Ames Theatre

The North Star was remodeled in 1946. This Boxoffice article from April 27, 1946, reports on the remodeling of the old theater, then operated by W.H. Creal. The article includes a couple of photos. Plans for the remodeling were by architect H.A. Raapke, who also designed the New Moon Theatre at Neligh, Nebraska.

The building must have dated from the late 1910s or from 1920, the year the organ was installed in the Ames Theatre according to Lost Memory’s comment above. The upper portion of the facade of the narrow entrance of the L-shaped house looked much like the buildings in the neighborhood that survive today, most of which are built of a dark, reddish-brown brick.

I’ve been looking at the bird’s eye view of the block at Bing Maps, and I think it’s likely that the theater building still exists, but has been extensively remodeled. From the photo in Boxoffice it looks like the theater entrance was next to the alley running between 24th and 25th streets. The building now on this lot has a bricked-up area at that spot which has the same proportions of the theater’s entrance in the Boxoffice article’s photo. The way the roof line is finished also looks as though a parapet has been removed.

In Google’s street view, the brick wall along the alley looks considerably older than the walls on the street sides. Perhaps the street walls of the theater building were refaced when the theater was converted to some other use, and that’s why the building looks newer than its neighbors.

It’s also almost certain that the auditorium of the theater was actually in a building that is behind the structure that held the entrance. Boxoffice says that “…the lobby was long; but boxlike and unattractive.” It goes on to describe a standee foyer beyond the lobby. As the street front building is probably no more than seventy feet deep, and an 18-foot deep vestibule had to be accounted for, the lobby must have extended all the way through the remained of that structure, and the auditorium must have been in the taller building behind it. So even if the building that housed the entrance has been demolished and replaced (and I don’t think it has,) the former auditorium is apparently still standing.

Later today: Sorry, folks, I had it a bit wrong. The 1958 aerial photo has a detailed street map on it. Not only did it confirm that alley was always there, but it labled what parts of the 2 buildings were the North Star Theater. The east 1/3 of the corner building was the old lobby area. Now it makes more sense, after looking at the Google street view some more. Tonight, that street view is even more direct, and I can see the bricked in area.

When a kid, I never paid attention to that alley being there. The 1958 image doesn’t show it very well, so we assumed it only went in ½ block from Taylor Street, which is next street south of Ames Ave

Although the city map claims the other 2/3 of corner building belonged to someone else, I wonder if the theater used that remainder for heating, ACing, and other closed-off operations?

My parents didn’t go to that theater, even though they were living close by since 1947. The many neighbors must have presumed kids wouldn’t be interested in that history, but I would have been, and would have remembered tidbits shared.

The downtown State Theater was another one that kept the dark and gloomy ceiling/wall atmosphere to the end, and I’d always wonder how the daytime cleaning crew could do their work. That was a large, classy place, but the gloomy aspect must have been liked by the adults.

The Ames Theatre was built a bit later than we thought, so the organ installed in 1920, mentioned in a now-vanished comment by Lost Memory, must not have been for this Ames Theatre, which actually didn’t get that name until 1950. Plans for a theater at Ames Avenue and 24th Street were announced in Moving Picture World of December 13, 1924. Originally to have been designed by George L. Fisher, the final plans were by architect Everett Sherwood Dodds, and some of his drawings appear on this web page, which features a fairly extensive history of the house.

The house opened as the North Star Theatre in August, 1925, and after a brief closure for renovations in late 1949 reopened on January 14, 1950 as the Ames Theatre. In 1958 it was acquired by the Cooper Foundation and converted for use as a live theater. It operated as a repertory house under the name Kingsmark Theatre for about two years before being converted into a supermarket in 1960. From 1970 to 1976 it housed a series of short-lived nightclubs, and since 1976 the building has served as a warehouse.