Issues of the Fitchburg Sentinel from late 1906 carry ads for the Bijou Theatre with the notation “Formerly Whitney Opera House” indicating the period of the name change. Thus the now-vanished “Old Theatres of Fitchburg” web site was mistaken in saying the name change took place in 1904. The site was also wrong about the Whitney opening in 1880. The 1882 New York Clipper Annual gave October 20, 1881 as the date the Whitney Opera House was dedicated.
The original entrance to the Whitney Opera House was on Main Street, but in 1909 the Bijou’s entrance was moved to Prichard Street. Plans were noted in the December 7, 1908, issue of the Sentinel:
“The rear of the store now occupied by Mr. Batchelder will be used in providing a new stairway and entrance to the Bijou theater, which will be 10 feet in width and connect with the end of the main lobby of the house. Upon the completion of the improvements the main entrance of the house will be on Prichard street.”
It’s likely that the old entrance at old address 208 Main Street (the modern address would be in the 400 block) was retained as an emergency exit. The Whitney had been temporarily condemned for theatrical use at some point in 1905, and didn’t reopen until January, 1906, after fire code violations had been corrected.
The Strand Theatre was in operation under that name by early 1922, having been advertised in the February 10 issue of the Fitchburg Sentinel. Prior to that it had been called the Rambeau Theatre.
The house might have opened in October, 1914, as an item in the October 1 issue of the Sentinel said “[a]ll of the orchestra seats have been placed in the new Rambeau theater….” The Rambeau was advertised in the November 16 issue of the paper, so it was definitely open by then.
Shea’s Theatre was the subject of this notice in The American Contractor of September 6, 1913:
“Theater: 1 sty. & bas. 54x128. Day st., Fitchburg, Mass. Archt. D. H. Woodbury, 53 State st., Boston.
Owner P. F. Shea, Fitchburg. General contract let to S. J. Ledger, Fitchburg. Owner will take figures on electric wiring.”
The part of Spring Street on which the Festival Theatre was situated has been renamed Ted Turner Drive. As near as I can surmise, 142 was probably on part of the parking lot on the west side of Ted Turner Drive NW, just below Williams Street (between Williams Street and the Turner Building at the corner of Luckie Street.)
A March 11, 1913 article in the Fitchburg Sentinel told of Cornelius J. Quinlan’s plans to build a business block with a 1000-seat theater on Main Street opposite City Hall. This was the location of the Lyric/Saxon Theatre.
Plans for the project were being prepared by the firm of H. M. Francis & Sons. Henry Francis died in 1908, so the lead architect on the Lyric Theatre was probably his elder son, Frederick. Younger son Albert was also an architect, but less talented than his older brother.
The earliest mentions of the Lyric being open I can find are from February, 1914. A December 12, 1913 Sentinel article referred to the “…Quinlan Theatre block now in process of construction….”
We have the wrong address for the Fitchburg Theatre. It was at 717 Main Street, just a couple of door down from the the Saxon Theatre. The building is currently under partial renovation to provide space for Fitchburg State University, and there are long-range plans to renovate and reopen the theater itself.
Shea’s Theatre on Day Street was under construction in 1914 when this item appeared in the February issue of The Electrical Contractor:
“In connection with its contract to wire and equip two theatres in Fitchburg, Mass., the Bruce-Heustis Electric Co. makes the following report: Shea’s Theatre, Day street, has a seating capacity of 850. first floor with balcony. The stage is to be fitted with all modern conveniences for the putting on of vaudeville acts and moving pictures. This theatre is illuminated by the semi-indirect system of lighting, using Equalite glass bowls. Mercury arc rectifiers are to be used in the moving picture machines, and the outside of the building is to be decorated with about six hundred and fifty to-volt, 5-watt mazda lamps arranged in the shape of set pieces in the panelling on the outside of the structure.”
The other theater for which Bruce-Heustis had the electrical contract was a larger house located on Main Street called the Quinlan Theatre. Either it is not yet listed at Cinema Treasures, was opened under a different name, or is listed under a later name and missing the aka.
