UA Galaxy
1285 Sutter Street,
San Francisco,
CA
94109
1285 Sutter Street,
San Francisco,
CA
94109
5 people
favorited this theater
A San Francisco fourplex along the Van Ness Avenue corridor. Built for United Artists at a cost of $7 Millions, the Galaxy opened on February 17, 1984 with THX certified sound.
It was closed on December 15 2005, and was demolished in August/September 2011.
Contributed by
Garrett Murphy
Want to be emailed when a new comment is posted about this theater?
Just login to your account and subscribe to this theater
Recent comments (view all 22 comments)
yes, apparently the Galaxy is in quite the state of disrepair.
Friend of mine was driving past it during a recent phone call to me and he exclaimed how bad it was looking now.
Hoepfully something good is done with it too.
To whom it may concern:
Perhaps someone may buy it to reopen and restore. An owner can refuse buyout offers. Live and Internet performances are possible. Each theater has to be unique in style.
I’m in the market in the United States for a theater. Historic ones are certainly nice to pursue. I had studied theater in college.
You certainly are welcome to drop me a line sometime. Have a very nice day.
Thank you for your consideration.
Very Truly Yours,
Matt Daniels. ().
To bad the Landmark people don’t close the two tiny theatres they run The Lumiere and Opera Plaza. They can take over the long closed Galaxy. A big improvement over what they call art theatres now. Some people have bigger screens on the home screens. The old UA Galaxy needs some work but will go the way of many San Francisco Theatres. Condos will go up some day.
Not my favorite theater, but I saw some great films here. The huge glass lobby was a HUGE waste of space – it’s design (or lack of) made no sense. They could have constructed an entire auditorium in its place.
The restrooms were upstairs and all the theaters were on the ground level. The seats didn’t offer much leg room and were the type where heads got in the way. Not comfortable by any means.
That said, their screens were impressive! This was also my first experience with THX sound in 1992 and I was blown away. If you were lucky to catch the film in either of the two large auditoriums, you would be very impressed with the presentation.
I rather liked the smaller auditoriums, however. Overall, poorly designed but the films were presented well.
I think for many of us who experienced the Galaxy in SF during the 80’s, it was our first meeting with THX sound. Me and a friend would always go there and nudge each other when that THX intro came on before the film started.
geez, so many memories of that theatre. Serial Mom, Married to the Mob, the 3rd Indiana Jones movie, A View to a Kill so many others. Personally i loved the Regency I across the street for its interior.
One of the funkiest, retro-futuristic designs ever? The Galaxy in 1997:
View link
The Galaxy is not to be missed, but I mean that in a negative way. “A movie palace for the 1980s”? Well, the ‘80s sucked in many ways.
The Galaxy was architecturally weird, with glass for glass’s sake and an interesting look from the outside, but inside it was basically a mall multiplex with an unfriendlier layout. Points for a big screen, a fine sound system, and a staff that kept the projection in focus. But the seats were oddly uncomfortable and the restrooms were upstairs from the auditoriums, an ordeal for anyone who’s not athletic. If it’s a palace it’s a palace designed by someone who didn’t like movies or didn’t like movie palaces (or didn’t like either).
The Galaxy is now being demolished. (September 2011) Don’t know if anything will go up in its place, but condos were at once planned for the site.
UA Galaxy RIP
Admittedly, the ol' “stack of phone booths” was far from an architectural gem, but it had auditoriums designed for widescreen and surround, so in it’s time it was state-of-the-art in terms of presentation.
When they showed TERMINATOR 2, they performed an interesting experiment: one screen showed T2 in 35mm and digital surround (Early DTS) and another screen had T2 in 70mm and Dolby 6-track.
Even though I was managing another theatre (the Metro), I had an opportunity to program a few midnights there. We found a print of OKLAHOMA! in Todd-AO (30 fps!) and it did pretty well— though we thought the projector was going to fly apart. WE did really well with a October midnight screening of THE EXORCIST in 70mm. It was an original roadshow print from the 70s, and the reds had faded a bit, but the sound was amazing.