Hello again, mechuck as you probably know the shell of Peoples Theater still stands at the corner of Vine and 13th. streets. It is currently an apartment complex and has been in the past a clothing store and several other apartment conversion attempts. Nice to hear from a member of the Heuck family there is of course a fine volume about your great grandfather’s theatrical enterprises at our main library. Until soon, Hank
The ,“Capitol Th.”, was built in 1921 by the Wurlitzer family of organ fame on land owned by the Provident Bank. In later years that land was purchased by Barney Kroger founder of the present Grocery Empire. The Capitol Th. was leased to the Asher Brothers of Chicago who ran it for a few years until R.K.O. bought it from the Libson chain of theaters.The interior house had an orchestra pit and two small prologue stages for early silent movie entertainment purposes.The Capitol was a Cinerama house in its final stage and remained in superb condition until it was demolished.
Hello meheuck ,as far as my research taught me ,“The Lyric Th.”,was never called anything but Lyric. However ,“Peoples Th.” and “Heucks Th.”, swapped names back and forth several times. They were located at 12th.&13th Streets and were both owned by Mr. Heuck .
Hello Larry Murphy;Thanks for a re-live of Saturday mornings in my childhood only at the Rialto Th. in Lowell,Mass. Check the Rialto Th. on C.T. to checkout or similar childhood paths. Thanks again. Until soon,Hank Sykes
“Glenway Th.”,built 1913 closed in 1951,built and owned by the Ackerman Family of later car selling fame who also had built the,“Sunset Th.”,plus “The Covedale Th.” It became a Dow Drug Store in later years. Couldn’t find a seating numerical.
The Andalus Theater may have been our only atmospheric theater, I say may have been because I was only in the Andalus theater long after the church ceased to function there. The City had it on the sale block an our ATOS -OVC was looking for a new home for its 1927 Albee Th. Wurlitzer Organ which had been used for 20 years at the now closed Emery Theater. The entrance lobby was a moorish wow with a musicians balcony perched above the enterance doors to the orchestra seating. The Church had converted the stage to a baptismal pool for their service needs. The house was still in rather good shape when it was torn down ,however there was some roof water damage and a bit of falling plaster. The outer lobby still retained one of two Moorish 5 foot tall vases which had graced each side of the stage. Side walls of the inner house carried latticed screened areas giving the venue a trully Casbar feel. I write something further when i re-look at an interior shot of the place.
As might be expectedin the Orpheum’s early vaudeville days the competition with B.F.Keiths Columbia Theater on Walnut Street downtown was most aggresive and Keiths had the whole Keith-Albee Vaudeville chain to recruit well known performers from where the Orpheum had to buck very stiff big time chains.
The large Wurlitzer in the Paramount Theater was rescued prior to the theaters demolition and moved to a private residence in Clifton,which is a section of Cincinnati,where it is still played to entertainpeople today.The Wurlitzer Pipe Organ has been a focus of local ATOS meetings in prior years.
Hello Ken,The wings on the angel in that 1910 photo were covered in electric bulbs which were programed to give the effect that the wings physically moved ,but it was just the off and on of the bulbs that caused this magic to appear. Mr. Huss who owned and ran the Royal was from a famous family of Cincinnati movie house owners which got their early start in their first nickelodeons on West 5th. Street .There was a major gas explosion in the basement of the Royal in the 1940’s no one hurt but lots of interior damage.
The Palace Th. Cincinnati,Ohio held the world premiere of the 1943 re-make of ,“Phantom Of The Opera”,starring Claude Rains, the original ,“Phantom”,was a silent starring Lon Chaney from 1925. Why our Palace was chosen for the opening is anybodys guess.
That’s correct stubaby because the theater was originally called the Belvedere Th. During later ww2 years it was used for storage of Ch.5 TV studio scenery.Of course what doomed the cinema was its lack of parking as its early patrons were all walkins.