The Princess operated in two locations, but if this web page is correct, neither was at the modern address 408 E. Commercial Street. The brief paragraph about the two Princesses appears to have been from an oral history (or perhaps was just awkwardly written, as the wording is a bit ambiguous), but it appears that the first Princess Theatre was at the second door east of Benton Avenue on the south side of Commercial Street, which would make its modern address 502 E. Commercial.
The first Princess was replaced by a new Princess in 1917, which must have been the one at 307 E. Commercial. That building appears to have been demolished. It’s impossible to tell if the building at 500-502 E.Commercial is an old building that’s been remodeled or is a replacement for the building the first Princess was in.
This photo at Facebook shows Jasonville’s Main Street around 1950, the view looking east across Lawton Street. A former resident of Jasonville who attended the theater in the late 1950s-early 1960s tells me that the Crescent Theatre was in the white, two-story building on the right, just past Lawton. The theater’s marquee is discernible, though it doesn’t appear to have the theater’s name on it.
But this is the 100 block of West Main Street, not East Main, and the number of the building would have been higher than 115. Judging from the addresses of businesses on the opposite side of the street, I’d guess the Crescent was at about 140 West Main Street.
All the buildings on that side of that block of Main Street were destroyed in a fire some time ago— the second great fire in Jasonville’s history, the first having happened in 1914. I don’t know if the theater was still in operation at the time its building was destroyed, though.
The exterior of Dinuba’s Strand Theatre building doesn’t look Romanesque at all. The overall form and most of the detailing, especially the arched second floor windows, the pilasters with stylized Corinthian capitals, and the parapet medallions with swags, look more Classical Revival than anything else.
If the Mini-Cinema was in the Northpark Center, which is where the K-Mart madcone referred to is, it’s possible that the street name should be Riverside Parkway, not Riverside Drive. The K-Mart, like the Northpark Center itself, uses an address on Tom Hill Sr. Boulevard, but Riverside Parkway loops past the K-Mart on its way from Tom Hill Sr. Boulevard to Riverside Drive. There are several commercial buildings along Riverside Parkway, but I can’t tell which, if any of them, was once the Cinema.
The October 19, 1970, issue of Boxoffice said that Atlanta-based Modular Cinemas of America was preparing to open its eighth Mini-Cinema location, which would debut in Macon about the middle of November. The chain had recently opened a house in Rock Hill, South Carolina, and so far also had four units in Atlanta and one each in Athens, Georgia, and Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Page 35 of the December 26, 1926, issue of The Atlanta Constitution says that an Atlanta architect named Raymond C. Snow designed the Erlanger Theatre. Another of his buildings, an office block at 161 Spring Street NW, was nominated to the NRHP, and the nomination form says that very little is known about Snow, but that established his office in Atlanta in 1923 and he appears to have died before 1930.
Reports of his death may have been exaggerated, though, as I found two later apartment projects by an architect of that name: Redmont Gardens in Birmingham, Alabama, built 1938-1939, and and Gilmour Court Apartments, Richmond, Virginia, for which permits were issued in 1938. This Snow’s office was in Washington, D.C., but it could have been the same architect.
I do wonder if that splendid Baroque interior of the Erlanger seen in the Constitution photo was actually designed by Snow, though. It is so different from the restrained, Georgian exterior of the theater itself and the very similar ground floor of the office block on Spring Street, which the theater’s exterior closely resembles.
Snow’s other surviving buildings also feature rather plain exteriors. It’s possible that the promoters of the theater hired another architect or designer to do the interior, which is quite splendid. If they did, the Constitution didn’t reveal who it was. But the Erlanger’s facade is so much like the building on Spring Street that I have no doubt they, at least, were both Snow’s work.
An article in the November 17, 1912, issue of The Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette saying that contracts for construction of the Jefferson Theatre had been let noted that the project had been designed by local architect Charles R. Weatherhogg.
The February 2, 1913, issue of the paper carried an ad announcing that the Jefferson would open on February 8. Admission to the house, built exclusively for movies, would be five cents.
