Esquire Theatre
824 Broadway,
Cape Girardeau,
MO
63701
824 Broadway,
Cape Girardeau,
MO
63701
No one has favorited this theater yet
Showing all 23 comments
link
Good news: the Esquire Theater in Cape Girardeau has been sold to someone who is going to renovate it and turn it into an indie house.
Here are photos taken Oct. 18, 2011: http://www.capecentralhigh.com/cape-photos/broadway/esquire-gets-new-life/
The Esquire is in better shape than the Broadway, but it’s still pretty ragged.
Both are in better shape than the Rialto, which suffered a roof collapse in the summer of 2010
View link
and was gone by the end of the year.
View link
Happy to hear the the ‘Esquire Theater’ is still in existence & spared from the ‘Wrecking Ball’ of progress.
I was a freshman at ‘Cape State’ in 1958 & in need of funds to complete the year. Jim Foster, Manager of the ‘Esquire’, hired me for position of ‘Marquee Technician’ (three guesses as to job description duties)& ‘Usher’. Had a great year working with co-workers & Mr. Foster, who happened to be a terrific guy.
Still recall some of the great movies at that time…‘The Pride and the Passion’, ‘Mr. Roberts’, Doris & Rock, Cary & Audrey thrillers, etc.
Interestingly, Mr. Foster telling me to assist the concession stand at intermission at one of the new movies…he stated that there was something called “subliminal messages” in this movie & that patrons would want a lot of popcorn, candy & soda. He was correct…sales
were off the chart that evening. Later, I heard that the Government ordered these messages to cease & desist.
Would be nice to hear from my co-workers from that time.
Joe
e-mail:
Ksteinhoff’s link was very helpful – Unfortunate that the marquee was hit by a truck.
‘BATTLESTAR GALACTICA" played in June 0f 1979.No mention if SENNSROUND sound effects were in the theatre.
“FIREPOWER” “INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS” open the Summer of 1979.
Chuck,
The marquee is, as far as I know, the same as it was in the 2009 photos. I’m headed back to Cape in about a week. If it has changed, I’ll post new stuff.
Here are photos I took of Cape Girardeau’s Esquire Theater in 2009 and one from 2007.
View link
There’s also a link on the page to a newspaper story I did when the Beatles movie HELP! played there in 1965. I used infrared film and flashbulbs to capture the teenybopper reactions.
The year given for this photo is 1988.
LOL
The marquee looked great in 1997. Still looked good in 1986. If you look at the 2007 photo posted on Nov 14, 2007 the marquee was starting to fall apart. Actually, it looks like something hit the marquee. It might have been removed because it was becoming dangerous.
Here is the Esquire in October of 2008. It seems to be falling apart a little at a time.
This was the Esquire in 1997.
Here is the registration form for the National Register of Historic Places. “The Esquire Theater designed by Harold Roth and Bernard Woolner of Memphis, Tennessee was completed in January of 1947”.
I’d assume so, but at that point the whole marquee probably has to come off, and that gets ideas in people’s heads…
It looked better in the photos that you took. It appears that a piece of the marquee is either loose or its about to fall off. Maybe thats the reason that the sidewalk is blocked off.
Well, that doesn’t bode well.
This is a recent photo of the Esquire Theater building.
I’m not sure where Bibbler got his info, but the Esquire never had a balcony or starcases like is described. There was one tiny starcase up to the booth and storage and that’s it. The concession stand and boxoffice were part of the east wall.
In 1979 I was managing the theatre and Dubinsky Bros. put in new seats, it didn’t help much, the new cinemas with multi-screens were going up and single screens were dying.
But we made history (and got news time) when “Life of Brian” came out, we had people all upset over “this evil movie” and we even got pickets, it boosted ticket sales highly!
The facade is strangely asymmetrical. There did not appear to be any activity. Photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/ctid6841
And another article from the same source:
http://tinyurl.com/pgj48
Here is some local history:
http://tinyurl.com/k6uxg
Who do you contact about buying and saving?