Liberty Theater

Was this theater called the Harbour or was it Harber Theater? There was a Harber Theater designed by the Boller Bros in Oklahoma City, OK. Also, on the Cinerama website, this theater is listed as Liberty, Cooper Cinerama and Harber Theater.
http://cinerama.topcities.com/coopercinerama.htm

The Harber Theatre designed by the Boller Brothers in 1951. It could have been a re-model of the Liberty Theater?

I think your right Ken. There was a Liberty Theater designed by the Boller Bros in Oklahoma City, OK in 1935. This theater most likely opened as the Liberty, was remodeled and became the Harber and then the Cooper Cinerama.

The Harber theatre was actually built in 1915 and remodeled by the Boller Brothers in 1935 and became the Liberty after the remodel. The last name for the theatre was the Cooper Cinerama which closed in 1975 and the theatre was demolished in 1976. It was never the Harbour Theatre

Oklahoma City theater history can easily be varified on 'Oklahoman Archive' web-site. Here research can be conducted on Daily Oklahoman Newspaper issues dating back to 1901.
Daily Oklahoman Newspaper ads list this theater as opening in 1916 as the LIBERTY, operated by Paramount Theaters. It was later remodeled during 1948 by Boller Bros and renamed HARBER. From 1953 it operated as COOPER CINERAMA.
Enter the word "cement" on the Oklahoman Archives 1911-1920 and a wonderful architectural drawing will appear for Dec. 13, 1915.

Phot album - vintage downtown; this postcard view of Robinson Street shows the Liberty Theater situated directly across from the State Theater. The background sky scraper was designed by famed Architect W.W. Ahlschlager who also created NYC's Roxy Theater.
http://www.oklahomacounty.org/assessor/

Vintage color picture postcard view of OKC Liberty Theatre. Directly across the street from the Liberty can be seen the State Theatre;
http://www.tulsaarchitecture.com/OKCPostcards.htm

Also in the above -OKCPostcards- site can be seen the HOME Theatre (1923-1951, nee-Shriners, AKA-Warner's Auditorium). Today the Home's marble lobby is still intact, but the auditorium area was converted into office space in 1952.

A couple of old timers claimed that the 1916 Liberty Theatre designer was famed Chicago Architect Louis Sullivan. This could well be as the Liberty's original exterior & interior design were "form follows function" Prairie Style.
http://www.tulsaarchitecture.com/Architects/Wright.htm

Architects for 1923 Shriners (AKA-Warner's Auditorium, Home) Theatre were Layton, Smith, & Forsyth. Forsyth also designed Ponca City's Poncan Theatre.
http://www.tulsaarchitecture.com/Architects/Forsyth.htm

To see an outstanding architectural rendering of the Liberty Theater go to the December 13, 1915 issue found within oklahoman archive web pages.

And the 12-16-1923 issue has grand opening photos of Shriners Theater exterior, lobby, and 2300 seat auditorium.

Click here to see Jeff Chapman photograph of this theater when it was known as Cooper Cinerama. This is a 1972 picture, not 1960 as listed on this site;
http://www.dougloudenback.com/downtown/vintage/1.movies2.htm#3
And a colour postcard shot when it was named Harber;
http://www.dougloudenback.com/downtown/vintage/1.movies2.htm#4

On the left of this antique color postcard can be seen the Liberty Theatre. Apparently this view was shot prior to (1937) construction of the State Theater that was located across the street from Liberty.
http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/ok/oklahoma/postcards/robav.jpg

Sort through these vintage postcards to find color images of OKC's 1916 Liberty Theatre, 1928 Market Theatre, and 1903 Overholser Opera House.
Note the Ramsey Building 1931 postcard. This tower was designed by architect W.W. Ahlschlager, who also created NYC's famed Roxy Theatre.
http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/ok/oklahoma/postcards/ppcs-okco.html

I can't figure out which Liberty was run by Warner Brothers in the 1930s. Any ideas? By the way, I thought people only slipped on banana peels in the movies:
http://tinyurl.com/yexfu8

Warners acquired the Liberty via sublease in 1930:
http://tinyurl.com/2s5v4a

Architect of the Liberty Theatre placed the projection booth beneath the balcony, at mezzanine level. This resulted in a perfect picture by completely eliminating keystoning.
I can't help but wonder if famed architect W.W. Ahlschlager, while in OKC to design the Ramsey Tower, borrowed this idea from the Liberty when he adopted the same projection arrangement in NYC's Roxy Theatre.
Okmulgee's Yale Theatre also built its booth into the balcony base.

