Carnegie Theatre
1026 N. Rush Street,
Chicago,
IL
60611
1026 N. Rush Street,
Chicago,
IL
60611
3 people
favorited this theater
Showing 1 - 25 of 51 comments found
We likely crossed paths radbid. I was 11, and went to every one of those Chaplin movies. If you’d like, I can send you a jpeg of my original picture of the Carnegie marquee with the Chaplin festival posted above in the Photo section. It’d make a nice anniversary card for your wife. Drop me an e-mail, and I’ll forward you the pic.
Forty years ago in 1971, my wife and I were dating. We would go to the Carnegie and see newly re-released Charlie Chaplin movies that hadn’t been seen in years. After the movie, we crossed the street for beers and Italian beef sandwiches at Jay’s bar. It’s sad they both are gone, but we still have those great memories.
Sorry captain54, didn’t see your question until today. I’ll have to ask around about Isbells. It appears from ken mc’s 04/18/09 photo to be in the building that housed The Athenian Room in the late
60's, and later Faces in the70’s. It’s now the “new” Barney’s of New York who vacated the old Oak Tree spot across the street.To ken mc, the Singapore Room was indeed a restaurant. I posted previously about the colorful, animated neon monkeys that adorned that very marquee. A sign that was also seen in the opening montage of WGN’s old Night Beat news program with Jack Taylor, and later Marty McNeely. Good old Carl Greyson hosted a few times as well.
thanks David….very interesting….
do you have any info on “Isbell’s” .. closing? opening? I know the owner/founder was instrumental in the Ramada Inn chain… I see that marquee in many vintage pix of Rush St.
B&G was a 24 hour diner type restaurant. It had multiple booths that looked out of windows facing the Oak Street Side, and one that faced the Rush Street side. It later became The Oak Tree restaurant. Both served the Rush St. night life crowd on a continual basis.
There was one regular, rather surly waitress that worked at B&G. Notorious for just throwing your plates on the table.
In the picture posted by Ken Mc, does anyone know what the establishment with the B/G sign at the SE corner of Rush and Oak was?
Just another reminder to CT Admins, the year of the fire in the opening bio of the Carnegie needs to be changed from 1996 to 1966.
Also when it finally closed as a theater in 1986, it became Hamburger Hamlet first. It then opened as Hugo’s Frog Bar in 1996.
The former Mister Kelly’s site next door was Sweetwater up until 1989, when it reopened as Gibson’s.
Down the street, the 2 story former Norge Village Laundromat(
60's-70’s), later Rubus Jungle (Ice Cream & Miniature Golf- late`70’s), then Guaduala-Harrys, thenu El Torito became Carmines in 1995.View link
Does anyone know if the Tati movie,Playtime, was shown at the Carnegie?
Does anyone know if the Tati movie,Playtime, was shown at the Carnegie?
Note to CT administrators: The opening theatre description by Bryan Krefft needs to have the year of the fire changed from 1996 to 1966.
Great picture Ken Mc. What was the source for it?
The picture is pre-1966, as that is the Carnegie that burned down.
We lived in the building just East,(to the left), of the corner building with the turret style wrapaound bay windows, in the lower left hand corner.
That building housed Gus' & the first incarnation of Jay Emerick’s many taverns.
Jay still has a place called Jay’s Amore in the West Loop. He also was involved in Face’s in the `70’s.
The Singapore Room was indeed a restaurant. That giant marquee had neon monkeys on timers that ran up the sides.
This photo shows Rush Street in the fifties or sixties. There’s no Singapore theater in Chicago, although there does appear to be a marquee in the photo, on the left. Perhaps it was a restaurant.
The Carnegie is across the street.
http://tinyurl.com/c4qhuk
P.S. To the left of the jeweler is a gangway that still goes straight through under the building to State St. & the parking entrance for 2 E. Oak.
There is also a side glass lobby door (locked) to Oak Bank just inside the gangway.
Oak Bank is the first floor tenant of the high rise condos, formerly rentals. I passed out flyers when Oak Bank opened in 1970.
Wow, thanks Life! That is the best picture I’ve ever seen to date too.
