The Rialto might have been either a replacement for or a rebuilding of a house called the Star Theatre, the demise of which was noted in the November 7, 1925, issue of Motion Picture News:
“The Star theatre in Mine-
ville, owned and operated by Mrs. Jennie Anderson, was burned to the ground in a fire that started in an ice house in the rear of the theatre, and which destroyed a hotel as well as a private residence.”
This item from the April 9, 1938, issue of The Film Daily “Theatre Openings” column was mistakenly placed under New Jersey (there is no Mineville in New Jersey):
“Mineville— Rialto, 332 seats (3-3-38); Owner: Thomas Scozzafava; House Manager: Allen Sirrine; closed since 4-1-37.”
Street view is currently set a long way from Cineplex St. John- probably more than a quarter mile too far west (maybe I should say about half a kilometer.) As can be seen on the map, the cinema is at the northwest corner of McAllister Drive and Westmorland Road.
It’s hard to tell from the exterior, but I think the entrance is actually about halfway up the Westmorland Road side of the building, where there is a setback. It looks like the ticketing lobby is behind the windows to the left, with four entrance-exit doors facing the parking lot to the north.
This item from the July 3, 1915, issue of The American contractor probably is about the Harvard Theatre:
“Theater: 1 sty. & bas. 72x130. Massachusetts av. Cambridge, Mass. Archt Geo Nelson Jacobs, 6 Beacon st. Boston. Owner Harvard Amusement Co., Max Keezer, treas,. 12 Dover st., Cambridge. Gen. Contr. M. S. Williams, 19 Milk st.”
This would have been a very early project for architect George Nelson Jacobs, who had been working as a draftsman in the offices of A.L. Darrow and E.B. Stratton as recently as 1913. He went on to become a prominent architect specializing in residential buildings, though with a number of commercial projects to his credit.
CinemaTour gives 146 Madison as the address of the Madison Theatre. I believe it is correct. The Madison’s entrance building is still standing at that address, recognizable, though altered, and occupied by a law firm.
The auditorium, or at least most of it (see satellite view) has been replaced by a parking lot. The building next door to the left in the vintage photo is also still standing, its front barely changed.
A “75 Years Ago” feature in the February 14, 2012, issue of The Oneida Daily Dispatch said that Kallet Theatres was planning to erect a new, $175,000 theater on Main Street, and that the ten-year-old Regent Theatre at 212 Main Street would be leased to a Dexter Robbins, who intended to convert it into a bowling alley.
75 years before 2012 would give an opening year of 1927 for the Regent, and a publication year of 1937 for the original newspaper article cited. The new theater being planned was the Kallet, now Kallet Civic Center, which opened in 1938.
Another “75 Years Ago” published a few weeks earlier on January 10 cited a 1937 article saying that Kallet Theatres planned to either remodel the Madison Theatre, reopen the Regent, or build a new house.
The address 212 Main means the site of the Regent was the parking lot just north of two old brick commercial buildings that survive on the west side of Main Street at the end of the block south of Lenox Avenue (NY 365 A).
The Grand must have been on the south side of Main Street, where the Burger King is now. The Crossroads Professional Building, on the north side of Main, has the address 70-74 Main Street on its doors.
From the April 10, 1939 issue of Motion Picture Daily: “Warners have leased the Steuben and Strand in Hornell, N. Y., and will begin operation of the houses April 15.”
It looks like AMVETS moved into this building in 2001. The October 31 issue of The Preston County Journal said that the organization would hold its first Veterans Day program in its new home on November 11, with a formal dedication of the new facility following.
Clickable link. I think you must be right, Seth. The building definitely looks like a former theater, and fits the description in the 1958 auction ad of a large brick building on a corner lot. AMVETS Mountaineer Post 37 is mentioned in a few articles in The Preston County Journal, but the newspaper’s archive web site isn’t working right now. I’ll try checking it again later to see if any of the articles mention anything about the building.
Something I did not include in the description of the Alpine Theatre is the possibility that it opened in 1916 as the Strand Theatre. The July 22 issue of The Moving Picture World that year had an item saying that the 400-seat Strand had opened at Salem, West Virginia, on July 3, but I’ve been unable to find any documentation indicating that the Strand later became the Salem/Alpine. It’s certainly a possibility that it did, though. G. C. Broadwater was the original owner of the Strand.