The April 7, 1923, issue of The Fort Wayne Sentinel said that excavation had begun for the Broadway Theatre. Local architect Henry W. Meyer had designed the project.
The November 4, 1923 (the day before opening) issue of the paper carried a full-page ad for the theater, boasting of its dual Powers projectors, its advanced heating and ventilation system, its gold fibre screen, and the Fotoplayer that would provide music and sound effects for the silent movies. The ad also described the Broadway’s seating accommodations
“The seats are placed on a terraced cycloid circular incline with each seat facing the exact center of the screen, and from which the patron has a clear View of the picture over the shoulders of the parties in front.”
A February 12, 1974 Brownwood Bulletin article about the closing of the Bowie Theatre, last of the town’s downtown movie houses, said that the Texas Theatre was in the 100 Block of N. Center Avenue. The Texas was one of five theaters to open in Brownwood during the early 1940s to serve the large population at the nearby Army base, Camp Bowie. The Texas was on the west side of the street, so it has been demolished.
The February 12, 1974, issue of the Brownwood Bulletin said that the Bowie Theatre would present its last show that night. Interstate Theatres would continue to operate the Cinema Twins and two drive-ins. The final movie at the Bowie was “Billy Jack”. The house had opened on March 28, 1941 with “The Strawberry Blonde” starring Rita Hayworth and James Cagney.
As far as I know neither Raymond Kennedy, chief architect of the Chinese Theatre, nor Donald Wilkinson, head architect of the firm of Meyer & Holler, with whom Kennedy worked closely on the project, ever visited China, but I’m sure Kennedy would have done some study of Chinese design for the project.
Although the theater’s details are Chinese, the building’s form is more European Renaissance, particularly the forecourt. A forecourt is not characteristic of Chinese design. Both Kennedy and Wilkinson were classically trained, and Kennedy was awarded a Diploma as a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome, where he studied for three years.
Architect William Clayton Meador was active from around 1909. I’ve been unable to find out anything about his parter, except that his surname was Wolfe, not Wolf. The partnership does not appear to have lasted long in any case. I’ve found references to several projects attributed to Meador alone, from the 1910s, the 1920s, and the 1930s, but the Grand Theatre and a 1919 church in Archer City are the only projects I can find attributed to the firm by any source available on the Internet.
It does look as though the library might have mislabeled that photo. The wall against which the poster behind Ms. Miller is leaning is also too wide for the Quincy.
Issues of the Fitchburg Sentinel from late 1906 carry ads for the Bijou Theatre with the notation “Formerly Whitney Opera House” indicating the period of the name change. Thus the now-vanished “Old Theatres of Fitchburg” web site was mistaken in saying the name change took place in 1904. The site was also wrong about the Whitney opening in 1880. The 1882 New York Clipper Annual gave October 20, 1881 as the date the Whitney Opera House was dedicated.
The original entrance to the Whitney Opera House was on Main Street, but in 1909 the Bijou’s entrance was moved to Prichard Street. Plans were noted in the December 7, 1908, issue of the Sentinel:
It’s likely that the old entrance at old address 208 Main Street (the modern address would be in the 400 block) was retained as an emergency exit. The Whitney had been temporarily condemned for theatrical use at some point in 1905, and didn’t reopen until January, 1906, after fire code violations had been corrected.The Strand Theatre was in operation under that name by early 1922, having been advertised in the February 10 issue of the Fitchburg Sentinel. Prior to that it had been called the Rambeau Theatre.
The house might have opened in October, 1914, as an item in the October 1 issue of the Sentinel said “[a]ll of the orchestra seats have been placed in the new Rambeau theater….” The Rambeau was advertised in the November 16 issue of the paper, so it was definitely open by then.
Shea’s Theatre was the subject of this notice in The American Contractor of September 6, 1913:
The part of Spring Street on which the Festival Theatre was situated has been renamed Ted Turner Drive. As near as I can surmise, 142 was probably on part of the parking lot on the west side of Ted Turner Drive NW, just below Williams Street (between Williams Street and the Turner Building at the corner of Luckie Street.)
