Cinemaland Theater
135 Colorado Place,
Arcadia,
CA
91007
135 Colorado Place,
Arcadia,
CA
91007
2 people
favorited this theater
Contributed by
Gary Lookabaugh
Want to be emailed when a new comment is posted about this theater?
Just login to your account and subscribe to this theater
Recent comments (view all 16 comments)
Architect was L.M. Bostock.
The third comment on this page reads in part, “No architect was named, but the structural engineer was W.M. Bostock”. Was L.M. Bostock related to W.M. Bostock?
I was also wondering if L.M. and W.M. Bostock were related- or maybe the W.M. in the article I cited in 2005 was another of Southwestern Builder & Contractor’s frequent typos? There may have been only an L.M. Bostock.
At first, I thought that they might be brothers or a father and son, but a typo is another possibility. If it is a typo, which letter is the typo. Is the correct name L.M. Bostock or W.M. Bostock? Should we solve this scientifically and toss a coin? :)
The L.A. Library website’s California Index has three cards referencing Southwest Builder & Contractor mentions of an engineer named W.M. Bostock. Though SB&C is notorious for typos, it seldom makes the same typo in every instance. I’ve also found a Los Angeles engineer named W.M. Bostock quoted in a 1933 Time Magazine article, so it’s probable that SB&C got the name right.
As for architect L.M. Bostock, the California Index contains no references to him. If ken mc’s source was The L.A. Times, which has usually been good at keeping typos to a minimum, I’d be inclined to believe that we are dealing with two different guys and L.M. was not just a typo. If L.M. Bostock was an architect, his absence from the California Index suggests that he was a fairly obscure one. But since W.M. is only mentioned in the context of two buildings (Cinemaland and the El Sereno Theatre), I guess he’s pretty obscure himself.
I haven’t found anything for an L.M. Bostock, architect. I do find a number of mentions of a W.M. Bostock, structural engineer. I think we can rule out W.M. Bostock as the architect. If I find anything on L.M. Bostock, I’ll post it here.
I lived right around the corner from Cinemaland on San Luis Rey, and saw many movies there as a child. As a matter of fact, I just moved away from that beloved house two years ago (it’s another Arcadia mansion now).
The last thing I remember seeing there was Silent Running (early 70’s I guess). Was eventually torn down due to two kids breaking in and flooding the place with the fire hoses.
The May 23, 1942, issue of Boxoffice magazine said: “Jimmy Edwards opened his new Santa Anita, near Arcadia, May 14. The 743-seater charges 40 cents admission and boasts a crying room and a parking lot accommodating 450 cars. The Edwards circuit, with this addition, numbers 20 houses.”
It’s listed in the 1948 and 1950 city directories as the Santa Anita at 131 W. Huntington Dr.
Colorado Place splits off from Huntington Drive almost in front of the theater (it’s a double-curved “Y” intersection, with Huntington veering southward while Colorado Place bends north.) The City of Arcadia must have decreed at some time after 1950 that the numbers on the north side of that block be reassigned from Huntington Drive to Colorado Place, because that’s where they are now.
The theater was called Edwards Santa Anita for about two decades. The name Santa Anita was on the marquee until the early 1960s (I don’t recall the exact year,) when it was changed to Cinemaland. However, for as long as I remember, the theater always had a vertical sign that said Edwards, in letters larger than those used for the marquee name. The same was true at Edwards San Gabriel, which was renamed Edwards Century about the same time Edwards Santa Anita became Edwards Cinemaland.
Most of the old Edwards circuit houses had the company name on their signage, though at most of them it was in small, white neon script over the theater names themselves, so it was barely visible by daylight, and not very noticeable even by night. The San Gabriel and Santa Anita were the only houses I recall having the big vertical Edwards signs, but a smaller vertical reading Edwards was featured on the Edwards Village Theatre in Azusa.