Rita Theater
1520 Solano Avenue,
Vallejo,
CA
94590
1520 Solano Avenue,
Vallejo,
CA
94590
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Opened in 1948. Current status is unknown.
Contributed by
Ken McIntyre
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Recent comments (view all 13 comments)
Thats probably why Google won’t map the above address.
It’s odd that I can’t figure out what happened to this theater, unless it had some other name later on. It seems like kind of an imposing structure just to fade away.
This was an auto dealership in the 70’s and 80’s – Taylor Motors (Porsche & Audi). They later moved across town and the building sat empty through the 90’s.
I don’t know if 1520 is the correct address. As pointed out previously, the street name is Solano. There is a martial arts place at 1516 and a soul food restaurant at 1526. Down the street, on the odd side, is an interesting building with what looks to be a vertical blade. Lots of windows for a former theater building, though.
I was born in Vallejo,Ca. 2/6/37
I mowed lawns for $0.25 in Carquinez Hights in the late 40's
Saved all my money & went to all most all of the theaters in Vallejo on the week end.
Does anyone remember the name of the theater out on Sonoma Blvd at that time.
I grew up in Valljeo from 1947 to 1965. I have read and heard various stories about the number of indoor movie theaters that once flourished, many of them 24 hours a day during and after World War II, and those sotries indicate either nine or 10 theaters open and operating at the same time.
And that’s not counting drive-in theaters.
The Vallejo Auto Movies, with separate screens, parking areas and box offices for two theaters. Located at the intersection of Benicia Road and Rollingwood Drive/Glen Cove Road, adjacent to four cemeteries, Carquinez, St. Veincent’s, All Souls, and Skyview Memorial Lawn, the Vallejo Auto Movies closed around 1992. After more than 10 years of neglect and decay, the site was demolished around 2003.
The Crescent Drive-In opened in 1948 on Flosden Road near American Canyon Road and was eventually purchased by United Artists. It was demolished a few years ago and became part of the housing subdivision of American Canyon.
Of the indoor theaters that I can (barely) remember, I think that there was a movie house on Sonoma Boulevard near the California National Gaurd Armory at Chesnet Street (Theater No. 1). It was possibly called the Chesnut (?). There was another theater on Sonoma Boulevard (Theater No. 2), near Kentucky Street, on the northeast corner of the intersection, but I have no recollection of a name for that venue.
The original Empress opened in 1911 (Theater No. 3), at its present location of 338 Virginia Street. In 1912 it became the Republic, in the 1930s it wss the Vallejo, and in 1951 it was renamed the Crest. It reopened in the 1980s once again as the Empress. In 1989, following the Loma Prieta earthquake, the theater closed in need of seismic refitting.
The Empress now has a web-site which indicates that the theater is once again open for business.
Across the street from the Crest (300 blcok of Virginia Street), were two movie house, the Crown (Theater No. 4) and the Rio (Theater No. 5). Most of that lot eventuallay became a downtown parking lot.
One block east (400 block of Virgina) was the Hanlon (Theater No. 6 – I think). One block south on Georgia Street were two theaters, neither of which has a name in my memory. On the 300 block of Georgia was a theater (theater No. 7) that became the Gallenkamp’s hoe store, and at the foot of the lower Georgia Street hill (200 block of Georgia) was another movie house (Theater No. 8) that was demolished before the start of the major downtown renovation project of the 1960s that produced the new post office and the John F. Kennedy Library.
The last indoor theater to survive—and may still be in opeation—before the advent of the multi-plex theaters in the shopping centers, was the El Rey (Theater No. 9) located near the intersection of Tennessee Street and Broadway.
The Rita (Theater No. 10) was located at Georgia Street and Solano Avenue, near the Municipal Courthouse. It became Taylor Auto Sales, Porsche and Audi in the 1970s.
And there may be more of which I have no knowledge or suspicion.
There were three theaters on Georgia St. One was the Val-Mar. Another the Rita
On Virgina St were the Rio, MarVal, Hanlon, something that became the Crest.
There was the Studio on Sonoma St with folding chairs for seats.
There was the Victory theater on 5th St in South Vallejo.
The El Rey was on Tennessee St.
There were two theaters called the Rita in Vallejo. The first was the one taken over by Ray Syufy and his father, William Syufy, in 1940, and was their first theater. The second Rita was the one Syufy had built in 1948. I’ve been unable to find out what became of the first Rita Theatre.
I’ve had to reconsider my assumption that there were two theaters called the Rita in Vallejo. It now seems more likely that the theater project from 1948 was the house that Rita operator Ray Syufy opened in 1949 as the El Rey.
The card in the California Index which was my source cited the 1948-1949 Theatre Catalog, listing an illustration of Vincent Raney’s plans for the Rita Theatre at Vallejo on pages 114-115. If somebody has that edition of the catalog, they could check the illustration and see if it looks like the Rita or the El Rey.
A Rita Theatre was in operation in 1940, and I’ve found no sources saying that the name was moved to a new theater at any time. Judging from the photos ken mc linked to, the Rita certainly looked as though it could have been built as early as 1940.
I haven’t found any sources identifying Vincent Raney as the architect of the Rita (other than the Theater Catalog I now suspect was actually reporting on the El Rey,) but the building looks like his style, and he definitely designed theaters for Syufy Enterprises through most of the second half of the 20th century, so it wouldn’t be surprising if he had designed Syufy’s first theater.
The Rita Theatre was definitely designed by Vincent G. Raney. The entry for architect Tristan Parego Smith in the 1956 edition of the AIA’sAmerican Architects Directory lists the Rita Theatre as one of several projects on which Smith served as a participating associate while he was working in Raney’s office.