The small storefront to the left of the poster box & entrance, was a place called Garrett Jewelers. He later moved to State St. just North of Elm St. (In a classic older rental building recently cleared out for proposed demolition itself).
Sweetwater night club whose sign can be seen at the corner, followed Mister Kelly’s exodus & preceded Gibson’s Steak House which is there now.
That round window is where Mister Kelly’s would post 8x10’s of their upcoming acts. Morey Amsterdam, Tim & Tom (Reid & Dreesen), Mort Sahl, Prof. Irwin Corey & countless other musical acts. Stan Kenton, Buddy Rich etc.
By 1983, you can see that Rush St. was already changed to One Way Northbound.
Though two way traffic was quite the side show well into the `70’s.
Next to the marquee where those large vents are for the garage, is where Hugo’s Frog Bar built out their small balconies & second story dining. As I posted earlier, Hugo’s utilized the Carnegie blade support for their own signage.
Thanks for posting the image.
I’ve never seen a good picture of the Carnegie before:
View link
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FYI. If you go to www.Barbra-Archives.com click on “Live” & under 1963-Mister Kelly’s, at the bottom of the page there is a B&W photo of Barbra Streisand near the old Carnegie Theatre blade.
This photo would have been 3 years prior to the 1966 fire that consumed the entire block.
The old blade was situated towards the very front of the marquee at Rush Street.
The new blade on the reconstructed theatre was situated much tighter to the building.
And is the same structure that today supports the Hugo’s Frog Bar vertical sign.
I just remembered humorist writer & sometimes actor Bruce Vilanch, mentioning the Carnegie Theatre and his other neighborhood haunts in an interview once. He was apparently a regular at Punchinello’s on Rush St. during the `60’s.
In defense of the Rush Street area, not all was “seedy”. Notorious for a constant “Night Life” might be a better characterization.
Rush Street was actually an eclectic night life mix, with the seedy being an accepted part of it. As open and accepted as say in the tourist parts of New Orleans.
In the
60's &70’s a block South of the Carnegie was Punchinello’s, Figaro’s & the Athenian Room restaurant which became Faces Disco. Tavern’s and restaurant’s that were main streamish.But right next door was the Cabaret & Bourbon Street, which featured female dancers. The seedy was like an either/or choice for night time visitors. What made the specific strip joint’s seem seedy from the outside was basically the hawkers out front.
(Inside of course was sometimes a different story, depending which one you entered.)
A block further South beyond the Maryland Hotel which was quite nice, was another cluster of actual strip joints. The Candy Store, etc. But next to that was La Margarita. An established Mexican restaurant with several locations. Art galleries, jewelers, shops and other “upscale eclectic eating establishments”, rounded out the rest of Rush Street even back then.
So really it was a neighborhood, that took on a lively, different persona after dark. The Carnegie & Esquire were both a part of it.
Just caught DavidH’s December
07 post about the Sonja Heine montage of skating films being run at the Carnegie. This is entirely plausible. Another famous olympian skater also lived a block away from the Carnegie. She may have been instrumental in arranging the series. We met her more than 10 years ago with some out of town guest from her native country. In talking with her we learned she'd likely lived on the same block when we did in the60’s.As all the previous posts indicate, the Carnegie was truly great at promotions and fanfare.
I was just thinking back on how special things were at The Carnegie in the`70’s.
The animated signage I mentioned in a previous post, were actually ornately themed pieces constructed partially over the illuminated portions of the Carnegie’s existing marquee.
For instance during the Chaplin festival’s first film, a giant Chaplin “tramp” character was constructed with electrically moving hips from side to side. Additional spot lights were added to illuminate whatever portions there were made of painted plywood, that didn’t benefit from the existing lighting.
As the film’s changed out, so did the signage designs. Small mobile spotlight trucks seemed almost the norm at times. Making every showing seem as a special event. The oldest advertising gig in the book: Motion turns heads.
The modern glass ticket booth was offset all the way to the left of the entrance, but angled to face slightly Northeast. There was a small office behind it. If I remember correctly, the concession stand was behind the interior side of the ticket booth and accessed by the same office.
