Chester is a puzzle. For one thing, there are two towns in New York called Chester, the other being in Warren County, and Orange County, where this Chester is located, also has a village called Chester.
The bigger puzzle is that the November 24, 1951, issue of Boxoffice has a photo purporting to be of the Paramount Theatre in Chester, New York, designed by Michael DeAngelis, but Wikipedia tells me that in 1950 Chester’s population was only 2,878, and the Chester in Warren County was even smaller, so neither was likely to have a theater as spacious as the one in the photo.
John Lewis’s 1994 photo of the Quickway Cinema at CinemaTour shows a fairly large and rather plain building, but one that might have been built around 1950. Could it possibly have been the Paramount, as improbable as that seems? I suppose it’s more likely that Boxoffice just put the theater in the wrong town.
As joemasher said back in 2005, the theater’s building has been converted into a two-floor office building, but with some stores on the ground floor. The section that had the theater entrance in John Lewis’s photo looks like it is still there, but extended and filled with shops. The address of the Quickway Shopping Center is 69 Brookside Avenue.
According to this page at the Biographical Dictionary of Architects in Canada, the conversion of the building that had been the Montreal Auxilliary Bible Society into the Gaiety Theatre in 1909 was designed by architects Charles A. Mitchell and Daniel J. Crighton. The short-lived firm of Mitchell & Crighton lasted from 1907 to 1909, but produced two theaters, the other being the Idealograph Motion Picture Theatre, on Notre Dame Street West near Guy Street, also a 1909 project.
This item from the June 2, 1923, issue of The Moving Picture World is about the first Coliseum Theatre:
“Gross Will Attract Floating Population
“When W. D. Gross of Juneau, Alaska, was in Seattle recently he made arrangements with B. F. Shearer, Inc., for the complete equipment and furnishings, lighting effects, etc., for his new Coliseum Theatre in Ketchikan.
“Gross will have one of the finest houses on the coast. It will cost in the neighborhood of $85,000 and will seat 1,000. The theatre will be planned somewhat like the Liberty Theatre of Seattle, with a ramp going up to the mezzanine floor where it divides, circling to the balcony. Plans are by R. H. Rowe, architect of Seattle.
“A novel feature is the fact that Gross has ordered three large electric signs. The third is to be erected where it will shine from a high position out over the bay, the direction in which the theatre fronts. Ketcikan is a great anchorage for fishing fleets, and Gross wants to attract the ‘floating population.’”
Engineering News-Record of October 23, 1919, said that Loew’s Enterprises planned to spend $150,000 for alterations to the Palace Hippodrome Theatre in Seattle. This seems to have been about the standard amount Loew’s spent on refitting the big old theaters it acquired during this period. Plans for the project were, as usual, prepared by Thomas Lamb’s firm.
In 1920, this house was known as Loew’s Casino Theatre. A biography of vaudevillian Ted Healy says that he appeared there August 9-15, 1920. A notice in the October 23, 1919 issue of Engineering News-Record said that Loew’s Enterprises planned to spend $150,000 on alterations to the Casino Theatre in Salt Lake City. Plans for the project were by Thomas Lamb.
Also, it is no longer in use as a bingo hall. The Papineau Theatre is now the location of a recreation center called Zero Gravite climbing & yoga (web site with a couple of photos showing a bit of surviving architectural detail.)
The January 1, 1921, issue of Moving Picture World had this to say about the Papineau Theatre:
“Papineau Theatre Will Soon Open in Montreal
“Montreal, Quebec, will soon have another new moving picture theatre when the Papineau opens February 1 by the United Amusements, Ltd., which already operates the Regent Theatre. The Papineau will have 1,600 seats. The equipment includes two Simplex projection machines and a Wurlitzer organ. Programs will be changed twice weekly and prices will range up to 28 cents.
“Mr. Ganetakos is the managing director of the company and E. F. McMahon is the secretary-treasurer. E. Cousins is president and I. Crepeau, vice-president. These men hold similar positions in the Independent Amusement, Ltd., which operates the Strand and Moulin Rouge theatres, Montreal.”
The Papineau Theatre was designed by architect Daniel John Crighton, according to a mini-biography of him (in French) on this web page.
Also, there was definitely an earlier house also called the Sanger Theatre. It was mentioned in an ad for the Typhoon Fan Company in the January 1, 1921, issue of Moving Picture World.
The 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory listed four theaters in Sanger: The Bell Theatre, 1172 Seventh Street; the Opera House; the Orpheum, Seventh Street; and the Theatorium, corner of Seventh and N Street.
