This is from the Alton Evening Telegraph on 4/20/53:
ST. LOUIS â€"A St. Louis landmark for 46 years, the 12â€"story American Theater and Hotel Building will he razed soon to make way for a l.5 million dollar parking garage. The downtown building will be torn down soon after the theater’s current season ends May 2. American Theater productions will be moved to the midtown Shubert Theater.
The multi-story garage will house 1,500 cars when completed. Three other buildings are to be razed in addition to the hotel and theater structure.
I’ve heard of a boatload, Joe, but never a goatload. Interesting visual image, though.
There was a lengthy article in the Southern Illinoisan on 12/20/64 about a large part of downtown Herrin being paved over for urban renewal. I will post just the part about the Marlow theater, although if you lived in Herrin you would enjoy the block-by-block synopsis of the old businesses.
Directly south across Madison Street from the hotel building is the massive Marlow Theater, where peeling pictures of movie stars decorate the brick walls. The Marlow Theater has closed and nobody talks about reopening.
The hotel and theater buildings are the property of the Bank of Herrin, which paid $147,766 in foreclosure of mortgage actions last May after the death of John Marlow. He was president of both the Herrin Hotel Corp. and the Marlow Amusement Co. The hotel sold for $107,493 and the theater for $40,272.
The existing theater will be razed because it simply is too big for Herrin’s demands. It costs less now to build a theater than it did when the Marlow Theater was built.
This is from the Moberly Monitor-Index on 8/28/61:
KANSAS CITY (AP)-Operators of the Muehlebach Hotel plan to add a 200-room motel to the hotel in downtown Kansas City. Barney L. Allis, operator of the Muehlebach, said Saturday the Orpheum Theater will be razed to make room for the 12-story addition. The project will be completed in mid-1963.
If you look at the street today, the Uniform Shop at 203 N. Court and the Salvation Army at 205 N. would be directly across the street from the Majestic. Both the theater and the old National Bank building on the corner have been replaced by a newer structure. It looks like the theater was demolished some time ago.
The Crest is partially visible in this postcard, circa mid 1950s. You can see that the marquee is different than the one seen in the photo posted on 8/3/06: http://tinyurl.com/arqg9k
How funny to see the Google view of Chestnut Street as it is today. Starting from the theater going east, I managed an Arby’s on the corner of 15th and Chestnut, circa 1983, that is now a Wendy’s. Before it was Arby’s there was a restaurant in that space called the Busy Butcher. Going around the corner on 15th the Royal Bank building occupies the space of the former Budco Goldman. Tempus fugit.
WEST COVINA-Construction is under way on twin motion picture theaters on the south side of Service Ave. across from the Civic Center. The Wescove Cinema, being built by Sanborn Theaters, will feature auditoriums with 900 seats and 450 seats, respectively. There will be a common lobby, projection booth and walled-in patio.
Here is some of the 2001 LA Times article, no library card needed:
Jim Dee is squatting in the back of a True Value hardware store, surveying a stack of 79-cents-a-foot rolls of clear vinyl tubing. “I’d like 3 feet of that,” he says to the store manager. “In fact, why don’t you make it 4.”
It’s just hours before the big Friday night movie crowd arrives at the Palm Theater here, and the owner of the town’s only art- house theater is busy fixing a leak in the hose of his popcorn concession’s canola oil machine. The Palm is a true mom-and-pop movie enterprise. Dee’s wife, Patty, served as the contractor when the theater was renovated in 1988. His eldest daughter, 16-year-old Nicole, now works part time at the concession stand. And when the popcorn machine’s on the fritz, it’s Dee who makes a run to the hardware store.
The Palm may be 225 miles away from the glamour capital of Hollywood, where lunchtime chat focuses on opening-weekend grosses, but the art-house theater is on another front line of filmgoing: It’s a place where people flock to see good movies. When the theater is swamped, its 49-year-old owner takes tickets himself, steering patrons to one of the Palm’s three screens; the biggest theater seats 135 people, the smallest 50.
Dee has been in the art-house business for more than two decades. He ran a nearby 160-seat theater in the 1980s before converting an abandoned employment development office into the Palm. He bought the building in 1991 and created a three-screen theater in 1993. Dee is a minor celebrity; when we walk across town to have lunch, people stop to say hello and ask what movies are coming to the theater.
But in the competitive world of film exhibition, he’s a small fish in a little pond. San Luis Obispo has a theater glut of its own. As recently as 1990, Dee’s only competition was the Edwards Theatres chain, which had seven screens in town. But in the early 1990s, SoCal Cinemas came and built a theater with seven more screens. “There I was, suddenly going up against 14 screens,“ says Dee. "And to fill up their seventh screen, they started taking movies I would normally play and I was left out in the cold.”
The Palm, like a lot of small businesses, survives on word of mouth. That’s why Dee often hangs around, taking tickets, just to hear what his patrons say when they leave. “When they say they really loved a movie and can’t wait to tell their friends about it, that’s when I say, ‘I’m keeping that movie for another week.”
