Cinema Flix has changed hands, and the new operators, Bison 6 Cinema of Jamestown, ND, have changed the name to Valley Twin cinema. Here is the new web site.
Early this year plans were afoot to turn the Squirrel Hill Theatre into a live music venue, but they never cane to fruition. Then on June 29 the Pittsburgh Patch web site posted a brief article leading with this news:
“Redevelopment plans for the old Squirrel Hill Theater site have advanced, with the site being sold and the building expected to be demolished soon for a new $27 million mixed-use development.
“A subsidiary of Action Housing and Brandywine Agency, partners in the redevelopment effort, has officially purchased the property. The sale clears the way for Flats on Forward, a six-story building that will have 24,000 square feet of office space, 42 apartments and first-floor retail space.”
I’ve found nothing more recent about the redevelopment project, so it’s possible that the theater building is still standing, though if so it probably won’t be for long.
Some years ago the late rapper Mac Miller, who had once lived in the neighborhood, considered buying the theater for use as a live performance venue, but that plan too failed to materialize. The growing popularity of the neighborhood has probably made the site too valuable for theatrical use.
Although the Knights of Pythias building, built in 1899, is still standing, the theater added at the back of the building in 1908 is gone. It appears in an aerial view made in 1998, but a view taken in 2003 shows a parking lot on the site.
The NRHP nomination form for the building (PDF here,) dating from 1975, describes the theater as a four-story brick structure with two balconies. The main floor seated 341 and the balconies accommodated another 350. The interior decoration of the auditorium was a simple Greco-Roman Classical, and featured Ionic columns and fluted pilasters.
Historic aerial views show that the stage house occupied about 2/5 of the theater’s shallow footprint, so the auditorium was wider than it was deep. Although movies were shown in the house as early as 1910, a proper projection booth was not installed until 1923. After the theater closed as a movie house in 1958, it remained dark except for two summers when local talent used it for live performances.
“The Paramount Building was built as the Capitol Avenue Theater in 1905…. Architect William DuBois designed the structure….” (Wyoming Tribune-Eagle, Nov 29, 2017. Article here.) The article also notes a major fire in the theater section of the building in 1915 (this event was noted in the January 22, 1916 issue of The Moving Picture World) and its renovation as the Paramount in the 1930s.
Here is an item from the September 10, 1927 issue of Moving Picture World:
“CRESCENT. OKLA. — George Graff, care Crescent Milling Company, has plans by P. H. Weathers, Old Exchange Building, Oklahoma City for one-story brick theatre, 50 by 140 feet.”
The January 8, 1928 issue of The Film Daily listed the Ritz Theatre in Crescent, Oklahoma as one of the new houses in which the National Theatre Supply Company had recently installed equipment.
Water Winter Wonderland has a page for the Arcade. One comment cites a June, 1960 Boxoffice item saying that the house was being reopened by new owners at that time. There is no followup saying how long it remained open. Other comments note that after closing as a theater the building served as a supermarket, and auto parts store, and a city recreation center. The conversion to an event center took place some time after 2011.
An ad for Heywood-Wakefield seating in the May 28, 1952 issue of The Exhibitor says that the Sayville Theatre was built for Associated Prudential Theatres.
As Jail Bait was made in 1954, this could be one of the last photos of the Monterey’s auditorium taken before the proscenium end of the house was remodeled to accommodate a CinemaScope screen. I’m pretty sure that was done before the end of 1954.
I’m guessing that the photos TomBlackwell uploaded to this page are from the Movie Jail Bait. While the other two photos of the theater both do appear to depict the Monterey, this photo does not. I don’t recognize the theater in this photo, but it isn’t the Monterey, which had no back wall such as this, there being a stadium section in that part of the house. Wood must have used some other theater for this shot, but left it uncredited.
I went to this theater once, not too long after it opened, though I don’t recall what movie we saw. I believe we were in the smallest of the three auditoriums, and it was a fairly good size— certainly larger than any of the four auditoriums at the AMC multiplex built in Rosemead about ten years earlier.