An August 27, 1936 item in The Fresno Bee said “… the remodeled Sanger Theater Seventh and O Streets will soon be ready for occupancy” so it must have been referring to the 1936 project for William Gustine. Gustine is mentioned as operator of the Sanger Theatre in quite a few issues of the Bee, including this one.
But I don’t know what to make of the location Seventh and O Streets. The Bee writer might just have been off by a block. But whether we’ve got the right location or the newspaper did, I’d say it’s safe to assume the Sanger Theatre opened in 1936.
The last event at the California Theatre must have been the program of two silent movies with accompaniment from the California’s Wurlitzer organ on June 24, 1990, noted in this item from The Los Angeles Times of May 8 that year:
“That’s all, folks! Los Angeles theater organist Gaylord Carter will make his farewell appearance on the California Theatre’s mighty Wurlitzer on Sunday at 2 p.m. With the imminent demolition of the historic building, the local Theatre Organ Society has slated only three more programs, including the grand finale on June 24. Carter, who is remembered by old-timers for providing the opening and closing theme music to the 1930’s ‘Amos 'n’ Andy' radio programs, will accompany two Harold Lloyd films, ‘Hot Water’ (1924) and ‘For Heaven’s Sake’ (1926).”
Until coming across this item I’d been unaware that the California’s organ was still in the theater and operational as late as 1990. I’ve been unable to discover any details about the organ, or what became of it when the theater was demolished later that year.
Even though first opened in 1907, the Lyceum did not make it into the 1914-1915 American motion Picture Directory, indicating that it was probably not a significant theater. I suspect this to be one of those cases in which a neighborhood nickelodeon-style house was later expanded by having a new auditorium built at the rear (the 1920 project by Reid Bros.) and the original auditorium converted into a lobby and perhaps some commercial space.
Historic aerial photos of the neighborhood show the Lyceum’s large auditorium at right angles to the entrance building. The new auditorium looked to be about 90 feet wide and 140 feet long, and there was a small stage house probably sufficient to accommodate some modest vaudeville acts. The original theater building was about 50 x 90. The Lyceum was still standing in a 1956 aerial view, but was gone in a 1968 aerial, replaced by the parking lot for the new shopping complex that backed up to San Jose Avenue.
This item, complete with misspellings and the wrong name for the theater, is probably about this house, and is from the May 12, 1923, issue of The Moving Picture World:
“Partridge and Morrison are building a new house in Tilamook, Oregon.– It will be called the Tilamook, will seat 750 and cost approximately $80,000. Frank Hyde, a local architect, drew the plans. B. F. Shearer, Inc., of Seattle, has charge of equipment, decorating and lighting of the house.”
I don’t know what’s wrong with Google Maps these days, but they keep fetching the wrong locations for buildings even when we give them the right address. Even this map direct from Google is a bit off. An 1889 Sanborn map of Fort Madison shows Edward Ebinger’s Opera House to the left of the building Google marks as 335 (the building with the pin icon is actually 325, currently home of the Lost Duck Brewing Company.) Anyway, the Iowa Theatre was next door to the west of that building, where there is now a parking lot.
This theater was not demolished, merely dismantled. 1125 Moro Street is currently occupied by offices for Powercat Illustrated, a magazine about Kansas State athletics.
The aluminum false front seen in the vintage photo uploaded by aggieville_archives has been stripped off, but the building to the left with its distinctive transom consisting of of five rows of translucent glass blocks is still there, though the bottom two rows of blocks are covered by an awning reading “The Goose Aggieville” in the current Google street view.
The address of the Grand Theatre in a 1918 directory was 735 Front Street. Front Street is now called Avenue H. The March 14, 1925 issue of The Moving Picture World had this item about the Columbia Theatre:
“The Columbia Theatre, Fort Madison, Iowa, will be taken over, March 1, by Capitol Enterprises of Kansas City, Samuel Harding, president of the company, announced the other day. The Orpheum of Fort Madison was taken over by Capitol Enterprises recently.”
Capitol Enterprises was formed on February 24, 1922, by Sam Harding, according to the 1922 FDY. At some point in the 1920s, Capitol Enterprises became a subsidiary of the Universal Chain Theatres Corporation.
The name Columbia Theatre dates from 1922. This item from the December issue of Stone and Webster Journal that year tells of its opening:
“The Columbia Theatre has just recently been thrown open to the public. This theatre was formerly the old Grand Opera house, and following the fire of last spring has been entirely rebuilt inside, and newly equipped, making it a very modern and up-to-date theatre in every respect.”
