Follies Theatre

508 Ninth Street NW,
Washington, DC 20004

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Opened as the Roosevelt Theatre in September 1933. It became a grind house and the name was changed to Follies Theatre from 1949 to 1968.

In 1969 it became the Art Theatre and in 1976 it became the Gayety Theatre with live girls on stage and X-rated films. It closed in 1987 and was torn down and replaced by a large modern office building.

I worked the booth in 1971-72 when it was an adult theatre, low budget operation. It had 35mm, 16mm and 8mm equipment and ran sound from a reel to reel tape deck with 8mm footage.

Contributed by Local619, Ken Roe

Recent comments (view all 3 comments)

lostmemory
lostmemory on April 28, 2009 at 11:03 am

Here is a 1984 photo.

kencmcintyre
kencmcintyre on February 25, 2010 at 7:10 pm

Here is a view of the Art in December 1971:
http://tinyurl.com/ye34myx

Matthew Prigge
Matthew Prigge on October 23, 2012 at 8:32 am

If anyone has any stories about going to/ working at this threatre in its adult days, I would love to hear them. I am chronicling the histories of adult theatres in the US. Please contact me at Thanks!

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