Golden Gate Theatre

1 Taylor Street,
San Francisco, CA 94102

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RKO Golden Gate Theatre exterior

Viewing: Photo | Street View

The RKO Golden Gate Theatre had a ‘sister’ theatre in Los Angeles RKO Hillstreet Theatre.

Built in 1920, the Golden Gate Theatre was a movie theater for over 50 years until it closed in the 1970’s. By the time it was shuttered, the Golden Gate Theatre had already been converted into a two screen theater in the 1960’s, with the balcony theatre known as the Penthouse Theatre. With the twinning it suffered little permanent damage as it was restored to a single auditorium by the Shorenstein Hayes Nederlander group.

When it was finally renovated and reopened in 1979 into a performing arts center, the original detail and look of the theater was restored as well. Although the neighborhood has remained a little seedy, the theater is still very grand, with a marvelous Art Deco vertical sign that is nearly 4 stories high. Today, the Golden Gate Theatre is still a premier venue for travelling broadway shows and a visual journey into San Francisco’s gilded past.

Contributed by Juan-Miguel Gallegos

Recent comments (view all 63 comments)

hdtv267
hdtv267 on January 16, 2010 at 9:48 am

TCM recently re-aired “Race Street” with George Raft, Marilyn Maxwell, Frank Faylen, William Bendix and many more. Whats cool about this movie is that the Golden Gate is shown and plays a small but important part in the movie.

robboehm
robboehm on March 1, 2010 at 8:16 pm

The link is already broken

robboehm
robboehm on March 2, 2010 at 5:54 am

Today it worked.

btkrefft
btkrefft on March 2, 2010 at 1:44 pm

A couple photos I took of the Golden Gate Theatre on Feb. 28th can be seen here:

View link

TLSLOEWS
TLSLOEWS on April 4, 2010 at 5:07 pm

NICE 1956 PHOTO KEN MC.

William
William on September 14, 2011 at 3:35 pm

Should add the Penthouse to the aka list for this theatre. During the theatres Trans-Beacon days of operation as a twin, the balcony was known as the Penthouse.

gomesrox
gomesrox on October 24, 2011 at 7:04 pm

I recently bought a desk at a thrift store for my daughter, and when we were refinishing it, I found 2 orchestra tickets for the Golden Gate theatre from 1982. As I understand there is a G.G. in L.A. as well? Im not sure if I have the right one or which one they are from, but if anyone has an idea of how i could find information about what show was playing, I would be interested in info.

William
William on October 25, 2011 at 11:11 am

gomesrox, this is the Golden Gate Theatre you want. The one in East Los Angeles only showed movies. Check with the Public Library or the area newspaper for past listings. Some have converted past to the internet or microfilm.

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