Smyrna Opera House
7 W. South Street,
Smyrna,
DE
19977
7 W. South Street,
Smyrna,
DE
19977
1 person
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The Opera House opened on December 20, 1869. It began screening movies in 1935. Nice neighberhood type theatre with balcony and cry rooms which tended to run second run product. It was operated by Schwartz Theatres of Dover.
It was converted into a hardware store in the late-1970’s. In around 2001, it was converted back to a theater as a performing arts venue.
Contributed by
Jonathan M. Crist
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Recent comments (view all 18 comments)
They do look like two different buildings, though.
They sure do look like two different buildings. The Opera House building in the photo that you posted today doesn’t look like it was built after 1948. Something doesn’t compute.
Unless like they said, they tore down all the old parts and then much later rebuilt everything to look like the opera house. Still odd, though.
Here are more photos of the Opera House.
“On Christmas 1948, a blaze blamed on holiday lights burned the third floor and tower. The building was cut to two floors with a flat roof, as Turner recalls from childhood. The building’s glory faded in time, with wear and little repair. After a new Town Hall opened, its future was in doubt but in 1994 an executive restoration committee got a project estimate just topping $1 million.
The project, with a new third floor, tower and annex, cost $3.6 million and took five years to complete. Donations from residents and businesses, foundation grants and allocations from the town, county, state and federal governments paid for it."
So it’s a facsimile of the old building.
The third floor was removed because of the fire. The third flor wasn’t rebuilt until a few years ago. I’m wondering if those 1948 photos are actually photos of another theater.
That’s what I think. I just can’t turn the 1948 photos into this place, even with the rebuilding. Not sure if the original addition was for the 1948 place and then the mention of performing arts was added after the first post on 4/29/05. I can see the history being theater and then hardware store.
If you remove the third floor and add a marquee, it still won’t look like the 1948 photo. For now I’d be happy if the spelling of this theaters name was corrected. And maybe use the architect Richard Mitchell given on the Waymarking site for the architects name.
These are two different theatres.
The information in the heading above gives the proper information for the Symnra theatre, but the wrong address which is what has caused the confusion. 7 West South Street is the location of the restored Opera House.
The Symnra theatre built in the 40s is located at aprox. 106 South Commerce Street, about three blocks from the Opera House. The building is still there, but what it currently is used for I have no idea.
If you go to Live Search Maps, type in the 106 South Commerce Street address and you will see the building on the birds eye view. To the left of the theatre are some parking lots, then a church. Look at the exterior photo from the July 9th, 2007 post above, and you will see the building shape conforms to that in the ariel view, and you will see the church to the left.