Uptown Theatre
1100 N. Pine Street,
Rolla,
MO
65401
1100 N. Pine Street,
Rolla,
MO
65401
1 person
favorited this theater
Additional Info
Previously operated by: Commonwealth Theaters Corp., Crown Cinema Corporation, Hollywood Theaters, United Artists Theater Circuit Inc., Wallace Theaters
Architects: Carl Boller, Robert O. Boller
Firms: Boller Brothers
Styles: Art Deco
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The Uptown Theatre was designed by the Boller Brothers opening on December 9, 1941 with Jack Oakie in “Rise and Shine”. Seating was provided for 1,200. The front facade of the Uptown Theatre was a yellow brick with black panels forming a V shape down the middle until it reached the marquee. The lower part along the street level of the facade was lined with black panels and orange trim around the poster cases and the box office. The box office was in the center with entrance doors to each side. It had a large triangular style marquee with the Uptown name on each side.
The Uptown Theatre had a large lobby with plaster molding trim along the ceilings. The staircase to the balcony was to the right side. The concession stand was in the middle along the back wall of the auditorium. There was decorative plaster trim around the stage with velvet draperies clinging the stage. The multiplexes in the Rolla area finally caused the closing of the Uptown Theatre in 1998. It then became a bar/restaurant.
Demolition of the theatre commenced on March 24, 2010.
Contributed by
Chuck Van Bibber
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Recent comments (view all 7 comments)
Here is another photo of the bar from 2007:
http://tinyurl.com/ytzfcx
This building & the neighboring one were recently acquired by the Missouri S&T Alumni Association. They plan to tear it down in order to build a new alumni center. We need your help! The building is structurally fine, and would be an undertaking to renovate it, but still cheaper than building a new one, and you can keep the cool art deco historical building. To show your support, and help us out: write/email Miner Alumni Association
107 Castleman Hall
400 W. 10th St.
Rolla, MO 65409
(573) 341-4145
Tell them to be creative & re-use the existing structure!
Visited Rolla over the weekend and the building had just been torn down and the lot cleaned up(or so it seemed). A shame.
It went up for sale a few years ago while I was in college there. Had I been able to pull together the funds, it might still be a working theaters (instead of the night club with a sloped floor that it became…)
I just realized the Uptown got demolished. All the theaters in town were owned by the same company. When they were closed one at a time, they had deed restrictions placed on them to keep them from operating as movie theaters. This happened to the Ritz and also to the Uptown. I had inquired before the night club went in ad it wasn’t being sold as a movie theater.
It sucks honestly that we allow our historic building to be discarded and allow these restrictions to be placed on them.
There’s an excellent wide-screen video of the Uptown as it appeared in October 1966 on YouTube.
The Uptown Theatre opened with Jack Oakie in “Rise And Shine” (unknown if extras added) featuring installations of RCA sound and screen equipment, and was first owned by the Gasconade Theatre Company. It opened two days after Pearl Harbor.
Like most theaters in Rolla, the Uptown Theatre operated for many decades. Throughout its history, the Uptown went into several chains over the years, including Commonwealth Theatres, United Artists, Crown Theatres, Hollywood Theaters, and lastly Wallace Theaters before closing in 1998.
TravisCape - Up in Canada, Famous Players and Odeon (historically), and currently Cineplex and Landmark, did the same thing in attaching restrictive covenants in the sale of their movie theatres after closing them to keep them from being used for movies (mainly because of concerns about competition from rivals when they open newer theatres). Ethically, it’s wrong and it shouldn’t be allowed because it denies moviegoers a choice and it also ruins the memories the affected theatres' patrons had of their movie experiences at those theatres (e.g. what movies they saw there, etc.) - not that the chains' CEOs care, because to them, it’s all about the $$$ at day’s end.