Omaha Theater
1506 Douglas Street,
Omaha,
NE
68102
1506 Douglas Street,
Omaha,
NE
68102
2 people
favorited this theater
Opened in 1922, the World Theater was one of Omaha’s finest examples of beaux-Arts, and was reputed to have the most beautiful exterior of any of the theaters designed by Crane.
The main facade consisted of a five-part, glazed terra-cotta composition with elaborately articulated parts. Central to the composition were three-story round arched windows and iron mullions, railings, and blustraded sills. The windows were framed by four groups of coupled Corinthian columns, which supported an enriched frieze and cornice complete with dentils and modillions. A parapet wall with sculptured inserts and the inscribed words, World Theatre topped the structure.
The theater’s name was subsequently changed to the Omaha Theater, and despite considerable community effort to save it, the theater was demolished to make way for a multi-story parking garage.
Contributed by
Richard Pittenger
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Recent comments (view all 27 comments)
There were a few other old theater photos on that site but I’m not certain if they were ever movie theaters.
CAN ANYBODY TELL US WHAT EVER BECAME OF THE WORLD THEATER PIPE ORGAN?
WHAT ABOUT DETAILS- YEAR, MAKE, MODEL?
The World Theatre had a Wurlitzer organ Style H3M. Opus 530, shipped on March 18, 1922.
Where is the location of primary source material for finding this kind of information about theater organs?
Wellen; It’s a website based in Adelaide, Australia, mainly about Wurlitzer organs around the world:
http://theatreorgans.com/au/opus/OPUSHOME.HTM
Here’s a thought that I’ve had for some time, after researching at the Omaha city planning department. I discovered that the blue-prints for the World/Omaha Theater are still down there, permanently preserved on micro-film.
The lot it sat on is still only occupied by a parking garage, and not an excessively expensive, valuable highrise office building.
Wouldn’t it be incredible if money could be raised and support garnered from some quarter to recreate this wonderful building?
I’ve thought alot about this kind of stuff. I think there’s a real, viable solution to the problem that provided the inspiration for the creation of this website. The Europeans have spent billions of dollars to recreate their historic, bombed out cities. Why could we as American lovers of architecture not start our own movement to begin recreating and rebuilding our own urban-renewal destroyed cities?
Here is a photo of the World Theatre that appeared in an ad for Crane plumbing fixtures in a 1923 issue of the trade journal Domestic Engineering and the Journal of Mechanical Contracting.
April 15th, 1922 grand opening ad as World has been posted here
February 20th, 1935 grand opening ad as Omaha has been posted here
According to the WPA Guide to Omaha, there was a theater on the east side of this block, where the UP Center is now located (formerly a parking lot, directly north of the library). Am I mistaken? And if it did exist, did it ever show movies, or just live shows?