This drive-in was built in 1948, as noted in the July 3 issue of Boxoffice that year:
“FORT PIERCE, FLA. — Ground has been broken on a 500x650 foot plat for a new drive-in to be operated by Talgar Theatre interests. The company is associated with the Koblegard interests here. Sunrise Engineering Co. will supervise the work. W. W. Hatcher is architect. The franchise has been received from Park Theatres, Inc.
“The project will involve an expenditure of approximately $75,000, and be completed early in September.”
A spring, 1962, program for the International Film Series presented by the University of California Extension lists movies at the Ken Art Cinema on Thursday evenings and at the Solana Theatre on Tuesday Evenings. It gives the address of the Solana Theatre as 113 Acacia Avenue.
Checking Historic Aerials, I see no buildings on North Acacia that could have housed a theater, but there was a building on South Acacia that could have held a theater of around 900 seats. There is still a large building on that site, though in Google’s satellite view it looks larger than the theater building does in the old aerial photos. It also has a different style of roof. I can’t tell if it is the old theater building enlarged, or is newer construction that replaced the theater building.
A couple of web sites say that the Solana Theatre was built by the Smith Construction Company, founded by Milton and Dorothea Smith in 1937, which would date the theater to that year or later.
BigDog: Click on the “Photos” button above the photo at the top of this page. 81 photos of the Allen have been uploaded here so far, a few of which show the marquee.
This watercolor displayed on the City of Vienna’s web site shows the Vienna Theatre to have been in a mid-block location. Most of the block of Union Street opposite the square, including the theater, has been demolished to make way for a large branch of PNC Bank.
The caption of a drawing on page 30 of the Arcadia Publishing Company’s book Jonesboro gives the address of the Tara Theatre as 126 S. Main Street. The building, the facade only slightly altered, is currently occupied by the My Place Coffee Cafe.
The caption of a photo of a theater ticket on page 135 says that the owner-operator of the house, Thomas Leon Burnham, installed the seating for 100 people himself. The caption also says that the Tara closed in 1957, and was the only movie theater ever operated in Jonesboro. The book doesn’t give the opening year, but it must have been after Ms. Mitchell’s popular novel, the source of the theater’s name, had been published in 1936.
acdecoster: This is a bit of a puzzle. A vintage postcard reveals that the building with the corner tower seen in our old photo was at the corner of 3rd and Cherry, so the Criterion was in the 400 block of Cherry Street. My best guess is that the Criterion was at 424 Cherry, as the building adjacent to the right of it in our photo appears to be the building that now houses the Hummingbird Stage and Taproom (430 Cherry.) Almost every other building on the block is either gone or remodeled beyond recognition.
If I am correct, then the building the Criterion was in might have been replaced or might have simply been remodeled. If it was remodeled, then at least some of the upper part of the building has been removed. To accommodate 600 seats in such a narrow building the Criterion must have had a balcony, which must have been demolished when the building was converted for retail use.
It’s possible, and even likely, that the entire interior structure was demolished and what amounted to an entirely new, lower building was built within the old walls. In fact it’s most likely that the walls are all that remains of the Criterion.
acdecoster’s link says that the current occupant of the Gem Theatre’s space is a coffee shop called Leaf and Bean. Tucker & Howell’s stylish Art Deco front of 1934 has been removed and the building and its neighbor now share a rather bland brick facade. The correct address is 22 West Court Square. There’s a nice photo near the bottom of the page, apparently taken sometime in the 1950s after the Gem had closed but before the theatrical facade had been removed.
The Hollywood Theatre underwent a $150,000 renovation in 1963, for operators Trans-Texas Theatres. An articlea bout it appears on this page of the January 13, 1964, issue of Boxoffice. The gala reopening took place on Christmas Day, 1963. Fort Worth architect Jim Vowell had designed the remodeling.
A “75 years ago” feature in the December 2, 2009, issue of the Winthrop News said that the Sibley Theatre had opened on November 28, 1934.
In 1964, the January 13 issue of Boxoffice said that Lou Kosek had reopened his Sibley Theatre for the winter, with a six-days-a-week policy and two changes of program a week.
In 1963 the Adams Theatre was taken over by a syndicate of three exhibitor groups, consisting of Irving and Adolph Goldberg’s Commumity Theatres, Wisper & Wetsman, and the Sloan family’s Detroit Suburban Theatres. The house would be operated by the Goldbergs.
The Adams was extensively remodeled later that year. The $250,000 project was designed by architect Ted Rogvoy. An article about the project (not illustrated, unfortunately) appeared on this page of the January 12,
1964 issue of Boxoffice.
