The theater was announced March 9, 1928 (with a rendering on April 1, wherein the caption mocks the prominent water tank on the stagehouse) as a 1,400 seat theater with provision to add a 500 seat balcony later, with 7 stores and 29 two and three room apartments. William P. Whitney, who had designed an unbuilt, gigantic theater in 1921 at Howard and Marshfield, an incredible unbuilt oriental opera house in Chinatown, as well as the Symphony on Chicago Ave. was the architect.
Also notable is that the organ here was one of the first restored by CATOE.
“There is no way to underestimate the effect movies had on me as a boy,” Hefner says. “My dreams came alive at the Montclare Theater on Grand Avenue.” He remembers, as a child of the Depression, watching cinematic depictions of the roaring ‘20s, “all those images of the Jazz Age, the flappers … And thinking that I’d missed the party.”"
Here’s another, from an article where Hef was visiting the old neighborhood in 1992:
“Another one of Hefner’s stops was not far away, at the Montclare Theater. Hefner climbed out of his bus and looked uneasily at the sign on the marquee, which read, "For Sale: Two acres.” He looked around and said, “This was Woolworth’s, where I bought all the Big Little Books. Keith still has all of his. Over there is where Betty used to work behind the soda fountain.”
“No it wasn’t,” said Betty Conklin. “It was on the other corner, Hugh.”
“Was it?”
“I remember the day I got off work with my $11 paycheck for 44 hours and lost it at the movies.”
“I got $9.50 a week ushering at the Rockne,” Keith said.
“Remember those uniforms?” Hefner said. “You had a stiff shirt front, but it was cardboard. No shirt underneath, but cardboard cuffs showing beneath your jacket. Gee, maybe that’s where I got the idea for the cuffs on the Bunny uniforms.”
“Keith! Remember me?” asked an attractive blond woman walking past on the sidewalk. “We starred in the senior play together!”
“My God, we did,” said Keith. It was Eleanor Schmider. “I still live in the same house,” she said.
“The man who owns the theater is going to unlock it for us,” Hefner’s secretary told him. We all walked across the street, and the man unbolted the doors, and we walked inside. He found the light switch, and the theater sprang back into life, surprisingly well-preserved. We walked through the tall old lobby. “There was a little fish pond here, with a mermaid sitting next to it,” Betty remembered. We walked into the empty auditorium, where the screen was torn but the seats still waited for another audience.
“Look at this place,” Hefner said. “All the dreams were there on the screen.” He stood in front of the stage and looked back at the vast empty palace. “This is the only thing that is larger than I remember it.”"
Montclare had closed 12 years ago
Judge OKs demolition of theater
Chicago Sun-Times
October 4, 1996
Author: MARK BROWN
Ald. William J. P. Banks (36th) took his wife to the Montclare Theater on their first date more than 27 years ago, and on Thursday he helped persuade a Housing Court judge to tear it down.
These were not related events.
After more than a decade of watching the once-bustling movie house at 7133 W. Grand slip into decay, however, there was no room for sentimentality from Banks and dozens of Mont Clare neighborhood residents who came to the Daley Center to make sure the community eyesore finally would be demolished.
“Unfortunately, its time has come,” Banks said after Supervising Judge Edward H. Marsalek put an end to delays sought by the building’s owners and cleared the way for city wrecking crews to begin.
Opened in 1929 at the onset of the Depression, the Montclare was a neighborhood theater with shops on the first floor, apartments above and a distinctive ornamental terra-cotta front. Local moviegoers who once sat in its 1,200 seats included Hugh Hefner, who hung out there while attending Steinmetz High School. There was no balcony and no stage.
Banks can still remember the fresh-popped popcorn and the meticulous upkeep the theater enjoyed for decades, but the big screen went silent at least 12 years ago, and the building had become a magnet for illicit activity.
At least seven fires have been reported there since the first of the year, Banks said. Assault victims had been accosted on the street and dragged inside. There were even reports of prostitution, he said.
“The owners have ignored us,” complained Banks, who identified Chicago businessmen Victor and Joseph Cacciatore as among the partners. “They haven’t secured the building. Enough is enough.”
