The crest is interesting, but I don’t know of any specific connection between it and Pacific States Theaters. It might have been meant simply as decoration, and perhaps was copied from an actual historic coat of arms. I’m not too familiar with heraldry myself, but there are some web sites about it, such as Heraldry on the Internet, and you might find some information there to help you decipher the meanings of the various symbols on the Miramar’s crest.
I’ve found only a couple of references to Pacific States Theaters on-line. A few scanned cards at the L.A. Public Library’s California Index mention a company called Warner Brothers Pacific States Theatres, in connection with the Warner Brothers Theater in Sacramento and the Forum Theater in Los Angeles, and there is one card which mentions Pacific States Theatres (no mention of Warner Bros. in this instance) as the owners of the La Mar Theater in Manhattan Beach. All these mentions are from the 1930’s, and all cite issues of the trade publication Southwest Builder & Contractor.
Mark Campbell: The current proscenium of the Tower is not where the CinemaScope screen was located. The wide screen was placed several feet in front of the old screen’s location, and surrounded with drapes that closed off the stage end of the theater. This was done in the early 1950’s. The 1965 renovation didn’t involve any major structural changes to the auditorium, though some canvas murals that had been in the ceiling dome were removed and the wall murals were covered over.
Raad: While there’s a lot of information on-line about S. Charles Lee, information about L.A. Smith and Clifford Balch is still rare. I’ve actually never heard anything about a connection between Lee and Smith before, but there’s so little information available about Smith that I’m unable to either confirm or deny that such a connection existed.
As for the photograph, the image posting feature at Cinema Treasures hasn’t been available for a couple of years. I don’t know when they’ll get it fixed. In the meantime, the best way to share a picture is to post it on another web site, such as Webshots or Photobucket (both offer limited free image hosting) and then post a link to the picture here.
Raadg: I’m wondering about the source of your information on the relationship between L.A. Smith and S. Charles Lee. Lee was born in 1899, studied in Chicago, worked there in the offices of Rapp & Rapp, and only arrived in Los Angeles in 1922, just a couple of years before the much older Lewis Smith died. I can imagine the relationship the other way around, but it’s difficult to picture an established architect being mentored by a kid in his twenties.
This page at the web site of the National Trust for Historic Preservation has an article from 2002 which features a picture showing the water damage in the auditorium of the Capitol Theatre.
A minor point (and not relevant to the theatre discussion), but if Tim Lucas is still around, someone might let him know that he was paying six bits), not three bits, for his movie tickets. A quarter was two bits, and thus the once-common phrase “two-bit grind house” arose to describe theatres showing triple features all day and night for a quarter.
ziggy: I was hoping that somebody would make it to one of the Lyric Opera’s performances and post about it here. What sort of seat were you able to get at the last minute? Did you notice if they opened the second balcony or not? How are the acoustics for a live performance? I’ve only ever been there for movies, and I’ve always wondered if the theatre sounds as good as it looks.
On a recent visit to the official web site of the Los Angeles Theatre, when I clicked on the “Other Locations” link at the top of the page, I saw that the State Theatre was listed, along with the William Fox Building. Apparently, these two properties have been added to the holdings of Michael Delijani’s Delson Investment Company. As the Delson Company has been doing an excellent job with the restoration of the Los Angeles Theatre, and has plans to restore the Palace Theatre as well, this seems a very hopeful sign for the State Theatre.
The web site of the Cooper Union’s School of Architecture has an interesting page about the 42nd Street development of which the former Liberty Theatre is now a part.
The architectural firm which designed the AMC Empire 25 and the adaptation of the Eltinge Theatre as its entrance and lobby was Gould Evans Associates, the Lawrence, Kansas based firm which has designed the majority of AMC’s recent megaplex theatres.
Here is an interesting page about Forest City Ratner’s 42nd Street development, at the Cooper Union School of Architecture’s web site. It gives a good description of the way this complex development is put together.
ELS Architecture, the site of the firm that did the restoration. Click on “Portfolio” then “Entertainment/Arts” then “California Theatre.” Requires flash.
