Rialto Square Theatre
102 N. Chicago Street,
Joliet,
IL
60432
102 N. Chicago Street,
Joliet,
IL
60432
24 people
favorited this theater
Showing 1 - 25 of 43 comments found
I saw many movies in the Rialto. The sheer size and the magnificant decor made every visit an event. Portions of the film Stir of Echoes starring Kevin Bacon were filmed inside the Rialto.
2009 photo of the front of the Rialto Square Theatre.
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Exterior
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Auditorium
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close up of the massive facade
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A little bit of the rialto’s organ can be heard here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9edgBuaCd0o
Theatre appears at # 133 on the 150 places to visit in illinois
http://www.illinoisgreatplaces.com/
Here are a couple of my pictures of the Rialto Square that I took this summer (on a rather rainy, dreary day):
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1976 Photo
1982 Photo
There is a book series called Images of America, featuring one book titled “Joliet” by author & Joliet native Marianne Wolf. I bought the book in 2006 at the Chicago Cultural Center.
Pages 113-115 are dedicated to Rubens Rialto Square.
There are four pictures with descriptions of the building, lobby, Barton Grande Theatre Pipe Organ, and stage.
The book is/was printed by Arcadia Publishing.
A 1926 ad for the Rialto can be seen here.
This is a September 2008 photo.
Here is an undated photo from a plumbing company that did some work on the theater:
http://tinyurl.com/6pblfs
Crain’s Chicago Business is reporting on a $5 million project to bring the Rialto Square even closer to its original luster.
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This is a 2007 photo of the Rialto Square Theater.
The Rialto closed briefly or was planning to close in 1951:
JOLIET â€"(AP)â€"The closing of Joliet’s Rialto theater, one of the most costly movie houses in downstate Illinois, was announced today. Roy Rogan, manager, told theater employees that the closing date will be June 9. The theater cost about $1,500,000 when it was built 25 years ago. Rogan did not state why the theater is closing.
Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978
Rubens Rialto Square Theater ** (added 1978 – Building – #78001199)
Also known as Rialto Theater
102 N. Chicago St., Joliet
Historic Significance: Event, Architecture/Engineering
Architect, builder, or engineer: Rapp,George, Rapp,C.W.
Architectural Style: No Style Listed
Area of Significance: Architecture, Social History, Entertainment/Recreation
Period of Significance: 1925-1949
Owner: Private
Historic Function: Commerce/Trade, Recreation And Culture
Historic Sub-function: Auditorium, Theater
Current Function: Commerce/Trade, Recreation And Culture
Current Sub-function: Theater
Russell Phillips Photos:
Rotunda
Auditorium
Rialto Auditorium, Wide
Here is a recent photo of the Rialto Square Theater.
This link has a photo of the Rialto Square Theater and its Grande Barton theater organ.
On the second-season finale of VH-1’s “My Fair Brady”, which aired July 23rd, Christopher Knight and Adrianne Curry’s wedding reception was held in the lobby of the Rialto Square. Photos can be seen here, under the last photo gallery, “The Reception”.
Wow, I was at the Rialto a few months ago to watch “Dora the Explorer” with my 4-year-old, and thought the theater was beautiful then! After looking at the old photographs, I wish I had been around to see the theater before it was restored. (We only moved to Joliet 5 years ago.) Thank you all for the pictures!
Whoops. Try again: here is another exterior from UMinn, and here is another
[url=http://snuffy.lib.umn.edu/image/srch/bin/Dispatcher?mode=600&id=atc3615c]Here[/ur;] is another exterior from UMinn
Here is another link:
http://www.rialtosquare.com/elegance_main.htm
It should be noted that the photos that ‘lostmemory’ referrs to are Post-restoration, and therefore the lobby textiles (draperies, tapestries, gonfalons, etc.) were not replaced. The auditorium photo is also post-restoration and shows the new House Curtain and the Grande Drape designed and built by the now-defunct Mid-West Scenic and Stage Equipment Co. in Milwaukee. Those golden festoons upon the top of the Grand Drape are not the embroidered or padded passementerie (trapunto) that the originals would have been, but are actually hollow, vacuum formed plastic, gilded to resemble the originals and to avoid today’s high cost of hand fabrication. The ersatz gloss of plastic can still be discerned, however, from the balcony rail. Still, at least they made an attempt here to return some of the glory of the originals, and the theatre is still with us.