The Simi Drive-In was opened by Metropolitan Theatres in September, 1963. The announcement was published in the September 9 issue of Boxoffice Magazine.
The Fairmount was featured in an ad for the American Seating Company’s Bodiform Theatre Chairs in the June 19, 1948 issue of Boxoffice Magazine. The caption to the photo of the auditorium identified the architect of the theater as George H. Burrows, of Cleveland.
The Theatre Division of the F&Y Building Service apparently designed quite a few theaters in the Ohio Valley. I’ve only been able to find the names of a small handful of them so far, but the company ran an ad featuring the Geauga Theatre in the June 24, 1939, issue of Boxoffice Magazine. One line reads “Go see the Geauga or any of the many other F&Y designed and built theatres.”
The company was operating at least as late as 1959, headed by Leo Yassenoff. He was also interested in the Academy Theatres Circuit, later the Academy-Neff Circuit, run by Frank Yassenoff and then by Milton Yassenoff. It seems likely that theaters built for this circuit during the era would have been designed and built by the family company.
If the Geauga is typical of the quality of F&Y’s design, the company surely qualifies as a significant regional design firm.
The Geauga Theatre was the subject of an article in the June 24, 1939, issue of Boxoffice Magazine, a few months after it opened. The house was built for Mr. L.M. Smith, who was also the owner of the old Chardon Theatre. The design, construction, and outfitting of the Geauga Theatre were all handled by the F&Y Building Service of Columbus, Ohio.
The Art Moderne design featured such amenities as chrome and leatherette furniture in the lobby and rest rooms, velour wall panels in lobby and auditorium, and steel-backed theater seats upholstered in mohair and maroon leather. The exits flanking the stage were surmounted by velour panels featuring decorative oil paintings in black, white, and scarlet, lit by up-lights concealed in troughs.
The facade featured tangerine face brick and buff terra cotta and glass brick. The vestibule had terrazzo flooring. The entire house was air conditioned.
Patsy, there were at least five other walk-in theaters in Ocala, not including the current Regal Hollywood 16 and Ocala Center Six. Various issues of Boxoffice Magazine provide the following information.
The Dixie Theatre opened in 1923, closed about 1941, reopened in 1946. I don’t know how long it operated after that. It had about 400 seats.
The Ritz opened as the Etta Theatre about 1927, in a remodeled building that was formerly a garage. The name Ritz appears in Boxoffice as early as 1938. In 1957, when the street was widened and ten feet were taken off the front of the building, the Ritz got a $90,000 renovation and redecoration. One Boxoffice item said that the name of the Ritz would be changed to the Florida Theatre after the remodeling, but the only reference I can find to a Florida Theatre in Ocala comes from 1975. In fact I can’t find references to either the Ritz or the Florida between 1957 and 1975, so I don’t know of they are the same theater or not.
There was a theater called the Roxy which operated as a black-only house during the era when Ocala’s theaters were segregated. It was on West Broadway. I don’t have opening or closing dates, but it was in operation during at least part of the 1940s.
The Ocala Twin Theatre opened in December of 1971, in the Ocala Shopping Center. I have no details about it, but it might have (and most likely did) become the three-screener called the Ocala Triple Theatre that was closed in 1990 when the operator, Wometco, opened a new multiplex called the Boulevard Six in the same shopping center.
The Boulevard Six itself was later operated by Regal, then bought by SunStar Cinemas in 2001 and renamed the Ocala Center Six, which is now open again after having been shut down for 14 months when it was almost swallowed by a sinkhole in February, 2007.
A luxury house called the Springs was in operation in the 1970s. Originally a single-screen, it had a second auditorium of 350 seats added (new construction, not a split) in early 1975. It was on Silver Springs Boulevard. As the Springs Theatre was operated by ABC Florida State Theatres, it might have been (and probably was) the 900-seat house ABC got permission to build late in 1968.
There was also supposed to have been a second drive-in in or near Ocala, called the Skylark, under construction in June, 1952, and expected to open by mid-July that year.
Anybody who can come up with addresses for any or all of these theaters, please do add them to Cinema Treasures. The Regal and Ocala Center Six should be easy enough to add as their information is on the Internet, but as they are open it’s best of somebody who has actually seen them and can give descriptions adds them.
