Paris Theatre
550 Washington Avenue,
Miami Beach,
FL
33139
550 Washington Avenue,
Miami Beach,
FL
33139
2 people
favorited this theater
The Variety Theatre was designed by Miami Beach architect Henry Hohauser and opened in 1946. It was run by a small Florida chain named Claughton. I believe they had about a half dozen theatres in the greater Miami area. It was located in the South Beach district of Miami Beach (Washington Avenue and 5th Street). I remember the theatre in the 1950’s. They booked mostly RKO and Republic films.
I was only in that house once as a child, so I don’t remember much about it other than it having a big lobby area and a clock (oddly enough) to the right of the screen which I found to be annoying. Eventually Claughton dropped this theatre as well as the rest of their chain of theatres.
In the 1970’s it became the Paris Theatre, first playing nudist films, then switching to porn. After sitting empty for a decade, purportedly it became a video/film production studio.
Contributed by
Bob
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Recent comments (view all 24 comments)
Here is a 1981 photo. Looks like two screens.
http://tinyurl.com/djun6m
1985 Photo
1986 Photo
Here is an article about what is going on currently in, and what is being planned for, the former Paris Theater: http://www.miamiherald.com/488/story/1393080.html
Here.
According to this web page, architect Henry Hohauser was a cousin of architect William Hohauser and had worked in his New York office before moving to Miami in 1932.
I just checked it, both by clicking on it and pasting it in two different browsers and it worked without a “membership required” screen coming up in either.
This is what i get when I copy & paster in three different web searches.
Your search “http://www.miamiherald.com/488/story/1393080.html” did not match any documents.
No pages were found containing “http://www.miamiherald.com/488/story/1393080.html”.
I think the Miami Herald is having site problems because I now get an error handling message which is not what you or AlAlvarez were getting. Their home page isn’t working either. Perhaps the link will work later.
I think they have things fixed; try the link again, If not go to
http://www.miamiherald.com and put ‘Paris Theater’ in the search box; then scroll down on the response to the Recent News box on the left – the article begins “Historic theater could get second…”
Ed Claughton (whose family owned the chain) said that the Variety was referred to as “Claughton’s Folly” because of how soon after WWII his father opened the theater – presumably when the economy had not yet rebounded from the war…
Claughton Theaters also owned the Embassy and Royal Theaters on SE 1st Stret in downtown Miami. They were closed, sold and torn down around 1959 for new construction.
In the late 1940’s, Claughton inked a deal with the late Ed Taigman (a former mayor of North Miami) to build a theater behind his wraparound retail property on NE 125th Street and NE 6th Avenue in North Maimi… however, that deal never gelled. A Walgreen Drug Store sits on that corner now.
A recent photo of the Paris Theater.
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