This cinema must have been located approximately where Kohl’s department store (12345 Seal Beach Blvd.) is located now. I’ve set street view to that spot.
Despite its Seal Beach Boulevard address, this theater is best viewed in Google’s street view from around 3401 St. Cloud Drive, which runs along the south side of the shopping center.
The view from St. Cloud currently shows the building with its exposed, white concrete columns and beams and the arched entrance (partly seen in the International Projectionist photo I linked to earlier) and the exposed masonry panels between the columns still visible, but if you move street view onto the driveway of the shopping center in front of the building you get a more recent view in which you can see the results of a remodeling which mostly covered up these original features and plastered everything.
It’s not an entirely happy change, to my eye. The next time Google’s camera car passes along St. Cloud, the old view of the building will vanish, so see it while you may.
If not, try loading this PDF, then search it for theatre (use that spelling) and then click on result #9 (of 11) which should be a link reading: “16926 P. 9-1973 former North Side Garage, prior site of Johnson’s Opera House & Lake Theatre.jpg”
A movie house was operating in Rib Lake at least as early as 1914, but the town’s listing in the 1914-1915 edition of The American Motion Picture Directory used only the generic name M.P. Theatre.
The Armory, managed by Ed Johnson, is listed as a motion picture theater in the 1924-1925 edition of Polk’s Wisconsin State Gazetteer and Business Directory.
The “Theatre Changes” section of the March 9, 1937, issue of Film Daily included this name change: “RIB LAKE — Gem (formerly Armory).” However, there are also earlier references to the house as the Gem Theatre. There is also and ad from 1931 calling the house the Rib Lake Theatre. It was also known as Johnson’s Opera House.
A February 9, 1946, newspaper article seen here said that the Lake Theatre had been destroyed by fire the previous
Saturday afternoon. New owners had taken over operation the previous year, and the name had been changed to Lake Theatre. The article says the building had been erected about 35 years earlier to house farm machinery, but had been remodeled to house a theater and hardware store, so it could have been the theater listed in the 1914-1915 AMPD. It had also served as an armory during WWI.
Though the theater had been destroyed by the 1946 fire the building survived. This is what it looked like in 1973, when it was serving as an automobile garage. A new theater was built at another location later in 1946. Over the years the new house went by the names New Lake Theatre, Lake Theatre, and Laker Theatre.
A Cineplex Odeon spokesperson said at the time of the Northpoint’s closing that the lease was up and the house had been losing money for some time, so the lease wasn’t renewed. Apparently nobody else wanted it either. SF Gate Story.
The Rex Theatre must have been this project described in the June 8, 1912, issue of Pacific Builder & Engineer:
“Eugene, Or.: Lewis & Lewis, archts., Portland, have awarded the cont. for the const. of a 2 sto. brick theatre bldg. to O. Heckart of this city, and the brick and stucco work will be done by C.S. Frank. The bldg. is of Spanish mission design and will cost $30,000.”
Notices about the project in other issues of the journal indicate that it was located on Willamette Street, and that the theater would be operated by J.J. Bryan and Mrs. M.E. Watson. The PSTOS page for the Rex says that the house “…originally had a 2/10 Estey organ (opus #1078) installed in 1912.”
Finding the identities of the architects, Lewis & Lewis, has been rather tedious, there having also been two other architects with that surname active in Portland around this time, both of them quite active, but it turns out that the less-well-known construction-architecture firm Lewis & Lewis consisted of English-born builder William P. Lewis and his son, Robert Lewis. The firm was founded in 1898 and dissolved in 1913.
Thanks for posting the photos, Matt. I was only in the Warner Hollywood once, when I was about nine years old and our elementary school class went on a field trip to see This is Cinerama. The auditorium looks a bit smaller than I remember it,perhaps because the upper part is obscured by the triplexing.
Also, there were the three Cinerama projection booths on the orchestra floor when I was there, and we were seated close beside the central one and very near the enormous screen. But I actually have a clearer memory of the lobby than I do of the auditorium. It’s good to see that the decorative detail is still in pretty good condition.
This weblog post by Matthew J. Prigge describes a business ledger from Michael Brumm’s Ritz Theatre for the month of October, 1935. It’s an interesting glimpse into the operations of a small, independent theater during that period.
Konrad Schiecke’s Historic Movie Theatres in Illinois says that the theater in LaHarpe opened as the Princess in 1929 and was renamed the Amuse-U in 1934. The following year it had to be rebuilt following a fire.
Boxoffice of June 9, 1958, reported that renovations at the Alexandria Theatre, including the installation of the Todd-AO screen and projection equipment for the upcoming road show run of South Pacific, had reduced the seating capacity of the house to 1,250.
