Monroe Theater
57 W. Monroe Street,
Chicago,
IL
60603
57 W. Monroe Street,
Chicago,
IL
60603
3 people
favorited this theater
One of the more modestly-sized Loop theaters, seating 950, the Monroe Theater’s history goes back to 1900 when the Inter-Ocean Building was constructed on the site of the Columbia Theater, which had been destroyed in a fire. In 1919, the Inter-Ocean Building was converted into a theater, which was originally operated by showman William S. Barbee and called Barbee’s Loop Theater, also known as just Barbee’s Theater.
When Barbee tried to have a stage built in the theater, the city prevented it, because of the lack of enough emergency exits.
In 1923, the theater was reopened under new management as the Monroe Theater. In the 1930’s or 1940’s, the entrance and interior to the building was given an Art Deco style makeover.
By the 1950’s, it was showing B-grade sci-fi and horror films. In the early-1960’s, the theater started to add adult films to its mix of programming.
The Monroe Theater closed by the late-1970’s and was demolished not long after. Part of the Xerox Center is located on the site of the Monroe Theater today.
Contributed by
Bryan Krefft, Ray Martinez
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Recent comments (view all 34 comments)
Yes!, exactly. But with much less obvious parking signage. I remember the one on Monroe had just small neon arrows for In & Out. Hikers took the cars from patrons once inside.
On Tuesday, Jan.20, 1959, the Monroe had the Chicago premiere of “PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE.” The co- feature was “TIME LOCK.” From the fairly large ad display in the Sun Times: 2 SCIENCE-FICTION THRILLERS Flying saucers endanger us all with their…PLAN 9 from OUTER SPACE BELA LUGOSI VAMPIRA ALL NEW Plus- A CITY PITTED AGAINST 6 HOURS OF OXYGEN! TIME LOCK.
Never got into the Monroe Theatre – again, it must have been the bookings = but worked at the Xerox Centre for a while.
A circa-1900 view of the Monroe as the Inter-Ocean Building can be seen here:
View link
Thanks for posting the vintage photo Bryan.
Yes,Bryan.thanks for taking the Time.
Here is an item about this theater from the March 8, 1919, issue of Chicago’s regional business magazine, The Economist:
The name Fischer is currently misspelled in the architect field.
John B. Fischer was for a time the chief designer of the Chicago office of Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge, the Boston firm that succeeded the practice of Henry Hobson Richardson. Fisher continued to practice architecture in Chicago after the firm of Postle & Fischer was dissolved in 1920 or 1921.
According to an item in the August 10, 1921, issue of Engineering and Contracting, architect David E. Postle had recently moved to Los Angeles. He practiced architecture in Southern California for several more years, mostly in partnership with his son George R. Postle. They were especially active in the Glendale and Pasadena areas.
As the original facade of the Inter-Ocean Building was retained in the rebuilding, i’s original architect should also be credited. This blog post about the building (which includes two nice photos) gives his name as W. Carbys Zimmerman.
If anyone has any stories about going to/ working at this threatre in its adult days, I would love to hear them. I am chronicling the histories of adult theatres in the US. Please contact me at Thanks!
In the 1888 book Chicago: An Instructive and Entertaining History of a Wonderful City : With a Useful Stranger’s Guide by Rhodes & McClure, under Places of Amusement, a Madison Street Theater is listed as being located, ironically, in the original Inter-Ocean Building, at 85 Madison St., just as the Monroe Theater was built behind the facade of the “new” 1900 Inter-Office building in 1919 after the newspaper vacated that location.