Art Theatre
551 S. Main Street,
Los Angeles,
CA
90013
551 S. Main Street,
Los Angeles,
CA
90013
8 people
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One of over 20 theatres located on Main Street in Downtown L.A. The Art Theatre seated 350 people.
Its last years were as an adult house.
It was located next to the Optic Theatre and across from the Burbank theatre.
It has been razed.
The two last theatres on Main St. are the Regent and the Linda Lea theatres which are both closed.
Contributed by
William Gabel
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Recent comments (view all 31 comments)
The Cumberland MD Evening Times had the same story but also included a quote from Marty:
Wiseman quoted the former grid great, now a salesman for a wholesale drug company, “Why don’t you guys give me a break? I’m a married man with three kids. I haven’t done anything like this since I was a kid. I don’t know why I grabbed hold of you tonight. I’m Marty Brill, the famous football player.”
Something is going on with the LAPL links-not working, at least for me. I hope it’s a temporary problem, given the amount of photos in their database.
Something is definitely wrong with that site. Maybe they are updating it.
It looks like the LAPL problem has resolved.
Time heals all wounds. Or so I’ve heard.
The Art is on the left, about midframe, in this 1939 USC photo:
http://tinyurl.com/dkelv8
1983 Photo
At extreme right in the 1939 USC photo, is that the Burbank Theatre’s vertical sign that says “Mexico” on it? Though the marquee is hard to read, it looks like it says “Peliculas” on the first line.
I checked the city directories for 1938 and 1939, and the Burbank is listed in both (under the “Theatres” section rather than “Motion Picture Theatres” and there is no Mexico Theatre listed for either year. The Burbank is listed under Motion Picture Theatres in the 1942 directory.
Unfortunately the L.A. Library doesn’t have a 1940 directory online, or I’d check that. If the Burbank was a Spanish-language movie house called the Mexico, it must have been for a very brief time.
This Gary Graver photo shows some of the theater detail:
http://tinyurl.com/rxycbd
Gary Graver (who passed away in 2009) was a director/cinematographer. He did film/direct a number of XXX films in the 1970s & 1980s under the name Robert McCallum.