One of the theatres in Lindsay was built in 1933, to replace an earlier theatre on the site which had burned. According to an article in Southwest Builder & Contractor of April 28, 1933, the architect of the new building was Albert Schroepfer of San Francisco. No address was given for the theatre, though.
Whether the theatre in the article was this one or the Grove, down the street, is moot, but I’m leaning toward this one, as this photograph of the Grove shows a side wall that looks as though it was built of concrete block, which would suggest a more recent date of construction than 1933- perhaps the 1950’s, when concrete block construction became quite common. Also, the offset entrance and the angled marquee have a very 1950’s look.
The Lindsay Community Theatre, despite recent renovations, simply looks like an older building, of the sort that would have been built in the 1930’s, with a centered entrance, tile trim, and a balcony. If someone could find the opening date of either or both theatres, we could be certain which was which.
I see the source of the confusion over the Earle Theatre’s architect. It was the Warner Theatre in Washington, D.C., opened in 1924 as the Earle Theatre, that was designed by Baltimore architect John J. Zink.
The Emporis Buildings web site (usually pretty reliable) lists both C. Howard Crane and the firm of Zink, Adkins & Craycroft as architects of the Warner.
Dennis, Cinema Treasures didn’t send me an e-mail notification of your last comment, so I didn’t find out it was here until tonight. I’ve been refreshing my memory of the entries for Alhambra’s theatres so I can ask questions about them of the members of classmates.com’s Alhambra High School contingent (Classmates recently re-opened their message boards to posting by non-paying members of the site.) Although I went to Mark Keppel High School, members can use the boards for any of the schools on the site.
Since my last post, I’ve found a couple of old pictures of Alhambra on the web, and one of them shows the corner of Garfield and Main in the 1920’s. It turns out that the Owl drug store was in the three story building on the northeast corner of Garfield and Main, so the Thrifty must have been in the one story building on the northwest corner. I think I was momentarily confused about their relative positions because the Owl Drug Store at the corner of Fair Oaks and Colorado in Pasadena was on the northwest corner of that intersection.
Also, re-reading my comments above, I don’t think I answered your question about where I lived in those days. It was in the south end of South San Gabriel, almost into Potrero Heights. When the wind was in the south, we could smell the oil wells in the Montebello Hills.
The Argus Theatre was designed by Los Angeles architect A.L.Valk. It was a conversion and expansion of an existing retail building, and was announced in the March 20, 1913 issue of Builder & Contractor magazine.
Arthur Lawrence Valk was referred to as a “…motion picture specialist….” in an article in the October 11, 1913 issue of Southwest Contractor and Manufacturer magazine, at the time he closed his office and joined in a partnership with his father, architect Lawrence Bolton Valk.
The Fox Figueroa Theatre was built in 1925. The architect was W.S. Hebbard. The theatre was mentioned in issues of the magazine Southwest Builder & Contractor of ½/25, 2/27/25, and 12/11/25. William Sterling Hebbard (1868-1930) was a San Diego architect, who sometimes worked in partnership with Irving Gill.
The announcement of the UC Theatre was made in the October, 1916 issue of Architect & Engineer magazine. The owners were given as Messrs. Bradshaw and Williamson. The projected cost of the theatre was $100,000. The architect was James W. Plachek (1893-1948.)
Quite a few theatres west of the Mississippi had been showing talking pictures for quite a while before the Granada opened, since the first all-talking movies were released in 1928. I suspect that the claim for the Granada is that it was the first theatre west of the Mississippi to be newly built and opened with a sound system already in place.
Radd,
The crest is interesting, but I don’t know of any specific connection between it and Pacific States Theaters. It might have been meant simply as decoration, and perhaps was copied from an actual historic coat of arms. I’m not too familiar with heraldry myself, but there are some web sites about it, such as Heraldry on the Internet, and you might find some information there to help you decipher the meanings of the various symbols on the Miramar’s crest.