Half of the block on which the Alpine was located has recently been demolished and the old buildings replaced by a new chain store and its parking lot. It is possible that the Alpine was located in one of the buildings that is still standing on the other half of the block, but none of them show any indication of having once held a theater.
However, I’ve found a source saying that the Arcadia Publishing Company plans to release a book called Historic Movie Theatres of West Virginia in spring, 2018, and that one of the photos that might be included in it shows “… people standing in hip-deep floodwater under the marquee of Salem’s Alpine Theatre….” so we might find out next year if the building is still standing or among the demolished.
I wonder if the barn-like, utilitarian exterior remodeling can be undone, and the handsome brick front the Bantam sported when it opened in 1927 as the Rivoli restored?
The May 23, 1917, issue of Building & Engineering News had an item about this theater:
“BREMERTON, WASH. Theatre, 2 story and base. reinforced concrete $75,000. Architect Max Umbrecht, Arcade Bldg. Seattle. Owners Osran Amusement Co. Will cover an area of 60 by 105 feet. Plans are being prepared.”
The June 27 issue of the same journal noted that the contract for the project had been let.
Architect Maximilian B. Umbracht practiced in Seattle from 1900-1907 and again from 1912 to 1922, following which he returned to his home town of Syracuse, New York.
The Osran Amusement Company (Oswald and Rance) operated several theaters in Bremerton during this period. It eventually became a subsidiary of Evergreen State Amusement Corporation.
An item in the December 4, 1935, issue of The Film Daily mentions a house recently taken over by Anderson & Urling’s Alpine Theatre Company. It doesn’t give the name of the town, but I have come to believe that it refers to Marlinton. It says:
“W. E. Keller, West Virginia operator, has opened the Lyric. The Seneca Theater in the same town has been taken over by the Alpine Circuit, operated by Anderson & Urling, and renamed the Alpine. House was formerly operated by C. E. Cooper.”
I have found a reference to the Lyric Theatre in Marlinton in 1937, and references to the Seneca Theatre there prior to this 1935 item. Marlinton is the only West Virginia town where I have found references to theaters of all three of those names (Alpine, Seneca, and Lyric), so I conclude that the 1935 item must be about Marlinton. It follows that the hotel was renamed the Alpine Hotel when, or sometime after, the theater was renamed.
A brief history of the Alpine Theatre in Kingwood appears in the September 22, 2010 issue of The Preston County Journal (link). Built to replace an earlier house called the Court Theatre, which had burned down in late 1924, the Alpine opened as the Arcade Theatre on June 12, 1925. After operating for five years, the house closed. The owner, Mrs. Mae V. Brennan, then leased the theater to the Tower Amusement Company, who renovated and installed sound equipment, but the house was only open for one week before the lessees, unable to meet their financial obligations, were forced to close it again.
The Arcade then sat dark until it was reopened on April 1, 1934, by Charles Anderson, who had been showing movies twice a week at Kingwood High School since shortly after the theater had closed. Anderson remodeled the house, redecorating and installing new seats and carpeting. The article says that the house was renamed the Alpine Theatre at this time.
As the Alpine, the theater operated under several owners until 1979, the last movies being shown in December of that year.
There is an item in the November 23, 1935, issue of The Film Daily which contradicts the 2010 newspaper article. Datelined Kingwood, it says “The Alpine, formerly the Seneca, which is operated by Charles A. Anderson, has been equipped with new RCA High Fidelity sound.” Now it is possible that the Arcade was renamed the Seneca briefly before being renamed the Alpine, and the author of the 2010 article simply never saw any information about that brief period, but it is also possible that The Film Daily made a mistake- something it is known to have done fairly often.
What is known is that Charles Anderson and his partner, Walter B. Urling, formed the Alpine Theatre Company in 1934, after taking over the Alpine Theatre in Terra Alta, West Virginia. As there are trade journal references to the Terra Alta house having been called the Alpine prior to Anderson and Urling’s involvement with it. The Terra Alta Alpine, which was surely named for Alpine Lake, near Terra Alta, must have given its name to the Alpine Theatre Company, rather than the other way around.
The Alpine Theatre Company was headquartered in Terra Alta from 1934 to 1936, whereupon it moved to Kingwood, where the headquarters remained until the company was dissolved in 1955. FDY lists the company as active as late as 1958, but this appears to have been another case of the FDY not being updated in a timely manner.
