Varsity Theatre
1207 25th Street,
Des Moines,
IA
50311
1207 25th Street,
Des Moines,
IA
50311
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The New Varsity Theatre is a neighborhood theatre which has been in operation since Christmas of 1938. It was a conversion of an existing two-story building and replaced an older Varsity Theatre which was located around the corner on University Avenuue.
It currently shows independent films and is located close to Drake University.
Contributed by
Bruce Nelson
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Recent comments (view all 14 comments)
Their web site gives a very good History of the Versity Theatre.
Interesting. The older photo in their website’s history link looks like the “mystery” Varsity, that was posted on another CT Varsity page.
The mystery photo on that page had college students perched on a Varsity marquee to view a parade or something in tyhe
40's or50’s.Unfortunately I can’t recall what city or CT page the “rogue” Varsity was thought to be in.
It was in Minnesota somewhere. It was a photo from Life magazine that was probably miscaptioned.
Thanks. I didn’t realize it was you that originally posted the “mystery” Varsity photo. The photo is actually on both the Peoria IL & Milwaukee WI Varsity CT pages.
But the mystery is still unsolved though, sort of.
The consensus seems to be that it is the Milwaukee WI Varsity, now part of Marquette University.
Though there are no other or current pictures with which to compare it.
The other Life Magazine photo was of Racine WI. So it could have been Gen. MacArthur’s parades in WI that all pics were originally culled from.
You are correct that it was miscaptioned as being from Chicago IL.,
where there was never a Varsity.
It was not Evanston IL’s Varsity either.
Forgive me for the following.
But would never finding out, be known as the… Varsity Drag?
The photo is posted on the Varsity page for Milwaukee which is listed here. The photo doesn’t look like this theater either.
Thanks, you are correct. The only thing it remotely has in common is glass blocks. And plenty more in the mystery pic.
Bev Mahon owner of the Varsity passed away friday March 27th 2009. He had owned The Varsity since 1954. He also owned theatres in Pella Iowa,Sioux City Iowa and Omaha Nebraska until settling into The Varsity. A true showman that will be missed by all
1985 photo of the Varsity Theatre.
View link
Here is another photo:
http://tinyurl.com/ybca4mv