Lakeside Theatre
4730 N. Sheridan Road,
Chicago,
IL
60640
4730 N. Sheridan Road,
Chicago,
IL
60640
5 people
favorited this theater
Showing 1 - 25 of 29 comments
Pictures and story on the theater’s current status here.
Theatre status should be open!
My school rented this place for a dance concert back in the 90’s. At the time Columbia College was running the space. The auditorium seemed to be untouched, although all painted black. They removed some seats and built the stage out into the seating area. There may have been one of those old shadow box stage spaces in back as well, but I’m not sure. My assumption is this new renovation will do something similar.
I always assumed that this theater had been gutted, but now that I’m seeing pictures, it’s obviously largely intact. I hope this survives the renovation - the Lakeside did not have a working stage so I’m not sure where the audience will go as a performance space. Will be interesting to see.
Theatre will be reopened soon. Status should change to renovating
Above link here: Mural
https://blockclubchicago.org/2023/04/11/massive-mosaic-mural-on-uptowns-lakeside-theater-building-coming-down-as-nonprofit-plans-renovation/?utm_source=Pico&utm_campaign=979a36709f-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2023_4_11_morninglist1_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b6b84a5cee-979a36709f-99762179&mc_cid=979a36709f&mc_eid=9b75301f60
Theatre will be restored and reopened to a theatre again.
CircEsteem Youth Center is announcing a facade renovation removing the mural and replacing it with windows. On their Facebook page.
https://www.facebook.com/Circesteem
Here is a description of the Lakeside Theatre from an article about Ascher Bros. in the March 10, 1917 issue of Moving Picture World:
Reopened by Balaban & Katz on September 20th, 1933 as a discount theater. Grand opening ad posted.
Early `60’s photo added to Photos Section, credit Uptown Historical Society. Via their below Facebook page.
https://www.facebook.com/uptownhistoricalsociety/timeline
Lakeside Theatre 1936 IDOT photo added.
Dave, yes I do remember you. Bye the way, I’m still in touch with Don Beelik who was a theatre manager at Famous. If I’m not mistaken, you knew Don. I still have fond memories of working at the Lakeside and it helped prepare me for running the Roxy theatre in Toronto a few years later. And as much as I enjoyed working at the Lakeside, I really loved seeing movies at the massive Uptown theatre which was located just a few blocks away from us. What an astounding theatre! I can’t believe that it’s still sitting there abandoned and slowly disintegrating… one of the most spectacular theatres ever built.
Nice photographs Jon. I love the one of the candy lady with the old-fashioned BUTTER MAT!! Those old fashioned BUTTER SERVERS had a bowl that would rotate and lights that were animated and would flash on and off. That picture is a real beauty. You were very lucky to work at a place like that! I too worked at Famous Players Jon, maybe you remember my name! Cheers!
Thank you Ken. Glad you like the photos. Truth be told, I probably spent more hours at the Lakeside than I did in class.
Thanks for those great photos of the Lakeside, Jon. Love that triple feature! The auditorium- more beautiful than I recall. Most unusual thing about the Lakeside- the location of the mens room. Literally just a few steps away from the exit doors and the sidewalk.
All 5 photos of the Lakeside as a functioning movie house were taken in 1961. I worked there as an assistant manager when I was an art student in Chicago.
Photos of the Lakeside from 1936: Lakeside Theater.
Thanks David.
Took me a while to track this theater down. I attended a dance show here that a friend’s sister performed in around 1986.
They performed “Businessman’s Lunch”, which included a famous typewriter themed dance routine.
I asked the school about the theatre’s history then, but had completely forgotten about it until now. I recall the stage as being quite wide. And the seating was nothing like an old theater. I believe we sat on platorms that had been built at different levels. Like a theater in the round would be. But the stage was still along the back, West wall as I recall.
I do not recall anything else about the interior.
In my post from 9-15-04, I was off by about a year re: the closing of the Lakeside. From the Chicago Sun Times movie directory dated Monday Oct. 24, 1966: LAKESIDE 4730 N. Sheridan Road “VISIT to a SMALL PLANET” “AROUND THE WORLD UNDER THE SEA”. I’m pretty sure the Lakeside closed by late ‘66 or early “67.
From the Chicago Tribune: June 19, 1955:
BEAUTY QUEEN TO BE
SELECTED BY POST
OF JEWISH WAR VETS
Uptown Edgewater post,
Jewish War Veterans, will
sponsor a motion picture party
and the selection of a beauty
queen, to be crowned Miss Up-
town Edgwater, June 28 in
the Lakeside theater, 4730
Sheridan rd.
Entrants in the queen con-
test must be between 18 and
25 years of age. Ben Goldblatt
is in charge of registration.
Judges will include radio
performer Marty Faye, Patri-
cia Vance, Ald. Freeman [48th],
and Theodore Pickard, past de-
partment commander, J.W.W.
The auditorium did seem large. You could have told me there were more than 960 seats in there and I would have believed it. I was inside in 1993 for a show when it was the Columbia College Dance Center. It seemed to be more or less intact at that point. Who knows what it is like now.
The very first photo you posted, BW, really brings back nice memories. The four line marquee; above it the name LAKESIDE, was in orange neon, if I remember correctly. This I know for sure: under the letter E in LAKESIDE was the box office. Look closely and you’ll see the box office was on a slight angle. It faced south. The entrance doors were also on an angle, facing east. Just to the side of the box office,facing south (not visible in the photo) was space for two 28x22 posters advertising movies coming in a few days…TUES. WED. THURS., for example. Sometimes, management would display posters on the entrance doors…inserts, those 14 by 36 posters. Just past the southern most entrance door…looking left at the photo…was the mens washroom. If you were standing outside the theatre, you could see people going in and out of the washroom, and a small part of the room. Not a very big lobby! Just past the box office, you came to the ticket taker. Past him, and to the right, was the concession stand(facing south).Getting to the auditorium was just a few steps west. Although the lobby was relatively small, the auditorium was fairly large for a neighborhood theatre. Patrons watching movies faced west;the screen faced east. The theatre was super comfortable… in the winter, it was toasty warm; in the summer I remember it being VERY cool. My earliest memory of the Lakeside: I was 8 or 9, my parents dropped me off to see “DAY THE WORLD ENDED”, “PHANTOM FROM 10,000 LEAGUES”, and “BEAST WITH A MILLION EYES”. A great triple feature for a kid. A great theatre.