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Central Theatre

Los Angeles, CA
314 S. Broadway
, Los Angeles, CA 90013 United States
(map)
Status: Closed/Demolished
Screens: Single Screen
Style: Unknown
Function: Unknown
Seats: 562
Chain: Independent
Architect: Unknown
Firm: Unknown
Add a photo for this theater!
The Central Theatre was located along Broadway in downtown Los Angeles. It has been demolished and most recently housed a bridal shop on the site.
Contributed by William Gabel


YOUR COMMENTS

 
Over in the post for the Cozy, Tillmany wrote:
"'The Killer That Stalked New York' is a 1950 film about a woman with the bubonic plague loose in New York City. Much of it was filmed there. But the finale, in which the woman, played by Evelyn Keyes, is out on the ledge of a building, threatening to jump, was filmed on South Broadway in Los Angeles, right above the Central Theatre, and in the same block as the Cozy. Although the Central is not easy to identify, the flashing neon of the Cozy is unmistakenly visible in several scenes."
posted by Tillmany on May 15, 2004 at 8:43am

I went by there recently and it's now an All in Bridal & Tuxedo shop.
posted by MagicLantern on Jun 10, 2004 at 12:14pm
Not in South Central L.A., but right downtown, across the street from the Million Dollar Theatre, near the very northern end of the Broadway theatre district. I don't remember ever seeing this building when it was still a theatre, but it must have been almost next door to the Bradbury Building.
posted by Joe Vogel on Dec 25, 2004 at 4:58am
The status of the Central needs to be changed to 'Closed'. Function 'Retail'

It still remains, although the All in Bridal & Tuxedo shop has now closed as seen in January 2005.

Joe;
You are correct, it is located almost next door to the historic Bradbury Building which has a #304 address.
posted by KenRoe on Feb 15, 2005 at 12:04pm
Here is a map circa 1950 that shows the Central and Cozy theaters on Broadway:
http://www.uncanny.net/~wetzel/subwayarea.htm
posted by ken mc on Jan 29, 2006 at 10:05am
Here is a January 2007 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/yaoccp
posted by ken mc on Jan 15, 2007 at 9:13am
kenmc: Either the building has had two floors lopped off its top, or that is a different building than the one the Central was in. I'm inclined to think its a different building. I have a vague memory of a parking lot being on that site in the 1960s. I have another vague memory of a scene in the movie "Chinatown" when Jake is fetching his car from a parking lot and we see the Million Dollar Theatre in the background across the street.

You can see the Central's marquee (through a haze of smoke) in the picture I linked to last October from the CT Cozy Theatre page.
posted by Joe Vogel on Jan 15, 2007 at 3:21pm
I actually asked my wife that when I was taking the picture yesterday. We agreed that it vaguely looked like a theater but that it was probably not the original building.
posted by ken mc on Jan 15, 2007 at 3:37pm
This is a 1968 photo. As Joe accurately recalls, there is a parking lot where the building at 314 S. Broadway stands today. Ergo, the current building is not the theater.
http://jpg2.lapl.org/spnb1/00017091.jpg
posted by ken mc on Feb 3, 2007 at 4:07pm
OK, dialing the wayback machine to 1940, you will see Joe's building at 314:
http://jpg3.lapl.org/pics30/00064857.jpg
posted by ken mc on Feb 3, 2007 at 5:20pm
Status should be closed/demolished.
posted by ken mc on Feb 5, 2007 at 10:16am
Yes, that is not the original building. If you exit the Bradbury from the back exit, heading into Biddy Mason Park, you can see the back of this building at 314. It's a smooth wall of concrete cinder blocks with absolutely no ornmentation at all. Dates from the 1970's at the earliest, probably later.
posted by ScottS. on May 3, 2007 at 3:02am
So the original building was demolished some time before 1968.
posted by ken mc on May 3, 2007 at 4:02am
Featured on 1/22/50: "Chicago Deadline" and "Roughshod". Phone number was MU9-2851.
posted by ken mc on Jun 3, 2007 at 9:22am
Here is an article from the LA Times dated 7/6/42. I was glad to see that the projectionist did not get flambeed this time as they seem to have when the film would routinely explode, compelling them to leap from the projection booth.

