The “Crown Cinemas Corporation” page linked from the “Previously operated by” field on this page lists the theaters in Connecticut as having been run by the same corporation that had this house, but I believe it is mistaken.
It’s often difficult to track the various companies that have owned and operated theaters, but I don’t believe that the Crown Cinemas that opened this house in the early 2000s was related to the Crown Theaters, based in Norwalk, Connecticut, which was operating theaters in that state at least as far back as the 1990s.
I’ve also been unable to discover if the Crown Cinemas that opened this theater was a successor firm to the Crown Cinema Corporation that was operating theaters in Missouri, Kansas and Ohio in the 1990s. That company was controlled by Richard Durwood, younger brother of Stan Durwood, then chairman of AMC.
According to this 1996 article) the company that owned some of the theaters Crown Cinema Management was operating (and in which Crown Cinema Corporation was a partner) was forced into bankruptcy. Crown Cinema Corporation was then sold to a Dallas-based theater company called Hollywood Theaters Inc. I don’t know if the name continued to be used after that or not. It’s possible that the company that opened this house in Skokie in 2001 had just picked up the dead company’s name.
It’s all very confusing, except for the fact that I can find no connection between Crown Theaters of Norwalk and Richard Durwood’s Crown Cinemas Corporation of Missouri, nor any connection between the Norwalk company and this theater in Skokie. Theater companies really ought to exercise more originality when choosing their names.
An article by the Grayslake Historical Society on this web page says that the Star Theatre was located at 255 Center Street. The Star, operated by Peter Newhouse, opened on June 5, 1920.
The building is now occupied by a bar called Charlie’s Garden Club. There are a couple of photos of the building on the bar’s Facebook page.
The Savoy Theatre was mentioned in the April 22, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World. Both the Savoy and the Crescent were then being managed by Benny Van Borssum. Both houses had been in operation since at least 1912, when they were both listed in the Annual Report of the State Bureau of Inspection.
Ora222: One of soybean’s comments on another theater page indicate that he was born in 1950, so he would not have seen the original release of Gone With The Wind when it ran at the old Grand in 1939. It’s quite possible that the re-release soybean saw “…[w]hen I was growing up….” (so probably either 1961 or 1967, but possibly 1954) was shown at this house.
The February 21, 1914, issue of The Moving Picture World had this item about the Majestic:
“The Pastime Theater Company, which purchased the interests of George R. Covell and J. G. Campbell in the Majestic Theater at East Moline announced its intention of adding vaudeville to the moving picture program.”
The name change from American Theatre to State Theatre took place around the middle of 1949. The Terre Haute Tribune ran an ad for the American on June 27, 1949, but was running an ad for the State by July 10 of that year. The state was in operation at least as late as July of 1955. As the State the house showed a lot of westerns, adventure films, and comedies.
Two slide shows with both vintage and modern photos of the New Mission Theatre can be found on this page of the web site of Kerman Morris Architects, the firm that handled the recent renovation for Alamo Drafthouse.
Principals of the firm are Elizabeth Kerman-Morris and Edward Morris.
The Kaywood Theatre’s architect, Frank Gail Ackerman, worked as a draftsman in the office of theater architect William McElfatrick, 1911-1916, while studying at Cooper Union. On graduation, he entered the office of Thomas Lamb, where he worked until 1925 as an administrative assistant and specifications writer. He later worked in the offices of noted New York architects Emery Roth and Van Wart & Wein, before becoming a partner in Van Wart & Ackerman in 1933. He established his solo practice in 1940.
A brief item datelined Ashburn in the “Georgia News Briefs” column of the July 25, 1972, issue of the Rome News-Tribune said that the Turner Theatre building had been destroyed by fire early that morning. A portion of one wall of the structure collapsed into the street, blocking traffic.
The recent opening of the Turner Theatre was noted in this item from the July 10, 1948, issue of Boxoffice:
“ASHBURN, GA. — D. A. Luke has been named manager of the new $100,000 Turner Theatre, opened here recently by the Stein Theatre chain. The new house has a seating capacity of 800 and was designed by Felton Davis, Valdosta architect. The Stein circuit also operate the Majestic Theatre in Nashville.”
