The Silver Theatre page at the Cinema Data Project gives the address as 14 Silver Street. I’ve found multiple sources for the address 14 Silver Street, but none for 11 Silver.
Also, we’ve got the sequence of names backwards. I’ve found multiple references to the Silver Theatre in the 1910s and the mid-1920s. Cinema Data has a reference to the State Theatre in the 1956 FDY. The house must have opened as the Silver Theatre and was renamed State Theatre sometime prior to 1941.
This Facebook page has a photo of the house as the State Theatre, the marquee advertising the 1946 film The Return of Monte Cristo, and a recent photo as the Cancun Mexican Restaurant. The current Google Street View showing the building as Steve’s Grill & Pub is obsolete.
“Architect” didn’t used to be a verb, and I doubt if many, (and maybe not any) building architects use it as such yet, but it has been used as a verb for quite a while now in the IT industry. I don’t know that many actual software architects use it as a verb, either, but people in IT management commonly do. At one time “engineer” and “doctor” were not used as verbs, either, but both are standard usage now. “To architect” is still at a stage where it sounds like jargon to most people, including me.
But language does drift, so maybe it will catch on, and maybe it won’t. I wouldn’t want to bet that “to architect” won’t eventually become common usage. Popular usage is unpredictable. As Calvin said, verbing weirds language, and that can be both fun and useful. Of course, as an English major, I will go on using designed, and keep architect as a noun. If, fifty years hence, my traditional usage sounds stodgy and old fashioned, well, I doubt anything I’ve written will survive that long, and even if it does, something will have deaded me by then, so I won’t be around to care.
A collection of drawings and blueprints assembled by Herman Gundlach, Inc., the construction firm for the Lode Theatre, dates the project’s design to 1939. The house might not have opened until 1940, though.
The Princess Theatre was either rebuilt or remodeled in 1939-1940, with plans by Kaplan & Sprachman. The Ontario Jewish Archives has seven photos of the project, but they are not available online.
This biographical sketch of Charles DePaul, onetime head of the Soo Amusement Company, written sometime after 1926, has this information:
“In 1921 he erected and equipped the Princess theater at Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, and in 1923 he formed a partnership with W. George Cook and they purchased both the Temple and Strand theaters in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan.”
An article in the December 14, 1973, issue of The Evening News about the fire which destroyed the theater had additional information:
“The Temple Theatre, built by George Cook in 1911, played a major role in the history of Sault Ste. Marie’s cultural growth. The theatre was purchased by Charles DePaul in the early 1920’s and in December of 1928 became the first theatre in the Upper Peninsula to have talking movies when a bristolphone movietone machine was purchased at the cost of $10,000. In 1934, the Soo Theatre, Temple and the old Colonial Theatres were consolidated into the Soo Amusement Company with Charles DePaul, his son Joseph, present owner of the company and Edward Saether as partners. The Temple was remodeled in 1935 and again in 1950. The front of the building received a face-lifting in 1940 and the Cinemascope screen was installed in 1956.”
A rather long and chatty article about the Saint Croix Opera House can be found in this PDF. The house was built around 1871, following a general conflagration that destroyed its predecessor along with much of the town of Calais. Movies were shown as early as 1903, but it did not become a regular movie house until somewhat later. The last performance was on May 2, 1935. Later that night the Opera House was destroyed by a fire.
This page from the same web site has several photos of the Opera House, including some depicting its ruins following the fire. Near the bottom of the page are a few photos of the State Theatre, which was in operation by 1931, and which, on March 4, 1958, also met a fiery fate.
State Cinemas is still in operation, and must be a different house than the original State Theatre. It’s possible that it was built on the same site as the original State, but I’m not sure.
The Kittanning, Pennsylvania Simpson’s Leader-Times of December 20, 1975, said that the Vernon Theatre building in Barnesboro had been destroyed by a fire the previous day. Another source indicates that the house had closed in 1974.
Click on the “Photos” button between “Overview” and “Comments” above.
On the new page scroll down to the “Add New Photo” button, click it, and follow the instructions. Title and description are optional. I believe the default license is Creative Commons (Attribution) but it should tell you if it’s something else. You can select a different license from the drop-down menu if you want.