I’ve found only a couple of references to Pacific States Theaters on-line. A few scanned cards at the L.A. Public Library’s California Index mention a company called Warner Brothers Pacific States Theatres, in connection with the Warner Brothers Theater in Sacramento and the Forum Theater in Los Angeles, and there is one card which mentions Pacific States Theatres (no mention of Warner Bros. in this instance) as the owners of the La Mar Theater in Manhattan Beach. All these mentions are from the 1930’s, and all cite issues of the trade publication Southwest Builder & Contractor.
Plans for construction of the Starland Theatre were announced in the Los Angeles Times issue of September 22, 1912.
The demolition of the theatre was announced in the July 25, 1968 issue of the Lincoln Heights Bulletin-News.
Mark Campbell: The current proscenium of the Tower is not where the CinemaScope screen was located. The wide screen was placed several feet in front of the old screen’s location, and surrounded with drapes that closed off the stage end of the theater. This was done in the early 1950’s. The 1965 renovation didn’t involve any major structural changes to the auditorium, though some canvas murals that had been in the ceiling dome were removed and the wall murals were covered over.
Raad: While there’s a lot of information on-line about S. Charles Lee, information about L.A. Smith and Clifford Balch is still rare. I’ve actually never heard anything about a connection between Lee and Smith before, but there’s so little information available about Smith that I’m unable to either confirm or deny that such a connection existed.
As for the photograph, the image posting feature at Cinema Treasures hasn’t been available for a couple of years. I don’t know when they’ll get it fixed. In the meantime, the best way to share a picture is to post it on another web site, such as Webshots or Photobucket (both offer limited free image hosting) and then post a link to the picture here.
Raadg: I’m wondering about the source of your information on the relationship between L.A. Smith and S. Charles Lee. Lee was born in 1899, studied in Chicago, worked there in the offices of Rapp & Rapp, and only arrived in Los Angeles in 1922, just a couple of years before the much older Lewis Smith died. I can imagine the relationship the other way around, but it’s difficult to picture an established architect being mentored by a kid in his twenties.
The architect of the Bellevue was Henry Carl Messerschmidt, who also designed the Lee Theater, now called the Grace Street Theater.
The Henrico Theatre last showed a movie in 1996, according to this 2002 article about the attempted renovation of the theatre.
The Henrico Theatre was designed by Richmond architect Edward Sinnott Sr.
The original architect of the 1912 Moolah Temple was Ernest Helfensteller.
Plans for the restoration were by Trivers & Associates, and interior design was by Kevin Kerwin, AIA, of HKW Architects, and by Checkmate Design.
This page at the web site of the National Trust for Historic Preservation has an article from 2002 which features a picture showing the water damage in the auditorium of the Capitol Theatre.
A minor point (and not relevant to the theatre discussion), but if Tim Lucas is still around, someone might let him know that he was paying six bits), not three bits, for his movie tickets. A quarter was two bits, and thus the once-common phrase “two-bit grind house” arose to describe theatres showing triple features all day and night for a quarter.
The No Nothing Cinema has been reborn in another location as the New Nothing Cinema.
I’m glad to see that the No Nothing Cinema has been reborn in a new location.
ziggy: I was hoping that somebody would make it to one of the Lyric Opera’s performances and post about it here. What sort of seat were you able to get at the last minute? Did you notice if they opened the second balcony or not? How are the acoustics for a live performance? I’ve only ever been there for movies, and I’ve always wondered if the theatre sounds as good as it looks.
On a recent visit to the official web site of the Los Angeles Theatre, when I clicked on the “Other Locations” link at the top of the page, I saw that the State Theatre was listed, along with the William Fox Building. Apparently, these two properties have been added to the holdings of Michael Delijani’s Delson Investment Company. As the Delson Company has been doing an excellent job with the restoration of the Los Angeles Theatre, and has plans to restore the Palace Theatre as well, this seems a very hopeful sign for the State Theatre.
The web site of the Cooper Union’s School of Architecture has an interesting page about the 42nd Street development of which the former Liberty Theatre is now a part.
The architectural firm which designed the AMC Empire 25 and the adaptation of the Eltinge Theatre as its entrance and lobby was Gould Evans Associates, the Lawrence, Kansas based firm which has designed the majority of AMC’s recent megaplex theatres.
