Responding to the comments by Prov (March 16, 2008) and Ron Salters (October 19, 2008,) I’ve found this item in the trade journal The Moving Picture World, issue of August 19, 1916: “LOWELL, MASS.â€"Archts. Funk & Wilcox, 120 Boylston street, Boston, are preparing plans for a two-story theater, store and office building, 52 by 115 feet, and 106 by 151 feet.” The project must have been the Strand.
The matchbook picture shows that the Adams was a Streamline Modern style theater. I found a Facebook comment by a user from Dorchester who says she remembers seeing the Adams Theatre built and seeing it torn down, though she doesn’t say what years those were. She also remembers seeing “Now, Voyager” and “Gone With the Wind” at the Adams. My guess would be that the house was probably built in the late 1930s, and certainly no later than 1940.
Patricia Favata’s book says that the damage to the theater from the 1943 fire that destroyed the building next door was primarily water damage. Apparently, the fire burned so hot that the fire department had to keep pouring water on the theater’s roof to prevent it from combusting. The 1943 fire took place on January 22.
The long delay in the restoration and reopening of the theater was probably due to the wartime shortages of materials, and the difficulty in getting permits. As Newburgh was then plentifully supplied with theaters, restoring the Broadway would not have been given a high priority by the Federal officials in charge of such matters.
Warren is correct. The building in the photo he linked to might or might not be in Newburgh, but it certainly isn’t the Broadway Theatre. Not only was the Broadway, as restored after the 1943 fire, an Art Moderne building, but it was demolished following the second fire in 1965, so couldn’t have been there to be photographed in 1986.
It’s possible that the building in the photo was not a theater at all. The entrance was awfully narrow for a theater, plus it looks like the side walls had large, factory-style windows in them. It might have originally been a printing plant or some such thing. Whatever its original use, it certainly looks to have been built in the 19th century. The small, moderne marquee and the poster cases at the entrance suggest that it might have been used later as a dance hall, as those frequently had such features.
As for the Broadway Theatre, according to the book “Newburgh: The Heart of the City,” by Patricia A. Favata, the Broadway originally opened on February 28, 1914. The 1965 fire which ended its career took place on September 1.
Gustavus A. Mang must have been the local associate architect for this theater. The Regent Theatre in Buffalo is listed among the works of Detroit architect C. Howard Crane in the thesis of Lisa Maria DiChiera, “The Theater Designs of C. Howard Crane,” which can be read on line at the Internet Archive.
Like the Majestic Theatre (1915) in Detroit, also a Crane design, the Regent featured a section of stadium seating which had considerably greater capacity than the orchestra floor.
Loren Ruth Lerner and Mary F. Williamson’s book “Art and Architecture in Canada” attributes the design of the Bedford Theatre to architect Murray Brown.
The July, 1916, issue of Canadian trade journal Construction featured a multi-page article about the Theatre St-Denis with more than a dozen photos, drawings, and plans. Read online at the Internet Archive, or choose another format from this page.
An article titled “Some Problems in Theatre Construction” in the July, 1921, issue of the Canadian journal Construction is illustrated by photos of the Allen Theatre in Vancouver. The facade, entrance, foyer, mezzanine, balcony, and auditorium are all depicted. Judging from the photos, I’d consider the architectural style to be predominantly Adamesque rather than Greek Revival.
The article is available online from the Internet Archive (for those whose browsers might not be compatible with that format, you can select other formats from this page.) Navigating the Internet Archive’s online reader can be tricky, until you get used to it, which is why I usually link to the easier-to-use Google Books when they both have the item available, even though Internet Archive provides far better page scans.
The November 26, 1919, issue of the trade journal Engineering and Contracting featured an article about the construction system used for the roof the new theater. There are four line drawings, one of which (a longitudinal section of the building) was unfortunately printed upside down.
