4th Street Theatre
110 N. Fourth Street,
Moberly,
MO
65270
110 N. Fourth Street,
Moberly,
MO
65270
3 people
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The outside is really lovely. I hope I hear about it when the renovation is complete so I can visit it! Good luck, folks!
The 4th St. was the better of the 2 theaters in Moberly when I lived and taught in Madison. But the State always had the better movies. This was during the late 70’s.
pictures are Great.
What a great Marquee in the 1945 photo,the new photos are good too.
From 2010 photos of the 4th Street Theatre in Moberly. [Please click on thumbnails for larger view].
An update on Moberly’s 4th Street Theatre restoration…
We have raised over $700,000 so far and have about $250,000 to go. We have paid for everything as we have done it so we stay out of debt. Now ready to install the HVAC system. Have the plumbing and electric infrasture in also all the frame work plus much more. We are planning a volunteer work day in July. Have had several fundraisers this spring. One, a Cemetery Walk went well and a Vaudeville Variety Show went very well. We need ideas for fundraisers or funding sources so please share with us. Many ulumni groups are wanting to hold their reunions at the theatre as soon as we can let them and I hope that is soon. Carolee, PD
Two more photos are here and here.
Here is a 1981 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/m34t27
Television is not going away, folks. From the Mexico (MO) Evening Ledger in May 1954:
MOBERLY â€" The 4th Street Theater will close Wednesday, May 5, for the summer months, according to Ralph Wallace, manager of both the Grand and 4th Street houses. Mr. Wallace said the Columbia television station had caused, he hopes temporarily, a decreased attendance since the first of the year. However, he thinks the theater will reopen next fall.
Here are then (1945) and now (2009) photos.
This is the 4th Street Cinema in 1997. Shouldn’t 4th Street Cinema be an aka name?
Here is a photo of the 4th Street Theater building.
A comment above mentioned that this was a segregated theater at one time. This is what I found on that subject:
“Several have asked about the segregated entrance to the theater. Barnes says this was not in the original Abt plans. "Actually, it was built in 1924,” he says. “The O'Keefes, and Tritch and Selby had a parting of the ways, and Theodore Davis became manager. There was some redecorating in early 1923, but in 1924 Carl Boller, the famous theater architect who also designed the Missouri in Columbia (MO) and the Landers in Springfield (MO), augmented the original structure – extending the balcony, adding a cry room, and six loges. He also added "A special gallery, with separate box office and entrance for African-Americans. Before then, our black community was not allowed to attend the theater. So if you need a date, April 25, 1924 – that’s when the ‘colored entrance’ opened.”
Actually B&B didn’t cover over any of the terra cotta work or changed much except put curved walls on each side of the stage to tighten up the area for the large screen. These will be taken down
for the restoration to open the area again.
Fundraising is continuing but contractors will start in Dec. 2004 on phase one.
See our website at www.4thstreettheater.org
Carolee
I saw many movies in this theatre in the 1970’s. Movies such as Jaws, The Great Gatsby, King Kong, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Wars, and many, many more. I’d see anything that was showing even though I was between 8 – 12 years old. I can remember there were two sets of bathrooms because in early days they were segregated for blacks and whites. The seats were very old even back then, the material was very dark red, thick, and almost course. I still remember the feel of those seats, something you’ll never see or feel like that again. I saw so many movies there that I knew by memory which seats creaked or sunk in.