The Alpine Theatre in Terra Alta was for sale at auction in 1958, and the advertisements for the auction said that the 285-seat theater was in a “[l]arge brick building on a corner lot located in the main business section of Terra Alta….” so yes, the address we have must be wrong.
An old photo has revealed the location of the Alpine Theatre in Marlinton, though the exact address is still a guess. The Gen Disasters link in my previous comment says that the buildings destroyed in the 1968 fire were at the corner of 8th Street and 2nd Street (it’s actually called 2nd Avenue.)
This web page has a scan of page 7 of the April 11, 2013, issue of Marlinton’s newspaper, The Pocahontas Times, which features a 1959 photo of 8th Street being resurfaced, with the view being east from 2nd Avenue. The Alpine Theatre can be seen at the left, its entrance in the last storefront in the Alpine Hotel Building.
The building across the street with the stair-stepped parapet is still standing, and has the address 204 8th Street, so the theater was most likely at 205 8th, though it might have been 207. The lots the theater, hotel, and adjacent storefronts once occupied is now the site of the modern First Citizens Bank building, which uses the address 201 8th Street, but I’d say the theater entrance was probably just about where the bank’s front entrance and freestanding sign are now.
The Alpine Hotel originated in 1905 as the DeArmit Hotel, and the theater was built as part of an expansion that opened in 1924. The project had been noted in the October 20, 1923, issue of The Moving Picture World:
“MARLINTON, W. VA.— Marlinton Hotel Company has plans by Knapp & Haviland, Charleston, for three-story brick and tile theatre and hotel building to be erected on Main street, to cost $30,000.”
Principals of Knapp & Haviland were Bernard L. Knapp and Charles Arthur Haviland. From references on the Internet it’s clear that Haviland was by far the better known architect, and his partnership with Knapp appears to have been rather brief.
The Lois Theatre was opened by Alexander Pantages in 1906. The house was named for his wife. In its early years it hosted a stock company called The Pantages Players. The 1907-1908 edition of the Henry guide listed a seating capacity of 1,200 for the Lois. So far I’ve been unable to discover anything about its later history.
The Decatur Theatre is most likely this project noted in the November 20, 1915, issue of The American Contractor:
“Theater, Store & Office Bldg. (seating cap. 2,000): $175,000. 2 sty. 200x100. W. S. Webster av., from 195th to 196th sts. Archt. Geo. F. Pelham, Inc., 30 E. 42d st. Lessee Fleischman Goldreyer Co., care bldr. Bldr. Max J. Kramer, 135 Nassau st., is taking sub-bids. Brk., terra cotta, struct. steel, slag rfg.”
As the block of Webster from 195th to 197th Streets is now occupied by a large public school, I would imagine that the section of 196th Street which the item implies once bisected it was vacated to accommodate that school. The architectural style of the school building indicates construction most likely took place in the late 1940s or early 1950s, which would explain the Decatur’s disappearance from the FDY by 1950.
The gala opening of the U.S. Theatre was covered in the January 6, 1917, issue of Motion Picture News. The writer of the article, probably a Manhattanite, was a bit confused about the theater’s exact location, though, saying repeatedly that it was between 194th and 195th Streets. A scan of the article can be seen here, courtesy of the Internet Archive.
Architect George Frederick Pelham operated his own firm, Geo. F. Pelham, Inc., from 1890 to 1931. Prior to that he had worked as a draftsman in the office of his father, architect George Brown Pelham. G.F.’s own son, George Frederick Pelham, Jr., joined his firm in 1910. Pelham was a master of the revival styles popular during the period from 1890 until the onset of the depression of the 1930s, and the city, especially the upper west side of Manhattan, is still graced with dozens of his works. It’s unfortunate that the Decatur Theatre is not among the survivors.
The January 21, 1922, issue of Real Estate Record had an item about a theater that must have been this house:
“Fordham Theatre in New Hands
“Samuel Wood, president of Wood’s Business School in Harlem, purchased from Thomas Ward property known as ‘The Fordham Theatre Photoplay House,’ having a seating capacity of 600 and the 1-story brick taxpayer, adjoining, containing nine stories [sic], known as 25-37 West Fordham rd., and the 2x2-story frame dwelling, with garage, north of Fordham rd., known as 2458 Davidson av. This property covers 120 feet on Fordham rd., taking in the northwest corner of Davidson av. with 128 feet on the avenue. Property was held at $225,000, which transaction was for all cash. Armstrong Bros, were the brokers.”
