Norshore Theatre
1749 W. Howard Street,
Chicago,
IL
60626
1749 W. Howard Street,
Chicago,
IL
60626
3 people
favorited this theater
Opened in 1926 and operated by Balaban & Katz, the palatial Norshore Theatre seated 3,017. The theater was located in the Rogers Park neighborhood. Its outer lobby featured huge crystal chandeliers and the ceiling was decorated with Pompeiian motifs. The theater also contained fine French antiques.
The Norshore Theatre was closed in 1957, and in 1960, this amazing theater was reduced to rubble. A bank was later built in its place.
Contributed by
Bryan Krefft, Thomas Stranich, Ray Martinez
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Recent comments (view all 28 comments)
FYI. There’s a great b&w daytime shot of the Norshore, within that “American Classic Images” site where everyone’s pulling pictures from as of late.
It has a towering presence that must have been awe inspiring at the time.
I can’t post anything from my WebTV server except comments. So if anyone can do the honors, it would be appreciated.
OK, David. Here ya go: View link
Trolleyguy, your url link comes up not product found. Doing a search on AC they still come up no product found for the Norshore
Oh, that’s too bad. It was a really nice daytime picture as I recall.
It showed the white ceramic tile work on the spires, etc.
An early view of the Norshore’s lobby can be seen here.
June 17th, 1926 grand opening ad has been uploaded here.
June 17th, 1926 grand opening ad has been uploaded here.
This photo is similar to one posted previously but is in sharper focus.
In response to earlier comments: The Norshore Building was not on the site of the bank or the Howard Bowl. It was in between these two. The Norshore was demolished and replaced with an office building while the bank and Howard Bowl remained. The bank, office building that replaced the Norshore and the Howard Bowl were all demolished for the development now situated there.
I wanted to find out what kind of buisness “The Ship” was. I learned that it was a restaurant, and that it was owned by a man involved in the development of the Norshore building. The big surprise was that he was the person for whom Howard Street was named, and he lived until 1984! This blog post tells his story.