Strand Theater
1512 11th Avenue,
Altoona,
PA
16601
1512 11th Avenue,
Altoona,
PA
16601
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The Strand Theater dates back to at least 1916 when a Wurlitzer organ was installed. The Strand Theater is not listed in the 1955 Film Daily Yearbook so it might have closed in the early-1950’s.
Contributed by
Joe Vogel/Ken Roe/Lost Memory
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Recent comments (view all 7 comments)
The Strand was operated by the Silverman Brothers. Isaac “Ike” Silverman had opened Altoona’s first movie house, a nickelodeon called the Pastime Theatre, in 1906. He closed the Pastime in 1917, the year after opening the Strand, which was on the same block as the Pastime.
I came across a PDF file in the Pennsylvania State University’s digital library. Published in 1922, it is a program booklet published for a local event called Old Home Week, and it mentions ten Altoona theaters by name, and includes an illustrated advertisement for the Strand on page 49. Unfortunately it gives no addresses for any of the theaters, but the ten it mentions were:
Mishler (stage productions featuring Chicago stock companies)
Orpheum (Keith vaudeville, and movies)
movie houses:
Strand
Capitol
Olympic
New Victoria
Palace
Boyer
Colonial
Lyric
The PDF is in three parts:
Part 1 includes the list of theaters, and also has a picture of the Mishler.
Part 3 has several ads (all of them text-only except for the Strand’s ad) for several theaters.
Part 2 doesn’t have anything about theaters, but is interesting in any case.
The Strand ad boasts of “..the most comfortable seats west of New York…” and of the theater’s “…$47,000 Hope Jones Organ.”
That is some great information that you found. I’m going to add the Pastime Theater unless you would rather add it.
Go ahead and add it. Demolished 1937.
Another missing (or not aka'ed) Altoona Theater is the Sun, listed in the September 3, 1949, issue of Boxoffice as being under renovation by Lewis Hausser.
establish/renew link
This opened on May 29th, 1916. grand opening ad uploaded on this page.
This was renamed Warner on August 15th, 1930. Grand opening ad in the photo section