The Covedale Theater originally had hot water pipes hidden within its front sidewalk so that during the snowy season all the manager need do was push a button in the lobby to melt the white stuff and offer his ticket buyers an easy access to his picture show. The hot water was produced by the theaters boiler, many years ago the system ceased to operate. So its back to the pick,shovel,and plow for the current occupants.
On the topof the 20th Century Vertical the pigeons drop seeds, the rains arrive, and presto a small tree begins to grow. From time to time over the years someone has had the joyous job of cutting down said faunawhen it becomes a redwood measurement.
The 20th Century Theater open in 1941 with the film entitled ,“Blood and Sand”, starring Tyrone Powers because Tyrone Powers was a Cincinnati boy made good at Twentieth Century Fox Pictures. I think the original,“Blood And Sand”, starred Rudolph Valentino and it was a silent.
When the Shubert Theater opened in 1921 it ran competition with B.F.Keiths and the Lyric which both ran vaudeville shows and movies and were nearby on Walnut and Vine Streets respectively.Next door to the Shubert Th. was the Cox Theater also built in 1921 to memorialize the colorful politician George B. Cox who was known as the Boss Of Cincinnati for all the political patronage jobs he arranged for folks who tallied up proper amounts of cash to grace hispolitical war chests. The Cox Theater never ran movies,but it was used in later years to store excess scenery for touring road shows which played the Shubert Theater.
Imperial Theater was erected in 1913 and lasted as a functioning venue until 1978. It started as a family burlesque theater and moviehouse, then went to movies only, then finally strip show burlesque. It is our last and oldest movie marquee frontage, although badly damaged by a truck years ago.
Hello again Dwodeyla; I ’m glad to hear about your Framingham adventure, you must have been at Shoppers World for a homebase? My Brother,Mom,and I went to see a show there not long after it opened since we lived in Billerica. Meanwhile,back to the Circle in its renovation in 1965 the old projectors were donated to the Donnelly Theater", in downtown Boston,which was used by the Catholic Diocese. One evening I looked up to see Cardinal Cushing enter our lobby. He asked to see our Manager Mr. Muir to personally thank The Circle for the projector gifts. Mr. Muir (who was Jewish) said he wanted to thank the Cardinal for living were he did,“What do you mean?,asked the Cardinal,Mr. Muir mentioned the number of the Cardinals house address,to which Cushing admitted that was correct, "Well said our Manager, "I played that number last night and it payed off!”, they both laughed about that. Opening of ,“The Singing Nun”,brought Debbie Reynolds up from NYC in her own Hertz Rent a Car, as the star of the film she was greeted by then Senator Ed Brooke, plus a local High School Marching Band all this in less that mild October weather. Ms. Reynolds was attired in a lightweight filmy short sleeved dress while the serenading Band members wore heavy woolen uniforms. Debbie listened outside to their music then patiently shook hands with each player while goosebumps multiplyed on her arms, what a trooper! The roof marquee sign at the Circle overlooked downtown Boston,with a little creative removal of the huge sign letters as the ushers putup the new feature titles sometimes creating interesting and somewhat naughty script messages for the populist to enjoy,probably tame by today standards…..I’d like it clearly understood that I did not approve of these antics,but they were amusing ,sometimes. Thanks to Ron Salters for pin pointing the actual construction date of the original Circle Theater as 1940, guess if I’d thought about it ,it would have dawned on me that materials to construct a new theater in 1946 right after the end of WW2 would not have been possible. Hope your enlightened by these ramblings.
Organ pipes from the Kenmore ,some of the pipes anyway, were bought and added to the Wurlitzer organ used at the Emery Theater in Cincinnati,Ohio in the 20 years that atos ran movies there in the 1980 and 1990’s.