Allen’s Bloor Theatre was designed by the architectural firm of Hynes, Feldman & Watson, also designers of Allen’s Downtown Theatre (later the Tivoli) and associate architects for Allen’s Danforth Theatre, now the Danforth Music Hall.
Loren Ruth Lerner and Mary F. Williamson’s book “Art and Architecture of Canada” calls the exterior style of the Bloor Theatre “somewhat Italian” and describes the interior as “…a modern development of Louis XVI style….”
This web page says that the Rich Theatre opened in 1923 in a building formerly occupied by an automobile dealership.
I wonder if the project listed in the January 6, 1919, issue of the trade journal Lumber ever got built:
“Montpelierâ€"S. A. Shreeve, architect, Col.-Hudson Building, Ogden, Utah, is preparing preliminary plans for 80x150 ft. brick theater on Main Street here. $70,000.”
Does anybody know if there were any other theaters operating in Montpelier during the 1920s?
For what it’s worth, the March, 1920, issue of The Architect & Engineer had this item, which might or might not have something to do with the origins of the Gaslighter Theatre’s building:[quote]“Bank to Erect Building
“Messrs. Wolfe and Higgins, Auzerais building, San Jose, are preparing plans for a bank building, stores and moving picture theatre, to be built at Campbell, near San Jose, for the Growers National Bank. Forty thousand dollars will be expended on the improvements.”[/quote]Perhaps only the part of the project that housed the bank was completed, or perhaps the original plans were discarded altogether and a different architect designed the building that was actually built. It’s a mystery someone from the area might be able to unravel.
I should note that the article I cited in my previous comment is in the December, 1919, issue of The Architect & Engineer, not the October issue. Here’s a direct link. Scroll up one page for a photo of the facade. Four interior photos are farther down, following the article text.
I still can’t find confirmation that John Eberson designed or remodeled this theater. Eberson designed the third Majestic, opened January 29, 1923. The day Eberson’s Majestic opened, this theater was renamed the Palace, according to the book “Cinema Houston” by David Welling and Jack Valenti.
As the Palace it housed a stock company, and served various other uses, including stints as a church and as a theater for radio broadcasts, until it was remodeled in 1937 and reopened as the Zoe Theatre. The Zoe ran westerns for about a year, then foreign films, and even attempted a revival of vaudeville. After being closed for some time, the house reopened in 1945 as a Spanish language movie theater called the Neuvo Palacio, but soon closed its doors for the last time, on April 3, 1946. The theater was demolished to make way for an expansion of the Houston Chronicle building.
The Yosemite Theatre opened either in 1892 or 1893. The conversion of the house into the State Theatre took place in 1920. In a column listing projects in the works for 1920, the December, 1919, issue of the San Francisco-based professional journal The Architect & Engineer included Weeks & Day’s remodeling of the Yosemite Theatre in Stockton. The projected cost was $130,000.
The first-quarter theater construction survey in Boxoffice of April 26, 1941, reported that the Griffith circuit had opened its new Tulsa Theatre in Tulsa.
Regarding cosmic ray’s comment of September 1, 2007, I think the Oklahoma Historical Society’s statements about these theaters come from notes accompanying the Griffith circuit’s collection of photos. The claim that the Main Street Theatre was “replaced” by the Tulsa Theatre probably only means that the Tulsa supplanted the Main Street in the circuit’s hierarchy of theaters in the city. The OHS can be faulted for not providing context for the statement, but there might not be much written information to work with in the photo collection.
I haven’t found a source to confirm this, but after seeing the Griffith collection photos of the Tulsa Theatre, and considering the fact that it was a Griffith house from 1941, I’d lay odds that this theater was designed by Jack Corgan and William J. Moore. It has the characteristic look of their work. Plus, Moore was R.E. Griffith’s nephew, and it’s known that Corgan & Moore designed other Griffith houses during this period. I would be surprised if the Tulsa turned out not to be one of their works.
The July 19, 1919, issue of trade journal The Lumber Manufacturer and Dealer reported that architect E.W. Houghton was preparing plans for a theater to be erected at Raymond, Washington.
