Six Mile Theatre
16533 Woodward Avenue,
Highland Park,
MI
48203
16533 Woodward Avenue,
Highland Park,
MI
48203
1 person
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Located in the Highland Park district of Detroit. Opened on March 7, 1927 for RKO, the Uptown Theatre was designed to as a sister theater to the downtown Oriental Theatre.
It was originally a venue for vaudeville, but later switched to movies and contained a large organ. The Uptown Theatre was, like the Oriental Theatre, designed by architect of Percival R. Periera.
Renamed the Six Mile Uptown Theatre (for its location at Woodward Avenue and Six Mile Road in Highland Park) in 1954, the Uptown Part of the name was dropped five years later.
Starting in the early-1970’s, it switched from movies to live strip shows, and later that decade, pornographic films.
After it closed in 1980, plans were laid to convert the Six Mile Theatre into a playhouse called the Eighties. However, this idea came to naught, since it was razed by the late-1980’s.
Contributed by
Bryan Krefft
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Recent comments (view all 7 comments)
I saw “Bambi” there as a kid. I remember seeing “Hell Angels on Wheels” there as well, that was in the 60’s when motorcycle movies were popular. Now the structure houses an adult bookstore.
Your thumbnail isn’t certain about the seating capacity of (what we called in my youth) the RKO Uptown. By comparison to another theatre in Highland Park, the Tuxedo, which you seem definite about having an 1800-seat auditorium, I will tell you that the Uptown was very significantly larger. If your figure for the Tux is valid, then I’ll bet the Uptown handily exceeded 2000 seats.
According to the Theatre Historical Society’s list of largest movie palaces, the RKO Uptown had 2,922 seats. Their list indicates the auditorium was demolpshed, indicating the rest of the building survives.It had a Wurlitzer organ installed.
A vintage photo of the RKO Uptown can be seen here.
This was the building in 1982.
The RKO Uptown/Six Mile Theatre, built in 1927, had to have been designed by Percival Pereira, who had been practicing architecture in Detroit for many years. Percival Pereira was never a member of the firm of Pereira & Pereira, which was founded in 1931 by brothers William and Hal Pereira. The brothers had nothing to do with the design of this theater.
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!