Farmington Civic Theatre
33332 Grand River Avenue,
Farmington,
MI
48336
33332 Grand River Avenue,
Farmington,
MI
48336
1 person
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A late C. Howard Crane design in Art Moderne style, opening in late 1940, the Farmington Civic sat about 550 on the main floor and about 200 in the balcony.
The theater has an elegant blade marquee and elegant facade, in shades of red and off-white.
Though officially just the Civic Theatre, it was advertised as the Farmington Civic, so as not to confuse it with the Civic-Detroit (or Detroit-Civic, as it was variously called) a few miles away.
The only time the Civic ever closed in its history was in the winter of 1989-90 when Louis Wiltse tastefully converted the balcony into a piggy-backed second auditorium. It was reopened as the Farmington Civic 2 in early 1990, showing second-run fare.
The Civic is one of the few old-fashioned movie houses still in operation in all of southwestern Michigan, and has lost none of its charm and style over the decades.
According to “Andrea,” the theater has been operated by the city of Farmington for the past three years. For more information, call the city managers office (248) 474-5500 x221. The name of the person to get in touch with is Holly Manzella.
Contributed by
Bryan Krefft, Oren Walther, Andrea
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Recent comments (view all 15 comments)
This is a recent close-up view of the Farmington Civic 2.
Two more photos can be seen here.
This is the website for the Farmington Civic Theater.
That link didn’t last long. Here is an updated link for this theaters website.
This website has some photos.
Here is a nice 2008 photo.
A night time photo of the verticle and marquee from a flickr member.
View link
1982 Photo
1984 Photo
Nice pohoto from a flickr and CT member.
View link
The blade marquee was recently shown on an episode of the TV show “Snapped.”