It was opened when Monterey Park was already well on its way to being a predominantly east Asian community, and the shopping center in which the cinema was located had mostly Asian businesses in it. When this house opened, the much older Monterey Theatre, which I believe had been the first house Jimmy Edwards ever operated, was sublet to an Asian operator who ran Chinese language movies.
Two trade publications noted the opening of the Rose Theatre in Morton. The first of three items to appear in The Exhibitor was this one from the August 9 issue:
“T. J. Simpson, formerly of Levelland, Tex., has been named manager, new Rose, Morton, Tex., owned and operated the Wallace Blankenship Circuit. The house seats 900.”
A second item appeared in the issue of August 23:
“Rose Makes Debut In Texas
“Morton, Tex.— The opening of the new Rose here recently was attended by an enthusiastic crowd who welcomed its luxurious modernity. An L-shaped foyer introduces the decorative scheme of the auditorium by presenting a colorful carpet and distinctive pastel wall colors
“A sloping stadium, rising at a sharper angle than the bowl section, permits full utilization of the entire length of the viewing room.”
The third mention, in the September 23 issue, was part of an item about the Blankenship circuit:
“Three new theatres have been opened by the Wallace Blankenship Theatre Circuit, the 900-seat Rose, Morton, Tex.; the 850-seat Rose, Andrews, Tex., and a 350-car drive-in, Tahoka, Tex. T. J. Simpson is the manager at Morton, A. J. Burleson at Andrews, and L. P. Flood at Tahoka. The new theatres bring the total of the circuit to 21, with five more under construction.”
A brief item in the August 2 issue of Variety also noted the opening. The Rose was the second house at Morton for Wallace Blankenship, the Wallace Theatre there having been opened in 1935.
The American Theatre is either not yet listed at Cinema Treasures, or is an aka for one of the other theaters we have listed at Sterling. If it was an aka, it must have been for the Rialto, as the Princess vanished in the 1920s. A reminiscence of life in Stirling in the mid-1950s by Don Lechman, published in the Daily Breeze on February 14, 2012, mentions the two theaters then operating in the town: “It was 9 cents at the American Theatre and about 12 at the ritzier Fox. Usually, they showed a double feature, a newsreel and a cartoon.”
This item is from the January 15, 1939 issue of Boxoffice:
“W. F. Ruffin will rebuild his Palace Theatre at Newbern that was destroyed by fire January 2. The house was owned and operated by the Ruffin Amusement Co., Covington. ”
I’m not sure what to make of this item from Boxoffice of January 15, 1939. Perhaps the magazine conflated the Lincoln with the “New Colored Theatre,” and the item was actually about the latter house?
“The new Lincoln Theatre for colored people in Aiken, South Carolina’s winter resort city, was opened last week by I. Efron. E. A. Rosenblatt of the Sound Engineering Service Co., which installed the sound equipment, says the Lincoln is one of the most modern theatres for colored people in the Carolinas. The National Theatre Supply Co., equipped the house. A special box section is reserved for chauffeurs and other servants of tourists and resort vacationists from the north.”
In any case, find it a bit odd that the management would shift to a whites-only policy without changing the name of the theater. Lincoln is not a greatly admired name among southern whites.
Here is an item from Boxoffice of January 15, 1939:
“Old Columbia Closes
“Columbia, S. C. — The old Columbia Theatre, more recently known as the Carolina, has closed to make way for the new $1,000,000 Wade Hampton Hotel. It was built in 1900 as a part of the old city hall.”
Here is an item from the February 25, 1939 issue of Boxoffice:
“Waldo’s new WaKea Theatre opened last week to a packed house. Mr. and Mrs. T. F. Keasler, Hughes Springs, Tex., and Mr. and Mrs. L. W. Watts, Oil City, Pa., owners of the new house, were present for the opening. The new house cost $15,000 and is modern in every respect.”
This item is from the January 9, 1939 issue of Boxoffice:
“McNatt Buys Village
“Naples, Tex. — W. W. McNatt, owner of the Inez Theatre here and the Morris at Daingerfield, has purchased, with his son-in-law, W. O. Irwin jr,, the Village Theatre at Hughes Springs from Frank Keasler.”