The opening of the Columbia Theatre occasioned a special section of the Fort Madison Evening Democrat of November 4, 1922. Among the congratulatory ads was one from the architects of the theater, the from of Owen, Payson & Carswell, who had their main office in Kansas City, Missouri, and a branch office in Fort Madison. It is likely that Robin B. Carswell was the lead architect on this project, as he headed the Fort Madison office of the firm. Albert S. Owen and Charles H. Payson worked out of Kansas City. The firm was dissolved in 1925 and thereafter Carswell ran the Fort Madison office as an independent architect.
The Columbia Theatre is last listed in the FDY in 1931, and the Iowa first appears in 1935, so the house was likely closed from some time in 1931 until reopening as the Iowa in 1934. The 1909-1910 Cahn guide lists the Grand as the Ebinger Grand Theatre, a ground floor house with 1,000 seats. The lower capacity of the Columbia/Iowa was probably the result of not rebuilding a gallery after the 1922 fire.
The July 7, 1923, issue of The Moving Picture World had this news from Fort Madison:
“The seating capacity of the Orpheum Theatre at Ft. Madison. Iowa, has been increased to 900 and other improvements are being made.”
In 1923 the Orpheum found itself competing with the new Columbia Theatre, opened in December, 1922, built in the shell of the burned-out Grand Theatre.
The Majestic House apartment building is at 201 E. Broad Street. Although extensively altered, some of the building’s details on display in vintage photos are still recognizable.
Looking north in the current Google street view we can see the back end of the former Hill Theatre on Central Avenue. The Centre Theatre was actually north of the Hill Theatre. The part of 17th Street on which it was situated has been realigned and is now signed as Central Park Square.
It has also been given non-standard addresses that don’t match up with addresses on other streets in Los Alamos. As near as I can tell, the Centre Theatre was probably somewhere within a few hundred feet of what a Google street view now displays as 203 Central Park Square.
An October 31, 1973 article in the Los Alamos Monitor said that the Centre Theatre opened on April 8, 1948. The Centre was advertised in the January 2, 1977 issue of The Santa Fe New Mexican.
I don’t think we’ve got the right address for the White Roxy Theatre. This weblog post from 2011 says that the building newly occupied by a business center called The Hive was formerly the White Roxy Theatre, and the Internet says that The Hive is (or was) at 134 NM-4. The building in the blog post photo is in the White Rock Shopping Center, which is where the February 26, 1973 issue of Boxoffice said the White Roxy was located. Also, Roger Katz says so, and he’s pretty reliable.
The Hive has been closed, and in the most recent Google street view the building, now painted brown but still recognizable, is occupied by the Northern New Mexico Revival Center.
The White Roxy was advertised in the April 3, 1987 issue of The Santa Fe New Mexican, but an article in the October 16 issue of the same paper that year had the line “[t]he Kahns recently closed the White Roxy theater in White Rock.” The article noted that Carl and Jonathan Kahn still were operating the High Society Theatre in Los Alamos, and also operated theaters in Santa Fe, Espanola, and Taos.
A discussion thread about the mall that I found has a couple of comments saying that the theater closed when Sears moved in (Sears opened in 1996) and one comment says that the theater was in the area where there is now a chiropractor’s office. A map of the mall shows only one chiropractor’s office, that being near the mall entrance on the west side of the Sears store, so I’ve set street view to that entrance.
Chester is a puzzle. For one thing, there are two towns in New York called Chester, the other being in Warren County, and Orange County, where this Chester is located, also has a village called Chester.
The bigger puzzle is that the November 24, 1951, issue of Boxoffice has a photo purporting to be of the Paramount Theatre in Chester, New York, designed by Michael DeAngelis, but Wikipedia tells me that in 1950 Chester’s population was only 2,878, and the Chester in Warren County was even smaller, so neither was likely to have a theater as spacious as the one in the photo.
John Lewis’s 1994 photo of the Quickway Cinema at CinemaTour shows a fairly large and rather plain building, but one that might have been built around 1950. Could it possibly have been the Paramount, as improbable as that seems? I suppose it’s more likely that Boxoffice just put the theater in the wrong town.
As joemasher said back in 2005, the theater’s building has been converted into a two-floor office building, but with some stores on the ground floor. The section that had the theater entrance in John Lewis’s photo looks like it is still there, but extended and filled with shops. The address of the Quickway Shopping Center is 69 Brookside Avenue.
