Parkway Theatre
2738 N. Clark Street,
Chicago,
IL
60614
2738 N. Clark Street,
Chicago,
IL
60614
6 people
favorited this theater
Contributed by
Ray Martinez
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Recent comments (view all 40 comments)
Here’s one of my pictures of the Parkway from May 23, 2008:
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I lived in this neighborhood in the mid 70s but I never went to this theater. I remember hearing that it was a real dump. By the time Landmark took it over I was long gone.
My first memory of the Parkway was seeing a line around the block for Harold and Maude. My first film there was Swept Away by Wertmueller in 1980. I think I saw Dr. Strangelove there 10 times. The other movie I loved seeing was Marat/Sade – I never missed it. There was once a film about Mahler…oh my god if I keep thinking of the films I saw there I’ll cry. Dr. Caligari…Strawdogs…2001…I DREAM that I am riding the 22 bus and I see that the Parkway has been reopened!!!!!!
I spent my teen years going there. I’d love to keep in touch with others who loved this place. I’m Dan – if you want to drop me a line. I live in New York City now and work as a teacher here.
I grew up on Belden & Clark when it was a working class area and the Parkway Theater wasn’t far from there. I first went there with my Mom and sisters and later went with friends seeing 2-3 movies in an afternoon in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. I saw movies that were never going to win any awards but it didn’t matter. I saw monster, horror, kung fu and any B-rated movie you could imagine. It was a great time and I will always remember the fun and friends.
I don’t see that this image from American Classic Images has been posted:
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It is so good to see the Parkway again in the above image. I hadn’t seen it in years and forgot some of the details. Thank you.
I still literally have dreams that a “new” Parway has opened – I often dream I am riding the bus on my way there.
Tomorrow is my birthday so i’ll consider this image a present from God. Thank you for the Parkway and how it enriched my life. :)
A 1955-dated photo shows the Parkway in the background down Clark Street. Except for the streetcars, that side of the block doesn’t look too different today.
That’s a Martin Kennelly banner above the bus. The incumbent that Richard J. Daley would defeat to become Mayor of Chicago in April 1955.
I remember seeing movies like ghost and Mr chicken, flesh eaters and kitten with a whip…all on the same bill on the weekend…and it was 25ยข….sigh
btkrefft and DavidZornig: Thanks for your photo and comments! I remember taking that streetcar down/up Clark street from my home at Newport near Clark all the way to downtown way back in the late 40’s and early ‘50’s. I think it cost a nickel. See the wall poster for Jays Potato Chips in the background? My dad used to take me to the Parkway when it showed 3 film changes a week and I was lucky to see movies from the late 1940’s and 1950’s that were several years old as a second or even third feature there.(I saw “Buffalo Bill (1944)”, “The Uninvited (1944)”,“Lorna Doone (1951)”, “The Thing from Another World (1951)”,“The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)”,“The Master of Ballantrae (1953)” to name a few that I remember). The area around Diversey and Clark had three great movie houses all within a block or so of each other back then: The beautiful Century movie palace showing first run films straight after their downtown run; the Parkway showing films like 'Abbot and Costello’ and ‘Francis the Talking Mule’; and the Covent that showed wonderful foreign and “Art” films, like “The Man in the White Suit”, “I am a Camera (1955)and "And God Created Woman”. What memories …