Monogram Theatre
3451 S. State Street,
Chicago,
IL
60616
3451 S. State Street,
Chicago,
IL
60616
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The South Side Monogram Theatre, one of several theaters and ballrooms on the old South State Street entertainment district, opened around 1915, and sat 383.
Like many of its neighbors, it presented both live stage acts, as well as motion pictures.
In the 20s and 30s, the Monogram hosted many of Jazz’s early greats, like "Ma" Rainey, Erskine Tate and Ethel Waters.
The theater has since been razed and the site is today a parking lot across the street from the campus of the Illinois Institute of Technology.
Contributed by
Bryan Krefft
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Recent comments (view all 7 comments)
Did it have any affiliation with MONOGRAM PICTURES? I never believed the film company operated any cinemas, butlike PRC and other poverty row outfits, apparently they might. It is unusual to have the Monogram Theatre as a name…….anyone? PAUL BRENNAN.
Monogram Pictures never owned theatres. This seems just a coincidence in naming.
An ad in the Freeman, an African-American newspaper, circa 1917, shows the address as 3451 South State Street. The ad describes the theater as “The Home of Colored Vaudeville”.
Operators of the Grand Theatre in Tulsa agreed to an exclusive booking agreement with Grand National Pictures, in association with Monogram Studios, to exhibit only product from those two mentioned production companies. During WWII years this contract was mutually cancelled to allow the Grand to switch over to showing only newsreels.
Seymour, as Warren mentioned in the comment above dated 2/14/04, this theater has nothing to do with Monogram Pictures.
A Kilgen theater organ opus 4003 size 2/3 was installed in the Monogram Theater in 1928. Note: Style U02 with Roll Player. $2,650.00
I learned of the Monogram Theater while reading the last pages of the novel “Not Without Laughter” by Langston Hughes. I grew up in the near vicinity of the theater, some years after it was closed. My curiosity of the authenticity of this place lead me to this site and a 1928 article in the Defender newspaper that remains in print.