Once you’ve selected the photo’s location on your computer, click “Upload” and it should take only a few seconds to a minute or so, depending on the speed of your Internet connection.
If everything’s working properly a thumbnail will then appear on the theater’s photos page. Your photo won’t appear on the theater’s main page unless and until it gets enough views to displace the one that’s showing now.
A “Fifty Years Ago” feature in the August 28, 1987, issue of The Baytown Sun said that the Alamo Theatre opened on that date in 1937. It replaced a house called the Nu-Gulf Theatre which had burned to the ground the previous year. A similar feature in the April 7, 1987, issue of the paper had said this:
“A new movie theater will be built in Pelly to replace the Nu Gulf which was destroyed by fire last year. H.E. Brunson, local manager of the East Texas Theaters Inc. and Jefferson Amusement Co., says the theater will cost $15,000 and it will be a duplicate of the Port Theater in La Porte.”
The Alamo Theatre was located on W. Main Street in Pelly. I haven’t been able to pin down the exact location, but like the Port Theatre it was on a corner lot. No buildings fitting its description are standing in the area today, so it has probably been demolished.
The Garfield’s machines were of the ordinary push-button type. I don’t recall ever seeing one with a dial selector anywhere. But the cups still came down crooked pretty often. The Garfield’s first machine had only ordinary soft drink brands, but it proved so popular that they installed a second machine, and that was the one that had the burgundy in it.
On weekend nights the theater was still very busy in those days- at least it was after they had dropped their ninety cent top price to fifty cents for all seats- and at intermission there were usually lines for both machines. But I don’t remember them ever running out of burgundy. Most of my fellow suburbanites probably weren’t adventurous enough to even try it.
Akronflicks: I’ve read tens of thousands of comments on Cinema Treasures over the years, and yours is the first in which anyone has mentioned burgundy pop (or soda, as we called it in California.) There was burgundy soda in the machine at the Garfield Theatre in Alhambra, California, in the late 1950s. I don’t remember it being available in any of the other dozen or so theaters I frequented in those days, nor have I seen it anywhere since.
I’m glad to hear they also had it in Akron, as I was beginning to think I’d just imagined it. Burgundy soda must have been mass produced if it appeared in both Alhambra and Akron, but I can’t find it mentioned anywhere on the Internet. It was indeed tasty, and I always especially looked forward to going to the Garfield so I could get a cup or two of it. I wonder whatever became of it?
This PDF has a walking tour of downtown Stillwater and mentions several of the town’s theaters. This paragraph is about the Fireboys Theatre:
“Herb Ricker’s Garage was at 915 South Main. Herb Ricker owned the first automobile in town (a 1905 Oldsmobile), and at one time used his garage to house all the automobiles in Stillwater. An ordinance prohibited gasoline storage in residential sections of town, including that which was stored in automobile tanks. Ricker would start the cars for the owners, and also gave driving lessons. Ricker later bought the Pastime Theatre which had been located at 612 South Main, and moved it to this location after 1910. He renamed it the Gem Theatre, but then sold it to the Fire Department, and it became the Fireboys Theatre which raised money for the Fire Department.”
915 S. Main is the address at which we currently list the Stillwater Nickelodeon. I’m not sure if that is an actual aka, or if there is just some reference somewhere in which the Pastime/Gem/Fireboys was referred to generically as a Stillwater nickelodeon. I’ve found no references to a house of that name except at Cinema Treasures.
Despite the current building’s somewhat theatrical look, it is not the original structure occupied by the Aggie Theatre/Centre Twin Theatre. This paragraph from a brochure for a walking tour of historic downtown Stillwater says the Teubner & Associates building was built after the theater was demolished in 1994:
“The Aggie Theatre was located at 619-621 South Main from 1926-1980. The building was built by Dr. D.H. Selph and leased by the Leachman and Griffith Brothers. In 1980 it was changed to the Centre Twin theatre, but closed in 1987. In 1994, the building that housed the Aggie and Centre Twin was demolished, and Teubner & Associates took over the space, while maintaining the old theater look.”
