Uptown Theatre
2323 N. 49th Street,
Milwaukee,
WI
53210
2323 N. 49th Street,
Milwaukee,
WI
53210
3 people
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As a young boy in Milwaukee, I frequently attended the Uuptown. On December 7, 1941, attending a Sunday matinee, it was there I received the news of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. I’ll never forget the Uptown.
1920-s interior photo of the Uptown. Click to Enlarge.
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Click to enlarge
1929 photo of the Uptown Theatre.
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September 1st, 1927 pre opening ad is at View link
September 3rd is missing from the Google archive.
The introduction to this theatre should be corrected. The second paragraph refers to Rapp and Rapp’s exterior treatment of the Paradise in Chicago, but the Chicago Paradise was designed by John Eberson, not Rapp and Rapp.
The original organ resides in the Fischer Theatre in Danville, IL, awaiting restoration.
Hi. I wanted to mention an interesting thing about the Uptown. Back in around 1980 or 1981 there were occasional rock concerts at the Uptown. I was working at a different movie theater at the time,but word was out that they needed extra people to be ushers at the concert. Well the concert was Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band. The concert was great until they received a bomb threat. It was amazing how we were able to get about 900 people outside while the bomb squad searched the place.
Here are two 1983 photos:
Photo1
Photo2
The year given for this photo is 1979.
This was the first theatre I worked at as a union projectionist in 1979. At that time, the theatre was charging $1.00 for second run movies along with a midnight show on Friday nights, if I remembered correctly. United Artist was already anticipating closure. There
was virtually no audience, maybe 10 patrons per night and a little busier at the midnight show.
The building was still in pretty good shape. The vending stand had been maintained to its original appeal, however, the auditorium was dimly lit most of the time. The projection booth was equipped with two Simplex XL projectors and two Peerless carbon lamp houses. It got bloody hot in the booth during summertime and I remembered the temperature rising, probably over the 105 degree mark.
I worked there for about a year until I moved to a more “permanent†theatre in Fox Point. I guess when I worked at the Uptown Theatre, I was unappreciative of the stature of working a “movie palaceâ€, but today, I feel privileged that I did :)
The Uptown Theatre opened on 3rd September 1927 with the movie “The Poor Nut” starring Jack Mulhall. It was equipped with a Barton 3Manual/10Rank theatre pipe organ that was opened by Les Hoadley.
Please let me know if you learn anything more about this theatre. Thank You. Jim Rankin =