Alvarado Theatre

The Alvarado Theatre was located at 710 S. Alvarado Street.

A 1973 ad shows 710 S. Alvarado as being the Park Theatre? The double bill was "The Don is Dead" and "Terminal Island".

The Alvarado theatre originally opened in 1911 and had a Clasical facade that had doric columns supporting a pediment. It was re-modelled by S. Charles Lee in 1936 and given an Art Moderne styling.

It was re-named the Park Theatre in the 1960's and began screening porn movies. In June 1968 it began screening gay programmes (the first theatre in LA to do so)and billed it as 'A Most Unusual Film Festival' when underground films such as Jonas & Adolfas Mekas "The Brig", Jack Smith's "Flaming Creatures", Warhol's "My Hustler" and a Kenneth Anger Trilogy were played. Support programmes included the gay soft core titles "Love is Blue", "Nudist Beach Boy Surfers", "Boys out to Ball" and "An Interlude in the Desert" also Warhol's "B-J" (call theatre for title!).

The Park Theatre reverted back to general realease films in the 1970's when it was twinned but it closed in 1986 and was gutted. It is now in use as a 'swap meet' market, similar to its neighbor the Westlake Theatre.

From the UCLA Collection:

http://sclee.library.ucla.edu/001/06/i0010601.jpg

Two photos from the UCLA COllection showing the theater in the 1930's, before remodeling:

http://sclee.library.ucla.edu/001/06/i0010603.jpg

http://sclee.library.ucla.edu/001/06/i0010602.jpg

The Amador Theater in Jackson, CA, would directly follow this entry:

http://ulibimage.ucdavis.edu/speccoll/east01/full/B-5568.jpg

This is a modern photo of the former Alvarado Theater.

I think this was the theatre Monroe Behler owned back in the 60s. Monroe also owned the Century Theatres in both Hollywood and San Francisco.

Bad guys in May 1924, from the LA Times:

Carey Wilson and George H. Cowdrey pleaded not guilty to charges of robbery at their arraignment yesterday. Cowdrey is also charged with the murder of Joseph Langley, manager of the Alvarado Theater, on September 20, 1923. Langley was shot down in the street by a man who snatched the theater cash box from his hands. Wilson and Cowdrey stand accused of the robbery of the Sultan Baths, Parsons Garage and a street-railway motorbus.

Here is a January 1958 ad from the LA Times:
http://tinyurl.com/2n5wxg

Here is a 1970 ad:
http://tinyurl.com/2ad35x

It looks like I deleted some of my recent photobucket entries by mistake. This message will come up on some other pages as well. I will go back and fix the problem when I have a chance.

The links to the 1958 ad and the 1970 ad still work.

They might have worked right after I posted them, but then I deleted some entries as I had exceeded the max allowed in that album. I have to go back and restore the ones I deleted.

I just clicked those two links and they still work. If your Photobucket is full, you could leave it full so the links continue to work and open a free account somewhere else like Shutterfly or any other free hosting service that you can find.

I think I can open a subalbum in photobucket. There is max of 1000 pictures in each album, apparently. Do me a favor, go the Granada page (West Hollywood theater) and see if that link works as well. Perhaps it only affects me as I cannot open the 1970 link on this page. Thanks.

The link to the 1970 ad on the Granada page doesn't work. I received a "page not found" error. The links on this page (Alvarado) are still working.

OK, thanks.

I checked out the interior today. Nothing interesting, certainly not like the Westlake. Here are two exterior photos:
http://tinyurl.com/2f3utw
http://tinyurl.com/2cmmwl

My father and grandfather owned the Alvarado theater from the mid 1950s until they sold it in the early 1960s (to an outfit I remember as "Shan Sales", or something like that). I worked there as a boy, too, and my father paid me $1.25/hour!

The new owners renamed it the Park, tried to make a go of it showing regular Hollywood movies but couldn't, then converted it to a gay porn theater, which we thought did OK for some time. After selling the theater, my father sold appliances but also worked as a relief projectionist at many theaters in LA. One day he got a call from the union asking if he was OK working at a gay porn place -- the Park! My Dad laughed and said he was OK with it.

The area around Westlake Park was solidly middle class when my family bought the theater. Unfortunately for us, the rise of TV, the building of the freeways and the general decline of downtowns there and across America doomed this endeavor.

Per the post by ken mc, Joseph Langley was the manager of the Alvarado and the brother of C. L. Langley, whose Southwest Theater Co.(precurser) to West Coast Theaters, Inc.)owned the Alvarado.

DavidBland was your dad's name Jay?

William: yes, my dad's name was Jay. Did you know him? My grandfather's name was Barney

I worked some of the Local 150 houses in LA. I remember his name from that time. I just happened upon your above comment and it just came to me.

You have a good memory, William!