The brochure (PDF here) mentions several of Stillwater’s theaters and has small photos of a few.
The Motor Vu Twin might have been the last drive-in operating in Imperial County, but it was not the only one the county ever had. There was also the Family Motor Vu Drive-In at Brawley, only a few miles north of Imperial.
Completely new construction is less likely than a renovation and renaming, unless the Rialto building was destroyed by some disaster. The FDY listings also indicate that the Lincoln Square Theatre must have returned to its earlier name of Rialto sometime in the 1920s. Chuck’s introduction says that the Tower was operating in 1935.
This is a bit puzzling. I can’t find any references to the Tower Theatre other than the ones at Cinema Treasures and on the list of Indianapolis theaters at CinemaTour. It is possible that Tower was an aka for the Lincoln Square, but if so I haven’t been able to discover when.
If the address and the opening year were part of Chuck’s original description then it’s possible that the Family Theatre was briefly renamed the Tower before being renovated as the Rialto. If that’s the case then this page is redundant. I haven’t found any documentation that it was so renamed, though.
In Polk’s 1919 Indianapolis City Directory, 20 S. Illinois Street is the address of the Rialto Theatre.
The “Among the Picture Theaters” section of the September 23, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World ran several paragraphs about the new Rialto, several weeks after it had opened, but didn’t provide a photo:
“RIALTO THEATER, INDIANAPOLIS, IND.
“Newest of Photoplay Houses to Be Opened in This City—
“Seats 1,000 and Has $10,000 Organ—Managed by Fred B. Leonard.
“THE latest motion picture theater in Indianapolis, Ind., to throw open its doors is the Rialto, in South Illinois street, just as close to the center of the city as it is possible to get. Cars from every section of the city unload their burden of human freight at the front doors of this theater.
“The Rialto should become one of the most popular theaters of the city. It is deserving of popularity. It has a combination of beauty and comfort. The color scheme of the Rialto to begin with, is green and ivory. The walls are ivory tinted with delicate frescoing, and along the sides are baskets of green glass, filled with ferns and other greenery, so lighted that the plants appear to be growing in water. The ceiling, both of the theater itself and the entrances—there are two— are covered with a white trellis supporting quantities of, smilax. The lights are globes of a delicate green, set among the leaves; there are six hundred of these globes and the effect of the whole is cooling.
“The theater is cool. The heat of the hottest day is forgotten after one enters the long passage with the mirrors and flowing brackets along the side, which leads into the theater proper. In the lower part of the theater half a dozen big electric fans keep going constantly, while in the gallery one immense fan, measuring sixty inches across, circulates 50,000 cubic feet of cool air a minute.
“The theater seats a thousand persons- There are two stage boxes, also ornamented with white covered vine trellises, and a row of boxes at the back of the theater. In the ceiling of the gallery and in the ceiling of the lower floor big green and gold lamps are set in. The lower part of the boxes are draped with green curtains.
“One of the attractions is a $10,000 pipe organ, operated from the center of the orchestra pit. This pit also has its covering of green and white trellis and its smilax.
“The screen, of crystal gold fiber, is set far back on the stage and the out-of-doors effect is heightened by vine-draped pillars and pots of palms and other green things. Two rest rooms, one on each floor, top off the equipment of the theater.
“Fred B. Leonard, manager of the theater, announces that the fitting of the theater cost between $50,000 and $60,000. Mr. Leonard says the theater, under his management, will become one of the highest class theaters in the Middle West if effort will do this. The opening of the theater saw the Blue Bird feature, ‘Shoes.’ The Blue Bird productions will be used regularly by the management of the new theater.”
The opening of the Rialto had also been briefly noted in the August 5 issue of the same publication.
Mike, the two ads you uploaded today are actually for a different Strand Theatre, located at Washington and Capitol downtown, and listed at Cinema Treasures as the Capitol Theatre. That house was called the Strand for only about eight months, then reverted to its previous name of Park Theatre.