A lawyer for the owners told Marsalek they had encountered problems with their plans to rehab the property and were looking for a buyer.
Banks, who supplied buses that took the neighbors to court, said the building is holding back commercial development on a stretch of Grand Avenue, which is otherwise improving both east and west of the theater.
“You’ll find developers clamoring to buy that parcel once the theater is down,” Banks said.
Richard Sklenar, executive director of the Elmhurst-based Theater Historical Society of America, said there was nothing to distinguish the Montclare from dozens of other neighborhood theaters that once filled Chicago.
“It was a loss 10 years ago or 12 years ago when it stopped showing movies and stopped being a community asset, not now,” Sklenar said.
Mont Clare residents now can see their movies at the multiplex theater in the Bricktown Square shopping center.
Caption:
The Montclare Theater, 7133 W. Grand, opened in 1929. The once-bustling 1,200-seat movie house featured a distinctive ornamental terra-cotta front.
As the Fine Arts Building, the Playhouse was always there. The Studebaker was the larger house, and the Playhouse or alternately World Playhouse was the smaller. Additionally there would have been performances and recitals throughout the building.
F.E. Davidson was indeed the architect. The ‘Royal Hipidrome’ name originally proposed alluded to New York’s largest theater, as the Covent was truly massive for its time and especially its location. It must have had an exceedingly small lobby for such a large capacity. Interestingly, the area one block south of the Covent Garden, the southeast corner of Clark and Wrightwood, had an entertainment history: After the Columbian Exposition, the Ferris Wheel was moved there from 1895-1903, operating at a loss (presumably it couldn’t attract nearly enough people to operate at capacity without the surrounding Midway), and in 1904 it was shipped to St. Louis. As for the Covent Garden itself, touted as the $500,000 theater, a Chicago Tribune article chronicles the opening on June 13, 1916, after a cancelled grand opening due to a water tank malfunction on June 8 which caused a full house to be turned away:
“A huge throng of kindly neighborhood folk-between 4,000 and 5,000 perhaps-lent the benision of their prescence last night to the opening performances at Covent Garden, the levithian among uptown playhouses which some hopeful entrepeneur has erected at North Clark street south of Diversey parkway.
They found a theater remarkable for sheer size, considering its uptown location—an incredibly deep affair with one enormous balcony which alone seats more than the ordinary playhouse; a thunderous organ that imitates an orchestra and effects a cheery saving in musicians' wages, and a substage tank into which chorus girls, in perilous deshabille, disappear miraculously, as they do in those New York Hippodrome entertainments which the provincials always see when they visit the more effete metropolis.
This much the kindly neighborhood folk liked. Toward the efforts of the players in "The Land of Evermore,” the initial musical diversion, they exhibited a coolness concerning which silence is the kindest comment. Undoubtedly there will be better shows at Covent Garden later on. Meanwhile, you may find diversion in occupying a loge named for your favorite state, observing the movies of Turkish soldiers at war, and riding in the free bus which the thoughtful management provides for “L” patrons [from Fullerton]."
A special 4-Manual Hope-Jones Wurlitzer, Opus 87 was installed in April, 1916, touted as costing $75,000 and the “World’s Greatest Organ”, it probably was among the greatest organs in Chicago at the time, and if the figures are right, perhaps the greatest Wurlitzer to that time. The water tank barely saw any use, and the theater was inexplicably announced to open for Lubliner & Trinz on August 5, 1916, perhaps their lease didn’t start until then.
Lubliner & Trinz was long, long gone by the inception of the McCLurg; however, Lubliner was one of four owners named at the McClurg’s opening, and Lubliner was named as the man selling it, and it was mentioned in conjuction with the Edens several times, so i’m sure Center and Edens would have been the same entity. Also, CinemarkFan should check the Tribune’s November 20, 1986, Tempo p12 microfilm- there should be a picture of the McClurg there. Other microfilm i’ve seen from the Trib shows parts of the lobby’s art and a fisheye photo of the entry, as well as overhead renderings of the entire McClurg Center complex.