The “2x2-story frame dwelling” and garage were probably soon replaced by the standard 6-story brick apartment block now seen on Davidson Avenue, but I suspect that the theater and “1-story brick taxpayer” survive, and satellite view shows the shop building still abutting the theater on two sides.
The new owners might have changed the theater’s name to Bandbox at this time, to avoid confusion with Keith’s Fordham Theatre (later the RKO Fordham) which had opened nearby in 1921. We know the name change to Bandbox took place no later than 1928, as that is the year a Kilgen organ was installed.
The Fordham Theatre Photoplay House was in the planning stage in 1916, according to this item from Motography of June 3 that year:
“Irving Judis as president of Creston Building company, will build a one-story moving-picture theater, with stores, 117.5x65.10, on the northwest corner of Davidson avenue and Fordham road, New York.”
This was not Irving Judis’s first theater project. In 1915 he had built the Concourse Theatre at Grand Concourse and Fordham Road. Architects for that project were Herman Gronenberg and Albert J. H. Leuchtag. It’s possible that Gronenberg & Leuchtag also designed the Fordham Theatre Photoplay House, but I haven’t been able to confirm this.
The Concourse Theatre was in operation by August, 1916, when it was advertised for sale along with an adjacent property in The Sun:
“The Concourse Theatre, with the adjoining store building erected recently, at the northeast corner of the Concourse and Fordham road, was purchased yesterday by Joseph P. Ryan from the Fordham Road Corporation, Irving Judis, president. The Concourse property measures 158x108.”
Mr. Judis’s theater project at this site had been noted in the November 20, 1915, issue of The American Contractor:
“Stores & Moving Picture Theater (seating cap. 600): 1 sty. 108x158. Concourse & Fordham rd. Archts. Gronenberg & Leuchtag, 303 Fifth av. Owners & Bldrs. Concourse Estates, Irving Judis, pres., 7 E. 42d st., will take sub bids. Brk., slag rfg.”
Herman Gronenberg and Albert J. H. Leuchtag were prolific architects, having filed 309 new building applications in the city from 1910 to 1931, but little is known about them. The firm was dissolved when Gronenberg died in 1931.
I believe there’s a piece of the Unique Theatre’s history missing. Our description for the Unique/Rialto says it opened in April, 1920, replacing the original Unique Theatre, but our page for the Unique says that that house closed in 1913 when the new Unique opened a few doors away.
It must be that the 1920 opening was a reopening, after the house had been rebuilt following a disastrous fire on July 10, 1919, which was reported in that day’s issue of New York City’s The Evening World. The World article said that the fire had started just after midnight, and had burned for several hours, the local firefighters ultimately needing the assistance of brigades from two nearby towns as well as soldiers from Camp Upton to put it out.
This web page has a scan of a four-page program from the Unique Theatre for the week of August 12, 1918.
The pre-fire Unique had an unusual feature, according to this item from the July 7, 1916, issue of The Patchogue Advance (now succeeded by The Long Island Advance):
“The most perfectly ventilated show house on Long Island is the Unique Theatre, with its open roof and large number of electric fans.”
The April 13, 1918, issue of Motography had an article about the new Liberty Theatre in Yakima (scan at Google Books.)
When the new Liberty opened on March 12, 1918, an earlier house also called the Liberty was closed and subsequently demolished to make way for the Mercy (now Capitol) Theatre.
The Rialto might have been either a replacement for or a rebuilding of a house called the Star Theatre, the demise of which was noted in the November 7, 1925, issue of Motion Picture News:
This item from the April 9, 1938, issue of The Film Daily “Theatre Openings” column was mistakenly placed under New Jersey (there is no Mineville in New Jersey):Street view is currently set a long way from Cineplex St. John- probably more than a quarter mile too far west (maybe I should say about half a kilometer.) As can be seen on the map, the cinema is at the northwest corner of McAllister Drive and Westmorland Road.
It’s hard to tell from the exterior, but I think the entrance is actually about halfway up the Westmorland Road side of the building, where there is a setback. It looks like the ticketing lobby is behind the windows to the left, with four entrance-exit doors facing the parking lot to the north.
