bay currently occupied by a clothing store called Eden Fashion, is the former Rialto/Valley Theatre.
The property records section of the L.A. County Assessor’s office web site is currently down, so I can’t check the construction date of the building, but when it comes back I’ll check it again. If the original construction date of this building was 1923, I’d consider that sufficient proof that it was the Rialto.
As for the El Monte Theatre at 331 W. Main, it would have been across the street from the Rialto and a bit west. In the absence of any historic photos of it, it would be hard to determine which building it occupied, what its modern address would be, or if the building is still standing.
The Mayan Palace 14 began as a two-screen house called the Century South Theatre, built in 1968. Later renovations converted it to a four-screen operation, but the major expansion came in 2003, when it was substantially rebuilt as the Mayan Palace. The project was designed by the Dallas architectural firm Hodges & Associates.
Browning Construction Company, contractors for the project, published an article about the Mayan in the first issue of their house organ, currently available as a pdf file from this page at their web site. The article has several photographs of the theater.
The source for the name of the architect currently listed for this theater, Wayne Schoupke, is apparently David Naylor’s 1987 book “Great American Movie Theaters” (at least I’ve been unable to find any other print sources using that name that are cited on the Internet.)
However, a web page from the Marathon County Historical Society about Wausua architect William Oppenhamer attributes the design of the Grand to his firm of Oppenhamer & Obel (Irving Obel.) Historical societies can be wrong, of course, but so can authors of books. (The historical society web site is weird, so I can’t link the page directly. Search Google with these three words, including the quote marks: “Oppenhamer, William” Marathon …his page should be the first result.)
There is an architect named Wayne Schoepke (note different spelling of the surname) currently practicing in Wausau. Perhaps Schoepke was the architect for a renovation of the Grand, and Naylor just got his notes garbled? I’ve been unable to find any period references to an architect named either Schoupke or Schoepke, but there are many old references to the firm of Oppenhamer & Obel (including one, from 1921, about a theater they were designing, to be located in Rhinelander, Wisconsin,) so I’m inclined to think the historical society got this one right, and Naylor got it wrong.
Google Street View is totally screwed up at this location. Their camera truck apparently missed the entire block between Virginia Avenue and Vinedo Avenue. Looking east along the sidewalk from Virginia Avenue, you get a glimpse of the theater’s shadowy marquee.
Multiple sources on the Internet say that the Capri Theatre was rebuilt into the Paradigm Cinemas after having been closed for many years.
Yelp says that the Paradigm Cinemas is now closed. The official web site link is dead, too.
I don’t think the address of 202 W. Main Street is correct. As can be seen in the Google Street View, the buildings currently at 202-204 W. Main Street are old, obviously predating the demolition of the theater.
I think the Princess had to have been across the street, at 203 W. Main, where there is now a business called the Java Garden, situated in a small, modern building set back behind an open area.
This photo, taken during a 1963 flood, shows the darkened marquee of the Princess at right. It can be seen that it was on a corner lot, which 203 W. Main is. I can’t find any other locations along Main Street that match the situation of the Princess.
KenLayton is correct. The Rex was at the southeast corner of Fourth and Franklin, and the building is still standing. Judging from the configuration of the building’s storefronts, the entrance to the Rex was probably at 408 Franklin Street SE. The wall there is closed up and has been plastered over, and doesn’t quite match the rest of the exterior. The entrance to the Franklin Apartments is adjacent to the south, with an address of 410 Franklin.
Here’s a link to the 1913 article about the Rex in the trade publication The Moving Picture World. There is a photo of the Rex’s entrance at the upper right corner of the page, and its clearly the same building still standing at 4th and Franklin.
The Google Street View above currently shows the State Theatre at Fourth and Washington. It will have to be reset.
The auditorium was still standing when Google’s and Bing’s satellite views were made, but it was in very rough shape. In fact there is shrubbery growing on the roof! In Google’s satellite view I actually thought the building had been demolished, the growth along the edges of the roof is so thick. Some of them appear to be young trees.
If this building hasn’t been at least stabilized since those pictures were taken, I can only imagine how bad its condition must be by now. Once large plants have taken root on a building’s roof, its collapse is very near. I doubt that there’s much hope for the Liberty Theatre’s survival.
A comment on the Noyo Theatre page says that before the Noyo opened Willits also had a 417-seat house called the Willits Theatre. Could that also have been an aka of the Colonial? If the Colonial only occupied half the width of its building it looks to small to have had 417 seats, but if the auditorium was the full width it might have been big enough.
Being on Center Street, the Grand Theatre wouldn’t have been around the corner from the Marlow Theatre. The Marlow was on Third Street just south of Park Avenue, which is the next street south of Center Street.
Odd numbers are on the north sides of streets in Ironton, and the north side of the block of Center Street between Third and Fourth is all parking lot or recent construction. The Grand must have been demolished.
