LeMay Theatre
318 Lemay Ferry Road,
St. Louis,
MO
63125
318 Lemay Ferry Road,
St. Louis,
MO
63125
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The LeMay Theatre opened in 1929 in the St. Louis suburb of Lemay just a few short blocks from the city limits. The LeMay was a busy neighborhood house well into the 1960’s when it went to a weekend only operation. The theater closed and reopened a couple of times.
When Harman Moseley reopened the LeMay in the mid 80’s, he twinned the theater and it became a second run discount house along with his Kirkwood Cinema. Admission started out at one dollar and later increased to $1.50. It was successful until the end of the 80’s when other discount houses started popping up.
The Lindbergh 8 was taken over by Wehrenberg Theatres just a short distance away at Lindbergh and Lemay Ferry Road and became a discount house, thus killing the business of the LeMay. The theater building is currently in the process of being converted into a mosque.
Contributed by
Chuck Van Bibber
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Recent comments (view all 13 comments)
Here is a photo from 2005.
This is a July 2006 photo.
Just so you know…it is pronounced LEE-may.
The twinning took place in November 1985, and was not a Moseley operation at the time.
Okay but how do you spell it? Is it Lemay or Le May? The photo that I linked to on June 25, 2007 gives the impression that Le May is two words.
LM, it depends on what part of the city you grew up in, what your nationality was and other variences. As for as the correct pronunciation, it is pronounced in different ways by many differenct people depending on where you grew up etc. LEE May, LeMay, Lemay, It is even pronounced by some as the La May as if it had and a in the spelling. Maybe Mr. Alex can correct us all.
Well, in my part of St. Louis it is pronounced as I noted above.
As to the spelling, it would seem the theatre marquee is the only
place it is spelled that way. The theatre is/was on Lemay Ferry Road; the area (non-incorporated) is spelled Lemay; and for the most part the theatre always appeared in theatre ads as Lemay.
If the name of the theater was advertised as one word, I guess that the name should remain as is.
LM, in the caption under the photo that you posted on Jan. 25, 2007 the word is spelled two different ways in the one sentence. As I said it depended on what part of the city you were from in the pronounciation. Who should say what is politically correct.
Went by the Lemay yesterday, you wouldn’t recognize it as a theatre, it is now a Bosnian Islamic Center.
This building is right down the street from where I live now. I always harbored secret dreams of restoring it to an art house theater. Although the marquee is gone now, the building has been beautifully restored on the outside (I can’t say what the inside looks like, as I’ve never been in pre/post renovation). The front of the building is nice, and the current owners built an entrance/porch onto the side of the building (facing the parking lot), where once would have been the emergency exit, I assume. I’m glad that this is one classic theater that got restored/repurposed & saved, rather than just being demolished. :)