My earlist cinema going has registered an occurance at 5 years of age that I was taken at night in 1947 to the Lowell Rialto Theater where there was a film on screen probably part of a double feature with a full house and balcony . During the intermission the curtains opened and out on stage came a man ,maybe the manager, dressed in a fancy black suit, which I later learned was a tuxedo, since my Dad didn’t own one. Also a lady in an evening gown appeared pushing a huge round bingo ball contraption. They spun the ball around retrieved a globe and called out a number, I know not whether it was a seat or ticket stub digit ,but down the aisle ran an adult to retrieve a bag of groceries from the stage presenter. As a tot this left me totally puzzled , guess it must have been like a dish night that the Rialto Theater ran in connection with a supermarket to encourage it patrons to return in following weeks. Seems to me there was also a grand piano upon the stage so perhaps the Rialto have done vaudeville at one time. In later years my brother and I attended Saturday morning cowboy flix matinees. My Mom always said,“You boys don’t want to see "kissy pictures” at B.F.Keith’s, so go to the Strand or Rialto for cowboy films'“.Those were grand safe days for kids to ride busses from Billerica to Lowell on your own and your parents didn’t have to be concerned. The Woman Manager had her hands full on Saturday mornings with a full house full of 2,000 noisy kids, the screaming audio level must have approached the breaking of the sound level. The projectionist would raise the track level to try to override the kids but it was a loosing race for him. Then the Woman Manager would stride down the main aisle with flashlight , have the film turned off and houselights raised to see who the balcony popcorn and spitball throwers were and then she would scream at the top of her lungs,"Shut up or you’re all going home'”. The house would return to calm for about 10 minutes when slowly the kids would erupt into WW3 again. I knew that when I grewup I never wanted to be a movie theater manager.
Hello again, mechuck as you probably know the shell of Peoples Theater still stands at the corner of Vine and 13th. streets. It is currently an apartment complex and has been in the past a clothing store and several other apartment conversion attempts. Nice to hear from a member of the Heuck family there is of course a fine volume about your great grandfather’s theatrical enterprises at our main library. Until soon, Hank
The ,“Capitol Th.”, was built in 1921 by the Wurlitzer family of organ fame on land owned by the Provident Bank. In later years that land was purchased by Barney Kroger founder of the present Grocery Empire. The Capitol Th. was leased to the Asher Brothers of Chicago who ran it for a few years until R.K.O. bought it from the Libson chain of theaters.The interior house had an orchestra pit and two small prologue stages for early silent movie entertainment purposes.The Capitol was a Cinerama house in its final stage and remained in superb condition until it was demolished.
Hello meheuck ,as far as my research taught me ,“The Lyric Th.”,was never called anything but Lyric. However ,“Peoples Th.” and “Heucks Th.”, swapped names back and forth several times. They were located at 12th.&13th Streets and were both owned by Mr. Heuck .
Hello Larry Murphy;Thanks for a re-live of Saturday mornings in my childhood only at the Rialto Th. in Lowell,Mass. Check the Rialto Th. on C.T. to checkout or similar childhood paths. Thanks again. Until soon,Hank Sykes
I found a West-end Family Theater at West 8th.&State Street built in 1913 perhaps it changed names later in its film runs.
I found an address of 4899 for “The Overlook Th.”,of course Film Daily is not always correct.Seated 576,but 400 and 450 were listed too.
“Glenway Th.”,built 1913 closed in 1951,built and owned by the Ackerman Family of later car selling fame who also had built the,“Sunset Th.”,plus “The Covedale Th.” It became a Dow Drug Store in later years. Couldn’t find a seating numerical.
The Andalus Theater may have been our only atmospheric theater, I say may have been because I was only in the Andalus theater long after the church ceased to function there. The City had it on the sale block an our ATOS -OVC was looking for a new home for its 1927 Albee Th. Wurlitzer Organ which had been used for 20 years at the now closed Emery Theater. The entrance lobby was a moorish wow with a musicians balcony perched above the enterance doors to the orchestra seating. The Church had converted the stage to a baptismal pool for their service needs. The house was still in rather good shape when it was torn down ,however there was some roof water damage and a bit of falling plaster. The outer lobby still retained one of two Moorish 5 foot tall vases which had graced each side of the stage. Side walls of the inner house carried latticed screened areas giving the venue a trully Casbar feel. I write something further when i re-look at an interior shot of the place.