The Cine' was built in 1937 and was one of Rapp & Rapp’s later designs. A theater at this location was a long time in coming; in 1928, plans to build a 1.5 million, 2,500 seat theater one block east, at the NE corner of Devon and Campbell, designed by JEO Pridmore as the first talkie-only in the city, for Sam Meyers. These plans probably eventually evolved into the Nortown. Fall 1936 brought a flurry of cinema activity to the area- A 1,200 seat theater was announced to be built directly north of the Nortown, Sam Meyers announced plans for the $200,000, 1,200 seat Cine' (initially, ‘Maple’, and later to have been named by contest) at Devon and Maplewood, and Balaban and Katz announced their intention to build a $200,000, 1,500 seat theater, designed by JEO Pridmore at the Devon-Campbell site. Those plans were abandoned a month later – after excavation had started – because of difficulty obtaining needed land by removing an alley (perhaps the reason why the Nortown was not built there), and B&K and Meyers decided to partner in the Cine'. It originally featured a large glass block rainbow light pylon as a vertical sign, since removed. Other features touted were indirect lighting, rainbow glass walls, a crystal grand staircase and full air conditioning; opening ads touded its' rich simplicity, modern comfort, and lounge-like seats. Also, ‘owing to poor subsoil conditions, the boiler room (was to be) placed over the lobby instead of beneath the theater’, and the original drawing shows the shops as a single-story building. It opened September 4, 1937. In 1942 B&K bought out Sam Meyers' portion of the lease. After only 15 years in operation, it closed in 1953, and was converted to the Turner Brothers clothing store. None of the original theater is visible inside the restaurant (although it is quite tasty). Also, here is the new address for the photo Bryan linked earlier.
In 1985, the theater’s mob-figure owner, Patsy Riccardi, turned up dead in a car trunk. At the time, it was still a porno theater and had been open since 1969, so I would assume the interior was intact. However, in 1958 the theater completely flooded over 10 days, so much that water was flowing out of the doors following a bad water main disconnection, so much of the interior was probably badly damaged then. It was remodeled to switch to a strip club in 1991
The theater building was or is owned by Lou Wolf, one of the city’s most notorious slumlords, who is behind the destruction by neglect of many Chicago theaters and buildings.
Really? Where did you find that out? I looked all over looking for information and couldn’t find anything until Dennis told me that. Newhouse was often the architect for the Ascher Brothers; I don’t know of any Ascher theaters from the Rapps. Very interesting!
Some other bits of the Portage’s history that have gone unmentioned here so far: During construction, the Portage was at the center of a Union extortion case involving the theater’s door installations; In 1929 the Aschers sold this and several other theaters of theirs to Fox; in 1932 it was turned over to the GCS circuit and recieved some remodeling, redecorating, and new seats; about 1940, it recieved its streamline moderne lobby, in accordance with the art deco character of Six Corners following the Klee and Sears buildings, and also had a very pretty art deco marquee and vitrolite/cararra glass entrance; in 1941 it became part of the Balaban and Katz chain, then abc/great states; by 1975 it was part of the Brotman & Sherman chain, then it was VERY briefly a live house called the Portage Palace, hosting country acts such as Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn… and those were the only two before booker Bob Briggs was tossed out and future shows cancelled. They tried again in 1977 with a Eddie Money/Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers show, but that was all. M&R took over in 1980 and briefly experimented with a laser light show before twinning the Portage.
From this week’s Chicago Reader ‘The Business’ column: “The Silent Film Society was booted from the Gateway Theatre a year ago, but expects to inaugurate a new home base this spring at the Portage Theater, 4050 N. Milwaukee. Film Society head and former Gateway manager Dennis Wolkowicz is one of three members of a management team that has taken a long-term lease (with option to buy) on the 85-year-old Portage. Wolkowicz says they spiffed it up, returned it to a single auditorium format, and are just awaiting (what else?) the PPA license. It’ll have 1,350 seats and will offer live music and talkiesâ€"classic, revival, independent, documentary, and foreign moviesâ€"along with the silent films.”
It looks wonderful and I eagerly await its opening.
