Studio Theatre
396 S. First Street,
San Jose,
CA
95113
396 S. First Street,
San Jose,
CA
95113
4 people
favorited this theater
Showing 1 - 25 of 29 comments found
Night view of the Studio here
Glad you enjoyed it. Thanks.
Gary..Really like your drawing of the interior of the Studio. I bet at one time it was a great looking movie theater.
A rock-climbing “venue.” A fitting tribute to what’s in the heads of the people who turned this theater into a trendy, gone-with-the-next-fad waste of valuable space.
I have never seen a single photo of the interior. The one time I went to a movie there in the early 90s, I asked if I could take pictures and was not granted permission (with today’s tiny digital cameras, I wouldn’t have bothered asking, just snapped away). So, Plan B. I had my sketchbook, and did a drawing on the spot before and after the movie. I’ve posted it under the Photos section on this Studio page. It is as accurate a representation I could do in the time allowed. I have a lot of experience drawing buildings, so you can count on this as a faithful representation of the essential look of the auditorium. Check it out!
Any interior pictures of the Studio?
A couple of weeks ago I popped by again. Not to appear to contradict my friend Terry, but the lobby itself is still there, with its streamlined ceiling coves. What HAS been gutted out is the little “sunken” lounge behind where the concession counter was, which led to the restrooms.
I remember going here to see TO SIR WITH LOVE… great movie, then once I went in there by mistake and fell in love Throurghly Modern Millie… fond memories… now it’s a ghost theater….
Just went into the Studio theatre a few days ago and they have torn out the old lobby walls. Will they wreck the nice front glass boxoffice also and front neon sign? What will the new name be ‘Studio Rocks Downtown’. In the old days people went outside to climb rocks for free, now you have to go indside and pay.
On site observation by me this morning: I was allowed to briefly step into the former auditorium. I can confirm firsthand that the auditorium has been completely gutted to the bare concrete and open beam steel ceiling joists. An extensive new steel armature for the rock climbing wall structure now twists and turns throughout the space, and is admittedly quite impressive. At present, the original wall surfaces and ceiling coves of the lobby and the passages leading to the former auditorium are intact. Original ornamental plaster leaves still are extant in the passages, but once in the auditorium, all trace of theatrical use is completely gone. The exterior at present remains completely unchanged from its days as WET, save for the removal of the club’s name from the former reader-board spaces on the marquee.
Word reached me today via someone who owns a business nearby that Club WET is finis. Apparently an indoor rock climbing facility is taking the space. Supposedly the building has been rezoned so that it cannot be a nightclub again.
To see this theatre lately in local news due to WET would make my uncle roll !.
My uncle was Lawrence Borg. He built this theatre around 1950. The theatre was run by The Borg Family Trust until approximatly 1990, when the family decided to sell it, for fear of Earthquake damage/retrofit/lawsuit.
I almost was able to lease the theatre from the trust in 1988 when I was interested in opening a nightclub, but decided not to, but I wish I would have just reopened as an art theatre.
I am glad that this forum on Cinema Treasures has kept the spirit and soul of my uncle alive. He was a vibrant person, who loved His family, the movies, traveling, animals, and life…..
Thanks so much
Andrew
Club WET must have cleaned up its act considerably. Their advertising budget certainly has expanded. In addition to lots of print advertising, they now have a photographic billboard ad atop a building in San Francisco (!), fully visible as you approach the Bay Bridge, going Eastbound. Meanwhile, another alteration has occurred to the historic Studio facade. The marquee has been painted completely black, and the magenta neon has been removed and replaced with blue neon.
Very nice vertical.
The Studio Theater became Club Wet around January 2009 – the latest in a string of nightclub businesses to inhabit the theater since the late 1990’s. Club Wet has had its business license revoked on September 23rd 2009 after a long series of incidents of violence and public drunkenness over the course of the summer. No word as to when or if the club will reopen.
Additional photos can be seen here.
1984 Photo
The Studio, looking for a buyer in 1997:
View link
Here is a 1986 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/cfnqqb
Here is a 2007 photo of the Studio theater.
Not sure about other names for the Studio in Sacramento, but I do know that its facade is preserved, along with the facade of the Esquire to its left, as the front of the big IMAX theatre which replaced the Esquire (which had previously spent some years with a remodeled interior as an office building.
This is a 2006 photo of the Studio theater.
This website has some photos of the Studio Theater in San Jose.
I saw HOW THE WEST WAS WON at the Studio Theatre on my 10th Birthday! What a wonderful experience on the big screen with its beautiful curtains. A few years later – when downtown San Jose fell to hell – the studio became pornographic – Adult X Rated Movies competing with the GAY across the street. The FOX had already closed its doors and the UNITED ARTIST was 100% Mexican Movies.
Later on – in 1975 – Paul Catalana (previous owner of the MAYFAIR
EL RANCHO DRIVE IN and TROPICAIRE TWIN VUE DRIVE IN all in San Jose)
took over the lease on THE STUDIO. He ran 3 Features and changed
weekly. Admission was only $1.00 or less and the place tried
to compete with the other very successful JOSE THEATRE around the corner on 2nd Street which was very very successful with a grind policy @ 50 Cents Before 6pm and $1 After 6pm. With poor management,
the STUDIO became a haven for drug dealers and gang activities. In fact, someone set seats on fire in the balcony on a Friday night
causing the house to shut down early that night.
I can’t resist the urge to comment on Mr. Parks' mention of Quetzalcoatl. He is correct about a small and noisy group similar to the one protesting the sale of the Studio also protesting the Fallon Statue. Of course, this group’s complaints were baseless but the San Jose City Council was comprised of too many patronizing wimps who not only didn’t put the Fallon Statue where it truly belonged, but took things a step further and dropped a nice big pile of you-know-what there instead to appease this group. Maybe the council thought it would be an exellent way of having the complaining come back to bite this group by replacing the supposedly repulsive Captain Fallon with something even more repulsive, as if to say, “OK, are you happy now?” Mr. Parks, if you have any leverage at all, can you drop the hint to the powers that be that this pile that has been dropped in downtown San Jose needs to be re-located to the Mexican Heritage Plaza where it would supposedly be more appreciated? It turns my stomach every time I drive up Market Street and see this pile so prominently displayed in the park. For a city that has a serious complex about its image, this is hardly the kind of public “art” to display in such a prominent location.