Period views of the old Liberty Theatre can be viewed on pages below -
http://dougdawg.blogspot.com/2006/07/lets-go-downtown-to-movies.html

c1926 exterior shot -
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49/DougLoudenback/movies/libertytheater1926.jpg

A Wurlitzer theater organ opus 796 style D X was installed in the Liberty Theater on 3/18/1924.

"From 1953 it operated as COOPER CINERAMA."

The COOPER began showing Cinerama presentations in 1961, not 1953. Prior to the COOPER, Cinerama presentations in Oklahoma City were shown at the WARNER (1956-57).

The December 9, 1950, issue of Boxoffice said that the Cooper Foundation's Harber Theater in Oklahoma City, formerly the Warner Liberty, was undergoing a complete remodeling at an estimated cost of $225,000.

The July 7, 1951, Boxoffice article about the opening made it sound like the Harber occupied an entirely new building, saying it was "...built on the site of the old Liberty...." Vague phrasing in various issues of Boxoffice from early 1951 brings no clarification. A January 6 item said that the Harber was being built "...from the ground up...." Then a May 5 item about the project said that the Liberty had been "...torn down...." but later uses the word "remodeling" to describe the project.

The Cooper Foundation only had a lease on the property, the land still being owned by J.N. "Doc" Harber. Earlier Boxoffice items had said that Harber and his wife were the owners of the Liberty Theatre building, but apparently the remodeled (or new) building was owned by the Cooper Foundation. Perhaps the imprecise information about whether the building was entirely new or just extensively remodeled had something to do with the lease arrangement between Cooper and the Harbers.

In 1949, there had been a lawsuit over the lease of the Liberty Theatre, with Warner Theatres suing the Cooper Foundation, the Harbers, and a number of other parties. I've been unable to discover if the suit was decided against Warner or if they ultimately settled out of court.

The December, 1950, Boxoffice item named the architects of the Harber Theatre as Carl Boller and Dietz Lusk. However, Carl Boller had died in 1946, so the lead architect must have been Robert Boller. The firm was Boller & Lusk, in any case. The 1951 item said that the murals in the auditorium and lobby had been painted by Hans Teichert of Chicago. The July 21, 1951, issue of Boxoffice ran a small photo of the opening day crowds outside the theater, showing the very modern style of the new facade.

The name change to Cooper Theatre took place in 1959. The June 29 issue of Boxoffice said: "The new Cooper Theatre, formerly the Harber, was formally opened Wednesday Evening (17) by Cooper Foundation Theatres with a press showing of 'Windjammer,' the Cinemiracle special."

I've been unable to find anything about the house being called the Cooper Cinerama Theatre. Boxoffice refers to it as simply the Cooper Theatre through most of the 1960s. In the photo on this web page, the name Cinerama is clearly above the name Cooper, so it seems likely that the house was never actually called the Cooper Cinerama Theatre, but only sported the standard Cinerama signage. An advertisement naming it Cooper Cinerama Theatre would be better evidence than that photo.

The Cooper Foundation had actually disposed of all its Oklahoma City Theaters by 1964, according to an item in Boxoffice on November 2 that year. The June 15 issue had said that the foundation had put the Midwest, Warner, and Sooner theaters up for sale after buying out the lease of Stanley Warner Theatres, who had been operating the houses for some time. The Cooper Theatre itself had been leased to Dr. and Mrs. L.A. Newcomb earlier that year.

These 1952 LIFE photos give a lot of information of 3 strip Cinerama widescreen presentation,
http://images.google.com/images?q=film+thatres&q=source%3Alife

In response to Mr. Vogel's 7/9/09 posting.
Though built shoulder to shoulder, the Warner Liberty Theatre lobby and auditorium were actually two seperate buildings. In 1950 a Modernistic structure replaced the original lobby. The 1915 auditorium was only remodeled (if stripping away all ornamentation could be considered remodeling). Lush drapes were installed, and a wall was built midway across the balcony to decrease balcony seating capacity by half.
Jeff Chapman's 1970 snapshot from CT shows the Cooper auditorium and stagehouse on photo left-
http://www.cinematour.com/picview.php?db=us&id=39368

Oops, Cooper Theater is seen PHOTO RIGHT in the above mentioned snapshot.

Presented on this site is a c1959 photo of the Cinerama Cooper Theater -
http://cinerama.topcities.com/coopercinerama.htm

Apparently a billiard parlor was originally included within the Liberty layout. To view an exterior (c1920) shot of the Liberty Theatre type in the word "billiard" -
http://okhistory.cuadra.com/starweb3/b.archives/servlet.starweb3?path=b.archives/STARArchives.public.web
If you wish, you can type in the name "Liberty" instead, but you'll have to browse through a lot of other Liberty theatres, and a number of bank buildings.