Chelten Theatre
7945 South Exchange Avenue,
Chicago,
IL
60649
7945 South Exchange Avenue,
Chicago,
IL
60649
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This movie house in the South Shore neighborhood of Chicago opened in 1928. It was located on South Exchange Avenue, near 79th Street.
During the 1940’s and 1950’s, the theater was run by Gollos Brothers Theatres. The Chelten Theatre closed sometime around the early-to-mid-1980’s as a movie house, last showing Spanish-language features. It served as a church for many years after closing as a movie theater.
Contributed by
Bryan Krefft
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Recent comments (view all 23 comments)
Here is a 1982 photo when it was the Cine Chelten:
http://tinyurl.com/cowuk3
Here is a more recent view of the Chelten:
http://tinyurl.com/cookpu
I’ll see if this is okay with management.
Ken, that’s the same thing you get when you hit the map button in the header.
Exactly Chuck. Seems kind of silly to clutter a theater listing with Google map links when you can just click the map button above.
Doea anyone know what happened to the Evergreen Theaters (there were three screens); the Jeffrey and Beverly?
I recall watching with my friends “How I Won the War” and “The Battle of Britain” at the Chelten Theatre back in the late ‘60s and early '70’s.
My band The Tellstars also performed there in conjunction with an appearance we had made at the Gayety Theatre in South Chicago.
According to news reports, the Gayety Theatre was gutted by an arson fire in May 1982 and the Chelten was the only theatre left in the area, but it closed down as well. Both theatres at one point were leased or owned by Ricardo Ruiz and his wife who apparently didn’t want or know how to maintain these precious historical land marks.
For more information, please visit www.tellstars.com
Mike Roman, Esq.
Chicago, Il.
Thanks for the info Mike. The Chelten was my neighborhood theater, having seen “Funny Girl”, “Hello, Dolly”, “Anne of a Thousand Days”, “The Out-of-Towners” among many others. Good memories. Never went to the Gaiety since I didn’t speak Spanish, but I loved the banana ice-cream they sold in the long carboard containers.
Architects were Betts & Holcomb
My late mother collected dishes – a rose pattern – on “dish night” from this movie theater in the 50’s. Does anyone remember that or why they gave them out?