The June 9, 1958, issue of Boxoffice said that the Capitol Theatre in McKeesport, which had been dark for several years, was to be converted into a bingo parlor.
This drive-in was built in 1948, as noted in the July 3 issue of Boxoffice that year:
My guess would be that the theater once belonged to or was operated by The International Concatenated Order of Hoo-Hoo or one or more of the club’s members.
A spring, 1962, program for the International Film Series presented by the University of California Extension lists movies at the Ken Art Cinema on Thursday evenings and at the Solana Theatre on Tuesday Evenings. It gives the address of the Solana Theatre as 113 Acacia Avenue.
Checking Historic Aerials, I see no buildings on North Acacia that could have housed a theater, but there was a building on South Acacia that could have held a theater of around 900 seats. There is still a large building on that site, though in Google’s satellite view it looks larger than the theater building does in the old aerial photos. It also has a different style of roof. I can’t tell if it is the old theater building enlarged, or is newer construction that replaced the theater building.
A couple of web sites say that the Solana Theatre was built by the Smith Construction Company, founded by Milton and Dorothea Smith in 1937, which would date the theater to that year or later.
BigDog: Click on the “Photos” button above the photo at the top of this page. 81 photos of the Allen have been uploaded here so far, a few of which show the marquee.
Google street view gives us a lousy view of this building, but I believe it is still standing, and still has a marquee on it.
This watercolor displayed on the City of Vienna’s web site shows the Vienna Theatre to have been in a mid-block location. Most of the block of Union Street opposite the square, including the theater, has been demolished to make way for a large branch of PNC Bank.
The caption of a drawing on page 30 of the Arcadia Publishing Company’s book Jonesboro gives the address of the Tara Theatre as 126 S. Main Street. The building, the facade only slightly altered, is currently occupied by the My Place Coffee Cafe.
The caption of a photo of a theater ticket on page 135 says that the owner-operator of the house, Thomas Leon Burnham, installed the seating for 100 people himself. The caption also says that the Tara closed in 1957, and was the only movie theater ever operated in Jonesboro. The book doesn’t give the opening year, but it must have been after Ms. Mitchell’s popular novel, the source of the theater’s name, had been published in 1936.
acdecoster: This is a bit of a puzzle. A vintage postcard reveals that the building with the corner tower seen in our old photo was at the corner of 3rd and Cherry, so the Criterion was in the 400 block of Cherry Street. My best guess is that the Criterion was at 424 Cherry, as the building adjacent to the right of it in our photo appears to be the building that now houses the Hummingbird Stage and Taproom (430 Cherry.) Almost every other building on the block is either gone or remodeled beyond recognition.
If I am correct, then the building the Criterion was in might have been replaced or might have simply been remodeled. If it was remodeled, then at least some of the upper part of the building has been removed. To accommodate 600 seats in such a narrow building the Criterion must have had a balcony, which must have been demolished when the building was converted for retail use.
It’s possible, and even likely, that the entire interior structure was demolished and what amounted to an entirely new, lower building was built within the old walls. In fact it’s most likely that the walls are all that remains of the Criterion.
acdecoster’s link says that the current occupant of the Gem Theatre’s space is a coffee shop called Leaf and Bean. Tucker & Howell’s stylish Art Deco front of 1934 has been removed and the building and its neighbor now share a rather bland brick facade. The correct address is 22 West Court Square. There’s a nice photo near the bottom of the page, apparently taken sometime in the 1950s after the Gem had closed but before the theatrical facade had been removed.
JAlex: I think the comments were just making reference to this Park Theatre on Park Avenue. The Paramount was always called the Paramount.
Here is an article about the Hoosier Theatre from 2005.
The Hollywood Theatre underwent a $150,000 renovation in 1963, for operators Trans-Texas Theatres. An articlea bout it appears on this page of the January 13, 1964, issue of Boxoffice. The gala reopening took place on Christmas Day, 1963. Fort Worth architect Jim Vowell had designed the remodeling.
A “75 years ago” feature in the December 2, 2009, issue of the Winthrop News said that the Sibley Theatre had opened on November 28, 1934.
In 1964, the January 13 issue of Boxoffice said that Lou Kosek had reopened his Sibley Theatre for the winter, with a six-days-a-week policy and two changes of program a week.
In 1963 the Adams Theatre was taken over by a syndicate of three exhibitor groups, consisting of Irving and Adolph Goldberg’s Commumity Theatres, Wisper & Wetsman, and the Sloan family’s Detroit Suburban Theatres. The house would be operated by the Goldbergs.
The Adams was extensively remodeled later that year. The $250,000 project was designed by architect Ted Rogvoy. An article about the project (not illustrated, unfortunately) appeared on this page of the January 12, 1964 issue of Boxoffice.