THEATER MANAGER AVERTS FIRE PANIC

Cool, quick action of a theater manager yesterday averted a possible panic among 450 spectators at the Central Theater, 314 S. Broadway, when a small fire sent clouds of smoke billowing through the auditorium. Manager Louis Levine stepped up to the stage and announced to the audience that there was no danger and the patrons filed out of the theater in an orderly fashion.
posted by ken mc on Jul 6, 2007 at 5:02pm
It doesn't seem like anyone ever wanted to shoot the east side of Broadway south of the Bradbury building. This 1918 photo is one of the few I found, but no theater is in evidence:
http://tinyurl.com/3dw5t8
posted by ken mc on Jul 11, 2007 at 1:13pm
Note the predecessor to the Million Dollar on the left.
posted by ken mc on Jul 11, 2007 at 2:37pm
The Central was already gone by 1960, according to this LOC photo:
http://tinyurl.com/2mh2fs
posted by ken mc on Aug 18, 2007 at 2:29pm
This 1973 photo shows the theater building, sans theater:
http://helios.library.ca.gov/soca/reagh/1990-0017.jpg

The Central can be seen to the north of the Cozy in this 1955 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/369yjh
posted by ken mc on Mar 5, 2008 at 7:21pm
OK, there's some contradiction there between my two comments, but I think the 1973 building is in fact the Central theater location. I can't explain the 1960 photo.
posted by ken mc on Mar 5, 2008 at 7:22pm
Ken: The 1973 picture is not the Central's building. It has arched windows on the top floor, while the Central's building had square-topped windows. Also, the building to the left of it is too low to be the 5-floor Bradbury Building, and the building to the right has a light well on the side, which the Cozy's building didn't have. The State library probably mislabeled this photo.
posted by Joe Vogel on Mar 5, 2008 at 7:50pm
The movie on the Cozy marquee in the 1955 photo appears to be "Little Egypt" with Rhonda Fleming. That movie was released in September of 1951.

posted by Lost Memory on Mar 5, 2008 at 8:04pm
OK, Joe, I'll buy that. The theater was around in 1955, but gone by 1960, apparently.
posted by ken mc on Mar 5, 2008 at 8:11pm
I'm now wondering where that building with the arched windows was (or is) located. It looks familiar, but I can't quite place it.
posted by Joe Vogel on Mar 5, 2008 at 9:40pm
Perhaps it was on the other side of Broadway. I know there was a caption originally, but I would have to dig through the site to find it.
posted by ken mc on Mar 5, 2008 at 10:00pm
The Central Theatre can clearly be seen in the 1933 movie 'FOOTLIGHT PARADE', starring James Cagney, Ruby Keeler, & Joan Blondell.
In this film chorus girls change costumes in buses while traveling from theatre to theatre, and pass by the Central and Million Dollar.
posted by Miss Melba Toast on Oct 22, 2008 at 10:18am
The Central Theatre is listed at this address in the 1929 Los Angeles City Directory. I don't have access to any earlier directories, so that's the earliest I can confirm that it was open.
posted by Joe Vogel on Oct 23, 2008 at 7:38pm
That 1973 photo was 354 S. Broadway, not 314. That's one of the two that burned down in Feb. 2007, exposing their original façades that were hidden behind a late-'70s remodel.

A thread at the L.A. ModCom preservation board, http://www.lottaliving.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=8572, has before and after photos of that building, and the L.A. Times article about the fire.

You can see the Cozy and the empty spot where the Central was in the background of another early '70s photo from that thread illustrating where the fire was.
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/186/381969966_0ad4317673_o.jpg
posted by -DB on Feb 20, 2009 at 2:26pm
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