Chestnut Station Cinemas
830 N. Clark Street,
Chicago,
IL
60610
830 N. Clark Street,
Chicago,
IL
60610
4 people
favorited this theater
Additional Info
Previously operated by: Cineplex Odeon, Essaness Theaters Corp.
Styles: Art Deco
Nearby Theaters
News About This Theater
The Chestnut Station Cinemas opened in December 12, 1983 by Essaness inside what had previously been a US post office building designed in Art Deco style in the 1930’s. The six-screen movie house was located on N. Clark Street at W. Chestnut Street in the Near North Side neighborhood.
During the early-1990’s, the theatre gained notoriety when a young woman was shot and killed in front of the theatre, and the theatre was known throughout the 1990’s of notorious for gang activity and the quality of films went down. During the mid-to-late-1990’s, the Chestnut Station Cinemas was one of a couple Chicago venues which hosted film festivals, including the Chicago Latino Film Festival and the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. It was closed in 1999.
The former theatre was demolished in 2003 to make way for a planned Jewish community center which never came to fruition, and the property remains a vacant lot today.
Contributed by
Bryan Krefft
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Recent comments (view all 39 comments)
What a horrible way for both a human being and a theatre to go down!
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The Jewish center was never built, and the land remains vacant.
This opened on December 12th, 1983. Grand opening ad uploaded.
I notice that the vacant lot on the sw corner of Clark and Chestnut has a new agent offering it for sale. It was the site of a post office and later the Chestnut Station Theater.
From 1987 to 1991, I went to a lot of movies with my girlfriend (once or twice a week, every week…anyone remember $3 Tuesdays?). Chestnut station was an alright place. I stopped going to the movies frequently after 1991 , when we broke-up, so I missed the decline of this Cinema.
The site is still vacant. It is a valuable piece of land, and new buildings are going up around it.
Site to be redeveloped with row houses. DNAInfo story here. The story doesn’t mention the theater, but the picture matches the street view.
This was opened by Essaness Theatres, which Cineplex Odeon purchased in 1986.
Ran across this link with one interior photo as the Post Office and the WPA murals that were on the walls.
http://www.wpamurals.com/chiPOfoy.htm