Yes, there were, at total opposite ends of the street, and both by the same architect. And it was indeed built in 1911. The 1872 Adelphi was elsewhere in the loop, and was better known as Haverly’s, once the largest in Chicago, at Monroe and Dearborn. That theater had a rather interesting history. It was built following the fire using the outer walls of the old custom-house. It seated around 2500, a rickety firetrap with only two exits for the balconies and galleries accessible via crooked stairs, was rebuilt in 1878 and closed in 1882, replaced by a new Haverly’s theater across the street, incidentally, known as the Columbia, which later burned. Perhaps Mr. Woods, who remodeled the 1911 Columbia into the Adelphi was alluding to this earlier prominent theater.
It had 1250 seats as a single for the Center Theaters chain who also owned the Edens), and opened November 10, 1972. It was billed as a ‘Return to Elegance’ and early reports said the lobby would be decorated in “funky 1930s Roxy-theater style complete with swans swimming in the pool.” The lobby also featured various artworks meant to evoke classic movie palaces. Incidentally, one of the owners was named Robert Lubliner. I’ll bet he was a relation of Lubliner & Trinz. Cineplex took over Lubliner’s Center Theaters (McClurg and Edens) in 1987.
It was actually opened on April 4, 1931. An interesting fact about the ceiling:
“The star studded sky that will compose the auditorium ceiling og the new Publix-Balaban & Katz theater, the Nortown, which is to be opened at Devon and Western avenues on April 4, is to be an exact duplication of an April constellation, according to J. E. O. Pridmore, supervising architect. J. C. Penn, astronomy professor at Armour institute, was commissioned to put the stars in their proper places to insure that the layout would be authentic.” -Chicago Tribune, pG5, March 22, 1931.
The present theater space, as I understand it, is the old balcony space and part of the auditorium, the ground floor and stage having been destroyed, and now seats 160.
The theater was announced March 9, 1928 (with a rendering on April 1, wherein the caption mocks the prominent water tank on the stagehouse) as a 1,400 seat theater with provision to add a 500 seat balcony later, with 7 stores and 29 two and three room apartments. William P. Whitney, who had designed an unbuilt, gigantic theater in 1921 at Howard and Marshfield, an incredible unbuilt oriental opera house in Chinatown, as well as the Symphony on Chicago Ave. was the architect.
Also notable is that the organ here was one of the first restored by CATOE.
And another, this one from 1999.
“His other early passion was movies.
“There is no way to underestimate the effect movies had on me as a boy,” Hefner says. “My dreams came alive at the Montclare Theater on Grand Avenue.” He remembers, as a child of the Depression, watching cinematic depictions of the roaring ‘20s, “all those images of the Jazz Age, the flappers … And thinking that I’d missed the party.”"
Here’s another, from an article where Hef was visiting the old neighborhood in 1992:
“Another one of Hefner’s stops was not far away, at the Montclare Theater. Hefner climbed out of his bus and looked uneasily at the sign on the marquee, which read, "For Sale: Two acres.” He looked around and said, “This was Woolworth’s, where I bought all the Big Little Books. Keith still has all of his. Over there is where Betty used to work behind the soda fountain.”
“No it wasn’t,” said Betty Conklin. “It was on the other corner, Hugh.”
“Was it?”
“I remember the day I got off work with my $11 paycheck for 44 hours and lost it at the movies.”
“I got $9.50 a week ushering at the Rockne,” Keith said.
“Remember those uniforms?” Hefner said. “You had a stiff shirt front, but it was cardboard. No shirt underneath, but cardboard cuffs showing beneath your jacket. Gee, maybe that’s where I got the idea for the cuffs on the Bunny uniforms.”
“Keith! Remember me?” asked an attractive blond woman walking past on the sidewalk. “We starred in the senior play together!”
“My God, we did,” said Keith. It was Eleanor Schmider. “I still live in the same house,” she said.
“The man who owns the theater is going to unlock it for us,” Hefner’s secretary told him. We all walked across the street, and the man unbolted the doors, and we walked inside. He found the light switch, and the theater sprang back into life, surprisingly well-preserved. We walked through the tall old lobby. “There was a little fish pond here, with a mermaid sitting next to it,” Betty remembered. We walked into the empty auditorium, where the screen was torn but the seats still waited for another audience.