As might be expectedin the Orpheum’s early vaudeville days the competition with B.F.Keiths Columbia Theater on Walnut Street downtown was most aggresive and Keiths had the whole Keith-Albee Vaudeville chain to recruit well known performers from where the Orpheum had to buck very stiff big time chains.
The large Wurlitzer in the Paramount Theater was rescued prior to the theaters demolition and moved to a private residence in Clifton,which is a section of Cincinnati,where it is still played to entertainpeople today.The Wurlitzer Pipe Organ has been a focus of local ATOS meetings in prior years.
The architect for the 1940 RKO Grand Theater was Drew Eberson, son of the famous John Eberson.
Hello Ken,The wings on the angel in that 1910 photo were covered in electric bulbs which were programed to give the effect that the wings physically moved ,but it was just the off and on of the bulbs that caused this magic to appear. Mr. Huss who owned and ran the Royal was from a famous family of Cincinnati movie house owners which got their early start in their first nickelodeons on West 5th. Street .There was a major gas explosion in the basement of the Royal in the 1940’s no one hurt but lots of interior damage.
The Palace Th. Cincinnati,Ohio held the world premiere of the 1943 re-make of ,“Phantom Of The Opera”,starring Claude Rains, the original ,“Phantom”,was a silent starring Lon Chaney from 1925. Why our Palace was chosen for the opening is anybodys guess.
That’s correct stubaby because the theater was originally called the Belvedere Th. During later ww2 years it was used for storage of Ch.5 TV studio scenery.Of course what doomed the cinema was its lack of parking as its early patrons were all walkins.
The Covedale Theater originally had hot water pipes hidden within its front sidewalk so that during the snowy season all the manager need do was push a button in the lobby to melt the white stuff and offer his ticket buyers an easy access to his picture show. The hot water was produced by the theaters boiler, many years ago the system ceased to operate. So its back to the pick,shovel,and plow for the current occupants.
On the topof the 20th Century Vertical the pigeons drop seeds, the rains arrive, and presto a small tree begins to grow. From time to time over the years someone has had the joyous job of cutting down said faunawhen it becomes a redwood measurement.
The 20th Century Theater open in 1941 with the film entitled ,“Blood and Sand”, starring Tyrone Powers because Tyrone Powers was a Cincinnati boy made good at Twentieth Century Fox Pictures. I think the original,“Blood And Sand”, starred Rudolph Valentino and it was a silent.
Here'sabit of a correction on the Gifts Theater it was built by Jackson&McMahon but in 1917 not 1921.Also the architect is Tietig&Lee.
When the Shubert Theater opened in 1921 it ran competition with B.F.Keiths and the Lyric which both ran vaudeville shows and movies and were nearby on Walnut and Vine Streets respectively.Next door to the Shubert Th. was the Cox Theater also built in 1921 to memorialize the colorful politician George B. Cox who was known as the Boss Of Cincinnati for all the political patronage jobs he arranged for folks who tallied up proper amounts of cash to grace hispolitical war chests. The Cox Theater never ran movies,but it was used in later years to store excess scenery for touring road shows which played the Shubert Theater.
Imperial Theater was erected in 1913 and lasted as a functioning venue until 1978. It started as a family burlesque theater and moviehouse, then went to movies only, then finally strip show burlesque. It is our last and oldest movie marquee frontage, although badly damaged by a truck years ago.
Yes Ron, all three theaters the Fountain Square,Columbia Theater ,and B>F>Keiths were on the same footprint in Cincinnati.