Inside the lobby was modern with an orangish decor & possibly brown carpeting. Just inside towards the back of the lobby, there was a sunken lounge area beyond a railing with couches, chairs & lamps. The restrooms were on the North & South sides of that lounge.
The auditorium itself was also sunken to even lower than the lounge level, accessed by long downward ramps at both ends of the lobby as well.
This design allowed it to accomodate the height it needed for one large screen & the audience seating to run upward. Even though the parking garage was directly above, and appeared only one or two short stories up itself from street level out front. The previously mentioned organ was to the left of the screen.
Next door Mister Kelly’s shared facade had round brick windows that housed pictures of the upcoming entertainers. Morey Amsterdam, Mort Sahl, Tim & Tom (Reid & Dreesen), drummer Buddy Rich, other bands, singers etc.
Across Rush street going South from the Bellevue Corner was the original Jay’s, another small bar downstairs in the back, Henry’s florist, the Waterfront restaurant, and the Singapore Room. With a giant vertical sign adorned with climbing, flashing neon monkeys.
This sign could briefly be seen during the open of WGN’s NightBeat newscasts with Marty McNeely, then Jack Taylor.
Then a small parking lot, which seemingly handled a lot more “business” than parking cars. Then was Pat Haran’s (now Jilly’s), the Backroom club (still there), a retail store and of course Rush & Oak corner tenant Burgerville. Which other than “Banquet On A Bun” up the street, was one of the original cheap, late night grease fixes.
At a time when Division Street’s Five Faces was still just an ice cream store.
P.S. Bill Freidkin and William Peterson’s Chicago roots are well documented. So it’s great that they would come back to screen some of their Hollywood projects here first. Hopefully the fairly recent premiere of “The Break Up” here, will reignite that trend.
The Carnegie was also the first theater to hold a public sneak preview of THE DEER HUNTER back in late 1978 (it opened in March of 79 I believe). I still have the ad which trumpets Robert DeNiro and also warns that the film is not for anyone under the age of 17. I remember reading later that Michael Cimino was at the preview and no doubt gauged the audience reaction persoanlly to base any cuts he might make to the film.
On 8/17/85, the Carnegie hosted an 8pm studio preview of Billy Friedkin’s To Live and Die in LA. General release didn’t start until 11/1/85. How cool is that?
David: The way this would be treated on CT would be for the status to change to “Closed” and function to “Restaurant”. I too was under the impression that it had been wholly demolished until your correction.
Here is a picture of the marquee that has since been removed: http://www.hugosfrogbar.com/media/hugosfront.jpg
The vertical for Frog Bar:
View link
And a more recent photo of the modified facade:
View link
Hello Cinema Treasurers. BWChicago is chronologically correct. The “old” Carnegie Theatre was indeed demolished after the 1966 fire.
What I disputed was the “status” as closed/demolished, after the final closing in 1986.
In 1986 it was actually renovated, but not back into a theatre.
The space that is currently occupied by Hugo’s Frog Bar, is actually the completely renovated space that previously housed the theatre. Same structure, because it’s eternally connected to the high rise, and located directly beneath the buildings parking structure. The term “demolished not long after” in the Carnegie’s lead paragraph, I think implies the theatre building itself was completely torn down, which was not the case.
Also the term “a restaurant has since been built on the site”, should probably read “in the site”.
Since there is no real alternate status term for such a scenario in the Cinema Treasures glossary, I guess demolished as a theatre is what matters.
I make the distinction only because a good portion of the theatres have/had unique freestanding structures of their own. And some were indeed demolished after they ultimately closed. The Carnegies exterior facade was relatively modern, and really just consisted of the marquee and glass doors. Hugo’s Frog Bar actually uses the upper framework that previously supported the Carnegie’s old diagonal sign, for it’s own signage. The old marquee overhang at street level, was removed and replaced by a smaller overhang for the sidewalk cafe. I believe balconies have since been installed above the overhang.
Additionally, the Carnegie previously had name & movie title signage on the State Street side of the building as well. That has since been replaced with several old fashioned single bulb fixtures by Hugo’s. Windows on the same elevation were added so diners could presumably view State Street. Or to brighten up the back dining room. These windows would be where the backstage of the Carnegie’s movie screen would have been. dave