A March 11, 1913 article in the Fitchburg Sentinel told of Cornelius J. Quinlan’s plans to build a business block with a 1000-seat theater on Main Street opposite City Hall. This was the location of the Lyric/Saxon Theatre.
Plans for the project were being prepared by the firm of H. M. Francis & Sons. Henry Francis died in 1908, so the lead architect on the Lyric Theatre was probably his elder son, Frederick. Younger son Albert was also an architect, but less talented than his older brother.
The earliest mentions of the Lyric being open I can find are from February, 1914. A December 12, 1913 Sentinel article referred to the “…Quinlan Theatre block now in process of construction….”
We have the wrong address for the Fitchburg Theatre. It was at 717 Main Street, just a couple of door down from the the Saxon Theatre. The building is currently under partial renovation to provide space for Fitchburg State University, and there are long-range plans to renovate and reopen the theater itself.
Shea’s Theatre on Day Street was under construction in 1914 when this item appeared in the February issue of The Electrical Contractor:
The other theater for which Bruce-Heustis had the electrical contract was a larger house located on Main Street called the Quinlan Theatre. Either it is not yet listed at Cinema Treasures, was opened under a different name, or is listed under a later name and missing the aka.The Princess operated in two locations, but if this web page is correct, neither was at the modern address 408 E. Commercial Street. The brief paragraph about the two Princesses appears to have been from an oral history (or perhaps was just awkwardly written, as the wording is a bit ambiguous), but it appears that the first Princess Theatre was at the second door east of Benton Avenue on the south side of Commercial Street, which would make its modern address 502 E. Commercial.
The first Princess was replaced by a new Princess in 1917, which must have been the one at 307 E. Commercial. That building appears to have been demolished. It’s impossible to tell if the building at 500-502 E.Commercial is an old building that’s been remodeled or is a replacement for the building the first Princess was in.
Internet says the Showplace Icon is on Seaport Boulevard. It opened earlier this year. Here is an article with lots of photos. It looks pretty nice.
This photo at Facebook shows Jasonville’s Main Street around 1950, the view looking east across Lawton Street. A former resident of Jasonville who attended the theater in the late 1950s-early 1960s tells me that the Crescent Theatre was in the white, two-story building on the right, just past Lawton. The theater’s marquee is discernible, though it doesn’t appear to have the theater’s name on it.
But this is the 100 block of West Main Street, not East Main, and the number of the building would have been higher than 115. Judging from the addresses of businesses on the opposite side of the street, I’d guess the Crescent was at about 140 West Main Street.
All the buildings on that side of that block of Main Street were destroyed in a fire some time ago— the second great fire in Jasonville’s history, the first having happened in 1914. I don’t know if the theater was still in operation at the time its building was destroyed, though.
A pencil rendering of the Cinema I & II by architect William Riseman is one of the illustrations on this page of NorthPark Center’s web site.
The exterior of Dinuba’s Strand Theatre building doesn’t look Romanesque at all. The overall form and most of the detailing, especially the arched second floor windows, the pilasters with stylized Corinthian capitals, and the parapet medallions with swags, look more Classical Revival than anything else.
If the Mini-Cinema was in the Northpark Center, which is where the K-Mart madcone referred to is, it’s possible that the street name should be Riverside Parkway, not Riverside Drive. The K-Mart, like the Northpark Center itself, uses an address on Tom Hill Sr. Boulevard, but Riverside Parkway loops past the K-Mart on its way from Tom Hill Sr. Boulevard to Riverside Drive. There are several commercial buildings along Riverside Parkway, but I can’t tell which, if any of them, was once the Cinema.
The October 19, 1970, issue of Boxoffice said that Atlanta-based Modular Cinemas of America was preparing to open its eighth Mini-Cinema location, which would debut in Macon about the middle of November. The chain had recently opened a house in Rock Hill, South Carolina, and so far also had four units in Atlanta and one each in Athens, Georgia, and Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Page 35 of the December 26, 1926, issue of The Atlanta Constitution says that an Atlanta architect named Raymond C. Snow designed the Erlanger Theatre. Another of his buildings, an office block at 161 Spring Street NW, was nominated to the NRHP, and the nomination form says that very little is known about Snow, but that established his office in Atlanta in 1923 and he appears to have died before 1930.