“Look at this place,” Hefner said. “All the dreams were there on the screen.” He stood in front of the stage and looked back at the vast empty palace. “This is the only thing that is larger than I remember it.”"
Montclare had closed 12 years ago
Judge OKs demolition of theater
Chicago Sun-Times
October 4, 1996
Author: MARK BROWN
Ald. William J. P. Banks (36th) took his wife to the Montclare Theater on their first date more than 27 years ago, and on Thursday he helped persuade a Housing Court judge to tear it down.
These were not related events.
After more than a decade of watching the once-bustling movie house at 7133 W. Grand slip into decay, however, there was no room for sentimentality from Banks and dozens of Mont Clare neighborhood residents who came to the Daley Center to make sure the community eyesore finally would be demolished.
“Unfortunately, its time has come,” Banks said after Supervising Judge Edward H. Marsalek put an end to delays sought by the building’s owners and cleared the way for city wrecking crews to begin.
Opened in 1929 at the onset of the Depression, the Montclare was a neighborhood theater with shops on the first floor, apartments above and a distinctive ornamental terra-cotta front. Local moviegoers who once sat in its 1,200 seats included Hugh Hefner, who hung out there while attending Steinmetz High School. There was no balcony and no stage.
Banks can still remember the fresh-popped popcorn and the meticulous upkeep the theater enjoyed for decades, but the big screen went silent at least 12 years ago, and the building had become a magnet for illicit activity.
At least seven fires have been reported there since the first of the year, Banks said. Assault victims had been accosted on the street and dragged inside. There were even reports of prostitution, he said.
“The owners have ignored us,” complained Banks, who identified Chicago businessmen Victor and Joseph Cacciatore as among the partners. “They haven’t secured the building. Enough is enough.”
A lawyer for the owners told Marsalek they had encountered problems with their plans to rehab the property and were looking for a buyer.
Banks, who supplied buses that took the neighbors to court, said the building is holding back commercial development on a stretch of Grand Avenue, which is otherwise improving both east and west of the theater.
“You’ll find developers clamoring to buy that parcel once the theater is down,” Banks said.
Richard Sklenar, executive director of the Elmhurst-based Theater Historical Society of America, said there was nothing to distinguish the Montclare from dozens of other neighborhood theaters that once filled Chicago.
“It was a loss 10 years ago or 12 years ago when it stopped showing movies and stopped being a community asset, not now,” Sklenar said.
Mont Clare residents now can see their movies at the multiplex theater in the Bricktown Square shopping center.
Caption:
The Montclare Theater, 7133 W. Grand, opened in 1929. The once-bustling 1,200-seat movie house featured a distinctive ornamental terra-cotta front.
As the Fine Arts Building, the Playhouse was always there. The Studebaker was the larger house, and the Playhouse or alternately World Playhouse was the smaller. Additionally there would have been performances and recitals throughout the building.
It was actually demolished in December 1996.
I think this has been domolished; a 14-to-16 is supposed to be built on the site of the JC Penney
Strange. The simple marquee pictured on this page looks much better than that fast-food style thing on other cinema websites.
Is the marquee really plastic? I saw a photo, and it looked really cheesy
Here is a Tribune photo of it.
The new State Street Studio in the former lobby is nearing completion, and I, for one, really hate it.
Here is a Tribune article on it, and here are photos and further commentary.
F.E. Davidson was indeed the architect. The ‘Royal Hipidrome’ name originally proposed alluded to New York’s largest theater, as the Covent was truly massive for its time and especially its location. It must have had an exceedingly small lobby for such a large capacity. Interestingly, the area one block south of the Covent Garden, the southeast corner of Clark and Wrightwood, had an entertainment history: After the Columbian Exposition, the Ferris Wheel was moved there from 1895-1903, operating at a loss (presumably it couldn’t attract nearly enough people to operate at capacity without the surrounding Midway), and in 1904 it was shipped to St. Louis. As for the Covent Garden itself, touted as the $500,000 theater, a Chicago Tribune article chronicles the opening on June 13, 1916, after a cancelled grand opening due to a water tank malfunction on June 8 which caused a full house to be turned away:
“A huge throng of kindly neighborhood folk-between 4,000 and 5,000 perhaps-lent the benision of their prescence last night to the opening performances at Covent Garden, the levithian among uptown playhouses which some hopeful entrepeneur has erected at North Clark street south of Diversey parkway.
