Dimond Theatre
3422 Fruitvale Avenue,
Oakland,
CA
94602
3422 Fruitvale Avenue,
Oakland,
CA
94602
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Contributed by
William Gabel
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Recent comments (view all 17 comments)
I have since gone into Crazy John’s myself to see if anything was left of the Dimond interior, and indeed, gsmurph is correct. There is nothing to see save steel roof trusses and the wood underside of the roof surface.
I have an October 31, 1931 Souvenier Program from a theatre opening in Merced CA which lists the Dimond Theatre as being part of the Golden State Theatre Corporation’s chain at that time. The program lists M. Rosenberg as being the manager of the Dimond.
There are photos of two Farmer Joe’s on the store site. One of them may be the old theater:
http://www.farmerjoesmarket.com/
How much of the original theater remains? This is a 2006 photo showing construction at this location.
That means the theater is the largest of the two stores on the website. I thought maybe it was the smaller one.
Its “New Joe’s”. Although the address is slightly different at 3426 Fruitvale Avenue.
Only went to the Diamond twice. Each time we went, there was hardly anybody in there. It seemed to play pictures there that no one was interested in seeing, all the popular films showed at the Laurel, Fruitvale and Fairfax. We used to go to Junes Lone Star for hamburgers and shakes, then to a movie afterwards. Everytime we looked at the paper to decide where to go, we always skipped the Diamond because it was also just too expensive to get inside. No one seemed to miss it when it closed. I went to Cannucks on the corner to get a magnavox record player, and they were remodeling the diamond for the new Lucky supermarket. The side door was open so I walked inside to peek and looked up and all I remember seeing were steel girders, then this man came to me and asked me to leave. It didn’t look like anything was saved in there.
The theatre’s name was actually “Dimond” (the missing “a” is NOT a typo); it was named for the Dimond neighborhood, which was itself named for Hugh Dimond, an early Oakland political and civic leader.
The above photo is way WAY off; the Dimond is practically on the other end of Fruitvale Avenue (near MacArthur Boulevard), nowhere near Alameda or the drawbridge.
Sorry to chime in once more, but the zip code should be 94602 (that may be why the photo’s way off as I mentioned above).