I was never able to track down a scrap of information about this place. I don’t think it was ever a movie theater, unless it was a porn house. I certainly never saw it listed in the L.A. Times.
The Vernon Theatre was also listed in the 1929 City Directory, but hadn’t been listed in the 1923 edition. By 1956 it was no longer being listed. The assessor’s office says that the small apartment building now on this lot was built in 1997.
The Star Theatre was still listed in the 1929 city directory, but was not listed in the 1936 directory or later. The Assessor’s office still lists the same 1910 building at 2710 S. San Pedro, so it hasn’t been demolished in the last couple of years.
The 1915 directory doesn’t list the Star, or any other theater, at this address, though, so unless the theater happened to be temporarily closed that year, or just got left out of the directory, the building was most likely built for another purpose in 1910 and then converted into a theater some time between 1915 and 1923.
It turns out I do remember having seen this theater, but not while it was still in operation. I remember that a few times in the late 1950s and early 1960s I passed by a former theater occupied by a wholesale school supply store. For the last few years I’ve been trying to remember exactly where it was, and never made the connection with the San Carlos, but the School Days Equipment Company is listed at the San Carlos’s address in the Los Angeles City Directory for 1956.
Some of the city directories list the address of the Playhouse Theatre as 1234 ½ W. 7th. It’s listed there in the 1942 directory, when 1236 is listed as a restaurant. It’s still listed in the 1956 directory, but is gone by 1960. That year, the Irwin Jewelery Company is listed at 1232, and the Grand Fir Quality Coffee Shop is at 1238, with nothing listed in between. The theater might have been vacant that year. A laundry and dry cleaners shop was listed at 1236 in 1961, and something called the 1-2-3-4 Club was at 1234.
Bing Maps provides a decent bird’s-eye view of this building, and the roof of the auditorium can be easily seen. The photo doesn’t get close enough to the facade to make the signage over the former theater’s entrance readable, though.
All of the buildings on this block are old and low-rise. There’s been a lot of rebuilding in the neighborhood in recent years, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this block got redeveloped when the real estate market picks up again. Maybe somebody from the area could get some pictures of the ex-Playhouse before it really is gone forever.
This entry is duplicated at this page, where Lost Memory said: “A Reuter theater organ opus 236 size 2/3 was installed in the Florence Theater in 1927 at a cost of $3,500.”
The Fuji Kan was demolished by 1964, which is the original construction date of the structure currently on the site according to the L.A. County Assessor’s office. I have a vague memory of having seen the old building about 1962 or 1963, and I’m pretty sure the theater was still in operation at that time.
The Garden Theatre probably should be listed as being in East Los Angeles, rather than Los Angeles, as it is well east of Indiana Street, the official boundary between them.
The L.A. County Assessor says that the building at 2415 S. Central was built in 1953. The project north of it, which has a parking lot where the Gayety Theatre was, is even newer, having been built in 1989. The Gayety is gone.
Although some of the eastern parts of the City of Los Angeles, and the entire unincorporated district of East Los Angeles, plus the unincorporated districts of City Terrace and Belvedere, are all referred to colloquially as East L.A., there is a clear official boundary between the city and county areas. The Joy Theatre was well west of Indiana Street, and thus located within the city limits of Los Angeles, not in the unincorporated community of East Los Angeles, which lies entirely east of Indiana Street.
None of the Boxoffice links at Issuu are working tonight. I think the magazine might have removed its archive from the site.
When I first found the Boxoffice archive on Issuu, I didnt link to any of the articles I cited. This was because I didn’t know who had uploaded them, so I feared they might be removed at any time. But after I found that the publishers of Boxoffice had uploaded the archive there themselves I began linking, thinking they would probably remain available. It looks like I might have been wrong.
I hope it’s just a temporary glitch, but everything else at Issuu appears to be working fine, so it does seem likely that Boxoffice has changed its mind about making its archive available online. That would be too bad. It was a useful resource, and I certainly don’t have anything else to compare with it. Plus, Cinema Treasures will now have another goatload of dead links, a large percentage of which I put there.
Here’s something odd. I went to Google maps search page and entered the address 1002 W. 9th St., Los Angeles, CA, and it found the right location downtown. I clicked on the map link above on this page, and it fetched 1002 W. 9th St. in the San Pedro District of Los Angeles, some 20 miles south of downtown. Perhaps if the zip code 90015 was added to the address above, Google Maps would find the correct location.