This cinema must have been located approximately where Kohl’s department store (12345 Seal Beach Blvd.) is located now. I’ve set street view to that spot.
Despite its Seal Beach Boulevard address, this theater is best viewed in Google’s street view from around 3401 St. Cloud Drive, which runs along the south side of the shopping center.
The view from St. Cloud currently shows the building with its exposed, white concrete columns and beams and the arched entrance (partly seen in the International Projectionist photo I linked to earlier) and the exposed masonry panels between the columns still visible, but if you move street view onto the driveway of the shopping center in front of the building you get a more recent view in which you can see the results of a remodeling which mostly covered up these original features and plastered everything.
It’s not an entirely happy change, to my eye. The next time Google’s camera car passes along St. Cloud, the old view of the building will vanish, so see it while you may.
Let’s see if this link works.
If not, try loading this PDF, then search it for theatre (use that spelling) and then click on result #9 (of 11) which should be a link reading: “16926 P. 9-1973 former North Side Garage, prior site of Johnson’s Opera House & Lake Theatre.jpg”
A movie house was operating in Rib Lake at least as early as 1914, but the town’s listing in the 1914-1915 edition of The American Motion Picture Directory used only the generic name M.P. Theatre.
The Armory, managed by Ed Johnson, is listed as a motion picture theater in the 1924-1925 edition of Polk’s Wisconsin State Gazetteer and Business Directory.
The “Theatre Changes” section of the March 9, 1937, issue of Film Daily included this name change: “RIB LAKE — Gem (formerly Armory).” However, there are also earlier references to the house as the Gem Theatre. There is also and ad from 1931 calling the house the Rib Lake Theatre. It was also known as Johnson’s Opera House.
A February 9, 1946, newspaper article seen here said that the Lake Theatre had been destroyed by fire the previous Saturday afternoon. New owners had taken over operation the previous year, and the name had been changed to Lake Theatre. The article says the building had been erected about 35 years earlier to house farm machinery, but had been remodeled to house a theater and hardware store, so it could have been the theater listed in the 1914-1915 AMPD. It had also served as an armory during WWI.
Though the theater had been destroyed by the 1946 fire the building survived. This is what it looked like in 1973, when it was serving as an automobile garage. A new theater was built at another location later in 1946. Over the years the new house went by the names New Lake Theatre, Lake Theatre, and Laker Theatre.
A Cineplex Odeon spokesperson said at the time of the Northpoint’s closing that the lease was up and the house had been losing money for some time, so the lease wasn’t renewed. Apparently nobody else wanted it either. SF Gate Story.
The Rex Theatre must have been this project described in the June 8, 1912, issue of Pacific Builder & Engineer:
Notices about the project in other issues of the journal indicate that it was located on Willamette Street, and that the theater would be operated by J.J. Bryan and Mrs. M.E. Watson. The PSTOS page for the Rex says that the house “…originally had a 2/10 Estey organ (opus #1078) installed in 1912.”Finding the identities of the architects, Lewis & Lewis, has been rather tedious, there having also been two other architects with that surname active in Portland around this time, both of them quite active, but it turns out that the less-well-known construction-architecture firm Lewis & Lewis consisted of English-born builder William P. Lewis and his son, Robert Lewis. The firm was founded in 1898 and dissolved in 1913.
Thanks for posting the photos, Matt. I was only in the Warner Hollywood once, when I was about nine years old and our elementary school class went on a field trip to see This is Cinerama. The auditorium looks a bit smaller than I remember it,perhaps because the upper part is obscured by the triplexing.
Also, there were the three Cinerama projection booths on the orchestra floor when I was there, and we were seated close beside the central one and very near the enormous screen. But I actually have a clearer memory of the lobby than I do of the auditorium. It’s good to see that the decorative detail is still in pretty good condition.
This weblog post by Matthew J. Prigge describes a business ledger from Michael Brumm’s Ritz Theatre for the month of October, 1935. It’s an interesting glimpse into the operations of a small, independent theater during that period.
Konrad Schiecke’s Historic Movie Theatres in Illinois says that the theater in LaHarpe opened as the Princess in 1929 and was renamed the Amuse-U in 1934. The following year it had to be rebuilt following a fire.
Boxoffice of June 9, 1958, reported that renovations at the Alexandria Theatre, including the installation of the Todd-AO screen and projection equipment for the upcoming road show run of South Pacific, had reduced the seating capacity of the house to 1,250.
The June 9, 1958, issue of Boxoffice said that the Capitol Theatre in McKeesport, which had been dark for several years, was to be converted into a bingo parlor.