The January 15, 1938 issue of The Film Daily said that the Strand Theatre in Hughes Springs had been transferred to J. M. Stacey. I’ve been unable to discover if the Strand was another theater or an earlier name of the Village. There was a movie theater at Hughes Springs at least as early as 1921. It was mentioned in a July issue of Motion Picture News, but the item didn’t give the name of the house.
Although there was hope that the Chateau Theatre would be brought back to life as a performance venue, in May, 2019 the City of Rochester decided that it would be renovated primarily as a space for traveling exhibits, with some additional space devoted to a cafe, retail stores, and small areas for live music. The Chateau will reopen on November 23, 2019, with “The Magical History Tour: A Beatles Memorabilia Exhibition.”
On November 14, the Rochester Post-Bulletin posted this photo gallery featuring 57 photos of the Chateau Theatre at various stages of its history, including its time as a book store and during the recent renovation project.
There is conflicting information about John Wick’s 1913 theater project in various construction journals of the period. The February 1 issue of Engineering Record says that John Wick would receive bids for construction of an opera house designed by local architect O. C. Rearick. A February 22 article in The American Contractor also notes the project, but gives the architect’s name as O. C. Rairigh. By March 1, American Contractor is saying that Wick’s theater project is a movie house being designed by Pittsburgh architect Joseph L. Neal. The later AC items also say the theater is to be one story, and 47 feet wide, rather than the 2 stories and 52 feet wide reported in the earlier items. Did John Wick build two theaters in 1913, or simply switch architects and have the plans of his one theater modified? The Internet gives no answer.
Fortunately, the trade publications are clearer about the change of name from Wick Opera House to Columbia Theatre. This item is from The Moving Picture World of August 6, 1921:
“Mr. Brown, of the new Columbia Theatre, Kittanning, Pa., has about put the finishing touches to this beautiful playhouse. This theatre was formerly Wick’s Opera House for quite a number of years, but has been completely remodeled and it certainly presents an up-to-date appearance as it now stands. This house seats a few less than a thousand, including both balcony and main floor. Mr. Brown is living temporarily on the second floor apartment over the theatre.”
The State Theatre was in operation by 1933, and was still open at least as late as 1979. I’ve been unable to find an address for it, but a 1967 advertisement for Erdos Bros. Furniture Co. gave their address as 335 Market Street, “next door to the State Theatre.” Thus, the narrow alley in the vintage photo of the State must be McKean Way, and the theater was on the odd-numbered west side of the street, so at the northwest corner of Market and McKean. The number was probably about 325 Market. The location is now a parking lot.
The Lyceum Theatre was in operation by 1908, and is listed in the 1908-1909 edition of the Cahn guide as a 771-seat ground floor house. The Lyceum is listed at 213 Market Street in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. Two other movie houses were listed at Kittanning; The Electric Theatre, also on Market Street, and the Grand Theatre, no location given. The Lyceum was the subject of this item in the September 30, 1916 issue of The Moving Picture World:
“Kittanning’s Lyceum Reopens.
“Kittanning, Pa.—After undergoing an extensive remodeling process, the Lyceum theater, Kittanning, Pa., has been reopened to the public with high class feature pictures exclusively. The improvements to the house cost $15,000 and include much new equipment of the latest type, In addition to beautiful decorations throughout. A more convenient and up-to-date seating arrangement has been installed and the gallery removed. The theater was formally opened under very auspicious circumstances and all indications point to a successful business. Andrew Condoleon is the owner and W. J. Marrian, a well known Pittsburgh man, is house manager of the Lyceum.”
It seems likely that the opening of the new Wick Opera House in 1913 forced the Lyceum, formerly a stage house, to reorient its programming to moving pictures.
Cinema Flix has changed hands, and the new operators, Bison 6 Cinema of Jamestown, ND, have changed the name to Valley Twin cinema. Here is the new web site.