The Carver was opened in late 1949, according to various items in Boxoffice Magazine that year. The November 19 issue mistakenly stated the location as Ocala, Florida, but a correction was printed in the following issue. The Carver was built by a local celery grower named Charles T. Niblack, and was operated for him by Harry Gordon, formerly of Florida State Theatres.
Like many other southern theaters built for black patrons during the era of segregation, this house was named for African American scientist and inventor George Washington Carver.
I have noticed that the seating capacities Boxoffice gives are sometimes way off. They are probably the least reliable figures the magazine published. Sometimes a photo of an auditorium published with an article about a theater will show that there are obviously many fewer seats than the article itself claims there are. The magazine is very useful for such things as opening and closing dates, though, and a lot of other information.
If its Cinema Treasures page is correct, James Poro’s East Islip Theatre had already been open for a decade when he is supposed to have begun building the mystery theater in Islip itself. I can’t find any evidence that Poro’s theater on Main Street ever opened.
I’ve found that Boxoffice has quite a few misspellings and typos, and sometimes has dumb mistakes, such as items datelined to the wrong location (several instances of Lodi, California, for a Lodi Theatre in Lodi, Ohio, for example), but overall it is pretty reliable. Much of the content appears to have been compiled by the magazine’s copy editors from notes or press releases by theater owners themselves.
The editors probably worked in haste, and many of the notes were probably hand written, accounting for the frequent minor errors. Harry Hart was one of their regional corespondents, though, and did a regular column for a few years, often going out to interview people in the industry, as well as doing the same sort of compiling that the staffers in Hollywood probably did, but for territory with which he was personally familiar, so he was less likely than them to make mistakes. I think he was based in Charlotte.
The new Sun Theatre was opened on June 28, 1946, according to Boxoffice Magazine of July 13 that year. The item said that the new Sun replaced the old theater in Williamston, owned by the same operator, B.W. Montgomery.
The July 20 issue of Boxoffice said “Equipment from their old Sun Theatre was removed to the new house.” It sounds like the old theater might have continued operating up until the time the new one was completed, so would have had a different address.
The July 20 item names the owners as S.A. and R.J. Montgomery. I wonder what became of B.W. during that few weeks? The July 13, 1964, issue of Boxoffice mentions a Dick Montgomery being the operator of the Sun. They had an abundance of Montgomerys in Williamston, I guess.
One of the staffers told Harry that “Annie Get Your Gun” and “Stars in My Crown” had both packed the house, so they must have at least had the projectors running by then.
Taylor: I don’t have an actual copy of the magazine. A scan is currently available online from Issuu. Try a Google search using the terms:
issuu boxoffice “edna, tex”
That will fetch scans of several issues of Boxoffice with items mentioning the Edna Theatre. The scans are not available for download, but you might try contacting Boxoffice Magazine through their own web site to see if they could make CD or printed copies of scans available. I don’t know what the magazine’s long-term intentions are regarding their archives. Some magazines, such as The New Yorker, have put their entire archives onto CD ROMs that can be purchased.
Here’s an item datelined Greene, Iowa, from the May 11, 1957, issue of Boxoffice Magazine: “Mr. and Mrs. Russell Meyers have purchased the theatre building here from Floyd Ramker, local building contractor, and will move the Gamble store to the theatre location as soon as extensive remodeling is completed.”
The 1948 item about the sale to M.W. Long is the only mention of the Black Hawk (as Boxoffice spelled it) I’ve found in the magazine.
The classified ad section of the March 4, 1974, issue of Boxoffice advertises a nameless, 300-seat theater in Lansing, Iowa, for sale, at $17,000.
The last mention of Lansing I’ve found in Boxoffice is this ad from the October 21, 1974, issue: “WANTED TO BUY: Theatre in Iowa. Indoor or indoor-outdoor combo. Prefer community size 7,000 to 10,000. Gene Mueller, Lansing, Iowa”
It was probably a name change, and Film Daily just didn’t get around to purging their list of the old name. Lansing had a population of about 1500, and probably wouldn’t have supported two theaters.
The October 2, 1948, issue of Boxoffice says that M.W. Long had bought the Black hawk Theatre in Lansing, Iowa.