This item from the July 3, 1915, issue of The American contractor probably is about the Harvard Theatre:
This would have been a very early project for architect George Nelson Jacobs, who had been working as a draftsman in the offices of A.L. Darrow and E.B. Stratton as recently as 1913. He went on to become a prominent architect specializing in residential buildings, though with a number of commercial projects to his credit.CinemaTour gives 146 Madison as the address of the Madison Theatre. I believe it is correct. The Madison’s entrance building is still standing at that address, recognizable, though altered, and occupied by a law firm.
The auditorium, or at least most of it (see satellite view) has been replaced by a parking lot. The building next door to the left in the vintage photo is also still standing, its front barely changed.
A “75 Years Ago” feature in the February 14, 2012, issue of The Oneida Daily Dispatch said that Kallet Theatres was planning to erect a new, $175,000 theater on Main Street, and that the ten-year-old Regent Theatre at 212 Main Street would be leased to a Dexter Robbins, who intended to convert it into a bowling alley.
75 years before 2012 would give an opening year of 1927 for the Regent, and a publication year of 1937 for the original newspaper article cited. The new theater being planned was the Kallet, now Kallet Civic Center, which opened in 1938.
Another “75 Years Ago” published a few weeks earlier on January 10 cited a 1937 article saying that Kallet Theatres planned to either remodel the Madison Theatre, reopen the Regent, or build a new house.
The address 212 Main means the site of the Regent was the parking lot just north of two old brick commercial buildings that survive on the west side of Main Street at the end of the block south of Lenox Avenue (NY 365 A).
The Grand must have been on the south side of Main Street, where the Burger King is now. The Crossroads Professional Building, on the north side of Main, has the address 70-74 Main Street on its doors.
From the April 10, 1939 issue of Motion Picture Daily: “Warners have leased the Steuben and Strand in Hornell, N. Y., and will begin operation of the houses April 15.”
It looks like AMVETS moved into this building in 2001. The October 31 issue of The Preston County Journal said that the organization would hold its first Veterans Day program in its new home on November 11, with a formal dedication of the new facility following.
The May 6, 1936, issue of Motion Picture Herald ran a brief item saying “Joe Priego has opened the Alavarado [sic] theatre at Alvarado, Calif.”
Clickable link. I think you must be right, Seth. The building definitely looks like a former theater, and fits the description in the 1958 auction ad of a large brick building on a corner lot. AMVETS Mountaineer Post 37 is mentioned in a few articles in The Preston County Journal, but the newspaper’s archive web site isn’t working right now. I’ll try checking it again later to see if any of the articles mention anything about the building.
Something I did not include in the description of the Alpine Theatre is the possibility that it opened in 1916 as the Strand Theatre. The July 22 issue of The Moving Picture World that year had an item saying that the 400-seat Strand had opened at Salem, West Virginia, on July 3, but I’ve been unable to find any documentation indicating that the Strand later became the Salem/Alpine. It’s certainly a possibility that it did, though. G. C. Broadwater was the original owner of the Strand.
Half of the block on which the Alpine was located has recently been demolished and the old buildings replaced by a new chain store and its parking lot. It is possible that the Alpine was located in one of the buildings that is still standing on the other half of the block, but none of them show any indication of having once held a theater.
However, I’ve found a source saying that the Arcadia Publishing Company plans to release a book called Historic Movie Theatres of West Virginia in spring, 2018, and that one of the photos that might be included in it shows “… people standing in hip-deep floodwater under the marquee of Salem’s Alpine Theatre….” so we might find out next year if the building is still standing or among the demolished.
This house originally opened as the Arcade Theatre on June 12, 1925. It had been renamed the Alpine Theatre by January, 1935.
I wonder if the barn-like, utilitarian exterior remodeling can be undone, and the handsome brick front the Bantam sported when it opened in 1927 as the Rivoli restored?
The May 23, 1917, issue of Building & Engineering News had an item about this theater:
The June 27 issue of the same journal noted that the contract for the project had been let.Architect Maximilian B. Umbracht practiced in Seattle from 1900-1907 and again from 1912 to 1922, following which he returned to his home town of Syracuse, New York.