The journal Engineering and Contracting reported on September 3, 1919, that George Reisner (spelling error) had awarded the contracts for the construction of the Tokay Theater at Raymond.
As no other theaters were being built in Raymond at that time, the Tokay must have been the Houghton project.
The Regent Theatre was expanded in 1919, so it probably opened earlier. The November 12, 1919, issue of trade journal Engineering & Contracting said that Mrs. Gertrude Richtey was investing at least $25,000 to build an addition to her Regent Theatre in Lyons. The addition was to be on Pearl Street, which is the street behind Church Street.
Here is yet another web page with photos of the Brook Theatre. The accompanying text says that the Brook served as the home of the American Theatre Company (Tulsa’s leading theatre group) for fifteen years before being converted into a restaurant. ATC’s web site says the Brook became the company’s second stage in 1979, so fifteen years would be just about right if the restaurant conversion took place in the mid-1990s.
I’ve found two sources saying that the Grand Opera House in Tulsa burned in 1920. The first is this timeline from an Oklahoma genweb page. The second is more thorough, but also problematic as it gives the address of the theater as 117 E. 2nd Street. It is from the October, 1921, issue of the journal Safety Engineering:
“October 9, 1920. Tulsa, Okla. Grand Theatre building, 117 E. 2d Street. Opera house, stores and room. One 3-story building destroyed. Walls, brick. Floors, wood. Roofs, gravel. Cause, electric wiring. Fire started under stage in theater. Discovered by night watchmen at about 1:03 a. m. Alarm, night watchman passed up 3 fire alarm boxes to notify fire department. Duration, 3 hours. Stopped at fire wall. Fire was retarded by construction of building. Firemen handicapped by overhead wires. Private fire apparatus, six 3-gallon soda and acid extinguishers. Persons in building, 6. Killed, none. Injured, none. Means of escape, 75-foot aerial truck. Value of building and contents, $58,000. Property loss, $55,000. Papers were protected.”
Were there two different Grand Theatres in Tulsa, one block apart? The address discrepancy might be an error in the 1921 publication, or perhaps Tulsa renumbered its blocks at some time. The photos from before 1920 and from the much later period when the building had become a furniture store show that the facade of the theater was the same, fire or not. Presumably the building was only gutted. I’ve been unable to find any other sources providing information about the fire, or saying anything about the rebuilding of the Grand Theatre.
Three photos of the Thomas Theatre appeared in the January 12, 1912, issue of the professional journal The Ohio Architect, Engineer and Builder. Here is an exterior photo, and here are two interior views of the auditorium.
The name Oklah was used for two theaters in Bartlesville, both opened in 1908. The 1909-1910 edition of Julius Cahn’s Official Theatrical Guide lists the Oklah Theatre with 820 seats; 433 on the main floor, 187 in the balcony, and 200 in the gallery. A biography of oil man Frank Phillips says that the Oklah Theatre opened on September 25, 1908.
Meanwhile, the book Bartlesville,Oklahoma, by Karen Smith Woods, has a photo of an Oklah Air Dome, which the caption says opened on May 3, 1908, and seated some 1500.
The photos of the Liberty and the Odeon at the Oklahoma History web site actually depict two different theaters. Searching on Liberty Bartlesville fetches two photos; one dated ca.1926 showing this building as the Liberty, and one dated ca.1940 showing the same building as the Odeon. Searching on Odeon Bartlesville fetches five photos; the same ca.1940 photo as the Liberty search, plus two interior photos dated ca.1930 (probably of the earlier Odeon) and two exterior shots dated ca.1937 and ca. 1940, both of which depict a different building than the Liberty, but the ca.1937 photo shows the same Odeon sign that was on the Liberty building in the first ca.1940 photo.