Still needed is the aka Gore’s Theatre, by the way. Also interesting to note is that the new Regal Cinemas L.A. Live Stadium 14 is only a block south of the former location of the Georgia Theatre. I wonder what Mike Gore would think of that monsterplex?
Magic Lantern is correct. This building is not demolished. The L.A. County Assessor lists this lot as 2928 Vermont, and says that it is occupied by a building of 7693 square feet, erected in 1912 but with an effective construction date of 1930. I thought that 1930 might be the year the building was converted into a theater, but La Tosca Theatre is listed at this address in earlier city directories.
In the 1923 City Directory, 2930 S Vermont is listed as the location of “Lustig & Gore (B.H. Lustig, Michl Gore) motion pictures….” and is listed again as the location of the La Tosca Theatre.
In the 1915 City Directory, the address belongs to “Photoplay Theatre motion pictures….” It looks as though was probably a theater in this building from the time it was built in 1912.
A September 26, 1953, Boxoffice item about the retirement of W. B. Small said that he had opened the Victoria Theatre in partnership with Judge Henry Titus in 1923.
Here is a photo of the entrance to Loew’s East on the cover of the Modern Theatre section of Boxoffice, January 16, 1967. The description (on the following page) says that the Loew’s West in Cleveland was opened the same day as Loew’s East.
Boxoffice of July 10, 1943, said that the Regent at Elmira had been dismantled. The last operator had been Howard Shedewitz. Boxoffice of February 30 that same year had run an obituary for Frank H. Tooker which said that he had built the Regent, but it didn’t mention the year it had opened.
The Columbia Theatre is listed at this address in the 1922 Flint City Directory. It’s possible the theater was rebuilt in 1930, but so far I’ve been unable to find anything indicating that this happened.
Boxoffice of June 2, 1956, reported that the Columbia Theatre had been closed, but the September 1 issue that same year reported that the house had been reopened by Lawrence Leon and Jay Walker. Their venture lasted less than a year. Boxoffice of August 10, 1957, said that the Columbia had closed again. I haven’t found the theater mentioned in any later issues of the magazine.
Boxoffice of April 17, 1937, said that Lester Matt’s Della Theatre was scheduled to open on May 1, but the May 8 issue reported that the formal opening had taken place “last Wednesday night,” which would have been May 5.
The 1916 Cheboygan City Directory lists the Liberty Theatre at 417 N. Main Street. I’ve been unable to determine if the same building that the Liberty occupied survived to house the Gold Front, or if it was replaced sometime during the decades between 1916 and 1950. As I said above it doesn’t look like a 1950 vintage building. Perhaps it was a theater converted to retail space and then back into a theater.
I’m pretty sure I’ve accounted for all the theaters operating in Cheboygan during the 1940s, and none were at this location. Missing from Cinema Treasures as of today are the Silver Theatre, closed in 1956, and the Ritz, opened in 1938 and still operating at lest as late as 1956.
Boxoffice of August 1, 1977, had an item about Marjorie Malin, then operator of the Lura Theatre. It mentioned that her father, W. E. Malin, had opened the theater in 1916.
The Lura Theatre is mentioned in many issues of Boxoffice, and was long operated by Marjorie Malin’s mother, Lura Malin. She is first mentioned as operator of the theater in 1950. Prior to that, W. E. Milin was the operator, so he might have died about that time, though I can’t find a death notice for him in Boxoffice. A brief notice of Lura Malin’s death was published in Boxoffice of February 26, 1968.
A single line in Boxoffice of October, 1982, read: “The Lura Theatre, Augusta, recently closed.” I’ve found nolater mentions of it.
Boxoffice of July 3, 1943, said that Roy V. Starling’s new Wings Theatre had opened the previous Saturday night. The theater was in a converted store building, though Boxoffice said the building was “practically new” at the time.
Boxoffice of March 22, 1965, said that the Wings Theatre had been condemned by the city, and that the owners intended to demolish the building and erect a new theater on the same site. I’ve been unable to discover from Boxoffice if the new theater was ever built.
The web site Lost Memory linked to above says that Gordon Smith designed this theater. Smith was a partner in the firm of Smith, Pitts & MacPherson, with DeHaven Pitts and Charles T. MacPherson. The slightly earlier It Theatre in Mathis, Texas, another quonset-type house, is attributed to DeHaven Pitts.
I was never able to track down a scrap of information about this place. I don’t think it was ever a movie theater, unless it was a porn house. I certainly never saw it listed in the L.A. Times.