The July 10, 1948, issue of Boxoffice said that the McBride’s had plans to remodel their 1921-vintage theater at Trafford City:
“Trafford, Pa., McBride Closes to Renovate
“TRAFFORD, PA. — The McBride Theatre will be closed for several months for extensive remodeling from wall to wall and from ceiling to auditorium floor. Exterior modernization will include installation of a glass front and a new marquee. Auditorium and lobby will be newly painted, reseated, re-carpeted and new lighting systems and equipments and other fixtures will be installed, according to C. F. and George McBride. Among new features will be an enlarged lobby, a candy bar and new rest rooms. David Martin & Son has the general contract for the remodeling and the architect is Casimir Pellegrini.”
Casimir J. Pellegrini practiced architecture in Pittsburgh for about forty years from the 1920s into the 1960s.
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.
The “Crown Cinemas Corporation” page linked from the “Previously operated by” field on this page lists the theaters in Connecticut as having been run by the same corporation that had this house, but I believe it is mistaken.
It’s often difficult to track the various companies that have owned and operated theaters, but I don’t believe that the Crown Cinemas that opened this house in the early 2000s was related to the Crown Theaters, based in Norwalk, Connecticut, which was operating theaters in that state at least as far back as the 1990s.
I’ve also been unable to discover if the Crown Cinemas that opened this theater was a successor firm to the Crown Cinema Corporation that was operating theaters in Missouri, Kansas and Ohio in the 1990s. That company was controlled by Richard Durwood, younger brother of Stan Durwood, then chairman of AMC.
According to this 1996 article) the company that owned some of the theaters Crown Cinema Management was operating (and in which Crown Cinema Corporation was a partner) was forced into bankruptcy. Crown Cinema Corporation was then sold to a Dallas-based theater company called Hollywood Theaters Inc. I don’t know if the name continued to be used after that or not. It’s possible that the company that opened this house in Skokie in 2001 had just picked up the dead company’s name.
It’s all very confusing, except for the fact that I can find no connection between Crown Theaters of Norwalk and Richard Durwood’s Crown Cinemas Corporation of Missouri, nor any connection between the Norwalk company and this theater in Skokie. Theater companies really ought to exercise more originality when choosing their names.
An article by the Grayslake Historical Society on this web page says that the Star Theatre was located at 255 Center Street. The Star, operated by Peter Newhouse, opened on June 5, 1920.
The building is now occupied by a bar called Charlie’s Garden Club. There are a couple of photos of the building on the bar’s Facebook page.
The Savoy Theatre was mentioned in the April 22, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World. Both the Savoy and the Crescent were then being managed by Benny Van Borssum. Both houses had been in operation since at least 1912, when they were both listed in the Annual Report of the State Bureau of Inspection.
Ora222: One of soybean’s comments on another theater page indicate that he was born in 1950, so he would not have seen the original release of Gone With The Wind when it ran at the old Grand in 1939. It’s quite possible that the re-release soybean saw “…[w]hen I was growing up….” (so probably either 1961 or 1967, but possibly 1954) was shown at this house.
The February 21, 1914, issue of The Moving Picture World had this item about the Majestic:
The name change from American Theatre to State Theatre took place around the middle of 1949. The Terre Haute Tribune ran an ad for the American on June 27, 1949, but was running an ad for the State by July 10 of that year. The state was in operation at least as late as July of 1955. As the State the house showed a lot of westerns, adventure films, and comedies.
Two slide shows with both vintage and modern photos of the New Mission Theatre can be found on this page of the web site of Kerman Morris Architects, the firm that handled the recent renovation for Alamo Drafthouse.
Principals of the firm are Elizabeth Kerman-Morris and Edward Morris.
The Kaywood Theatre’s architect, Frank Gail Ackerman, worked as a draftsman in the office of theater architect William McElfatrick, 1911-1916, while studying at Cooper Union. On graduation, he entered the office of Thomas Lamb, where he worked until 1925 as an administrative assistant and specifications writer. He later worked in the offices of noted New York architects Emery Roth and Van Wart & Wein, before becoming a partner in Van Wart & Ackerman in 1933. He established his solo practice in 1940.
A brief item datelined Ashburn in the “Georgia News Briefs” column of the July 25, 1972, issue of the Rome News-Tribune said that the Turner Theatre building had been destroyed by fire early that morning. A portion of one wall of the structure collapsed into the street, blocking traffic.
The recent opening of the Turner Theatre was noted in this item from the July 10, 1948, issue of Boxoffice:
The July 10, 1948, issue of Boxoffice said that the McBride’s had plans to remodel their 1921-vintage theater at Trafford City:
Casimir J. Pellegrini practiced architecture in Pittsburgh for about forty years from the 1920s into the 1960s.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.