In addition to the Grand and Marlow, and the Ro-Na theaters, Ironton once had a theater called the South Side (or Southside,) built in 1910; an Orpheum Theatre, opened in a former skating rink in 1920; an Empire Theatre, burned in 1920; and the Lyric Theatre, located on Second Street, which can be seen partly underwater in this photo taken during the 1937 flood.
The theater in the photo and in the current Street View is the Ro-Na, not the Marlow. The address of 206 S. Third Street belongs to the Marlow, though. The Marlow’s entrance was on Third just a few doors south of Park Avenue, but the Ro-Na is on 3rd between Vernon and Washington, the next block south.
The Marlow Theatre is adjacent to an office and commercial block called the Marlow Building, which is at the southwest corner of Park Avenue and S. 3rd Street. It once housed a department store on its first two floors and offices above. The theater is fairly large, and its original seating capacity might have been greater than that of the Ro-Na, but it had a rather narrow entrance. The building does not appear to have a stage house, but it must have had a stage of some sort, as I’ve found numerous references to boxing matches being held there during the 1920s.
The Marlow Building and Theatre was added to the National Register of Historic Places on March 6, 2008. NRHP classifies the theater’s architectural style as Classical Revival, but does not name an architect or builder. A small photo about halfway down this web page shows the Marlow Theatre at left. The taller building to the right, which has a marquee, was not a theater but a hotel, and has recently been renovated as an apartment building.
A timeline of events in Ironton says that the Marlow Theatre opened in 1920. The May 6, 1919, issue of The Brick and Clay Record has a line saying: “H.A. Marting is taking bids for a large theater and office building at Ironton, Ohio.” Other sources indicate that Marting was one of the backers of the Marlow Theatre project, so the item undoubtedly refers to this theater. The Marlow appears to have closed in 1952, which was three years after the Ro-Na Theatre opened.
The Willits News reported on June 3 this year that the city council had approved a resolution to change the name of Commercial Street to Seabiscuit Parkway. The date the name change will go into effect has not been set.
Ridgewood Ranch, just south of Willits, was the final home of the racehorse Seabiscuit, whose grave on the ranch has become a tourist attraction. The Noyo Theatre hosted a special premier of the movie “Seabiscuit” on the afternoon of July 19, 2003, a few hours before the official world premier took place at the Kentucky Theatre in Lexington.
The comment by saps, December 20, 2006, suggests that the Lido Theatre might have been demolished and replaced by an entirely new building. Judging from the bird’s-eye view of the building at Bing Maps, the original theater building’s shell, including the roof, still exists.
The Cinema 4 occupies two buildings, and it looks like the one at the corner of Long Beach Boulevard could be of recent construction, but the original auditorium building still has a gabled roof, the peak of which can be glimpsed in this 1951 photo (the same photo lost memory linked to early in this thread.) An entirely new building would not have that sort of roof.
The photo shows only a small part of the corner building, but it’s clear that it was once lower than the theater. The current street view shows that it is now the same height. My guess would be that the original corner building was demolished, rather than extended upward, and an addition to the theater was built on its site.
I also suspect that, as the theater’s footprint was just about doubled by the addition, its current seating capacity is probably more than the 540 this page currently lists, even taking into consideration the likelihood that the current seats are larger than the Lido’s seats were, and the rows probably spaced farther apart.
Thanks to BillCounter for tracking down the address of the Arcadia Theatre, and its original name. The L.A. County Assessor’s office says that the building at 40 E. Huntington (which would include addresses from 40 to 44) was built in 1947, with an effectively-built date of 1980. As the fire which destroyed the Arcadia Theatre took place in 1942, when wartime building restrictions were imposed, a post-war new construction date of 1947 for the building that replaced it is not surprising.
Here is a link to the Boxoffice item I cited in a previous comment. There is an artist’s rendering of the original Oakbrook Cinema.
An item on this page of Boxoffice, December 7, 1964, said that ground had been broken for a new theater at Padanaram Road and Hayestown Avenue. Completion was expected by Memorial Day, 1965. The house was to be called the Cinema, and was to be operated by the Stanley Warner circuit. A rendering of the colonial-style building matches the photo of the Crown Twin on display at CinemaTour.
Google Maps won’t fetch the correct location for this theater unless the phrase “North Street Shopping Center” is removed from the address. 1 Padanaram Road is the address the Internet gives for the Super Foodmart that the overview says replaced the theater.
Rivest’s ultimate list of movie theatres. It’s a useful resource for some purposes, but has only limited information about most of the theaters, and a lot of tentative surmises (usually followed by question marks.)
Boxoffice of December 7, 1964, ran this brief item about the air conditioning system in the new Cobb Center Theatre. There is a photo of the auditorium. The caption places the theater in Marietta rather than Smyrna, but it must be this house.
nritota: Cinema Treasures' default view now displays only the ten most recent comments in a thread. If additional comments exist for a given theater, they are now displayed on additional pages. To see earlier comments, click on the (view all comments) link just above the first comment displayed on the default page.
