Tivoli Theatre
6328 S. Cottage Grove Avenue,
Chicago,
IL
60637
6328 S. Cottage Grove Avenue,
Chicago,
IL
60637
7 people
favorited this theater
The Tivoli Theatre opened its doors on February 16, 1921, the first of the Balaban & Katz chain’s movie palaces in the Woodlawn neighborhood, opening on the once-bustling Cottage Grove Avenue commercial corridor near 63rd Street. The theatre stood just south of the southeast corner of 63rd Street and Cottage Grove Avenue, between the still standing Strand Hotel and Cinderella Ballroom.
Earlier that same year, the chain had great success with its new Loop venue, the Chicago Theatre, and a few years earlier, opened two houses on the North Side, the Central Park Theatre and the Riviera Theatre.
The Tivoli Theatre, designed by Rapp & Rapp, was highly ornate, decorated in the French Baroque style, glittering with gold leaf and multicolored marble; its soaring two stories high lobby was supposedly based on the Sainte-Chapelle at Versailles. The Tivoli Theatre was stocked with antique sculptures and paintings, but on the other hand, the theater was also equipped with the most up-to-date modern ammenities such as air conditioning, and then-state-of-the-art projection equipment.
By the 1940’s, however, the Tivoli Theatre was just another movie house and its earlier programs of live stage shows, vaudeville, and motion pictures were a thing of the past. By the 1950’s, the theater was starting to show its age, and Woodlawn was a quickly changing neighborhood. Even a modernization during the late-1950’s by Balaban & Katz couldn’t save the huge palace and it closed in the summer of 1963 and was razed later that same year, replaced by a parking lot.
Contributed by
Bryan Krefft
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Recent comments (view all 38 comments)
Thanks for the Trianon info. I’ll hunt down a copy.
From the Chicago Sun Times movie directory dated Saturday, May 9, 1959: Redecorated-Refurbished for Your Enjoyment! TIVOLI “THE 3 STOOGES” ON OUR STAGE- IN PERSON! Open 10:30 A.M.– Show Starts 11:30 A.M. FREE “CROONOLAS” to First 500 Kiddies! (Huh?)
Google has a “Croonola” as some type of “sub-musical instrument” in a December 1959 New Yorker article link.
P.S. Given it’s the same year as the Stooges visit, a Croonola must have been the current fad.
Thanks, David. My first thought was some kind of candy bar or edible treat…guess not. I wonder how many youngsters showed up that day.Hope that beautiful palace was at least half full.
Fifty years ago tomorrow, on 12/30/60, the B&K Tivoli started a one-week engagement of the stage revue “Smart Affairs of 1961,” with a cast of 50 topped by jazz-blues singer Nancy Wilson, the instrumental group The Three Sounds, comedian Slappy White, and limbo dancer Roz Croney. On screen was the sub-run John Wayne epic, “North to Alaska.” Doors opened daily at 1:00pm, with last stage show starting at 10:30pm.
A 1955 exterior view of the Tivoli can be seen here.
Thanks, Bryan! Good to see that the original vertical sign was still in place, though now supplemented at bottom by a modern attraction board that didn’t match the vertical or the marquee below it.
In the paperwork submitted to the Landmarks Commission regarding the Portage Theater, it’s mentioned that the marquee from the Tivoli was refashioned and installed on the Portage, and that doors from the Marbro were reused there as well – I assume since they were fairly new at the time.
Click here for an exterior view of the Tivoli Theatre in 1930.