Granada Theater
6427 N. Sheridan Road,
Chicago,
IL
60626
6427 N. Sheridan Road,
Chicago,
IL
60626
31 people
favorited this theater
Built in 1926 for the Marks Brothers circuit, this was one of the largest movie palaces on Chicago’s Far North Side, located in Rogers Park. In November 1929, the theater was acquired by the Balaban & Katz chain. The Granada Theater was originally designed by Edward Eichenbaum (of the firm of Levy & Klein) for both live stage shows and movies, but by the 1940’s, was only showing films. It remained open until the late-1970’s.
The Granada Theater was used for rock concerts sporadically during the early to mid-1980’s, but eventually closed entirely.
It was torn down in 1990, after being stripped of all its remaining decoration. An apartment/retail complex (named for the Granada) was constructed in its place.
Contributed by
Bryan Krefft
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Recent comments (view all 173 comments)
Very cool photo’s.
Thanks LTS for posting those. I’d completely forgotten about Aphrodite’s, the restaurant in the foreground of the 1st pic. A girl I knew called there about a job. Whoever answered the phone told her to come in person. Unfortunately it was just a dishwasher who wanted to meet girls. Management was none too happy with him.
In the 2nd B/W photo it looks like there is a miniature version in the foreground, of the then Granada blade.
I wonder if that was some type of restaurant that was tied to the Granada. Like say the Artist’s Snack Shop down by the Studebaker Theatre.
Hey Everyone, this is the Michael Kuecker that used to have the website oldgranadatheatre.com :) I lost my original account on this site, and after months of trying to contact the webmasters – because I dumpped DSL for Cable and no longer can access the emails (long story) they never were able to assist me.
When Comcast came to install my internet, they reset all my settings to default before I could stop them which erased all my saved passwords.
Now I’m back, and please get in touch with me about my Granada Theatre love. :)
PS, I hope to bring the oldgranadatheatre.com website back soon. :)
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Nice find Brian. I’ve never seen a good shot of the box office and entrance.
I believe some of the glass doors now reside at the Portage.
I had the pleaure of being in the theater in 1986 when a new owner full of high hopes took over. Reality than set in. It was an experience. Only in the US do we destroy our architectural treasures in the name of progress, Very sad.
I heard once that it was the building owner who removed the decorative glass from the center of the grand window. The story goes that he did a poor job of packing and the window was destroyed in transit to another part of the U.S.
Here is a nice early lobby view