Columbia Theatre
583 Peachtree Street,
Atlanta,
GA
30309
583 Peachtree Street,
Atlanta,
GA
30309
3 people
favorited this theater
The Erlanger Theatre opened December 27, 1926 as a live 1,790 seat playhouse with “Earl Carroll’s Vanities” featuring a cast of 100. It had a large stage and four floors of backstage dressing rooms. There were 672 seats on the main level, 190 in the first balcony, and 928 in the second balcony. By 1950 it had been renamed Tower Theatre and was operating as a movie theatre.
Sometime around the late-1950’s, the Martin Theatres chain took over and completely rebuilt the inside to the plans of architectural firm Finch, Alexander, Barnes, Rothschild & Paschel. On October 3, 1962 it became the Martin Cinerama Theatre, equipped with the 3-strip system and opening with “The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm”. Later two 70mm projectors were installed.
It was taken over by Walter Reade in 1968. It was later taken over by Weis Theatres and was re-named Atlanta Theatre until they closed it in the late-1970’s. In 1982 it was taken over by an independent operator and reopened as the Columbia Theatre on June 18, 1982, closing in 1987.
By then the building was owned by the North Avenue Presbyterian Chuch located next door, and they demolished the theatre in 1995 to build a parking lot.
Contributed by
Ken Roe
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 68 comments)
Yes, that would be the old Peachtree Art Theater at 13th Street. It changed hands in 1970 and reopened as the Weis Cinema in the summer of 1971.
Here is its page on CT where it is listed as Peachtrtee Art:
http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/11690
FWIW: When “The Sound of Music” was shown, the screen had to be masked off to a smaller size due to Cinerama contract requirements that no movie except official Cinerama movies could be shown full-screen. I wondered why they did that at the time. TSOM was the last movie I saw with my father, as he died later that year.
I saw Aliens 2 here. I got really drunk on 151 so the movie was not scary. It was the only time I saw a movie drunk because after that I wanted to enjoy movies more. This place was really classy and big. Such a loss but at the time downtown was not a place people frequented so there was not enough business to support it.
The Columbia must have been heavily advertised. I remember driving long distances to see Aliens and The Untouhables on such a huge, wonderful screen.
This opened on December 27th, 1926. article:
Someone asked why they masked the screen for The Sound of Music. Because of the contract with Cinerama Inc. plus, it was better for the theatre as they didn’t have to pay any fees to them! Also, they would of had to stretch the 2.2 image to fit the 2.76 AR screen.
Page 35 of the December 26, 1926, issue of The Atlanta Constitution says that an Atlanta architect named Raymond C. Snow designed the Erlanger Theatre. Another of his buildings, an office block at 161 Spring Street NW, was nominated to the NRHP, and the nomination form says that very little is known about Snow, but that established his office in Atlanta in 1923 and he appears to have died before 1930.
Reports of his death may have been exaggerated, though, as I found two later apartment projects by an architect of that name: Redmont Gardens in Birmingham, Alabama, built 1938-1939, and and Gilmour Court Apartments, Richmond, Virginia, for which permits were issued in 1938. This Snow’s office was in Washington, D.C., but it could have been the same architect.
I do wonder if that splendid Baroque interior of the Erlanger seen in the Constitution photo was actually designed by Snow, though. It is so different from the restrained, Georgian exterior of the theater itself and the very similar ground floor of the office block on Spring Street, which the theater’s exterior closely resembles.
Snow’s other surviving buildings also feature rather plain exteriors. It’s possible that the promoters of the theater hired another architect or designer to do the interior, which is quite splendid. If they did, the Constitution didn’t reveal who it was. But the Erlanger’s facade is so much like the building on Spring Street that I have no doubt they, at least, were both Snow’s work.
Reopened as the Martin Cinerama on October 3rd, 1962.
article:
Martin Cinerama opening · Wed, Oct 3, 1962 – 17 · The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia) · Newspapers.com
Reopened as Columbia on June 18th, 1982 and closed in 1987.
New article out on Atlanta’s large format and roadshow history. This and several other Atlanta cinemas get plenty of mentions in the piece.