Roxy Theatre
4642 Cass Street,
San Diego,
CA
4642 Cass Street,
San Diego,
CA
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I can tell you something about the Old Roxy Theater. I lived up in the Claremont area just above PB back in the late 50’s and 60’s. Used to go there for the matinees usually two movies and between the movies they would have a drawing for a bike or BB gun up on the movie stage. Those were the good old days. No muss no fuss no fights. Just us kids going to the movies and enjoying it. I left San Diego about 10 years ago and moved to Texas because of my job. Really miss San Diego.
The Roxy in PB may have had 750 seats when it was mainly a movie theater, but it was cut back to 629 seats in its later concert configuration. Here’s an excerpt from an upcoming San Diego Reader article about long-gone local concert venues.
In November 1980, PB’s Roxy Theater at 4642 Cass Street was pereparing to close its own doors to both concerts and movie screenings. Roxy owner Scott Shore had bought the venue in 1977, originally planning to operate it as a movie theater, until local distributors refused or were unable to provide first-run films.
The venue was converted to a 629-seater for concerts, which were booked by local promoter Marc Berman from summer 1978 until August 1979. This period saw acts playing the theater such as Lou Reed, Blondie, Iggy Pop, Dire Straits, and a 5/16/79 Police concert that was broadcast on KGB 101.5, becoming one of the band’s most well-regarded bootlegs.
After Berman departed for bigger ventures, the Roxy was leased to Concert Nite Productions through early 1980, whereupon owner Shore terminated the lease amidst allegations of unpaid rent and incomplete building improvements.
Local concert promoters Fahn and Silva Presents booked the Roxy occasionally from March through August ’80, and then the theater spent months screening the adults-only film Caligula. In November 1980, Shore reportedly sold the site for around one million dollars. The building was demolished to make way for a new post office, which opened in 1984.
If the title on the marquee is Island at the Top of the World, the release date is December of 1974.
Here is a photo, circa 1970s:
http://tinyurl.com/3x2jq3
I agree with Brooklyn Jim. The Roxy was around until at least 1982. During its last days it was no longer a movie house and being used for bands. The Police played their first show in San Diego here in 1978 or ‘79. It was demolished to make room for a new post office.
I disagree with the opening comment above that the Roxy operated only until 1978. I got to San Diego with my wife 12/78 and attended various shows until 1980 B.C. (Before Children).
Located in the city’s Pacific Beach section, the theater split its time between screening art/erotic films and being a live rock music venue (with Fahn & Silva as local promoters). Can’t lay my hands on the photos that I took c. 1979 of the Roxy’s north wall, featuring murals of W.C. Fields, Marilyn Monroe and others, but hopefully some local resident might have saved a postcard copy, regularly sold back then at places such as Sav-On’s, Long’s and Thrifty’s, to scan and post here.
My wife and I attended “Caligula,” a true mish-mash of hype, history and porn. As a couple, it cost us $12 bucks for the privilege! There were lines around the block awaiting the next showing, so I put together a mock cloak, resurrected some of my previously-learned Latin (“Quotidianum da nobis hodie!” and “Mater Caesaris erat meratrix!”), and walked among the eager throng while intoning pompously, “Caesar himself says to save six duckets (or denarii) and go get a pizza instead!” A few listened and actually dropped out of line. Ha!
It was a very sad day in the early ‘80s when the Roxy was eventually demolished, reduced to a pile of chalk-white rubble a mere three blocks from the silver-blue Pacific.
This Roxy Theatre was given a Skouras remodel in 1945.
From the San Diego Historical Society:
View link
It is amazing how many theatres are named ROXY in immitation of the once famous name of the New York City panjandrum of the movie palace: Samual Lionel Rothapfel = “Roxy”. His namesake was the famous ROXY THEATRE in NYC, which outlasted him by only 25 years when it was demolished in 1960. The whole story is in that landmark book “The Best Remaining Seats: The Story of the Golden Age of the Movie Palace” by the late Ben M. Hall in 1961. Various editions of it are sometimes available from www.Amazon.com, but only the first edition contains the color plates.