A brief item in the January 15, 1949, issue of Boxoffice says that the Lans Theatre in Lansing was having a new marquee installed. No operator’s name was given, but after that, through the 1950s and as late as 1968, M.W. Long often wrote capsule movie reviews for Boxoffice, and was always listed as the operator of the Lans Theatre.
My guess would be that Long put a new marquee on the Black Hawk and, since signage for four letters cost less than for nine letters, he changed the name.
The September 26, 1966, issue of Boxoffice Magazine said that the Cecil Theatre was being remodeled by Vince Jorgensen, and would be renamed the Park 70 Theatre.
The Six West Theatres opened to on January 15, 1969, according to the announcement in the January 27 issue of Boxoffice Magazine.
The new multiplex was featured in an article in Boxoffice’s issue of April 21, 1969. The total seating capacity of the house was given as 1,590, with the individual units seating 279, 272, 319, 218, 229, and 210 (which adds up to 1,527, so somebody probably made a typo somewhere.)
The world’s first six-screen theater, the Six West was designed by the Kansas City architectural firm Chris Ramos Associates.
The Sparta Drive-In had opened recently, according to the June 28, 1952, issue of Boxoffice Magazine. It was designed by Milwaukee architect Urban Peacock.
The January 21, 1950, issue of Boxoffice said that Mrs. Hazel Payne, owner of the Glen City Theatre building, planned to rebuild the house and was meeting with the insurance company to settle her claim. She added that she had not heard from Fox West Coast about whether or not they wanted to continue operating the Glen City once it was rebuilt.
There are two paragraphs about the Main Theatre in a regional column appearing in the October 21, 1950, issue of Boxoffice. Columnist Harry Hart had visited the theater and talked with various members of the staff. It was definitely open by then.
I think the Main’s building might still be there, at the northwest corner of Cannon and Jackson (801 N. Cannon will fetch it on Google Maps.) In Street View, the building on this corner looks like it was originally art moderne but has been altered. It currently houses a shoe store.
The March 25, 1950, issue of Boxoffice Magazine includes the Edna Theatre in its list of new houses opened the previous year. It gives the cost of the project as $250,000.
I’ve dug up a bit more information about the Colonial Theatre, subject of some discussion above, but there are still some gaps (such as no address and no original opening date) so if anyone has additional information about it, please post it at the Cinema Treasures Colonial Theatre page.
Also, although the Gem Theatre web site says that the YMCA Theatre was destroyed by fire in 1936, the May 8, 1937, issue of Boxoffice Magazine reported that, among the visitors to film row in Charlotte that week, was W.A. Powell of the YMCA Theatre in Kannapolis. Sounds like it was still open.
And then the January 8, 1938, issue of Boxoffice carried an item headed “Kannapolis Fire Costly” which said: “Fire destroyed the YMCA Theatre here recently, originating from causes as yet undetermined. The ‘Y’ and the theatre building were erected as one unit in 1922 by the Cannon Mills at a cost of $500,000.”
I’ve heard that time moves more slowly in the South, so perhaps it was still 1936 in North Carolina when the YMCA burned, but already rolling into 1938 in the rest of the world? But if that is so, what am I to make of the fact that the Cabarrus Genealogical Society tells me the Gem itself was built in 1938? Perhaps time isn’t slower in the South, but simply a bit eccentric?
Or was it the case, as later issues of Boxoffice reported, that it was the Dixie Theatre, not the Gem, which was built to replace the YMCA Theatre? Maybe somebody in Kannapolis could check the archives of the local newspaper to clear up this temporal confusion.
Additionally, from Boxoffice Magazine, February 5, 1938: At Kannapolis, N.C., the Cannon towel interests are erecting a new theatre to replace the YMCA structure, destroyed by fire recently, and in addition are opening a new house for colored trade. These ventures will give Kannapolis four houses, three maintained by the Cannon interests, the fourth, the Colonial, on the outskirts of town, is a pretentious house offering competition from Morris Legendre and associates…."
The Dixie was supposed to open by May, 1938, but a later issue of Boxoffice reveals that a shortage of materials delayed its completion.
Could the “house for colored trade” mentioned in the article have been the Palace?
The December 16, 1974, issue of Boxoffice Magazine said that the Van Croix Theatre was being demolished to make way for a parking lot to serve Flagship Bank of Melbourne. It also said that the theater had been opened in 1925.