Some time around 1940, the name Odeon must have been moved from one theater to another. As the Liberty is the only Bartlesville house listed with the aka Odeon at Cinema Treasures, I don’t know if the first Odeon is still unlisted, or if it is listed under another name but is missing the aka.
tlsloews: The Colonial Theatre is to the right of the big Romanesque style post office building that dominates the photo, but since the photo is dated 1915, it can’t be the Colonial Theatre on Woodward Avenue, which wasn’t built until 1917. Also, Woodward Avenue has always been a much wider thoroughfare than the narrow back street that the Colonial in the photo faces.
It’s an odd little building. The top section is pure Greek Revival, but the lower two floors are Italianate, of a style that was some thirty or forty years out of date by 1917. It looks like it might have been a church that was altered and converted into a theater, with the lower two floors being an addition to a free-standing temple-style building.
I don’t know what theater it is. Cinema Treasures doesn’t list Colonial as an aka for any other Detroit theater, and of course it would have lost the name Colonial by the time this Woodward Avenue house opened in 1917. Either this theater is unlisted, or it’s listed under a later name and missing the aka.
I found a May, 1912, reference to a Colonial Theatre on the northwest corner of Lafayette Avenue (now Lafayette Blvd.) and Shelby Street, which must have been the theater in the photo. The Post Office was on W. Fort Street between Shelby and Washington, and Lafayette was the street behind it. The theater would have been in the 200 block of West Lafayette. I’ve clicked through the the first 100 of the 184 theaters listed for Detroit to see if one of them is in that block, but with no luck, and I think I’m getting carpel tunnel syndrome. Does anybody want to click through the remaining 84? If it isn’t there, it’s unlisted. Of course, it’s possible the house never even operated as a movie theater.
The related web site link no longer works. The Gem Theatre is gone. As told in this weblog post by Kim Harrold, the theater was bought by a developer who promised to promised to repair the roof so there would still be something left of the theater to restore eventually, but instead the building was neglected until it had deteriorated too far to be saved. The Gem Theatre was demolished in February, 2010.
If this theater opened as the Campus in 1914, it didn’t keep the name for long. The August, 1915, issue of professional journal The Architect & Engineer mentioned that the construction firm of Gaspard & Hamilton, builders of the Majestic Theatre in Berkeley, had been dissolved. It must have been the same Majestic Theatre, as the item said that it had been designed by architect W.H. Ratcliffe, Jr..
The Skyview Cruise-In was built in 1948, according to the caption of its picture in the Arcadia Publishing Company book “Lancaster,” by Connie L. Rutter, Sondra Brockway Gartner.
Responding to the comments by Prov (March 16, 2008) and Ron Salters (October 19, 2008,) I’ve found this item in the trade journal The Moving Picture World, issue of August 19, 1916: “LOWELL, MASS.â€"Archts. Funk & Wilcox, 120 Boylston street, Boston, are preparing plans for a two-story theater, store and office building, 52 by 115 feet, and 106 by 151 feet.” The project must have been the Strand.
The matchbook picture shows that the Adams was a Streamline Modern style theater. I found a Facebook comment by a user from Dorchester who says she remembers seeing the Adams Theatre built and seeing it torn down, though she doesn’t say what years those were. She also remembers seeing “Now, Voyager” and “Gone With the Wind” at the Adams. My guess would be that the house was probably built in the late 1930s, and certainly no later than 1940.
Patricia Favata’s book says that the damage to the theater from the 1943 fire that destroyed the building next door was primarily water damage. Apparently, the fire burned so hot that the fire department had to keep pouring water on the theater’s roof to prevent it from combusting. The 1943 fire took place on January 22.
The long delay in the restoration and reopening of the theater was probably due to the wartime shortages of materials, and the difficulty in getting permits. As Newburgh was then plentifully supplied with theaters, restoring the Broadway would not have been given a high priority by the Federal officials in charge of such matters.
Warren is correct. The building in the photo he linked to might or might not be in Newburgh, but it certainly isn’t the Broadway Theatre. Not only was the Broadway, as restored after the 1943 fire, an Art Moderne building, but it was demolished following the second fire in 1965, so couldn’t have been there to be photographed in 1986.