I’ve checked the County Assessor’s web site, and it says that the building at this address was built in 1932, with an effectively-built date of 1933. This might be one of the cases in which the early property records have been lost, and the build date given is only the earliest record on file. Several nearby buildings also have effectively-built dates of 1933 or 1934, and I suspect that this reflects repairs that had to be made to the structures following the 1933 Long Beach earthquake, which did considerable damage in parts of the San Gabriel Valley, especially in areas such as El Monte, situated on soft alluvial soil near the rivers.
Despite the 1932 build date, I’m still 99% certain that this is the building that once house the Rialto/Valley Theatre, and the current address of the storefront that once served as the theater’s entrance is 10818 Valley Mall.
The University of North Carolina’s “Going to the Show” web feature includes the first known newspaper advertisement for the Ottoway Theatre. The brief three line ad was published in the Charlotte Daily Observer of July 7, 1911.
Wolfgirl: The only source in which I’ve found the Youngstown Orpheum mentioned is Richard Abel’s book Americanizing the Movies and “Movie-Mad” Audiences, 1910-1914, which mentions it briefly a few times. The book indicates that the Orpheum was operating at least as early as 1912.
1535 Market Street is now a Honda dealer’s showroom and garage. The back and side walls of the building look like they could be fairly old construction, but if this is the same structure that once housed the Liberty Theatre it has been drastically altered, and the interior must have been gutted.
Google Street View provides only a back view of this multiplex. Here is a photo of the front.
It appears that El Monte’s old numbering system began at Tyler Avenue, the main north-south street, and as Sanborn’s El Monte Theatre was at the historic address 110 E. Valley, and it was in the first block east of Tyler, that means the addresses must have started with three digit numbers rather than single digit numbers. That would put the Valley Theatre somewhere about three blocks west of Tyler (the cross streets are spaced irregularly.)
Examining that neighborhood with Google Maps' satellite view reveals that there is a building at 10818 Valley Mall, between Palm Court and Lexington Avenue, which has a rear section that is taller than the rest of the building. This section could have been an auditorium. Street View shows that the building has a three-bay facade, with the center bay somewhat taller than the side bays. The center bay was probably the entrance to the theater. The building was modernized sometime after the photo Ken linked to was taken.
Adjacent buildings as seen in Street View have also been remodeled, but their sizes are perfect matches for the nearby buildings seen in the historic photo. I’m 99% certain that the building at 10818 Valley Mall, with its center bay currently occupied by a clothing store called Eden Fashion, is the former Rialto/Valley Theatre.
The property records section of the L.A. County Assessor’s office web site is currently down, so I can’t check the construction date of the building, but when it comes back I’ll check it again. If the original construction date of this building was 1923, I’d consider that sufficient proof that it was the Rialto.
As for the El Monte Theatre at 331 W. Main, it would have been across the street from the Rialto and a bit west. In the absence of any historic photos of it, it would be hard to determine which building it occupied, what its modern address would be, or if the building is still standing.
The Mayan Palace 14 began as a two-screen house called the Century South Theatre, built in 1968. Later renovations converted it to a four-screen operation, but the major expansion came in 2003, when it was substantially rebuilt as the Mayan Palace. The project was designed by the Dallas architectural firm Hodges & Associates.
Browning Construction Company, contractors for the project, published an article about the Mayan in the first issue of their house organ, currently available as a pdf file from this page at their web site. The article has several photographs of the theater.
416 E. Commerce Street is now occupied by part of a massive parking structure. The Dreamland Theatre has been demolished.
The source for the name of the architect currently listed for this theater, Wayne Schoupke, is apparently David Naylor’s 1987 book “Great American Movie Theaters” (at least I’ve been unable to find any other print sources using that name that are cited on the Internet.)
However, a web page from the Marathon County Historical Society about Wausua architect William Oppenhamer attributes the design of the Grand to his firm of Oppenhamer & Obel (Irving Obel.) Historical societies can be wrong, of course, but so can authors of books. (The historical society web site is weird, so I can’t link the page directly. Search Google with these three words, including the quote marks: “Oppenhamer, William” Marathon …his page should be the first result.)
There is an architect named Wayne Schoepke (note different spelling of the surname) currently practicing in Wausau. Perhaps Schoepke was the architect for a renovation of the Grand, and Naylor just got his notes garbled? I’ve been unable to find any period references to an architect named either Schoupke or Schoepke, but there are many old references to the firm of Oppenhamer & Obel (including one, from 1921, about a theater they were designing, to be located in Rhinelander, Wisconsin,) so I’m inclined to think the historical society got this one right, and Naylor got it wrong.
Google Street View is totally screwed up at this location. Their camera truck apparently missed the entire block between Virginia Avenue and Vinedo Avenue. Looking east along the sidewalk from Virginia Avenue, you get a glimpse of the theater’s shadowy marquee.