The Simi Drive-In was opened by Metropolitan Theatres in September, 1963. The announcement was published in the September 9 issue of Boxoffice Magazine.
The Fairmount was featured in an ad for the American Seating Company’s Bodiform Theatre Chairs in the June 19, 1948 issue of Boxoffice Magazine. The caption to the photo of the auditorium identified the architect of the theater as George H. Burrows, of Cleveland.
The Theatre Division of the F&Y Building Service apparently designed quite a few theaters in the Ohio Valley. I’ve only been able to find the names of a small handful of them so far, but the company ran an ad featuring the Geauga Theatre in the June 24, 1939, issue of Boxoffice Magazine. One line reads “Go see the Geauga or any of the many other F&Y designed and built theatres.”
The company was operating at least as late as 1959, headed by Leo Yassenoff. He was also interested in the Academy Theatres Circuit, later the Academy-Neff Circuit, run by Frank Yassenoff and then by Milton Yassenoff. It seems likely that theaters built for this circuit during the era would have been designed and built by the family company.
If the Geauga is typical of the quality of F&Y’s design, the company surely qualifies as a significant regional design firm.
The Geauga Theatre was the subject of an article in the June 24, 1939, issue of Boxoffice Magazine, a few months after it opened. The house was built for Mr. L.M. Smith, who was also the owner of the old Chardon Theatre. The design, construction, and outfitting of the Geauga Theatre were all handled by the F&Y Building Service of Columbus, Ohio.
The Art Moderne design featured such amenities as chrome and leatherette furniture in the lobby and rest rooms, velour wall panels in lobby and auditorium, and steel-backed theater seats upholstered in mohair and maroon leather. The exits flanking the stage were surmounted by velour panels featuring decorative oil paintings in black, white, and scarlet, lit by up-lights concealed in troughs.
The facade featured tangerine face brick and buff terra cotta and glass brick. The vestibule had terrazzo flooring. The entire house was air conditioned.
Patsy, there were at least five other walk-in theaters in Ocala, not including the current Regal Hollywood 16 and Ocala Center Six. Various issues of Boxoffice Magazine provide the following information.
The Dixie Theatre opened in 1923, closed about 1941, reopened in 1946. I don’t know how long it operated after that. It had about 400 seats.
The Ritz opened as the Etta Theatre about 1927, in a remodeled building that was formerly a garage. The name Ritz appears in Boxoffice as early as 1938. In 1957, when the street was widened and ten feet were taken off the front of the building, the Ritz got a $90,000 renovation and redecoration. One Boxoffice item said that the name of the Ritz would be changed to the Florida Theatre after the remodeling, but the only reference I can find to a Florida Theatre in Ocala comes from 1975. In fact I can’t find references to either the Ritz or the Florida between 1957 and 1975, so I don’t know of they are the same theater or not.
There was a theater called the Roxy which operated as a black-only house during the era when Ocala’s theaters were segregated. It was on West Broadway. I don’t have opening or closing dates, but it was in operation during at least part of the 1940s.
The Ocala Twin Theatre opened in December of 1971, in the Ocala Shopping Center. I have no details about it, but it might have (and most likely did) become the three-screener called the Ocala Triple Theatre that was closed in 1990 when the operator, Wometco, opened a new multiplex called the Boulevard Six in the same shopping center.
The Boulevard Six itself was later operated by Regal, then bought by SunStar Cinemas in 2001 and renamed the Ocala Center Six, which is now open again after having been shut down for 14 months when it was almost swallowed by a sinkhole in February, 2007.
A luxury house called the Springs was in operation in the 1970s. Originally a single-screen, it had a second auditorium of 350 seats added (new construction, not a split) in early 1975. It was on Silver Springs Boulevard. As the Springs Theatre was operated by ABC Florida State Theatres, it might have been (and probably was) the 900-seat house ABC got permission to build late in 1968.
There was also supposed to have been a second drive-in in or near Ocala, called the Skylark, under construction in June, 1952, and expected to open by mid-July that year.
Anybody who can come up with addresses for any or all of these theaters, please do add them to Cinema Treasures. The Regal and Ocala Center Six should be easy enough to add as their information is on the Internet, but as they are open it’s best of somebody who has actually seen them and can give descriptions adds them.
