Colony Theater
3208 W. 59th Street,
Chicago,
IL
60629
3208 W. 59th Street,
Chicago,
IL
60629
17 people
favorited this theater
Located in the Marquette Park neighborhood of Chicago on 59th Street at Kedzie Avenue, the Colony Theater originally opened in 1926 after a year-long construction for the Ascher Brothers circuit.
The firm which designed the theater was Lowenberg & Lowenberg, in Italian Renaissance style, complete with cream-colored terra cotta decor on its red-brick facade and a row of arched windows over the main entrance.
The Colony not only featured movies in its early years, but live entertainment as well. However, it later moved to a film-only format, and remained so through the 70s. During the late 70s and into the 80s, the Colony was used for rock concerts. Later in the 80s, it was briefly used for religious stage shows. In the early 90s, the theater housed a flea market for a short time, and by the latter part of that decade, the Colony was used for storage.
Since then, the theater has been vacant. It did very briefly come to life for a few days in the late 90s when the former CBS series, “Early Edition”, which filmed on location in Chicago, used the Colony’s lobby and exterior for a scene.
Contributed by
Bryan Krefft
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Recent comments (view all 60 comments)
Well, if we are calling the neighborhood around the Riviera and Aragon bad, I think it says something. That is not a bad neighborhood. I would walk around any part of that area during the day and most parts of it at night. It isn’t the Gold Coast but it is far from unsafe, certainly not a ghetto. I haven’t been by the Colony since about ‘91. This is arguably a long time. But it was kind of like Uptown back then, not the greatest but not unsafe. I have a feeling it hasn’t changed so much that I would feel unsafe walking from the theatre to the parking lot. Once I even went to a P-Funk concert at the New Regal on 79th. It wasn’t a big deal. We parked in a designated lot and there was security. I don’t think the gangs care about concert-goers. I think they have their own businesses and stick to them. The last thing they want is police scrutiny, which is what they would get if they shot up a crowd full of concert-goers. Only a crazy person would do that, and I am here to tell you that there are crazy people in every part of Chicagoland: city, suburbs, rich, poor. The biggest potential enemy I see here is the local resident group. They might get annoyed very quickly with a bunch of litter and drunk people.
The projection booth, including some extra rooms, at the Colony is as big as the lobby. The room is so big that the projectors hardly made any noise. Anyone ever notice that the facade of the Colony is full of light bulb sockets. The entire facade must have been illuminated at one tome.
Edward, I’ve noticed those sockets on some old theaters, sometimes they still have bulbs in them that have turned almost black. Some theaters covered them over with mortar. The Chicago Theatre, Downtown, had them off, for I would guess at least 50 years and then about 5 years ago restored the lights. That must be a job to replace the sockets and wires behind the terra cotta. They look GREAT! The GREAT theater expert, the late Jim Rankin, told me those are called “STUD LIGHTING”. Thanks Jim, RIP.
I certainly hope this theater could be restored one day. If the Patio and the Portage can be restored, why not both the Ramova and this theater as well?
Since Hollywood is going all video and won’t be sending film prints soon means a major investment in video projection. Also, as far as restoring, when it was owned by Stern & Stern they completely demolished the deco on both sides of the stage where the organ pipe chambers were and did a sloppy flat plaster job. They covered it with a big gold curtain on both sides of the stage that became an extension of the stage curtain. I grew up in this neighborhood and saw many movies at that theater. I also have done booth restoration work and I know that a theater that size will require some major bucks to get going. The last time I was in Chicago it looked in pretty good shape on the outside but the condition of the inside could be a mess. If the roof has been leaking there could be some major plaster damage. It would be interesting if someone could get inside to just see what the condition is.
It looks mostly intact in this 1984 photo – http://cinematreasures.org/comments?page=1&theater_id=2534#comment-348260 – was the removed plaster just black areas?
In the picture of the 1984 auditorium, it shows two box-like grills on each side of the stage. That must have been added later possibly for ventilation or something. If you blow up the picture you will see some fancy plasterwork high above that curves down and ends. Originally that fancy plasterwork continued down and comprised the organ chamber front that extended out from the wall. It was quite beautiful, this link of another theater gives a general idea of how they did those theater organ chamber grills http://www.angelfire.com/al/saenger/saen9.html. I kinda had the run of the Hiway, Marquette and Colony from working during high school and continued to do some work over the years re-bulbing auditoriums and such. I was there when they started ripping out that fancy plasterwork and was a little upset how they were destroying the architecture just to make it look more modern. There used to be murals on the Colony auditorium walls which they had painted over when they painted all three theater auditoriums a dark ugly green. On the subject of the neighborhood, There were gangs even back in the 60’s. My sister still lives near 55th and Pulaski and last year I wandered around the Colony and it’s not that bad.
“Later in the 80s, it was briefly used for religious stage shows.” Actually, it was about 5 months in 1988 (Feb-Jun). I worked there with several of the high school students that I was mentoring at the time. We did a couple shows per week (Wed & Sat, I think) It was basically vaudeville with a gentle Christian message. Trying to get open was pure Hell because the neighborhood fought us every step of the way – they remembered the mayhem caused by the live rock concerts in the late-70s/early-80s and didn’t want a repeat. At the time, the area was so-so – good during the day, marginal at night. My students and I usually ate at Gertie’s ice cream or the McDonalds a block North on Kedzie. There was a little diner on the opposite corner that we called ‘the greasy spoon’ but that was grossly unfair because the food and the service were always good. We got access to the building on the last day of January ‘88. It was 9 degrees colder inside the building than outside. We spent weeks replacing light bulbs, repairing the light board, getting the fire sprinkler system up & running, setting up the house sound system, restoring an old follow spot that had been left behind by one of the rock bands ('Jinx’) and a million other things. The caretaker’s name was Mike. He lived in the building. ‘Mikey’ had been there since ‘79. I know because he told us the film that was playing when he started working there was 'Alien’…and that locking up at 1 AM after watching the movie 4 times was the scariest moment of his life. I went back with a couple of the kids about 10 years later. The area had deteriorated substantially.but Mikey was still there. While we were in Gertie’s, someone broke into my car. Haven’t been back since.
This theater looks to be a sound building after looking at the pictures posted. Are the seats still there?
No, the main floor seats were taken out years ago. I’m not sure about the balcony.