They found a theater remarkable for sheer size, considering its uptown location—an incredibly deep affair with one enormous balcony which alone seats more than the ordinary playhouse; a thunderous organ that imitates an orchestra and effects a cheery saving in musicians' wages, and a substage tank into which chorus girls, in perilous deshabille, disappear miraculously, as they do in those New York Hippodrome entertainments which the provincials always see when they visit the more effete metropolis.
This much the kindly neighborhood folk liked. Toward the efforts of the players in "The Land of Evermore,” the initial musical diversion, they exhibited a coolness concerning which silence is the kindest comment. Undoubtedly there will be better shows at Covent Garden later on. Meanwhile, you may find diversion in occupying a loge named for your favorite state, observing the movies of Turkish soldiers at war, and riding in the free bus which the thoughtful management provides for “L” patrons [from Fullerton]."
A special 4-Manual Hope-Jones Wurlitzer, Opus 87 was installed in April, 1916, touted as costing $75,000 and the “World’s Greatest Organ”, it probably was among the greatest organs in Chicago at the time, and if the figures are right, perhaps the greatest Wurlitzer to that time. The water tank barely saw any use, and the theater was inexplicably announced to open for Lubliner & Trinz on August 5, 1916, perhaps their lease didn’t start until then.
Architect firm was Gelick Foran Associates, who also created the multiplex at the Esquire.
Lubliner & Trinz was long, long gone by the inception of the McCLurg; however, Lubliner was one of four owners named at the McClurg’s opening, and Lubliner was named as the man selling it, and it was mentioned in conjuction with the Edens several times, so i’m sure Center and Edens would have been the same entity. Also, CinemarkFan should check the Tribune’s November 20, 1986, Tempo p12 microfilm- there should be a picture of the McClurg there. Other microfilm i’ve seen from the Trib shows parts of the lobby’s art and a fisheye photo of the entry, as well as overhead renderings of the entire McClurg Center complex.
The Cine' was built in 1937 and was one of Rapp & Rapp’s later designs. A theater at this location was a long time in coming; in 1928, plans to build a 1.5 million, 2,500 seat theater one block east, at the NE corner of Devon and Campbell, designed by JEO Pridmore as the first talkie-only in the city, for Sam Meyers. These plans probably eventually evolved into the Nortown. Fall 1936 brought a flurry of cinema activity to the area- A 1,200 seat theater was announced to be built directly north of the Nortown, Sam Meyers announced plans for the $200,000, 1,200 seat Cine' (initially, ‘Maple’, and later to have been named by contest) at Devon and Maplewood, and Balaban and Katz announced their intention to build a $200,000, 1,500 seat theater, designed by JEO Pridmore at the Devon-Campbell site. Those plans were abandoned a month later – after excavation had started – because of difficulty obtaining needed land by removing an alley (perhaps the reason why the Nortown was not built there), and B&K and Meyers decided to partner in the Cine'. It originally featured a large glass block rainbow light pylon as a vertical sign, since removed. Other features touted were indirect lighting, rainbow glass walls, a crystal grand staircase and full air conditioning; opening ads touded its' rich simplicity, modern comfort, and lounge-like seats. Also, ‘owing to poor subsoil conditions, the boiler room (was to be) placed over the lobby instead of beneath the theater’, and the original drawing shows the shops as a single-story building. It opened September 4, 1937. In 1942 B&K bought out Sam Meyers' portion of the lease. After only 15 years in operation, it closed in 1953, and was converted to the Turner Brothers clothing store. None of the original theater is visible inside the restaurant (although it is quite tasty). Also, here is the new address for the photo Bryan linked earlier.
In 1985, the theater’s mob-figure owner, Patsy Riccardi, turned up dead in a car trunk. At the time, it was still a porno theater and had been open since 1969, so I would assume the interior was intact. However, in 1958 the theater completely flooded over 10 days, so much that water was flowing out of the doors following a bad water main disconnection, so much of the interior was probably badly damaged then. It was remodeled to switch to a strip club in 1991
The theater building was or is owned by Lou Wolf, one of the city’s most notorious slumlords, who is behind the destruction by neglect of many Chicago theaters and buildings.
