Commercial Theatre
9150 S. Commercial Avenue,
Chicago,
IL
60617
9150 S. Commercial Avenue,
Chicago,
IL
60617
4 people
favorited this theater
The 1,800-seat Commercial Theatre was opened on September 18, 1920, for the Ascher Brothers circuit and later became part of the H & E Balaban chain.
The Commercial Theatre was located in the heart of the Commercial Avenue business district, near 92nd Street, and after a 1942 remodeling by architect Hal Pereira, it had a beautiful Art Deco style marquee lit with hundreds of bulbs in a zig-zag pattern.
After decades of first and second-run films, the Commercial Theatre closed in the 1960’s and has since been torn down.
Contributed by
Bryan Krefft
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Recent comments (view all 8 comments)
When did this house get torn down?
Larry, not sure when it was torn down, but it appears to have closed in the 60s, and a search on that address brings up a jewelery store at that address currently.
Architect was announced as Henry L. Newhouse in Chicago Tribune, December 21, 1918 p16
A Kimball theater organ size 2/10 was installed in the Commercial Theater in 1920.
Surprised there have not been more comments on this one. Always got the impression that it was a fairly substantial movie house, which one would think would produce many happy neighborhood memories.
The May 23, 1942, issue of Boxoffice ran an article about the recent remodeling of the Commercial Theatre. The architect for the project was Hal Pereira. The marquee in the photo above was part of this project.
I remember watching with my friends “From Russia with Love” and “The Flight of The Phoenix” at the Commercial Theatre in South Chicago. As I recall, the theatre was demolished in the fall of 1969 to make way for a mini mall. My band, The Tellstars, was performing down the street at the Gayety Theatre around that same time.
An arson fire gutted the Gayety Theatre in May 1982 and it was demolished soon after to make way for a McDonald’s restaurant. The only remaing area theatre at that time was the Chelten on South Exchange Avenue which eventually suffered the same fate.
Those were indeed great times and wonderful movies at all three Southeast side cinemas.
For additional comments/stories regarding these theatres, please visit www.tellstars.com
Mike Roman, Esq.
Chicago, Il.
This was converted to the South Chicago Mall in the 60’s.
Then that mall was torn down around 1997 and you could see the old screen inside.
Jim Klekowski owner of http://www.ellisavenue.com has a book on the area and I’m sure some shots, he was pretty adament about the tear down.
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