Early this year plans were afoot to turn the Squirrel Hill Theatre into a live music venue, but they never cane to fruition. Then on June 29 the Pittsburgh Patch web site posted a brief article leading with this news:
I’ve found nothing more recent about the redevelopment project, so it’s possible that the theater building is still standing, though if so it probably won’t be for long.Some years ago the late rapper Mac Miller, who had once lived in the neighborhood, considered buying the theater for use as a live performance venue, but that plan too failed to materialize. The growing popularity of the neighborhood has probably made the site too valuable for theatrical use.
Although the Knights of Pythias building, built in 1899, is still standing, the theater added at the back of the building in 1908 is gone. It appears in an aerial view made in 1998, but a view taken in 2003 shows a parking lot on the site.
The NRHP nomination form for the building (PDF here,) dating from 1975, describes the theater as a four-story brick structure with two balconies. The main floor seated 341 and the balconies accommodated another 350. The interior decoration of the auditorium was a simple Greco-Roman Classical, and featured Ionic columns and fluted pilasters.
Historic aerial views show that the stage house occupied about 2/5 of the theater’s shallow footprint, so the auditorium was wider than it was deep. Although movies were shown in the house as early as 1910, a proper projection booth was not installed until 1923. After the theater closed as a movie house in 1958, it remained dark except for two summers when local talent used it for live performances.
Architect P. H. Weathers' full name was Patrick Henry Weathers.
“The Paramount Building was built as the Capitol Avenue Theater in 1905…. Architect William DuBois designed the structure….” (Wyoming Tribune-Eagle, Nov 29, 2017. Article here.) The article also notes a major fire in the theater section of the building in 1915 (this event was noted in the January 22, 1916 issue of The Moving Picture World) and its renovation as the Paramount in the 1930s.
Here is an item from the September 10, 1927 issue of Moving Picture World:
The January 8, 1928 issue of The Film Daily listed the Ritz Theatre in Crescent, Oklahoma as one of the new houses in which the National Theatre Supply Company had recently installed equipment.Water Winter Wonderland has a page for the Arcade. One comment cites a June, 1960 Boxoffice item saying that the house was being reopened by new owners at that time. There is no followup saying how long it remained open. Other comments note that after closing as a theater the building served as a supermarket, and auto parts store, and a city recreation center. The conversion to an event center took place some time after 2011.
An ad for Heywood-Wakefield seating in the May 28, 1952 issue of The Exhibitor says that the Sayville Theatre was built for Associated Prudential Theatres.
The May 21, 1952 issue of The Exhibitor said “Larry Tyler opened his new 200-car Sundown Drive-In at Los Molinos, Cal.”
AsJail Bait was made in 1954, this could be one of the last photos of the Monterey’s auditorium taken before the proscenium end of the house was remodeled to accommodate a CinemaScope screen. I’m pretty sure that was done before the end of 1954.
I’m guessing that the photos TomBlackwell uploaded to this page are from the Movie Jail Bait. While the other two photos of the theater both do appear to depict the Monterey, this photo does not. I don’t recognize the theater in this photo, but it isn’t the Monterey, which had no back wall such as this, there being a stadium section in that part of the house. Wood must have used some other theater for this shot, but left it uncredited.
I went to this theater once, not too long after it opened, though I don’t recall what movie we saw. I believe we were in the smallest of the three auditoriums, and it was a fairly good size— certainly larger than any of the four auditoriums at the AMC multiplex built in Rosemead about ten years earlier.
It was opened when Monterey Park was already well on its way to being a predominantly east Asian community, and the shopping center in which the cinema was located had mostly Asian businesses in it. When this house opened, the much older Monterey Theatre, which I believe had been the first house Jimmy Edwards ever operated, was sublet to an Asian operator who ran Chinese language movies.
I forgot to put the year in that comment. The trade journal items were all published in 1950.