Hello again Dwodeyla; I ’m glad to hear about your Framingham adventure, you must have been at Shoppers World for a homebase? My Brother,Mom,and I went to see a show there not long after it opened since we lived in Billerica. Meanwhile,back to the Circle in its renovation in 1965 the old projectors were donated to the Donnelly Theater", in downtown Boston,which was used by the Catholic Diocese. One evening I looked up to see Cardinal Cushing enter our lobby. He asked to see our Manager Mr. Muir to personally thank The Circle for the projector gifts. Mr. Muir (who was Jewish) said he wanted to thank the Cardinal for living were he did,“What do you mean?,asked the Cardinal,Mr. Muir mentioned the number of the Cardinals house address,to which Cushing admitted that was correct, "Well said our Manager, "I played that number last night and it payed off!”, they both laughed about that. Opening of ,“The Singing Nun”,brought Debbie Reynolds up from NYC in her own Hertz Rent a Car, as the star of the film she was greeted by then Senator Ed Brooke, plus a local High School Marching Band all this in less that mild October weather. Ms. Reynolds was attired in a lightweight filmy short sleeved dress while the serenading Band members wore heavy woolen uniforms. Debbie listened outside to their music then patiently shook hands with each player while goosebumps multiplyed on her arms, what a trooper! The roof marquee sign at the Circle overlooked downtown Boston,with a little creative removal of the huge sign letters as the ushers putup the new feature titles sometimes creating interesting and somewhat naughty script messages for the populist to enjoy,probably tame by today standards…..I’d like it clearly understood that I did not approve of these antics,but they were amusing ,sometimes. Thanks to Ron Salters for pin pointing the actual construction date of the original Circle Theater as 1940, guess if I’d thought about it ,it would have dawned on me that materials to construct a new theater in 1946 right after the end of WW2 would not have been possible. Hope your enlightened by these ramblings.
Organ pipes from the Kenmore ,some of the pipes anyway, were bought and added to the Wurlitzer organ used at the Emery Theater in Cincinnati,Ohio in the 20 years that atos ran movies there in the 1980 and 1990’s.
My earlist cinema going has registered an occurance at 5 years of age that I was taken at night in 1947 to the Lowell Rialto Theater where there was a film on screen probably part of a double feature with a full house and balcony . During the intermission the curtains opened and out on stage came a man ,maybe the manager, dressed in a fancy black suit, which I later learned was a tuxedo, since my Dad didn’t own one. Also a lady in an evening gown appeared pushing a huge round bingo ball contraption. They spun the ball around retrieved a globe and called out a number, I know not whether it was a seat or ticket stub digit ,but down the aisle ran an adult to retrieve a bag of groceries from the stage presenter. As a tot this left me totally puzzled , guess it must have been like a dish night that the Rialto Theater ran in connection with a supermarket to encourage it patrons to return in following weeks. Seems to me there was also a grand piano upon the stage so perhaps the Rialto have done vaudeville at one time. In later years my brother and I attended Saturday morning cowboy flix matinees. My Mom always said,“You boys don’t want to see "kissy pictures” at B.F.Keith’s, so go to the Strand or Rialto for cowboy films'“.Those were grand safe days for kids to ride busses from Billerica to Lowell on your own and your parents didn’t have to be concerned. The Woman Manager had her hands full on Saturday mornings with a full house full of 2,000 noisy kids, the screaming audio level must have approached the breaking of the sound level. The projectionist would raise the track level to try to override the kids but it was a loosing race for him. Then the Woman Manager would stride down the main aisle with flashlight , have the film turned off and houselights raised to see who the balcony popcorn and spitball throwers were and then she would scream at the top of her lungs,"Shut up or you’re all going home'”. The house would return to calm for about 10 minutes when slowly the kids would erupt into WW3 again. I knew that when I grewup I never wanted to be a movie theater manager.
Hello dwodeyla, Glad that you liked my ramblings I’ll add a few more thoughts about The Circle Theater Cinema as soon as I remember them.