According to this page at the Biographical Dictionary of Architects in Canada, the conversion of the building that had been the Montreal Auxilliary Bible Society into the Gaiety Theatre in 1909 was designed by architects Charles A. Mitchell and Daniel J. Crighton. The short-lived firm of Mitchell & Crighton lasted from 1907 to 1909, but produced two theaters, the other being the Idealograph Motion Picture Theatre, on Notre Dame Street West near Guy Street, also a 1909 project.
This item from the June 2, 1923, issue of The Moving Picture World is about the first Coliseum Theatre:
Engineering News-Record of October 23, 1919, said that Loew’s Enterprises planned to spend $150,000 for alterations to the Palace Hippodrome Theatre in Seattle. This seems to have been about the standard amount Loew’s spent on refitting the big old theaters it acquired during this period. Plans for the project were, as usual, prepared by Thomas Lamb’s firm.
In 1920, this house was known as Loew’s Casino Theatre. A biography of vaudevillian Ted Healy says that he appeared there August 9-15, 1920. A notice in the October 23, 1919 issue of Engineering News-Record said that Loew’s Enterprises planned to spend $150,000 on alterations to the Casino Theatre in Salt Lake City. Plans for the project were by Thomas Lamb.
Also, it is no longer in use as a bingo hall. The Papineau Theatre is now the location of a recreation center called Zero Gravite climbing & yoga (web site with a couple of photos showing a bit of surviving architectural detail.)
A thumbnail biography of architect Daniel John Crighton on this web page says that the Strand Theatre was built in 1912.
The January 1, 1921, issue of Moving Picture World had this to say about the Papineau Theatre:
The Papineau Theatre was designed by architect Daniel John Crighton, according to a mini-biography of him (in French) on this web page.Also, there was definitely an earlier house also called the Sanger Theatre. It was mentioned in an ad for the Typhoon Fan Company in the January 1, 1921, issue of Moving Picture World.
The 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory listed four theaters in Sanger: The Bell Theatre, 1172 Seventh Street; the Opera House; the Orpheum, Seventh Street; and the Theatorium, corner of Seventh and N Street.
An August 27, 1936 item in The Fresno Bee said “… the remodeled Sanger Theater Seventh and O Streets will soon be ready for occupancy” so it must have been referring to the 1936 project for William Gustine. Gustine is mentioned as operator of the Sanger Theatre in quite a few issues of the Bee, including this one.
But I don’t know what to make of the location Seventh and O Streets. The Bee writer might just have been off by a block. But whether we’ve got the right location or the newspaper did, I’d say it’s safe to assume the Sanger Theatre opened in 1936.
The last event at the California Theatre must have been the program of two silent movies with accompaniment from the California’s Wurlitzer organ on June 24, 1990, noted in this item from The Los Angeles Times of May 8 that year:
Until coming across this item I’d been unaware that the California’s organ was still in the theater and operational as late as 1990. I’ve been unable to discover any details about the organ, or what became of it when the theater was demolished later that year.Even though first opened in 1907, the Lyceum did not make it into the 1914-1915 American motion Picture Directory, indicating that it was probably not a significant theater. I suspect this to be one of those cases in which a neighborhood nickelodeon-style house was later expanded by having a new auditorium built at the rear (the 1920 project by Reid Bros.) and the original auditorium converted into a lobby and perhaps some commercial space.
Historic aerial photos of the neighborhood show the Lyceum’s large auditorium at right angles to the entrance building. The new auditorium looked to be about 90 feet wide and 140 feet long, and there was a small stage house probably sufficient to accommodate some modest vaudeville acts. The original theater building was about 50 x 90. The Lyceum was still standing in a 1956 aerial view, but was gone in a 1968 aerial, replaced by the parking lot for the new shopping complex that backed up to San Jose Avenue.
This item, complete with misspellings and the wrong name for the theater, is probably about this house, and is from the May 12, 1923, issue of The Moving Picture World:
The May 26, 1923 issue of The Moving Picture World said that the Jefferson Theatre in Springfield had been designed by local architect H. L. Sprague.
Since Google has chosen to send us another unfixable dislocated street view, here’s the street view at Google Maps itself.
I don’t know what’s wrong with Google Maps these days, but they keep fetching the wrong locations for buildings even when we give them the right address. Even this map direct from Google is a bit off. An 1889 Sanborn map of Fort Madison shows Edward Ebinger’s Opera House to the left of the building Google marks as 335 (the building with the pin icon is actually 325, currently home of the Lost Duck Brewing Company.) Anyway, the Iowa Theatre was next door to the west of that building, where there is now a parking lot.
