St. Francis Theatre
965 Market Street,
San Francisco,
CA
94102
965 Market Street,
San Francisco,
CA
94102
4 people
favorited this theater
Opened as the Empress Theatre in 1910, this theatre was taken over by Sid Grauman in 1917 and renamed the Strand Theatre. A Robert-Morton 3 manual 16 rank theatre organ was installed. In 1924, it was renamed again, this time as the St. Francis Theatre.
In 1968, the theatre was twinned, and the downstairs screen was christened the St. Francis, while the upstairs screen was renamed as the Baronet Theatre, an homage to the recently closed Coronet & Baronet theatres in New York City.
The St. Francis Theatre closed in May, 2001. It stood empty until April 2013, when it was demolished.
Contributed by
William Gabel, Floyd Perry Jr.
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Recent comments (view all 38 comments)
This is a recent article about the St. Francis Theater.
Any idea as to what year the original Oriental style roof treatment was removed?
I bet there’s a lot of nice old brick work behind all those false facades.
Here is a photo of the St. Francis Theatres which I took on Feb. 29th. I am surprised part of the letters are still up on the marquee since it closed almost 10 years ago:
View link
iN ORDER to take down the marquee letters on the top you needed a boom truck. no regular marquee ladder was high enough to get to the top line. when i managed that theatre i had SF Neon come out and put up Bargain Matinees Daily Until 2 pm . All seats were 1.50 the theatre showed no tracies of the original single screen theatre It was completely gutted when they twinned it and covered the wall with red brick and ugly drapes red downstairs and gold up stairs. when you were watching a movie upstairs and there was a full house the balcony would sway with all of the weight.the only room upstairs that was orignal was the janitors closet and that was used for the market street security who patroled the Theatre.it had a desk and a window and the old janitors sink. Otherwise nothing showed the orignal theatre at all. not even the torazzo was gone replaced with ugly brown brick flooring. the entire lobby was slopped and when they use to flood the restrooms it looked like a big pond. the basement was even re done when they twinned it cement walls were built covering all enteries to differnet rooms that were originally there. I m sure as a single screen this was grand because the space was large.they even re constucted the staircase that lead to the twin. as a twin. it had great seating capicity theatre one 766 theatre two was 565, good size for a twin. for that era it was a nice performer.
Great shots of the Saint Francis! Some circa 1979:
http://www.cinematour.com/tour/us/2932.html
The theater now appears doomed, as the project has been approved by the Board of Supervisors. Apparently there was attempt to at least preserve the facade: View link
The Shopping Mall project may have hit a snag- leaving room for another chance at some form of preservation?
View link
The shopping mall deal is moving ahead. Details here: http://www.sfgate.com/business/bottomline/article/Deal-sealed-for-Mid-Market-development-3720908.php
From the early 1900s a night time postcard view of the Empress (St Francis) in San Francisco.
Photo from 2000, not long before closure:–
ST FRANCIS CINEMA