Belmont Theater
1635 W. Belmont Avenue,
Chicago,
IL
60657
1635 W. Belmont Avenue,
Chicago,
IL
60657
7 people
favorited this theater
The Belmont was one of the more popular North Side Chicago movie houses, as it was surrounded by a bustling retail hub and located close to public transportation near the intersection of Belmont, Ashland, and Lincoln Avenues in the Lakeview neighborhood.
The theater opened in 1925 for the Lubliner & Trinz circuit and was taken over by the Balaban & Katz chain in May of 1930. The Belmont was designed by W.W. Ahlschlager, who was also the architect of the Roxy and Beacon Theatres in New York City. This 3200-plus seat palace was originally a venue for both live entertainment and movies, but later turned to movies only.
In the mid 1960s, the movie house was converted into a bowling alley, which it remained until closing in the mid 80s.
In 1996, with the revival of the Lakeview neighborhood in full swing, a mixed condominium and retail complex was built on the site of the Belmont, which was demolished except for its Spanish Baroque style terra-cotta facade.
Contributed by
Bryan Krefft
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Recent comments (view all 22 comments)
AH HA!! I knew that building used to be a theatre! I could tell by the look of it. I can feel the vibes of a movie palace :)
My friend told me “You got theatres on the brain! Anyone can see that was just a decorative old hotel…” HAHA He owes me an apology. :)
In the late `80’s, the one time sign for an old club called The Phoenix, sat propped up in the doorway of the shuttered Belmont Theatre.
The Phoenix was a giant bar/club on Broadway between Diversey & Surf. Where Marshall’s and all that is now.
It was a deviously large building once you were indoors. It had bars that connected to other bars in endless rooms. And an even larger auditorium like room in the very back. They had different bands in different rooms.
Often Reggae was a standard in one of them. I was there as late as 1982 as I recall. If anyone knows if this was possibly originally a theatre itself, please pass it along. It was on the West side of Broadway, next to a gas station at Surf & Broadway. Across from Round Records, Ranatti’s & once a Ponderosa where the Walgreens is at Diversey & Broadway.(I remember that all burned in the winter of 1976. Years before the film “Backdraft”, the fire dept. hoses encased a VW in ice, that was illegally parked in front of the hydrant)
There was also a bar called Gaffers on the East side of Broadway, that had windows that opened to the street. They were one of the first bars to utilize sodium vapor lights on their own facade. So it was a visible bright orange from a block away. The city had only then recently converted to SV lamps for the city street lamps. From the old white-ish/green-ish ones. Critics claimed the new SV street lamps caused the trees to continuously grow even at night.
This is getting off-topic, and probably better suited for the Century page, but the Phoenix was known as the Paradise Chicago after 1982, and was said to hold over 1500 dancers at 25,000 sq ft. Before the phoenix closed, it was Country & Western for a while. It had opened in 1975. Before that, it was Ski’s Lounge, Thumbs Up, and Poppy’s, and after the Paradise it closed from 1985-87, became the Phoenix again (ironically enough), Paramore, Chaplin’s Comedy Club (a 600 seat comedy club for about a month in 1991), and Noa Noa. The big room was a converted garage. In 1996 it was all torn down for the large retail and parking garage on the site; initially 16 General Cinemas screens were in this plan, but neighborhood opposition killed it.
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Theater as bowling alley in 1982:
http://tinyurl.com/d2uo62
The Belmont Theatre opened on Sept. 13, 1926 with seating listed at the time of opening at 3,257.
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A 4/20 Wurlitzer Publix1 was installed in the theatre in 1925.
Grand opening ad uploaded here.
Wow, what a great photo on the homepage of the Belmont Theater. It looks like the marquee (obviously a later modernized one) remained into its era as a bowling alley.
On another note, how was the theater converted into a bowling alley?