Park Theatre
5962 W. Lake Street,
Chicago,
IL
60644
5962 W. Lake Street,
Chicago,
IL
60644
1 person
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The Park Theatre opened in 1913, and was located in the Austin neighborhood, appropriately, opposite Austin Park, on Lake Street, between Austin Boulevard and Mayfield Avenue. It sat a little under 600. The Park Theatre was opened for the Simansky & Miller circuit, and was later operated by the Lynch circuit. It survived through the 1950’s but has long since disappeared.
Contributed by
Bryan
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Recent comments (view all 13 comments)
There are three Parks in Chicago. Let me know if I need to put this 1953 photo on another page. Thanks.
http://tinyurl.com/c75kep
Wrong place. If this were at Lake & Laramie we would see the El overhead in your photo.
I beg to differ. You can see the streetcar has “LAKE” on it’s slot. Also, although I must admit it’s been a long time since I’ve taken an el ride on the green line, but I believe the overhead tracks comes to an end at some point and merges onto tracks near the Metra tracks. I don’t know what you call these tracks but they’re the kind that has stones below the tracks. Hopefully, a CTA expert can write a comment about this.
That picture from kenmc was taken at Lake and Austin, the end of the Lake streetcar line. That streetcar would be abandoned the following year. And that is the Park theater that I went to in my youth. So that 1953 picture is accurate for this particular theater.
The Lake Street L (Green Line currently) runs one block to the south on the same embankment that also carries Metra and Union Pacific trains. The L tracks move over from Lake street to the embankment at Laramie. Prior to this, the L trains descended a long ramp at Laramie to operate at street level to Harlem Ave in Forest Park.
Hope this helps.
Take a look at the Google map link embedded in the heading at top. It places this street address right under the Laramie El station. I think the Laramie El station location was the same in ‘53 as it is today. You can see where the train stops running over the street a little ways to the west of where Google marks the address.
Well, that map is completely in error. Laramie Avenue is 5200 West, and Austin Blvd is 6000 West. Therefore, 5962 would be at Austin, not Laramie. Check a street guide if you have any questions about this.
View link
Trust me, I lived in the area for over 40 years.
That is indeed Lake and Austin. Before 1962 the Elevated descended to grade level just west of Laramie; the streetcar line crossed it at Pine Street and ran on the north side of the C&NW tracks to Austin. Note the waiting West Towns bus in the background, on the Oak Park side.
Car 78 was renumbered from 1781 to free up the number for a new order of buses in the early 1950s. It was scrapped within a year of this picture being taken.
To btkrefft. Your July 15, 2005 comment has an inoperative link. Can you please restore? Would love to see the picture. Thanks.
ktmcging, here is the photo I posted 7/15/05 of the Park in the background. Not sure how long it will last this time.
To btkrefft. Thanks very much. The Park Theatre on Lake Street has been a legend in our family since the early sixties when my father would tell us that there used to be a theater in what was then an empty lot and that he used to take us to movies there when we were very young. Happy New Year.