It’s possible that the building in the photo was not a theater at all. The entrance was awfully narrow for a theater, plus it looks like the side walls had large, factory-style windows in them. It might have originally been a printing plant or some such thing. Whatever its original use, it certainly looks to have been built in the 19th century. The small, moderne marquee and the poster cases at the entrance suggest that it might have been used later as a dance hall, as those frequently had such features.
As for the Broadway Theatre, according to the book “Newburgh: The Heart of the City,” by Patricia A. Favata, the Broadway originally opened on February 28, 1914. The 1965 fire which ended its career took place on September 1.
Gustavus A. Mang must have been the local associate architect for this theater. The Regent Theatre in Buffalo is listed among the works of Detroit architect C. Howard Crane in the thesis of Lisa Maria DiChiera, “The Theater Designs of C. Howard Crane,” which can be read on line at the Internet Archive.
Like the Majestic Theatre (1915) in Detroit, also a Crane design, the Regent featured a section of stadium seating which had considerably greater capacity than the orchestra floor.
Loren Ruth Lerner and Mary F. Williamson’s book “Art and Architecture in Canada” attributes the design of the Bedford Theatre to architect Murray Brown.
The July, 1916, issue of Canadian trade journal Construction featured a multi-page article about the Theatre St-Denis with more than a dozen photos, drawings, and plans. Read online at the Internet Archive, or choose another format from this page.
An article titled “Some Problems in Theatre Construction” in the July, 1921, issue of the Canadian journal Construction is illustrated by photos of the Allen Theatre in Vancouver. The facade, entrance, foyer, mezzanine, balcony, and auditorium are all depicted. Judging from the photos, I’d consider the architectural style to be predominantly Adamesque rather than Greek Revival.
The article is available online from the Internet Archive (for those whose browsers might not be compatible with that format, you can select other formats from this page.) Navigating the Internet Archive’s online reader can be tricky, until you get used to it, which is why I usually link to the easier-to-use Google Books when they both have the item available, even though Internet Archive provides far better page scans.
The November 26, 1919, issue of the trade journal Engineering and Contracting featured an article about the construction system used for the roof the new theater. There are four line drawings, one of which (a longitudinal section of the building) was unfortunately printed upside down.
Allen’s Bloor Theatre was designed by the architectural firm of Hynes, Feldman & Watson, also designers of Allen’s Downtown Theatre (later the Tivoli) and associate architects for Allen’s Danforth Theatre, now the Danforth Music Hall.
Loren Ruth Lerner and Mary F. Williamson’s book “Art and Architecture of Canada” calls the exterior style of the Bloor Theatre “somewhat Italian” and describes the interior as “…a modern development of Louis XVI style….”
This web page says that the Rich Theatre opened in 1923 in a building formerly occupied by an automobile dealership.
I wonder if the project listed in the January 6, 1919, issue of the trade journal Lumber ever got built:
Does anybody know if there were any other theaters operating in Montpelier during the 1920s?For what it’s worth, the March, 1920, issue of The Architect & Engineer had this item, which might or might not have something to do with the origins of the Gaslighter Theatre’s building:[quote]“Bank to Erect Building
“Messrs. Wolfe and Higgins, Auzerais building, San Jose, are preparing plans for a bank building, stores and moving picture theatre, to be built at Campbell, near San Jose, for the Growers National Bank. Forty thousand dollars will be expended on the improvements.”[/quote]Perhaps only the part of the project that housed the bank was completed, or perhaps the original plans were discarded altogether and a different architect designed the building that was actually built. It’s a mystery someone from the area might be able to unravel.
I should note that the article I cited in my previous comment is in the December, 1919, issue of The Architect & Engineer, not the October issue. Here’s a direct link. Scroll up one page for a photo of the facade. Four interior photos are farther down, following the article text.