The Osran Amusement Company (Oswald and Rance) operated several theaters in Bremerton during this period. It eventually became a subsidiary of Evergreen State Amusement Corporation.
I forgot to mention in my previous comment that the newspaper article said that the Alpine Theatre had been demolished in 1981.
An item in the December 4, 1935, issue of The Film Daily mentions a house recently taken over by Anderson & Urling’s Alpine Theatre Company. It doesn’t give the name of the town, but I have come to believe that it refers to Marlinton. It says:
I have found a reference to the Lyric Theatre in Marlinton in 1937, and references to the Seneca Theatre there prior to this 1935 item. Marlinton is the only West Virginia town where I have found references to theaters of all three of those names (Alpine, Seneca, and Lyric), so I conclude that the 1935 item must be about Marlinton. It follows that the hotel was renamed the Alpine Hotel when, or sometime after, the theater was renamed.A brief history of the Alpine Theatre in Kingwood appears in the September 22, 2010 issue of The Preston County Journal (link). Built to replace an earlier house called the Court Theatre, which had burned down in late 1924, the Alpine opened as the Arcade Theatre on June 12, 1925. After operating for five years, the house closed. The owner, Mrs. Mae V. Brennan, then leased the theater to the Tower Amusement Company, who renovated and installed sound equipment, but the house was only open for one week before the lessees, unable to meet their financial obligations, were forced to close it again.
The Arcade then sat dark until it was reopened on April 1, 1934, by Charles Anderson, who had been showing movies twice a week at Kingwood High School since shortly after the theater had closed. Anderson remodeled the house, redecorating and installing new seats and carpeting. The article says that the house was renamed the Alpine Theatre at this time.
As the Alpine, the theater operated under several owners until 1979, the last movies being shown in December of that year.
There is an item in the November 23, 1935, issue of The Film Daily which contradicts the 2010 newspaper article. Datelined Kingwood, it says “The Alpine, formerly the Seneca, which is operated by Charles A. Anderson, has been equipped with new RCA High Fidelity sound.” Now it is possible that the Arcade was renamed the Seneca briefly before being renamed the Alpine, and the author of the 2010 article simply never saw any information about that brief period, but it is also possible that The Film Daily made a mistake- something it is known to have done fairly often.
What is known is that Charles Anderson and his partner, Walter B. Urling, formed the Alpine Theatre Company in 1934, after taking over the Alpine Theatre in Terra Alta, West Virginia. As there are trade journal references to the Terra Alta house having been called the Alpine prior to Anderson and Urling’s involvement with it. The Terra Alta Alpine, which was surely named for Alpine Lake, near Terra Alta, must have given its name to the Alpine Theatre Company, rather than the other way around.
The Alpine Theatre Company was headquartered in Terra Alta from 1934 to 1936, whereupon it moved to Kingwood, where the headquarters remained until the company was dissolved in 1955. FDY lists the company as active as late as 1958, but this appears to have been another case of the FDY not being updated in a timely manner.
The Alpine Theatre in Terra Alta was for sale at auction in 1958, and the advertisements for the auction said that the 285-seat theater was in a “[l]arge brick building on a corner lot located in the main business section of Terra Alta….” so yes, the address we have must be wrong.
An old photo has revealed the location of the Alpine Theatre in Marlinton, though the exact address is still a guess. The Gen Disasters link in my previous comment says that the buildings destroyed in the 1968 fire were at the corner of 8th Street and 2nd Street (it’s actually called 2nd Avenue.)
This web page has a scan of page 7 of the April 11, 2013, issue of Marlinton’s newspaper, The Pocahontas Times, which features a 1959 photo of 8th Street being resurfaced, with the view being east from 2nd Avenue. The Alpine Theatre can be seen at the left, its entrance in the last storefront in the Alpine Hotel Building.
The building across the street with the stair-stepped parapet is still standing, and has the address 204 8th Street, so the theater was most likely at 205 8th, though it might have been 207. The lots the theater, hotel, and adjacent storefronts once occupied is now the site of the modern First Citizens Bank building, which uses the address 201 8th Street, but I’d say the theater entrance was probably just about where the bank’s front entrance and freestanding sign are now.
