Omaha Theater
1506 Douglas Street,
Omaha,
NE
68102
1506 Douglas Street,
Omaha,
NE
68102
2 people
favorited this theater
Showing 1 - 25 of 27 comments found
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?
February 20th, 1935 grand opening ad as Omaha has been posted here
April 15th, 1922 grand opening ad as World has been posted here
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.
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?
Wellen; It’s a website based in Adelaide, Australia, mainly about Wurlitzer organs around the world:
http://theatreorgans.com/au/opus/OPUSHOME.HTM
Where is the location of primary source material for finding this kind of information about theater organs?
The World Theatre had a Wurlitzer organ Style H3M. Opus 530, shipped on March 18, 1922.
CAN ANYBODY TELL US WHAT EVER BECAME OF THE WORLD THEATER PIPE ORGAN?
WHAT ABOUT DETAILS- YEAR, MAKE, MODEL?
There were a few other old theater photos on that site but I’m not certain if they were ever movie theaters.
I must have missed that one. :)
Another vintage photo August 1942
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The year given for this photo is 1945.
1978 Photo of the Closed Omaha Theatre.
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1967 photo of the Omaha Theastre.
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Back in the 70’s when I was a small child me and my mom were downtown doing some shopping at Brandeis dept. store and I asked her if we could see a movie at the Omaha Theater, she said that there had been a shooting there and it wasn’t safe…I’m not sure if what she was telling me then was true or not
In the 1970s the Omaha Theater started primarily showing what were (and are) known as “blaxploitation” movies (such as “Shaft”, “Superfly”, “Blacula”, and many lesser similar works.) Occasionally they’d show kung-fu or ultra-obscure horror movies, but it more or less became known as “the black theater” around town.
I think the demise of the “blaxploitation” subgenre in the late ‘70s contributed heavily to the demise of the Omaha Theater.
The September, 1922 issue of Architecture Magazine credits C. Howard Crane as architect of the World Theatre, with Elmer G. Kiehler and Cyril E. Schley as associates. Here are two 1922 views of the auditorium: www.i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/omahaworld.jpg
Here is another vintage photo of the Omaha Theater.
This photo is either two blondes protesting the movie “Redheads on Parade” or they are advertising the movie. Not sure which of those two it is.
This is a 1930’s photo of the Omaha Theater.
A pdf file of Omaha’s theme song, as written for “Arthur Hayes on the great World Theatre Organ”, also with drawings of the theater, can be seen at: http://www.historicomaha.com/Omaha.pdf
The World Theatre opened in 1922.
The architects of the World Theater were C. Howard Crane and Kenneth Franzheim. It opened in the early 1920’s and had a seating capacity of 2500.
A vintage view of the World Theater can be found at http://www.historicomaha.com/cp19.jpg