Oh, I didn’t know that- how interesting!
Really? Where did you find that out? I looked all over looking for information and couldn’t find anything until Dennis told me that. Newhouse was often the architect for the Ascher Brothers; I don’t know of any Ascher theaters from the Rapps. Very interesting!
Some other bits of the Portage’s history that have gone unmentioned here so far: During construction, the Portage was at the center of a Union extortion case involving the theater’s door installations; In 1929 the Aschers sold this and several other theaters of theirs to Fox; in 1932 it was turned over to the GCS circuit and recieved some remodeling, redecorating, and new seats; about 1940, it recieved its streamline moderne lobby, in accordance with the art deco character of Six Corners following the Klee and Sears buildings, and also had a very pretty art deco marquee and vitrolite/cararra glass entrance; in 1941 it became part of the Balaban and Katz chain, then abc/great states; by 1975 it was part of the Brotman & Sherman chain, then it was VERY briefly a live house called the Portage Palace, hosting country acts such as Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn… and those were the only two before booker Bob Briggs was tossed out and future shows cancelled. They tried again in 1977 with a Eddie Money/Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers show, but that was all. M&R took over in 1980 and briefly experimented with a laser light show before twinning the Portage.
Also, Dennis says that the Architect was Henry Newhouse.
From this week’s Chicago Reader ‘The Business’ column: “The Silent Film Society was booted from the Gateway Theatre a year ago, but expects to inaugurate a new home base this spring at the Portage Theater, 4050 N. Milwaukee. Film Society head and former Gateway manager Dennis Wolkowicz is one of three members of a management team that has taken a long-term lease (with option to buy) on the 85-year-old Portage. Wolkowicz says they spiffed it up, returned it to a single auditorium format, and are just awaiting (what else?) the PPA license. It’ll have 1,350 seats and will offer live music and talkiesâ€"classic, revival, independent, documentary, and foreign moviesâ€"along with the silent films.”
It looks wonderful and I eagerly await its opening.
Yes, there were, at total opposite ends of the street, and both by the same architect. And it was indeed built in 1911. The 1872 Adelphi was elsewhere in the loop, and was better known as Haverly’s, once the largest in Chicago, at Monroe and Dearborn. That theater had a rather interesting history. It was built following the fire using the outer walls of the old custom-house. It seated around 2500, a rickety firetrap with only two exits for the balconies and galleries accessible via crooked stairs, was rebuilt in 1878 and closed in 1882, replaced by a new Haverly’s theater across the street, incidentally, known as the Columbia, which later burned. Perhaps Mr. Woods, who remodeled the 1911 Columbia into the Adelphi was alluding to this earlier prominent theater.
It had 1250 seats as a single for the Center Theaters chain who also owned the Edens), and opened November 10, 1972. It was billed as a ‘Return to Elegance’ and early reports said the lobby would be decorated in “funky 1930s Roxy-theater style complete with swans swimming in the pool.” The lobby also featured various artworks meant to evoke classic movie palaces. Incidentally, one of the owners was named Robert Lubliner. I’ll bet he was a relation of Lubliner & Trinz. Cineplex took over Lubliner’s Center Theaters (McClurg and Edens) in 1987.
The Admiral was originally to be named the Ritz and to open in April, 1925; it opened exactly two years later, on March 31, 1927.
It was actually opened on April 4, 1931. An interesting fact about the ceiling:
“The star studded sky that will compose the auditorium ceiling og the new Publix-Balaban & Katz theater, the Nortown, which is to be opened at Devon and Western avenues on April 4, is to be an exact duplication of an April constellation, according to J. E. O. Pridmore, supervising architect. J. C. Penn, astronomy professor at Armour institute, was commissioned to put the stars in their proper places to insure that the layout would be authentic.” -Chicago Tribune, pG5, March 22, 1931.
The present theater space, as I understand it, is the old balcony space and part of the auditorium, the ground floor and stage having been destroyed, and now seats 160.