Reports of his death may have been exaggerated, though, as I found two later apartment projects by an architect of that name: Redmont Gardens in Birmingham, Alabama, built 1938-1939, and and Gilmour Court Apartments, Richmond, Virginia, for which permits were issued in 1938. This Snow’s office was in Washington, D.C., but it could have been the same architect.
I do wonder if that splendid Baroque interior of the Erlanger seen in the Constitution photo was actually designed by Snow, though. It is so different from the restrained, Georgian exterior of the theater itself and the very similar ground floor of the office block on Spring Street, which the theater’s exterior closely resembles.
Snow’s other surviving buildings also feature rather plain exteriors. It’s possible that the promoters of the theater hired another architect or designer to do the interior, which is quite splendid. If they did, the Constitution didn’t reveal who it was. But the Erlanger’s facade is so much like the building on Spring Street that I have no doubt they, at least, were both Snow’s work.
The Colonial Theatre opened on Saturday, September 17, 1910, according to that day’s issue of The Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette.
An article in the November 17, 1912, issue of The Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette saying that contracts for construction of the Jefferson Theatre had been let noted that the project had been designed by local architect Charles R. Weatherhogg.
The February 2, 1913, issue of the paper carried an ad announcing that the Jefferson would open on February 8. Admission to the house, built exclusively for movies, would be five cents.
The April 7, 1923, issue of The Fort Wayne Sentinel said that excavation had begun for the Broadway Theatre. Local architect Henry W. Meyer had designed the project.
The November 4, 1923 (the day before opening) issue of the paper carried a full-page ad for the theater, boasting of its dual Powers projectors, its advanced heating and ventilation system, its gold fibre screen, and the Fotoplayer that would provide music and sound effects for the silent movies. The ad also described the Broadway’s seating accommodations
A February 12, 1974 Brownwood Bulletin article about the closing of the Bowie Theatre, last of the town’s downtown movie houses, said that the Texas Theatre was in the 100 Block of N. Center Avenue. The Texas was one of five theaters to open in Brownwood during the early 1940s to serve the large population at the nearby Army base, Camp Bowie. The Texas was on the west side of the street, so it has been demolished.
The February 12, 1974, issue of the Brownwood Bulletin said that the Bowie Theatre would present its last show that night. Interstate Theatres would continue to operate the Cinema Twins and two drive-ins. The final movie at the Bowie was “Billy Jack”. The house had opened on March 28, 1941 with “The Strawberry Blonde” starring Rita Hayworth and James Cagney.
A 1938 city directory lists the Gem at 313 Center. The Queen Theatre was at 203 Center.
The Queen was advertising through 1958, and I’ve seen an ad for it as late as the January 11, 1959, issue of the Brownwood Bulletin.
A 1938 city directory gives the address of the Queen as 203 Center.
As far as I know neither Raymond Kennedy, chief architect of the Chinese Theatre, nor Donald Wilkinson, head architect of the firm of Meyer & Holler, with whom Kennedy worked closely on the project, ever visited China, but I’m sure Kennedy would have done some study of Chinese design for the project.
Although the theater’s details are Chinese, the building’s form is more European Renaissance, particularly the forecourt. A forecourt is not characteristic of Chinese design. Both Kennedy and Wilkinson were classically trained, and Kennedy was awarded a Diploma as a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome, where he studied for three years.
Architect William Clayton Meador was active from around 1909. I’ve been unable to find out anything about his parter, except that his surname was Wolfe, not Wolf. The partnership does not appear to have lasted long in any case. I’ve found references to several projects attributed to Meador alone, from the 1910s, the 1920s, and the 1930s, but the Grand Theatre and a 1919 church in Archer City are the only projects I can find attributed to the firm by any source available on the Internet.
It does look as though the library might have mislabeled that photo. The wall against which the poster behind Ms. Miller is leaning is also too wide for the Quincy.