The Alpine Hotel originated in 1905 as the DeArmit Hotel, and the theater was built as part of an expansion that opened in 1924. The project had been noted in the October 20, 1923, issue of The Moving Picture World:
Principals of Knapp & Haviland were Bernard L. Knapp and Charles Arthur Haviland. From references on the Internet it’s clear that Haviland was by far the better known architect, and his partnership with Knapp appears to have been rather brief.The Lois Theatre was opened by Alexander Pantages in 1906. The house was named for his wife. In its early years it hosted a stock company called The Pantages Players. The 1907-1908 edition of the Henry guide listed a seating capacity of 1,200 for the Lois. So far I’ve been unable to discover anything about its later history.
The Decatur Theatre is most likely this project noted in the November 20, 1915, issue of The American Contractor:
As the block of Webster from 195th to 197th Streets is now occupied by a large public school, I would imagine that the section of 196th Street which the item implies once bisected it was vacated to accommodate that school. The architectural style of the school building indicates construction most likely took place in the late 1940s or early 1950s, which would explain the Decatur’s disappearance from the FDY by 1950.The gala opening of the U.S. Theatre was covered in the January 6, 1917, issue of Motion Picture News. The writer of the article, probably a Manhattanite, was a bit confused about the theater’s exact location, though, saying repeatedly that it was between 194th and 195th Streets. A scan of the article can be seen here, courtesy of the Internet Archive.
Architect George Frederick Pelham operated his own firm, Geo. F. Pelham, Inc., from 1890 to 1931. Prior to that he had worked as a draftsman in the office of his father, architect George Brown Pelham. G.F.’s own son, George Frederick Pelham, Jr., joined his firm in 1910. Pelham was a master of the revival styles popular during the period from 1890 until the onset of the depression of the 1930s, and the city, especially the upper west side of Manhattan, is still graced with dozens of his works. It’s unfortunate that the Decatur Theatre is not among the survivors.
The January 21, 1922, issue of Real Estate Record had an item about a theater that must have been this house:
The “2x2-story frame dwelling” and garage were probably soon replaced by the standard 6-story brick apartment block now seen on Davidson Avenue, but I suspect that the theater and “1-story brick taxpayer” survive, and satellite view shows the shop building still abutting the theater on two sides.The new owners might have changed the theater’s name to Bandbox at this time, to avoid confusion with Keith’s Fordham Theatre (later the RKO Fordham) which had opened nearby in 1921. We know the name change to Bandbox took place no later than 1928, as that is the year a Kilgen organ was installed.
The Fordham Theatre Photoplay House was in the planning stage in 1916, according to this item from Motography of June 3 that year:
This was not Irving Judis’s first theater project. In 1915 he had built the Concourse Theatre at Grand Concourse and Fordham Road. Architects for that project were Herman Gronenberg and Albert J. H. Leuchtag. It’s possible that Gronenberg & Leuchtag also designed the Fordham Theatre Photoplay House, but I haven’t been able to confirm this.The Concourse Theatre was in operation by August, 1916, when it was advertised for sale along with an adjacent property in The Sun:
Mr. Judis’s theater project at this site had been noted in the November 20, 1915, issue of The American Contractor:Herman Gronenberg and Albert J. H. Leuchtag were prolific architects, having filed 309 new building applications in the city from 1910 to 1931, but little is known about them. The firm was dissolved when Gronenberg died in 1931.I believe there’s a piece of the Unique Theatre’s history missing. Our description for the Unique/Rialto says it opened in April, 1920, replacing the original Unique Theatre, but our page for the Unique says that that house closed in 1913 when the new Unique opened a few doors away.
It must be that the 1920 opening was a reopening, after the house had been rebuilt following a disastrous fire on July 10, 1919, which was reported in that day’s issue of New York City’s The Evening World. The World article said that the fire had started just after midnight, and had burned for several hours, the local firefighters ultimately needing the assistance of brigades from two nearby towns as well as soldiers from Camp Upton to put it out.
This web page has a scan of a four-page program from the Unique Theatre for the week of August 12, 1918.
The pre-fire Unique had an unusual feature, according to this item from the July 7, 1916, issue of The Patchogue Advance (now succeeded by The Long Island Advance):
The April 13, 1918, issue of Motography had an article about the new Liberty Theatre in Yakima (scan at Google Books.)
When the new Liberty opened on March 12, 1918, an earlier house also called the Liberty was closed and subsequently demolished to make way for the Mercy (now Capitol) Theatre.