Riviera Theatre
4746 N. Racine Avenue,
Chicago,
IL
60640
4746 N. Racine Avenue,
Chicago,
IL
60640
16 people
favorited this theater
The Riviera Theatre was the largest and most ornate of the movie theaters of the Uptown neighborhood until the opening of the Uptown Theatre almost a decade later. Opened in 1918 at a cost of well over half a million dollars (delayed by almost two years due to WW I), this Rapp & Rapp-designed house located on Racine Avenue between Broadway and Lawrence Avenue, originally seated well over 2500 and its building also featured eight storefronts and over 30 apartments.
Initially the Riviera was to have been operated by the Jones, Linick & Schaefer chain, which operated several Loop movie houses in the 10s and 20s such as the Orpheum, the Rialto, and the McVickers. However, the Riviera ended up becoming the second major theater of the Balaban & Katz circuit, which at the time also included the Central Park, now regarded as Chicago’s first true “movie palace”.
Featuring movies accompanied by an orchestra, the Riviera also featured “high class” musical acts onstage. The theater mainly catered to the upper-middle class residents of the Uptown area, especially women. The Riviera continued to remain one of the neighborhood’s most popular movie houses for decades, even once the almost 4500-seat Uptown Theatre opened just down the street.
After closing as a movie theater in the mid-1980s, it became first a nightclub, and a few years later, after the nightclub closed, one of Chicago’s most popular concert venues, as it remains today.
It still has a feel of faded elegance to it, and in 2000 the concert hall was named one of the historically important structures making up the Uptown Square National Historic District.
Contributed by
Bryan Krefft
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Recent comments (view all 88 comments)
Passed by the Riviera today. It had some newer looking, protective white tarps over the top span of the front wall, oer the marquee.
Same as the Uptown still has. Though the Uptown’s upper terra cotta arches had been removed a while back.
A good sign that both are being protected from the elements, until brick/facade work can be done.
Here is another photo:
http://tinyurl.com/cl4k5g
I just saw the film, “The Break Up” with Jennifer Aniston, and there is a great scene involving the Riviera, you can see a lot of it.
A 2/9 Wurlitzer (210) was installed in the theatre in 1918
A 2010 photo of the Riviera Theatre.
View link
Out of curiosity, whats up with the tarp on the roof? Same case as the uptown?
Like the Rivieras facebook page! Its Riviera Theatre Chicago IL
This opened on October 2nd, 1918. It’s grand opening ad is in the photo section for this theatre.
I was in the Riveria during Open House Chicago last Sunday. It is in very bad shape with many bars throught the main floor. The floors are sticky and the whole building is dirty including the washrooms. The balcony still has the theater seats. It seems that the owners are squeezing every pennny form the building and the concert goers have no idea what an elegant venue this was.
This is what I fear the Uptown will become – trashed, as a so-called “music venue”. Additionally, consider what what has happened at the Congress and what soon might happen to the Portage.