The Carver was opened in late 1949, according to various items in Boxoffice Magazine that year. The November 19 issue mistakenly stated the location as Ocala, Florida, but a correction was printed in the following issue. The Carver was built by a local celery grower named Charles T. Niblack, and was operated for him by Harry Gordon, formerly of Florida State Theatres.
Like many other southern theaters built for black patrons during the era of segregation, this house was named for African American scientist and inventor George Washington Carver.
I have noticed that the seating capacities Boxoffice gives are sometimes way off. They are probably the least reliable figures the magazine published. Sometimes a photo of an auditorium published with an article about a theater will show that there are obviously many fewer seats than the article itself claims there are. The magazine is very useful for such things as opening and closing dates, though, and a lot of other information.
If its Cinema Treasures page is correct, James Poro’s East Islip Theatre had already been open for a decade when he is supposed to have begun building the mystery theater in Islip itself. I can’t find any evidence that Poro’s theater on Main Street ever opened.
I’ve found that Boxoffice has quite a few misspellings and typos, and sometimes has dumb mistakes, such as items datelined to the wrong location (several instances of Lodi, California, for a Lodi Theatre in Lodi, Ohio, for example), but overall it is pretty reliable. Much of the content appears to have been compiled by the magazine’s copy editors from notes or press releases by theater owners themselves.
The editors probably worked in haste, and many of the notes were probably hand written, accounting for the frequent minor errors. Harry Hart was one of their regional corespondents, though, and did a regular column for a few years, often going out to interview people in the industry, as well as doing the same sort of compiling that the staffers in Hollywood probably did, but for territory with which he was personally familiar, so he was less likely than them to make mistakes. I think he was based in Charlotte.
The new Sun Theatre was opened on June 28, 1946, according to Boxoffice Magazine of July 13 that year. The item said that the new Sun replaced the old theater in Williamston, owned by the same operator, B.W. Montgomery.
The July 20 issue of Boxoffice said “Equipment from their old Sun Theatre was removed to the new house.” It sounds like the old theater might have continued operating up until the time the new one was completed, so would have had a different address.
The July 20 item names the owners as S.A. and R.J. Montgomery. I wonder what became of B.W. during that few weeks? The July 13, 1964, issue of Boxoffice mentions a Dick Montgomery being the operator of the Sun. They had an abundance of Montgomerys in Williamston, I guess.
One of the staffers told Harry that “Annie Get Your Gun” and “Stars in My Crown” had both packed the house, so they must have at least had the projectors running by then.
Taylor: I don’t have an actual copy of the magazine. A scan is currently available online from Issuu. Try a Google search using the terms:
issuu boxoffice “edna, tex”
That will fetch scans of several issues of Boxoffice with items mentioning the Edna Theatre. The scans are not available for download, but you might try contacting Boxoffice Magazine through their own web site to see if they could make CD or printed copies of scans available. I don’t know what the magazine’s long-term intentions are regarding their archives. Some magazines, such as The New Yorker, have put their entire archives onto CD ROMs that can be purchased.
Here’s an item datelined Greene, Iowa, from the May 11, 1957, issue of Boxoffice Magazine: “Mr. and Mrs. Russell Meyers have purchased the theatre building here from Floyd Ramker, local building contractor, and will move the Gamble store to the theatre location as soon as extensive remodeling is completed.”
The 1948 item about the sale to M.W. Long is the only mention of the Black Hawk (as Boxoffice spelled it) I’ve found in the magazine.
The classified ad section of the March 4, 1974, issue of Boxoffice advertises a nameless, 300-seat theater in Lansing, Iowa, for sale, at $17,000.
The last mention of Lansing I’ve found in Boxoffice is this ad from the October 21, 1974, issue: “WANTED TO BUY: Theatre in Iowa. Indoor or indoor-outdoor combo. Prefer community size 7,000 to 10,000. Gene Mueller, Lansing, Iowa”
It was probably a name change, and Film Daily just didn’t get around to purging their list of the old name. Lansing had a population of about 1500, and probably wouldn’t have supported two theaters.
The October 2, 1948, issue of Boxoffice says that M.W. Long had bought the Black hawk Theatre in Lansing, Iowa.
A brief item in the January 15, 1949, issue of Boxoffice says that the Lans Theatre in Lansing was having a new marquee installed. No operator’s name was given, but after that, through the 1950s and as late as 1968, M.W. Long often wrote capsule movie reviews for Boxoffice, and was always listed as the operator of the Lans Theatre.