Two trade publications noted the opening of the Rose Theatre in Morton. The first of three items to appear in The Exhibitor was this one from the August 9 issue:
A second item appeared in the issue of August 23:The third mention, in the September 23 issue, was part of an item about the Blankenship circuit:A brief item in the August 2 issue of Variety also noted the opening. The Rose was the second house at Morton for Wallace Blankenship, the Wallace Theatre there having been opened in 1935.The American Theatre is either not yet listed at Cinema Treasures, or is an aka for one of the other theaters we have listed at Sterling. If it was an aka, it must have been for the Rialto, as the Princess vanished in the 1920s. A reminiscence of life in Stirling in the mid-1950s by Don Lechman, published in the Daily Breeze on February 14, 2012, mentions the two theaters then operating in the town: “It was 9 cents at the American Theatre and about 12 at the ritzier Fox. Usually, they showed a double feature, a newsreel and a cartoon.”
This item is from the January 15, 1939 issue of Boxoffice:
I’m not sure what to make of this item from Boxoffice of January 15, 1939. Perhaps the magazine conflated the Lincoln with the “New Colored Theatre,” and the item was actually about the latter house?
In any case, find it a bit odd that the management would shift to a whites-only policy without changing the name of the theater. Lincoln is not a greatly admired name among southern whites.Here is an item from Boxoffice of January 15, 1939:
Here is an item from the February 25, 1939 issue of Boxoffice:
This item is from the January 9, 1939 issue of Boxoffice:
The January 15, 1938 issue of The Film Daily said that the Strand Theatre in Hughes Springs had been transferred to J. M. Stacey. I’ve been unable to discover if the Strand was another theater or an earlier name of the Village. There was a movie theater at Hughes Springs at least as early as 1921. It was mentioned in a July issue of Motion Picture News, but the item didn’t give the name of the house.Although there was hope that the Chateau Theatre would be brought back to life as a performance venue, in May, 2019 the City of Rochester decided that it would be renovated primarily as a space for traveling exhibits, with some additional space devoted to a cafe, retail stores, and small areas for live music. The Chateau will reopen on November 23, 2019, with “The Magical History Tour: A Beatles Memorabilia Exhibition.”
This is the Chateau’s official web site.
On November 14, the Rochester Post-Bulletin posted this photo gallery featuring 57 photos of the Chateau Theatre at various stages of its history, including its time as a book store and during the recent renovation project.
There is conflicting information about John Wick’s 1913 theater project in various construction journals of the period. The February 1 issue of Engineering Record says that John Wick would receive bids for construction of an opera house designed by local architect O. C. Rearick. A February 22 article in The American Contractor also notes the project, but gives the architect’s name as O. C. Rairigh. By March 1, American Contractor is saying that Wick’s theater project is a movie house being designed by Pittsburgh architect Joseph L. Neal. The later AC items also say the theater is to be one story, and 47 feet wide, rather than the 2 stories and 52 feet wide reported in the earlier items. Did John Wick build two theaters in 1913, or simply switch architects and have the plans of his one theater modified? The Internet gives no answer.
Fortunately, the trade publications are clearer about the change of name from Wick Opera House to Columbia Theatre. This item is from The Moving Picture World of August 6, 1921:
The State Theatre was in operation by 1933, and was still open at least as late as 1979. I’ve been unable to find an address for it, but a 1967 advertisement for Erdos Bros. Furniture Co. gave their address as 335 Market Street, “next door to the State Theatre.” Thus, the narrow alley in the vintage photo of the State must be McKean Way, and the theater was on the odd-numbered west side of the street, so at the northwest corner of Market and McKean. The number was probably about 325 Market. The location is now a parking lot.
The Lyceum Theatre was in operation by 1908, and is listed in the 1908-1909 edition of the Cahn guide as a 771-seat ground floor house. The Lyceum is listed at 213 Market Street in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. Two other movie houses were listed at Kittanning; The Electric Theatre, also on Market Street, and the Grand Theatre, no location given. The Lyceum was the subject of this item in the September 30, 1916 issue of The Moving Picture World:
It seems likely that the opening of the new Wick Opera House in 1913 forced the Lyceum, formerly a stage house, to reorient its programming to moving pictures.It’s possible that a grand opening ad was placed in the popular local suburban paper, The South Bay Daily Breeze.