El Capitan Theatre

As of this writing, the Wurlitzer organ from the El Capitan is installed in the Fox California, Salinas, and has been used on a number of occasions.

El Capitan opened on June 29, 1928 with Patsy Ruth Miller in
We Americans, a second run attraction. It was built by
Ackerman, Harris and Oppen at a cost of $1,250,000.
Boasting 2578 seats (not 3100 as noted above), it was the
largest and most opulent of the many Mission Street houses,
and the first to bring second run films in wide screen CinemaScope to the Mission Street neighborhood in the late fall of 1953.
Unfortunately, its size and grandeur, with inherent operating costs,
soon became a detriment rather than a benefit, and it soon fell victim to the inroads of television. It closed first on
July 24, 1956; re-opened on May 1, 1957, offering 3 features at
reduced admission prices, and then closed permanently on December 15, 1957.

I always enjoy reading the comments from Gary and my good friend Jack Tillmany. The Wurlitzer in the El Capitan was a style 235, of three manuals and eleven ranks of pipes. That organ had "open-toed" voicing to fill the huge auditorium. I remember the piano being in the pit. Edward Millington Stout

There is a photo of the El Capitan Theatre here:
http://webbie1.sfpl.org/multimedia/sfphotos/AAA-8646.jpg

Photo:
http://www.noehill.com/sf/landmarks/sf214.asp

Photo:
http://www.noehill.com/sf/landmarks/sf214.asp

From the SF Public Library website:

http://webbie1.sfpl.org/multimedia/sfphotos/AAA-8676.jpg

Vintage photo of the El Capitan Theatre.
http://webbie1.sfpl.org/multimedia/sfphotos/AAA-8646.jpg

That is the exact same photo link that I posted on Jan 9, 2005 at 1:42pm.

Here is a photo from 1928:

http://webbie1.sfpl.org/multimedia/sfphotos/AAA-8666.jpg

This 1944 photo from the SFPL shows what appears to be a theater based on the vertical and the marquee. That being said, I have never heard of a theater being called "El Patio":

http://webbie1.sfpl.org/multimedia/sfphotos/AAB-6349.jpg

Ed Stout was more than correct about the "open toe" voicing of the organ. This was an average size organ trying to fill a large theatre with sound.

This organ has since been removed from the Fox-California Theatre in Salinas and is to now be installed in the 1922 Eberson Indiana Theatre in Terre Haute, Indiana. This will replace the similar, but much earlier Wurlitzer style 235 that once lived in the Indiana.

The organ will be installed by the Central Indiana Chapter of the American Theatre Organ Society.

Here is a 1985 photo by Michael Putnam:
http://tinyurl.com/2w7ds6

Here is another photo of the former El Capitan.

When the United Nations was razed did the marquee move over to this house?
http://webbie1.sfpl.org/multimedia/sfphotos/AAA-9144.jpg

Another recent photo can be seen here.

How can it be a "recent" photo if the theater is demolished?

The facade is still standing. The auditorium is gone. I think there's a parking lot behind the facade.

Exactly right. It is just a facade.

You drive under the marquee, through the foyer and.....there you are, on an empty space, used as a parking lot!

As I stated above, the organ from the El Cap was slated to go into the Indiana Theatre in Terre Haute, IN. The organ is due to be finished and played at this summer's ATOS convention in Indiana.

Here is a photograph I took in February 2005. Looking straight through the former foyer, you can seen the car parking lot:
http://flickr.com/photos/kencta/2300132147/
A couple more photographs I took, showing the entire front of the building. The auditorium was parallel to Mission Street, with the screen end at the far right, behind the theatre's apartment building:
http://flickr.com/photos/kencta/2300132993/
http://flickr.com/photos/kencta/2300133837/

Up until the late 80's / early 90's the vertical sign was still intacted on the front of the building above the marquee.

If I'm in San Francisco looking for theaters, are all these old theaters on Mission pretty close to each other? Or is Mission one of those eight mile long streets where the theaters are far apart? Let me know. It seems like there are quite a few relics still surviving on this street, in one form or another.

Ken, there's around 5 old theatres within a five minutes or so walk along this section of Mission.

The El Capitan Theatre was part of the Fox West Coast Theatre chain and the biggest in the Mission District area (It tried to be like the like one of the Market Street houses). There is about 3-4 houses in the general El Capitan area.
Grand Theatre 2655 Mission Street
New Mission Theatre 2550 Mission Street
Rialto Theatre 2555 Mission Street

Granada Theatre 4631 Mission Street

There are two excellent books on the theatres in San Francisco and Oakland by Jack Tillmany. Who has posted many excellent comments about many of the theatres in the Bay Area.

Thanks to all. I look forward to checking those out on my next trip north.

In 1932, El Capitan had a lobby card proclaiming \"Free Beer\", and they'd apparently switched their regular doors for saloon-style swinging doors. The wall looks to have been covered with some sort of woody paneling to suggest a cheap saloon's facade, and there are people in Victorian costume.

What event could have brought on such a display? The sign above the doors reveals that it was the 1932 movie The Wet Parade, an anti-alcohol screed which, from the descriptions I've read, may have been the "Reefer Madness" of the Prohibition era-- albeit a tad more sophistocated, perhaps, due to its having been based on a novel by Upton Sinclair. I'd dearly love to see it.

This is another recent photo.

Joe, are you absolutely sure the saloon photo comes from the El Capitan and 1932? I have been told that the exact photo was of Don Maclean (the Ten-O-Win guy) of the Embassy Theater, from very early in his career, and was actually a photo from a downtown theater. Does anybody know the facts for sure about this photo?

David: I'm relying on the information accompanying the photo at the website of the San Francisco Public Library. The library identifies the photo as follows: "Dan McLean standing in doorway of the El Capitan with an unidentified woman and man." It gives the date as 1932, which was the year "The Wet Parade" was released.

Here is a December 2008 photo.

Another photo is here.

Here is a 1986 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/cyquvh

Here are more 1986 photos:

Photo1

Photo2

Photo3

This is a 2009 photo.

This photo gives you a view of the parking lot behind the facade.

The 1930s marquee which replaced the original, and which is still on the facade as seen in the photo in the previous post, is exactly the same design as that of the Grand Lake in Oakland, just done in a typical trapezoid shape, as aopposed to the wide sweeping curve which the Grand Lake marquee has partly due to its corner location. I would guess the El Capitan marquee had tubes and color like those of the Grand Lake, and probably animated in a similar or identical fashion.
I have long had the dream that someday the Mission neighborhood will pick itself up to a point where the site of the El Capitan's auditorium could be built upon with both an underground parking garage and a multistory multiplex. The facade would be restored, the marquee relit and outfitted with digital readerboards, and patrons would walk through the still extant foyer with its plasterwork restored, to the new structure behind. Then, down the street, the New Mission Theatre would be the performing arts center for the area.