I still can’t find confirmation that John Eberson designed or remodeled this theater. Eberson designed the third Majestic, opened January 29, 1923. The day Eberson’s Majestic opened, this theater was renamed the Palace, according to the book “Cinema Houston” by David Welling and Jack Valenti.
As the Palace it housed a stock company, and served various other uses, including stints as a church and as a theater for radio broadcasts, until it was remodeled in 1937 and reopened as the Zoe Theatre. The Zoe ran westerns for about a year, then foreign films, and even attempted a revival of vaudeville. After being closed for some time, the house reopened in 1945 as a Spanish language movie theater called the Neuvo Palacio, but soon closed its doors for the last time, on April 3, 1946. The theater was demolished to make way for an expansion of the Houston Chronicle building.
The Yosemite Theatre opened either in 1892 or 1893. The conversion of the house into the State Theatre took place in 1920. In a column listing projects in the works for 1920, the December, 1919, issue of the San Francisco-based professional journal The Architect & Engineer included Weeks & Day’s remodeling of the Yosemite Theatre in Stockton. The projected cost was $130,000.
The first-quarter theater construction survey in Boxoffice of April 26, 1941, reported that the Griffith circuit had opened its new Tulsa Theatre in Tulsa.
Regarding cosmic ray’s comment of September 1, 2007, I think the Oklahoma Historical Society’s statements about these theaters come from notes accompanying the Griffith circuit’s collection of photos. The claim that the Main Street Theatre was “replaced” by the Tulsa Theatre probably only means that the Tulsa supplanted the Main Street in the circuit’s hierarchy of theaters in the city. The OHS can be faulted for not providing context for the statement, but there might not be much written information to work with in the photo collection.
I haven’t found a source to confirm this, but after seeing the Griffith collection photos of the Tulsa Theatre, and considering the fact that it was a Griffith house from 1941, I’d lay odds that this theater was designed by Jack Corgan and William J. Moore. It has the characteristic look of their work. Plus, Moore was R.E. Griffith’s nephew, and it’s known that Corgan & Moore designed other Griffith houses during this period. I would be surprised if the Tulsa turned out not to be one of their works.
The July 19, 1919, issue of trade journal The Lumber Manufacturer and Dealer reported that architect E.W. Houghton was preparing plans for a theater to be erected at Raymond, Washington.
The journal Engineering and Contracting reported on September 3, 1919, that George Reisner (spelling error) had awarded the contracts for the construction of the Tokay Theater at Raymond.
As no other theaters were being built in Raymond at that time, the Tokay must have been the Houghton project.
The Regent Theatre was expanded in 1919, so it probably opened earlier. The November 12, 1919, issue of trade journal Engineering & Contracting said that Mrs. Gertrude Richtey was investing at least $25,000 to build an addition to her Regent Theatre in Lyons. The addition was to be on Pearl Street, which is the street behind Church Street.
Here is yet another web page with photos of the Brook Theatre. The accompanying text says that the Brook served as the home of the American Theatre Company (Tulsa’s leading theatre group) for fifteen years before being converted into a restaurant. ATC’s web site says the Brook became the company’s second stage in 1979, so fifteen years would be just about right if the restaurant conversion took place in the mid-1990s.
I’ve found two sources saying that the Grand Opera House in Tulsa burned in 1920. The first is this timeline from an Oklahoma genweb page. The second is more thorough, but also problematic as it gives the address of the theater as 117 E. 2nd Street. It is from the October, 1921, issue of the journal Safety Engineering:
Were there two different Grand Theatres in Tulsa, one block apart? The address discrepancy might be an error in the 1921 publication, or perhaps Tulsa renumbered its blocks at some time. The photos from before 1920 and from the much later period when the building had become a furniture store show that the facade of the theater was the same, fire or not. Presumably the building was only gutted. I’ve been unable to find any other sources providing information about the fire, or saying anything about the rebuilding of the Grand Theatre.Three photos of the Thomas Theatre appeared in the January 12, 1912, issue of the professional journal The Ohio Architect, Engineer and Builder. Here is an exterior photo, and here are two interior views of the auditorium.
