Majestic Theatre

An ad for the American Seating Company in the October 6, 1928, issue of Motion Picture News featured a photo of the auditorium of Redmon’s Majestic Theatre.

The stage has also collapsed and in the first auditorium photo, looking towards the former stage, there a garage door that looks like it has been caved in.

But good point. A skylight that small wouldn’t bring in that much light.
The photos from supercharger96 show that the roof is ready to collapse.
Maybe it has collapsed but google or bings aerial views haven’t been updated scince then.
By the way, if you look to the left < side on the majestic’s roof, and a tiny spot on the right it looks like some of the roof has caved in or is ready to. There is also a small spot in the front of the theatre’s roof where it looks like something has been filed in.
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Press satilite and zoom all the way in and say what you think.8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wl

Re: William’s note about the skylight on the 13th. They did put skylights over the stage in some houses. Radio City had three. They could be swung open if there was a fire on stage to ventilate the area and not fill the auditorium with smoke. When we did the “Lion King” premiere we had a Disney stage show which featured lots of pyrotechnic usage. The first rehearsal where the fireworks were used generated so much smoke that all of the elevators responded to a fire warning, went to the basement and stopped running until the smoke was cleared. Stagehands went up to the roof and opened the skylights. After that, for the rest of the run they were opened for the stage show. Since we were doing matinee performances, we could see a small patch of sunlight from the open skylights hitting the stage floor during the screening of the film. Every day it moved closer to the screen and we were wondering when it would actually get into the picture area. Fortunately, the run ended before that happened, but we were aware of the skylights after that.

I also remember working a Diana Ross concert one really stormy night when the stagehands had to go up and throw tarps over the skylights because the rain was coming down on stage about where Ms. Ross was to make her entrance.

The skylights did contain glass panels as normal skylights would, but the glass was painted black. Thinking about it now, I wonder if that wasn’t done so that a major fire involving the drops hung in the flies would generate enough heat to break the glass, creating a self opening skylight to ventilate the heat and smoke upward.

I would suspect what you saw at the Majestic was indeed a skylight over the stage house.

The stage house roof is intact on the bird’s-eye view of the theater at Bing Maps, too. In the bird’s-eye, the structure on the roof that resembles a skylight looks more like it might have been part of the building’s ventilation system. It looks like it is partly covered with sheet metal, but some of the metal is missing, exposing an underlying framework.

In the 2008 photo, note the shadows falling from the two beams that cross the missing stage floor. The one on the left extends almost straight down, while the one on the right is at more of an angle. These shadows are consistent with light falling from the left section of the stage house roof, where that skylight-like structure is.

From the bird’s-eye view it doesn’t look like there’s any glass in the structure where the light gets in. If that’s the case, then it doesn’t bode well for the building. If it’s entirely open, then water can get in. Maybe the hole has been plugged since the various photos were taken, but if it hasn’t, water will soon destroy the building’s integrity. The Majestic could soon be unsalvageable— if it isn’t already.

I just saw that. Thats odd.

From the early 1900s a postcard view of Redmon'sMajestic Theatre in East St. Louis.

With the Economy of East St. Louis and the condition of the Majestic I don’t think this theatre will ever see a renovation.

This place needs to get restored.

My parents and grandparents spent a lot of time in this theater. My Aunt actually worked there in the ticket booth, sometimes letting her husband to be in free. I’d love to share any vintage photos available with them if there are any around.
JMS

I just emailed the mayor about this situation! I agree with all of you! This needs to happen for the sake of us, the youth!

I do have pictures of the Majestic now from 2008. It’s not in too bad of shape considering it has been sitting there for over forty years.

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There is a web site that shows recent interior photos, I am sorry that I didn’t keep the link. but the theatre is in horible shape inside. part of the back roof has fallen in, water leaks throughout the theatre, there was even a photo of skeletons of a mother dog and its baby. Knowing East St. Louis' economy I don’t this theatre will ever be revived.

A hi-res scan of the postcard at the top of the page can be seen in my flickr stream:
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Gorgeous place, the exterior doesn’t seem to be in such a bad shape judging from the photos posted above. Notice all the detail in the tiny tiles on the facade!