This theater was not demolished, merely dismantled. 1125 Moro Street is currently occupied by offices for Powercat Illustrated, a magazine about Kansas State athletics.
The aluminum false front seen in the vintage photo uploaded by aggieville_archives has been stripped off, but the building to the left with its distinctive transom consisting of of five rows of translucent glass blocks is still there, though the bottom two rows of blocks are covered by an awning reading “The Goose Aggieville” in the current Google street view.
The address of the Grand Theatre in a 1918 directory was 735 Front Street. Front Street is now called Avenue H. The March 14, 1925 issue of The Moving Picture World had this item about the Columbia Theatre:
Capitol Enterprises was formed on February 24, 1922, by Sam Harding, according to the 1922 FDY. At some point in the 1920s, Capitol Enterprises became a subsidiary of the Universal Chain Theatres Corporation.The name Columbia Theatre dates from 1922. This item from the December issue of Stone and Webster Journal that year tells of its opening:
The opening of the Columbia Theatre occasioned a special section of the Fort Madison Evening Democrat of November 4, 1922. Among the congratulatory ads was one from the architects of the theater, the from of Owen, Payson & Carswell, who had their main office in Kansas City, Missouri, and a branch office in Fort Madison. It is likely that Robin B. Carswell was the lead architect on this project, as he headed the Fort Madison office of the firm. Albert S. Owen and Charles H. Payson worked out of Kansas City. The firm was dissolved in 1925 and thereafter Carswell ran the Fort Madison office as an independent architect.The Columbia Theatre is last listed in the FDY in 1931, and the Iowa first appears in 1935, so the house was likely closed from some time in 1931 until reopening as the Iowa in 1934. The 1909-1910 Cahn guide lists the Grand as the Ebinger Grand Theatre, a ground floor house with 1,000 seats. The lower capacity of the Columbia/Iowa was probably the result of not rebuilding a gallery after the 1922 fire.
The July 7, 1923, issue of The Moving Picture World had this news from Fort Madison:
In 1923 the Orpheum found itself competing with the new Columbia Theatre, opened in December, 1922, built in the shell of the burned-out Grand Theatre.The Majestic House apartment building is at 201 E. Broad Street. Although extensively altered, some of the building’s details on display in vintage photos are still recognizable.
Somehow the map and street view Google sends to our page is off again, but this one at their web site is spot on.
Looking north in the current Google street view we can see the back end of the former Hill Theatre on Central Avenue. The Centre Theatre was actually north of the Hill Theatre. The part of 17th Street on which it was situated has been realigned and is now signed as Central Park Square.
It has also been given non-standard addresses that don’t match up with addresses on other streets in Los Alamos. As near as I can tell, the Centre Theatre was probably somewhere within a few hundred feet of what a Google street view now displays as 203 Central Park Square.
An October 31, 1973 article in the Los Alamos Monitor said that the Centre Theatre opened on April 8, 1948. The Centre was advertised in the January 2, 1977 issue of The Santa Fe New Mexican.
I don’t think we’ve got the right address for the White Roxy Theatre. This weblog post from 2011 says that the building newly occupied by a business center called The Hive was formerly the White Roxy Theatre, and the Internet says that The Hive is (or was) at 134 NM-4. The building in the blog post photo is in the White Rock Shopping Center, which is where the February 26, 1973 issue of Boxoffice said the White Roxy was located. Also, Roger Katz says so, and he’s pretty reliable.
The Hive has been closed, and in the most recent Google street view the building, now painted brown but still recognizable, is occupied by the Northern New Mexico Revival Center.
The White Roxy was advertised in the April 3, 1987 issue of The Santa Fe New Mexican, but an article in the October 16 issue of the same paper that year had the line “[t]he Kahns recently closed the White Roxy theater in White Rock.” The article noted that Carl and Jonathan Kahn still were operating the High Society Theatre in Los Alamos, and also operated theaters in Santa Fe, Espanola, and Taos.
A discussion thread about the mall that I found has a couple of comments saying that the theater closed when Sears moved in (Sears opened in 1996) and one comment says that the theater was in the area where there is now a chiropractor’s office. A map of the mall shows only one chiropractor’s office, that being near the mall entrance on the west side of the Sears store, so I’ve set street view to that entrance.