The duplicate names must have caused confusion in 1916, too, as the ad for the downtown Strand in the March 23 issue of The Indianapolis News included this line: “This theater is not connected with or interested in any other Strand Theatre in Indianapolis.”
The Movies 1-4 must have lasted at least as late as 2004, as the house is listed on Yelp (as closed) and Yelp was launched in 2004.
A Facebook page titled Cinemark Movies 1-4 has some photos posted in 2013, but it’s not an official page, and the photos might have been taken long before they were uploaded.
The November 4, 1914, issue of The New York Dramatic Mirror had this item:
“Poughkeepsie, N. Y.. adds the Liberty
Theater, which opened on Oct. 28, to her list of new picture theaters. The house, which is under the management of Mr Dodds, has a seating capacity of 1,600. The opening attraction was ‘The Man on the Box.’”
CinemaTour gives the aka Midtown Theatre for this house, but doesn’t indicate when the name was used.
The Arlington Theatre in Poughkeepsie was mentioned in the July 25, 1910, issue of The Troy Times of Troy, New York. The article said of Mr. William Quaid, the theater’s first manager, that he “…went to Poughkeepsie about three years ago and superintended the erection of the Arlington Theatre, which is considered one of the handsomest moving picture and vaudeville theatres in the state.”
At the lower right corner of this page of the July 3, 1922, issue of Exhibitors Trade Review is a photo of the auditorium of a Brooklyn house called the Stone Avenue Theatre. It doesn’t look quite large enough to have held the 1,552 seats we have listed for the Stone Theatre (I’d guess more like 1,100-1,200), so I’m wondering if it is the same house or not, or if perhaps the Stone was later expanded.
The July, 1922, of a trade journal called The Poster, touting itself as “The National Journal of Poster Advertising and Poster Art” ran a half-page article about the use of poster advertising by new Hope Theatre in Dallas, which it said had opened on the evening of April 26. There is also a photo of the theater’s entrance (scan at Google Books.)
According to the June 3, 1922, issue of Exhibitors Trade Review a novel feature of the Hope Theatre was the inclusion of a hostess on its staff. Her function was apparently to promote the theater to the women of various clubs and civic groups. The article includes a photo of a group of women meeting in what is presumably the theater’s lounge (scan at Internet Archive.)
The Silver Theatre page at the Cinema Data Project gives the address as 14 Silver Street. I’ve found multiple sources for the address 14 Silver Street, but none for 11 Silver.
Also, we’ve got the sequence of names backwards. I’ve found multiple references to the Silver Theatre in the 1910s and the mid-1920s. Cinema Data has a reference to the State Theatre in the 1956 FDY. The house must have opened as the Silver Theatre and was renamed State Theatre sometime prior to 1941.
This Facebook page has a photo of the house as the State Theatre, the marquee advertising the 1946 film The Return of Monte Cristo, and a recent photo as the Cancun Mexican Restaurant. The current Google Street View showing the building as Steve’s Grill & Pub is obsolete.
CinemaTour gives the address of the Rex Theatre as 7 Cottage Street, and has one photo of it.
“Architect” didn’t used to be a verb, and I doubt if many, (and maybe not any) building architects use it as such yet, but it has been used as a verb for quite a while now in the IT industry. I don’t know that many actual software architects use it as a verb, either, but people in IT management commonly do. At one time “engineer” and “doctor” were not used as verbs, either, but both are standard usage now. “To architect” is still at a stage where it sounds like jargon to most people, including me.
But language does drift, so maybe it will catch on, and maybe it won’t. I wouldn’t want to bet that “to architect” won’t eventually become common usage. Popular usage is unpredictable. As Calvin said, verbing weirds language, and that can be both fun and useful. Of course, as an English major, I will go on using designed, and keep architect as a noun. If, fifty years hence, my traditional usage sounds stodgy and old fashioned, well, I doubt anything I’ve written will survive that long, and even if it does, something will have deaded me by then, so I won’t be around to care.
A collection of drawings and blueprints assembled by Herman Gundlach, Inc., the construction firm for the Lode Theatre, dates the project’s design to 1939. The house might not have opened until 1940, though.
