Crest Theater

This is another 1984 photo.

Construction had not yet begun on the Crest when the December 4, 1948, issue of Boxoffice published Robert Boller’s rendering of the front. The firm name was not Boller Brothers, though. Carl Boller had died in 1946, and by the time the Crest was built Robert Boller was associated with Dietz Lusk in the Kansas City firm of Boller & Lusk.

I was an usher at the Crest, 1953-1955. When a patron, like a doctor, wanted to be paged if they had a call, they filled out a little card and we noted where they were sitting. If they got a call we went and got them (usuall a good tip followed). The Crest showed a couple of 3D movies while I was working there. Because, they had to use both projectors for 3D, they had an intermission to change the film.

In the 1950s there was an usher’s dressing room down front at the left side of the screen. It could be reached from a tunnel that went under the theater from the front to the back. The uniforms were cleaned weekly and very smart

I officed in this theatre during part of my tenure as City Manager for the Commonwealth and later United Artists Theatres. As mentioned above, United Artists closed the theatre and turned off all utilities. That made ever reopening the theatre impossible as it had an artesian spring in the the office area which soon flooded the lower area of the theatre when the sump pump ceased to function. The main floor was reseated in the early 80’s to provide more comfortable seating but the theatre was not able to compete once the multiplex operations entered the scene.