The Vernon Theatre was also listed in the 1929 City Directory, but hadn’t been listed in the 1923 edition. By 1956 it was no longer being listed. The assessor’s office says that the small apartment building now on this lot was built in 1997.
The Star Theatre was still listed in the 1929 city directory, but was not listed in the 1936 directory or later. The Assessor’s office still lists the same 1910 building at 2710 S. San Pedro, so it hasn’t been demolished in the last couple of years.
The 1915 directory doesn’t list the Star, or any other theater, at this address, though, so unless the theater happened to be temporarily closed that year, or just got left out of the directory, the building was most likely built for another purpose in 1910 and then converted into a theater some time between 1915 and 1923.
It turns out I do remember having seen this theater, but not while it was still in operation. I remember that a few times in the late 1950s and early 1960s I passed by a former theater occupied by a wholesale school supply store. For the last few years I’ve been trying to remember exactly where it was, and never made the connection with the San Carlos, but the School Days Equipment Company is listed at the San Carlos’s address in the Los Angeles City Directory for 1956.
Some of the city directories list the address of the Playhouse Theatre as 1234 ½ W. 7th. It’s listed there in the 1942 directory, when 1236 is listed as a restaurant. It’s still listed in the 1956 directory, but is gone by 1960. That year, the Irwin Jewelery Company is listed at 1232, and the Grand Fir Quality Coffee Shop is at 1238, with nothing listed in between. The theater might have been vacant that year. A laundry and dry cleaners shop was listed at 1236 in 1961, and something called the 1-2-3-4 Club was at 1234.
Bing Maps provides a decent bird’s-eye view of this building, and the roof of the auditorium can be easily seen. The photo doesn’t get close enough to the facade to make the signage over the former theater’s entrance readable, though.
All of the buildings on this block are old and low-rise. There’s been a lot of rebuilding in the neighborhood in recent years, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this block got redeveloped when the real estate market picks up again. Maybe somebody from the area could get some pictures of the ex-Playhouse before it really is gone forever.
This entry is duplicated at this page, where Lost Memory said: “A Reuter theater organ opus 236 size 2/3 was installed in the Florence Theater in 1927 at a cost of $3,500.”
The Fuji Kan was demolished by 1964, which is the original construction date of the structure currently on the site according to the L.A. County Assessor’s office. I have a vague memory of having seen the old building about 1962 or 1963, and I’m pretty sure the theater was still in operation at that time.
The Garden Theatre probably should be listed as being in East Los Angeles, rather than Los Angeles, as it is well east of Indiana Street, the official boundary between them.
The L.A. County Assessor says that the building at 2415 S. Central was built in 1953. The project north of it, which has a parking lot where the Gayety Theatre was, is even newer, having been built in 1989. The Gayety is gone.
Although some of the eastern parts of the City of Los Angeles, and the entire unincorporated district of East Los Angeles, plus the unincorporated districts of City Terrace and Belvedere, are all referred to colloquially as East L.A., there is a clear official boundary between the city and county areas. The Joy Theatre was well west of Indiana Street, and thus located within the city limits of Los Angeles, not in the unincorporated community of East Los Angeles, which lies entirely east of Indiana Street.
None of the Boxoffice links at Issuu are working tonight. I think the magazine might have removed its archive from the site.
When I first found the Boxoffice archive on Issuu, I didnt link to any of the articles I cited. This was because I didn’t know who had uploaded them, so I feared they might be removed at any time. But after I found that the publishers of Boxoffice had uploaded the archive there themselves I began linking, thinking they would probably remain available. It looks like I might have been wrong.
I hope it’s just a temporary glitch, but everything else at Issuu appears to be working fine, so it does seem likely that Boxoffice has changed its mind about making its archive available online. That would be too bad. It was a useful resource, and I certainly don’t have anything else to compare with it. Plus, Cinema Treasures will now have another goatload of dead links, a large percentage of which I put there.
Here’s something odd. I went to Google maps search page and entered the address 1002 W. 9th St., Los Angeles, CA, and it found the right location downtown. I clicked on the map link above on this page, and it fetched 1002 W. 9th St. in the San Pedro District of Los Angeles, some 20 miles south of downtown. Perhaps if the zip code 90015 was added to the address above, Google Maps would find the correct location.
Still needed is the aka Gore’s Theatre, by the way. Also interesting to note is that the new Regal Cinemas L.A. Live Stadium 14 is only a block south of the former location of the Georgia Theatre. I wonder what Mike Gore would think of that monsterplex?