The Princess Theatre was either rebuilt or remodeled in 1939-1940, with plans by Kaplan & Sprachman. The Ontario Jewish Archives has seven photos of the project, but they are not available online.
This biographical sketch of Charles DePaul, onetime head of the Soo Amusement Company, written sometime after 1926, has this information:
An article in the December 14, 1973, issue of The Evening News about the fire which destroyed the theater had additional information:A rather long and chatty article about the Saint Croix Opera House can be found in this PDF. The house was built around 1871, following a general conflagration that destroyed its predecessor along with much of the town of Calais. Movies were shown as early as 1903, but it did not become a regular movie house until somewhat later. The last performance was on May 2, 1935. Later that night the Opera House was destroyed by a fire.
This page from the same web site has several photos of the Opera House, including some depicting its ruins following the fire. Near the bottom of the page are a few photos of the State Theatre, which was in operation by 1931, and which, on March 4, 1958, also met a fiery fate.
State Cinemas is still in operation, and must be a different house than the original State Theatre. It’s possible that it was built on the same site as the original State, but I’m not sure.
The Kittanning, Pennsylvania Simpson’s Leader-Times of December 20, 1975, said that the Vernon Theatre building in Barnesboro had been destroyed by a fire the previous day. Another source indicates that the house had closed in 1974.
Click on the “Photos” button between “Overview” and “Comments” above.
On the new page scroll down to the “Add New Photo” button, click it, and follow the instructions. Title and description are optional. I believe the default license is Creative Commons (Attribution) but it should tell you if it’s something else. You can select a different license from the drop-down menu if you want.
Once you’ve selected the photo’s location on your computer, click “Upload” and it should take only a few seconds to a minute or so, depending on the speed of your Internet connection.
If everything’s working properly a thumbnail will then appear on the theater’s photos page. Your photo won’t appear on the theater’s main page unless and until it gets enough views to displace the one that’s showing now.
A “Fifty Years Ago” feature in the August 28, 1987, issue of The Baytown Sun said that the Alamo Theatre opened on that date in 1937. It replaced a house called the Nu-Gulf Theatre which had burned to the ground the previous year. A similar feature in the April 7, 1987, issue of the paper had said this:
The Alamo Theatre was located on W. Main Street in Pelly. I haven’t been able to pin down the exact location, but like the Port Theatre it was on a corner lot. No buildings fitting its description are standing in the area today, so it has probably been demolished.The Garfield’s machines were of the ordinary push-button type. I don’t recall ever seeing one with a dial selector anywhere. But the cups still came down crooked pretty often. The Garfield’s first machine had only ordinary soft drink brands, but it proved so popular that they installed a second machine, and that was the one that had the burgundy in it.
On weekend nights the theater was still very busy in those days- at least it was after they had dropped their ninety cent top price to fifty cents for all seats- and at intermission there were usually lines for both machines. But I don’t remember them ever running out of burgundy. Most of my fellow suburbanites probably weren’t adventurous enough to even try it.
Akronflicks: I’ve read tens of thousands of comments on Cinema Treasures over the years, and yours is the first in which anyone has mentioned burgundy pop (or soda, as we called it in California.) There was burgundy soda in the machine at the Garfield Theatre in Alhambra, California, in the late 1950s. I don’t remember it being available in any of the other dozen or so theaters I frequented in those days, nor have I seen it anywhere since.
I’m glad to hear they also had it in Akron, as I was beginning to think I’d just imagined it. Burgundy soda must have been mass produced if it appeared in both Alhambra and Akron, but I can’t find it mentioned anywhere on the Internet. It was indeed tasty, and I always especially looked forward to going to the Garfield so I could get a cup or two of it. I wonder whatever became of it?
This PDF has a walking tour of downtown Stillwater and mentions several of the town’s theaters. This paragraph is about the Fireboys Theatre:
915 S. Main is the address at which we currently list the Stillwater Nickelodeon. I’m not sure if that is an actual aka, or if there is just some reference somewhere in which the Pastime/Gem/Fireboys was referred to generically as a Stillwater nickelodeon. I’ve found no references to a house of that name except at Cinema Treasures.Linkrot repair: The brief 1939 Boxoffice article (with one photo) about the Campus Theatre that kencmcintyre linked to is now at this link.