The name Oklah was used for two theaters in Bartlesville, both opened in 1908. The 1909-1910 edition of Julius Cahn’s Official Theatrical Guide lists the Oklah Theatre with 820 seats; 433 on the main floor, 187 in the balcony, and 200 in the gallery. A biography of oil man Frank Phillips says that the Oklah Theatre opened on September 25, 1908.
Meanwhile, the book Bartlesville,Oklahoma, by Karen Smith Woods, has a photo of an Oklah Air Dome, which the caption says opened on May 3, 1908, and seated some 1500.
The photos of the Liberty and the Odeon at the Oklahoma History web site actually depict two different theaters. Searching on Liberty Bartlesville fetches two photos; one dated ca.1926 showing this building as the Liberty, and one dated ca.1940 showing the same building as the Odeon. Searching on Odeon Bartlesville fetches five photos; the same ca.1940 photo as the Liberty search, plus two interior photos dated ca.1930 (probably of the earlier Odeon) and two exterior shots dated ca.1937 and ca. 1940, both of which depict a different building than the Liberty, but the ca.1937 photo shows the same Odeon sign that was on the Liberty building in the first ca.1940 photo.
Some time around 1940, the name Odeon must have been moved from one theater to another. As the Liberty is the only Bartlesville house listed with the aka Odeon at Cinema Treasures, I don’t know if the first Odeon is still unlisted, or if it is listed under another name but is missing the aka.
tlsloews: The Colonial Theatre is to the right of the big Romanesque style post office building that dominates the photo, but since the photo is dated 1915, it can’t be the Colonial Theatre on Woodward Avenue, which wasn’t built until 1917. Also, Woodward Avenue has always been a much wider thoroughfare than the narrow back street that the Colonial in the photo faces.
It’s an odd little building. The top section is pure Greek Revival, but the lower two floors are Italianate, of a style that was some thirty or forty years out of date by 1917. It looks like it might have been a church that was altered and converted into a theater, with the lower two floors being an addition to a free-standing temple-style building.
I don’t know what theater it is. Cinema Treasures doesn’t list Colonial as an aka for any other Detroit theater, and of course it would have lost the name Colonial by the time this Woodward Avenue house opened in 1917. Either this theater is unlisted, or it’s listed under a later name and missing the aka.
I found a May, 1912, reference to a Colonial Theatre on the northwest corner of Lafayette Avenue (now Lafayette Blvd.) and Shelby Street, which must have been the theater in the photo. The Post Office was on W. Fort Street between Shelby and Washington, and Lafayette was the street behind it. The theater would have been in the 200 block of West Lafayette. I’ve clicked through the the first 100 of the 184 theaters listed for Detroit to see if one of them is in that block, but with no luck, and I think I’m getting carpel tunnel syndrome. Does anybody want to click through the remaining 84? If it isn’t there, it’s unlisted. Of course, it’s possible the house never even operated as a movie theater.
The related web site link no longer works. The Gem Theatre is gone. As told in this weblog post by Kim Harrold, the theater was bought by a developer who promised to promised to repair the roof so there would still be something left of the theater to restore eventually, but instead the building was neglected until it had deteriorated too far to be saved. The Gem Theatre was demolished in February, 2010.
If this theater opened as the Campus in 1914, it didn’t keep the name for long. The August, 1915, issue of professional journal The Architect & Engineer mentioned that the construction firm of Gaspard & Hamilton, builders of the Majestic Theatre in Berkeley, had been dissolved. It must have been the same Majestic Theatre, as the item said that it had been designed by architect W.H. Ratcliffe, Jr..
The Skyview Cruise-In was built in 1948, according to the caption of its picture in the Arcadia Publishing Company book “Lancaster,” by Connie L. Rutter, Sondra Brockway Gartner.