Magic Lantern is correct. This building is not demolished. The L.A. County Assessor lists this lot as 2928 Vermont, and says that it is occupied by a building of 7693 square feet, erected in 1912 but with an effective construction date of 1930. I thought that 1930 might be the year the building was converted into a theater, but La Tosca Theatre is listed at this address in earlier city directories.
In the 1923 City Directory, 2930 S Vermont is listed as the location of “Lustig & Gore (B.H. Lustig, Michl Gore) motion pictures….” and is listed again as the location of the La Tosca Theatre.
In the 1915 City Directory, the address belongs to “Photoplay Theatre motion pictures….” It looks as though was probably a theater in this building from the time it was built in 1912.
A September 26, 1953, Boxoffice item about the retirement of W. B. Small said that he had opened the Victoria Theatre in partnership with Judge Henry Titus in 1923.
Here is a photo of the entrance to Loew’s East on the cover of the Modern Theatre section of Boxoffice, January 16, 1967. The description (on the following page) says that the Loew’s West in Cleveland was opened the same day as Loew’s East.
Boxoffice of July 10, 1943, said that the Regent at Elmira had been dismantled. The last operator had been Howard Shedewitz. Boxoffice of February 30 that same year had run an obituary for Frank H. Tooker which said that he had built the Regent, but it didn’t mention the year it had opened.
The Columbia Theatre is listed at this address in the 1922 Flint City Directory. It’s possible the theater was rebuilt in 1930, but so far I’ve been unable to find anything indicating that this happened.
Boxoffice of June 2, 1956, reported that the Columbia Theatre had been closed, but the September 1 issue that same year reported that the house had been reopened by Lawrence Leon and Jay Walker. Their venture lasted less than a year. Boxoffice of August 10, 1957, said that the Columbia had closed again. I haven’t found the theater mentioned in any later issues of the magazine.
The Star Theatre is listed at this address in the 1922 Flint City Directory.
Boxoffice of April 17, 1937, said that Lester Matt’s Della Theatre was scheduled to open on May 1, but the May 8 issue reported that the formal opening had taken place “last Wednesday night,” which would have been May 5.
The 1916 Cheboygan City Directory lists the Liberty Theatre at 417 N. Main Street. I’ve been unable to determine if the same building that the Liberty occupied survived to house the Gold Front, or if it was replaced sometime during the decades between 1916 and 1950. As I said above it doesn’t look like a 1950 vintage building. Perhaps it was a theater converted to retail space and then back into a theater.
I’m pretty sure I’ve accounted for all the theaters operating in Cheboygan during the 1940s, and none were at this location. Missing from Cinema Treasures as of today are the Silver Theatre, closed in 1956, and the Ritz, opened in 1938 and still operating at lest as late as 1956.
I think it must have been Disney’s animated version of Robin Hood that opened the Merrimon Twins. 1973 was the year it was released.
I finally found an item about W. E. Malin’s death, in Boxoffice of March 11, 1950. He was killed in an automobile accident on March 8 that year.
Boxoffice of August 1, 1977, had an item about Marjorie Malin, then operator of the Lura Theatre. It mentioned that her father, W. E. Malin, had opened the theater in 1916.
The Lura Theatre is mentioned in many issues of Boxoffice, and was long operated by Marjorie Malin’s mother, Lura Malin. She is first mentioned as operator of the theater in 1950. Prior to that, W. E. Milin was the operator, so he might have died about that time, though I can’t find a death notice for him in Boxoffice. A brief notice of Lura Malin’s death was published in Boxoffice of February 26, 1968.
A single line in Boxoffice of October, 1982, read: “The Lura Theatre, Augusta, recently closed.” I’ve found nolater mentions of it.
Boxoffice of July 3, 1943, said that Roy V. Starling’s new Wings Theatre had opened the previous Saturday night. The theater was in a converted store building, though Boxoffice said the building was “practically new” at the time.
Boxoffice of March 22, 1965, said that the Wings Theatre had been condemned by the city, and that the owners intended to demolish the building and erect a new theater on the same site. I’ve been unable to discover from Boxoffice if the new theater was ever built.
The web site Lost Memory linked to above says that Gordon Smith designed this theater. Smith was a partner in the firm of Smith, Pitts & MacPherson, with DeHaven Pitts and Charles T. MacPherson. The slightly earlier It Theatre in Mathis, Texas, another quonset-type house, is attributed to DeHaven Pitts.