Despite the current building’s somewhat theatrical look, it is not the original structure occupied by the Aggie Theatre/Centre Twin Theatre. This paragraph from a brochure for a walking tour of historic downtown Stillwater says the Teubner & Associates building was built after the theater was demolished in 1994:
The brochure (PDF here) mentions several of Stillwater’s theaters and has small photos of a few.The Motor Vu Twin might have been the last drive-in operating in Imperial County, but it was not the only one the county ever had. There was also the Family Motor Vu Drive-In at Brawley, only a few miles north of Imperial.
Completely new construction is less likely than a renovation and renaming, unless the Rialto building was destroyed by some disaster. The FDY listings also indicate that the Lincoln Square Theatre must have returned to its earlier name of Rialto sometime in the 1920s. Chuck’s introduction says that the Tower was operating in 1935.
This is a bit puzzling. I can’t find any references to the Tower Theatre other than the ones at Cinema Treasures and on the list of Indianapolis theaters at CinemaTour. It is possible that Tower was an aka for the Lincoln Square, but if so I haven’t been able to discover when.
If the address and the opening year were part of Chuck’s original description then it’s possible that the Family Theatre was briefly renamed the Tower before being renovated as the Rialto. If that’s the case then this page is redundant. I haven’t found any documentation that it was so renamed, though.
In Polk’s 1919 Indianapolis City Directory, 20 S. Illinois Street is the address of the Rialto Theatre.
The “Among the Picture Theaters” section of the September 23, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World ran several paragraphs about the new Rialto, several weeks after it had opened, but didn’t provide a photo:
The opening of the Rialto had also been briefly noted in the August 5 issue of the same publication.Mike, the two ads you uploaded today are actually for a different Strand Theatre, located at Washington and Capitol downtown, and listed at Cinema Treasures as the Capitol Theatre. That house was called the Strand for only about eight months, then reverted to its previous name of Park Theatre.
The duplicate names must have caused confusion in 1916, too, as the ad for the downtown Strand in the March 23 issue of The Indianapolis News included this line: “This theater is not connected with or interested in any other Strand Theatre in Indianapolis.”
The Movies 1-4 must have lasted at least as late as 2004, as the house is listed on Yelp (as closed) and Yelp was launched in 2004.
A Facebook page titled Cinemark Movies 1-4 has some photos posted in 2013, but it’s not an official page, and the photos might have been taken long before they were uploaded.
The November 4, 1914, issue of The New York Dramatic Mirror had this item:
CinemaTour gives the aka Midtown Theatre for this house, but doesn’t indicate when the name was used.The Arlington Theatre in Poughkeepsie was mentioned in the July 25, 1910, issue of The Troy Times of Troy, New York. The article said of Mr. William Quaid, the theater’s first manager, that he “…went to Poughkeepsie about three years ago and superintended the erection of the Arlington Theatre, which is considered one of the handsomest moving picture and vaudeville theatres in the state.”
At the lower right corner of this page of the July 3, 1922, issue of Exhibitors Trade Review is a photo of the auditorium of a Brooklyn house called the Stone Avenue Theatre. It doesn’t look quite large enough to have held the 1,552 seats we have listed for the Stone Theatre (I’d guess more like 1,100-1,200), so I’m wondering if it is the same house or not, or if perhaps the Stone was later expanded.
The July, 1922, of a trade journal called The Poster, touting itself as “The National Journal of Poster Advertising and Poster Art” ran a half-page article about the use of poster advertising by new Hope Theatre in Dallas, which it said had opened on the evening of April 26. There is also a photo of the theater’s entrance (scan at Google Books.)
According to the June 3, 1922, issue of Exhibitors Trade Review a novel feature of the Hope Theatre was the inclusion of a hostess on its staff. Her function was apparently to promote the theater to the women of various clubs and civic groups. The article includes a photo of a group of women meeting in what is presumably the theater’s lounge (scan at Internet Archive.)