Temple Theatre
5863 S. Vermont Avenue,
Los Angeles,
CA
5863 S. Vermont Avenue,
Los Angeles,
CA
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The Temple Theatre was one of many independent theatres along Vermont Avenue in south Los Angeles.
Contributed by
William Gabel
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Recent comments (view all 19 comments)
I learned recently that the balance of the Temple Theatre Wurlitzer (chests, pipes, percussions) are owned by a theatre organ collector in the San Jose area. The console and relay remain in the Visalia, CA church I mentioned in the earlier posting above.
Ken, the theater I saw back in October was the Congress. It wasn’t as far south as I mentioned in the post at that time. I posted some current photos on that page.
Here are some photos from June 2007:
http://tinyurl.com/37cvab
http://tinyurl.com/2vz5hy
This theater was operated by Harry Vennicoft & Son Theaters in the early sixties.
Ken: I think “Vennicoft” might be a misspelling of the name “Vinnicof”. The Vinnicof Theatre Circuit was around for a long time. They owned a half interest in the Garfield Theatre in Alhambra in the 1950s, the other half being silently owned by the Edwards Theatre Circuit. Vinnicof also operated the Grove Theatre in Garden Grove at that time. At least as far back as the 1930s they operated some theatres in the Eagle Rock-Highland Park area. In 1941, Harry Vinnicof bought the Congress Theatre a couple of miles down Vermont from the Temple.
There are some Vinnicofs who are still associated with the movie theatre business, one of them showing up on this page I found in Google search results. Maybe Cecil is one of Harry’s sons, or perhaps a grandson. There are also a Paul Vinnicof and a Robert Vinnicof who share the San Vincente address. They all appear to be lawyers who specialize in movie theatres.
Joe Vogel posted: “Maybe Cecil is one of Harry’s sons, or perhaps a grandson”
I believe Cecil is (was?) Harry’s son, as an early 60’s news bit, about the opening of Anaheim’s Brookhurst Theatre (another Vinnicof Theatre), lists Vinnicof & Son Theatres as being operated by Harry and Cecil Vinnicof.
This was the building in 1983.
I saw that photo before, and I was wondering if maybe this was a Spanish-language house in its last go round. Easy enough to change Temple to Tempo.
I didn’t know if Tempo was the name of the theater or the name of the beauty salon. I almost didn’t post the photo.
The Southwest Builder & Contractor article I cited as the source for the architect’s name misspelled it. The correct name of the architect was Harry C. Deckbar. Among his other works was Trinity Auditorium in downtown Los Angeles, designed when he was a partner in the firm of Fitzhugh, Krucker & Deckbar.