Here is an interesting page about Forest City Ratner’s 42nd Street development, at the Cooper Union School of Architecture’s web site. It gives a good description of the way this complex development is put together.
Interesting links:
California Theatre Notes and Architectural Fact Sheet, with photos, and a link to LOTS more photos at the bottom of the page.
ELS Architecture, the site of the firm that did the restoration. Click on “Portfolio” then “Entertainment/Arts” then “California Theatre.” Requires flash.
One of the theatres in Lindsay was built in 1933, to replace an earlier theatre on the site which had burned. According to an article in Southwest Builder & Contractor of April 28, 1933, the architect of the new building was Albert Schroepfer of San Francisco. No address was given for the theatre, though.
Whether the theatre in the article was this one or the Grove, down the street, is moot, but I’m leaning toward this one, as this photograph of the Grove shows a side wall that looks as though it was built of concrete block, which would suggest a more recent date of construction than 1933- perhaps the 1950’s, when concrete block construction became quite common. Also, the offset entrance and the angled marquee have a very 1950’s look.
The Lindsay Community Theatre, despite recent renovations, simply looks like an older building, of the sort that would have been built in the 1930’s, with a centered entrance, tile trim, and a balcony. If someone could find the opening date of either or both theatres, we could be certain which was which.
I see the source of the confusion over the Earle Theatre’s architect. It was the Warner Theatre in Washington, D.C., opened in 1924 as the Earle Theatre, that was designed by Baltimore architect John J. Zink.
The Emporis Buildings web site (usually pretty reliable) lists both C. Howard Crane and the firm of Zink, Adkins & Craycroft as architects of the Warner.
Dennis, Cinema Treasures didn’t send me an e-mail notification of your last comment, so I didn’t find out it was here until tonight. I’ve been refreshing my memory of the entries for Alhambra’s theatres so I can ask questions about them of the members of classmates.com’s Alhambra High School contingent (Classmates recently re-opened their message boards to posting by non-paying members of the site.) Although I went to Mark Keppel High School, members can use the boards for any of the schools on the site.
Since my last post, I’ve found a couple of old pictures of Alhambra on the web, and one of them shows the corner of Garfield and Main in the 1920’s. It turns out that the Owl drug store was in the three story building on the northeast corner of Garfield and Main, so the Thrifty must have been in the one story building on the northwest corner. I think I was momentarily confused about their relative positions because the Owl Drug Store at the corner of Fair Oaks and Colorado in Pasadena was on the northwest corner of that intersection.
Also, re-reading my comments above, I don’t think I answered your question about where I lived in those days. It was in the south end of South San Gabriel, almost into Potrero Heights. When the wind was in the south, we could smell the oil wells in the Montebello Hills.
The Argus Theatre was designed by Los Angeles architect A.L.Valk. It was a conversion and expansion of an existing retail building, and was announced in the March 20, 1913 issue of Builder & Contractor magazine.
Arthur Lawrence Valk was referred to as a “…motion picture specialist….” in an article in the October 11, 1913 issue of Southwest Contractor and Manufacturer magazine, at the time he closed his office and joined in a partnership with his father, architect Lawrence Bolton Valk.
The Fox Figueroa Theatre was built in 1925. The architect was W.S. Hebbard. The theatre was mentioned in issues of the magazine Southwest Builder & Contractor of ½/25, 2/27/25, and 12/11/25. William Sterling Hebbard (1868-1930) was a San Diego architect, who sometimes worked in partnership with Irving Gill.
The announcement of the UC Theatre was made in the October, 1916 issue of Architect & Engineer magazine. The owners were given as Messrs. Bradshaw and Williamson. The projected cost of the theatre was $100,000. The architect was James W. Plachek (1893-1948.)
Quite a few theatres west of the Mississippi had been showing talking pictures for quite a while before the Granada opened, since the first all-talking movies were released in 1928. I suspect that the claim for the Granada is that it was the first theatre west of the Mississippi to be newly built and opened with a sound system already in place.