4th Avenue Theatre
630 W. 4th Avenue,
Anchorage,
AK
99501
630 W. 4th Avenue,
Anchorage,
AK
99501
6 people
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The 4th Avenue theatre held an open house on May 30th, 1947, and opened the next day. Grand opening ads posted.
Demolished December 2022
Friends of the 4th Avenue Theatre website with photos.
http://friendsofthe4thavenuetheatre.org/about-us/
To be demolished shortly.
https://apnews.com/article/d770c698a0cb69db8db3d0de7ce6bc6f
There is a quick shot of the front of this theater showing the vertical blade in the sitcom Brooklyn Nine-Nine, season four episode 17, near the end of the episode.
Oddly enough, the characters are supposed to be visiting Rochester, New York and not Anchorage, Alaska. Ah, the magic of Hollywood…!
The top photo in this link shows the 4th Avenue Theatre in the late `70’s. Plenty more cool pics too, if anyone is from there.
http://www.cysewski.com/wia/70anchorage/index.html
Newspaper article from 4-25-17:
“Historic Anchorage Theater Deserves State Protection, Advocates Say”
I had the pleasure of managing this theater in the early 80’s (1981-2ish). We had so much fun here. One of the most beautiful buildings. The Art Deco style and the incredible bas relief on the walls were something to remember and I hope this place finds itself alive again. When I worked there it was operated by Wometco-Lathrop. I’m not sure how much longer it stayed in operation. My girlfriend at the time lived in Houston so I decided to head south and regretted that decision to this day. While I have lived in other places it seems now I’m kind of stuck here in Texas. I miss you Alaska!
The Municipality of Anchorage is doing nothing with this beautiful, old theater!
Between 7-8 years ago, there was a plan between the municipality and a private company to refurbish the theater, using the downstairs for businesses of some kind and the upper floors for residences, but after a long process to get to that point, at the last hour a councilwoman threw a monkey wrench in the plan by deciding she didn’t think the municipality should be involved in any funding after-all.
The private company basically told the municipality to take a hike, refusing to work with it anymore because it was “unreliable.” There’s been no public discussion of the theater since. It currently is doing what it’s been doing for years now, just sitting, boarded up and rotting. What a travesty!
I saw many movies here as a kid in the ‘80s – Goonies, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, Kurosawa’s Ran. Beautiful walls with twinkling stars and inlaid images of gold miners.
Great photos Brad and Don.
From the 1940s a photo of the 4th Avenue Theatre in Anchorage.
This photograph of the 4th Avenue Theater was taken in July, 2010.
From the 1950s a photo postcard view of the 4th Avenue Theater in Anchorage.
View link
NICE!
This article from June 15th 2009 doesn’t bode well for the theatre. It may well be lost or significantly altered. The owner has not cooperated in efforts to save and restore the theatre.
View link
What a neat-looking theatre…both inside and out. Too bad it closed.
Here is an undated interior photo:
http://tinyurl.com/lq3yob
Here is a 1985 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/leenqk
Here is a painting of the 4th Avenue. The view is supposed to be of the opening in 1947.
http://tinyurl.com/7uv2vr
While congress (not Palin)killed that bridge to nowhere, Palin had no problem taking all of the money and applying it elsewhere. Total hypocrisy, but this is cinema treasures so I won’t go any further with that.
As I’ve mentioned above, Alaska, while having some of the world’s most spectacular natural beauty, seems to have a great dearth of architecturally significant buildings. They should do everything they can to preserve what little they have and this theater should be saved.
Maybe Palin can get an earmark to save this theater!
A 2008 view of the 4th Avenue Theater in Anchorage here and here. Enlarged views here and here.
So, how did the vote go? Will it be saved? Alaska has an enviable wealth of natural beauty. It would be an incerdible shame to see them lose one of the few man made wonders. I was in Alaska for a week last year and the capitol building in Juneau was rather hideous. Other than some buildings form the gold rush era there isn’t much “modern” architecture in Alaska worth saving. This theater appears to be one of the special ones.