My guess would be that Long put a new marquee on the Black Hawk and, since signage for four letters cost less than for nine letters, he changed the name.
The September 26, 1966, issue of Boxoffice Magazine said that the Cecil Theatre was being remodeled by Vince Jorgensen, and would be renamed the Park 70 Theatre.
The Six West Theatres opened to on January 15, 1969, according to the announcement in the January 27 issue of Boxoffice Magazine.
The new multiplex was featured in an article in Boxoffice’s issue of April 21, 1969. The total seating capacity of the house was given as 1,590, with the individual units seating 279, 272, 319, 218, 229, and 210 (which adds up to 1,527, so somebody probably made a typo somewhere.)
The world’s first six-screen theater, the Six West was designed by the Kansas City architectural firm Chris Ramos Associates.
The Sparta Drive-In had opened recently, according to the June 28, 1952, issue of Boxoffice Magazine. It was designed by Milwaukee architect Urban Peacock.
The January 21, 1950, issue of Boxoffice said that Mrs. Hazel Payne, owner of the Glen City Theatre building, planned to rebuild the house and was meeting with the insurance company to settle her claim. She added that she had not heard from Fox West Coast about whether or not they wanted to continue operating the Glen City once it was rebuilt.
Pacific’s Rosecrans Drive-In opened July 1, 1954, according to Boxoffice Magazine’s issue of July 10 that year.
There are two paragraphs about the Main Theatre in a regional column appearing in the October 21, 1950, issue of Boxoffice. Columnist Harry Hart had visited the theater and talked with various members of the staff. It was definitely open by then.
I think the Main’s building might still be there, at the northwest corner of Cannon and Jackson (801 N. Cannon will fetch it on Google Maps.) In Street View, the building on this corner looks like it was originally art moderne but has been altered. It currently houses a shoe store.
The March 25, 1950, issue of Boxoffice Magazine includes the Edna Theatre in its list of new houses opened the previous year. It gives the cost of the project as $250,000.
I’ve dug up a bit more information about the Colonial Theatre, subject of some discussion above, but there are still some gaps (such as no address and no original opening date) so if anyone has additional information about it, please post it at the Cinema Treasures Colonial Theatre page.
Also, although the Gem Theatre web site says that the YMCA Theatre was destroyed by fire in 1936, the May 8, 1937, issue of Boxoffice Magazine reported that, among the visitors to film row in Charlotte that week, was W.A. Powell of the YMCA Theatre in Kannapolis. Sounds like it was still open.
And then the January 8, 1938, issue of Boxoffice carried an item headed “Kannapolis Fire Costly” which said: “Fire destroyed the YMCA Theatre here recently, originating from causes as yet undetermined. The ‘Y’ and the theatre building were erected as one unit in 1922 by the Cannon Mills at a cost of $500,000.”
I’ve heard that time moves more slowly in the South, so perhaps it was still 1936 in North Carolina when the YMCA burned, but already rolling into 1938 in the rest of the world? But if that is so, what am I to make of the fact that the Cabarrus Genealogical Society tells me the Gem itself was built in 1938? Perhaps time isn’t slower in the South, but simply a bit eccentric?
Or was it the case, as later issues of Boxoffice reported, that it was the Dixie Theatre, not the Gem, which was built to replace the YMCA Theatre? Maybe somebody in Kannapolis could check the archives of the local newspaper to clear up this temporal confusion.
Additionally, from Boxoffice Magazine, February 5, 1938: At Kannapolis, N.C., the Cannon towel interests are erecting a new theatre to replace the YMCA structure, destroyed by fire recently, and in addition are opening a new house for colored trade. These ventures will give Kannapolis four houses, three maintained by the Cannon interests, the fourth, the Colonial, on the outskirts of town, is a pretentious house offering competition from Morris Legendre and associates…."
The Dixie was supposed to open by May, 1938, but a later issue of Boxoffice reveals that a shortage of materials delayed its completion.
Could the “house for colored trade” mentioned in the article have been the Palace?
The December 16, 1974, issue of Boxoffice Magazine said that the Van Croix Theatre was being demolished to make way for a parking lot to serve Flagship Bank of Melbourne. It also said that the theater had been opened in 1925.