Right now, business is on an upswing. On a recent Friday night, Dee drove up to the theater just in time to see a line of about 30 people stretched out from the ticket window. “Hey, look at that,” he said excitedly. “We’ve got a crowd!”
Here is a letter from an unhappy Arclight customer back in May 2002, via the LA Times:
I have swallowed—hook, line and sinker—the idea of Arclight Cinemas. I bought into the $14 tickets. I joined the membership club even before I set foot into the theater. I first went to Arclight to see “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” and I loved every minute of the experience: the sound, the seats, the lack of advertisements, the picture. Going to the movies is a redefined experience.
Then comes the first blockbuster of the summer, “Spider-Man.” I cannot wait to see this at Arclight, and this time I want to see it at the Dome—the refurbished Cinerama Dome. According to the Arclight Web site, it has even more added features than the multiplex auditoriums. I sold my friends on the idea of $14 tickets by reciting news articles and the Web site.
I loved telling them that the theaters “exceed THX standards” with their state-of-the-art “Kinoton projectors, JBL speakers and Dolby and SDDS sound systems.” Some of them asked me if I was a spokesman for Arclight. I bought the tickets online; a bunch of tickets had already been sold, so I had to take seats in the back of the theater, Row Z.
Everything I had bought into, and therefore sold my friends on as well, was false for Row Z. It seems that the moviegoing experience described doesn’t fully apply to the last five or so rows in the Cinerama Dome. Imagine the dome and a circle’s perimeter. The last couple of rows are outside this perimeter, underneath the projection booth. This makes most of the features of the Arclight movie experience moot.
All of the speakers (and even the projectors) are way in front of you. I could hear the people around me eating their caramel popcorn and the girls talking about Tobey Maguire’s abs better than I could hear the film. Here’s a little more sensory overload. Imagine this space (outside the perimeter) with a short ceiling and walls on three sides, jammed with five rows of people. The warmth of body heat was unbearable for the first hour, not to mention the combination of popcorn, chocolate, hot-dog and other less pleasant smells.
I have had better theater experiences at the Bose store in the mall—and those were free.
Here is an item from Boxoffice magazine in November 1947:
VALLEY, NEB.-As fas as John Fisher is concerned his old Gem Theater here will have nothing but a tarnished record in his memory-even though it served for 40 years. Several weeks ago fire destroyed it for further use. Fisher decided to put the past behind him and build anew. First step was to get rid of the old charred shell that remained.
He tried to set fire to it, but it wouldn’t burn. He brought out a supply of gasoline-and then only after plenty of trouble was he able to burn down the rest of the structure.
Here is an item from Boxoffice magazine, November 1947:
WAUKESHA-“Forever Amber” has folded at the Pix Theater because of a lack of attendance at the $1.20 admission figure. The film had also been target of an attack by a Waukesha Catholic priest.
I think there were plans to build the 1500 car garage, but as he stated those plans were abandoned later and the garage was downsized.
This is from the Alton Evening Telegraph on 4/20/53:
ST. LOUIS â€"A St. Louis landmark for 46 years, the 12â€"story American Theater and Hotel Building will he razed soon to make way for a l.5 million dollar parking garage. The downtown building will be torn down soon after the theater’s current season ends May 2. American Theater productions will be moved to the midtown Shubert Theater.
The multi-story garage will house 1,500 cars when completed. Three other buildings are to be razed in addition to the hotel and theater structure.
I’ve heard of a boatload, Joe, but never a goatload. Interesting visual image, though.
There was a lengthy article in the Southern Illinoisan on 12/20/64 about a large part of downtown Herrin being paved over for urban renewal. I will post just the part about the Marlow theater, although if you lived in Herrin you would enjoy the block-by-block synopsis of the old businesses.
Directly south across Madison Street from the hotel building is the massive Marlow Theater, where peeling pictures of movie stars decorate the brick walls. The Marlow Theater has closed and nobody talks about reopening.
The hotel and theater buildings are the property of the Bank of Herrin, which paid $147,766 in foreclosure of mortgage actions last May after the death of John Marlow. He was president of both the Herrin Hotel Corp. and the Marlow Amusement Co. The hotel sold for $107,493 and the theater for $40,272.
The existing theater will be razed because it simply is too big for Herrin’s demands. It costs less now to build a theater than it did when the Marlow Theater was built.
This is from the Moberly Monitor-Index on 8/28/61:
KANSAS CITY (AP)-Operators of the Muehlebach Hotel plan to add a 200-room motel to the hotel in downtown Kansas City. Barney L. Allis, operator of the Muehlebach, said Saturday the Orpheum Theater will be razed to make room for the 12-story addition. The project will be completed in mid-1963.
Here is an August 1925 ad from the LA Times:
http://tinyurl.com/dmvrkr
The Rio is listed in this independent theater guide in the LA Times in March 1968. Click on the guide to expand the view.
http://tinyurl.com/d7lx6t
If you look at the street today, the Uniform Shop at 203 N. Court and the Salvation Army at 205 N. would be directly across the street from the Majestic. Both the theater and the old National Bank building on the corner have been replaced by a newer structure. It looks like the theater was demolished some time ago.
Scenic artist Amy Higgins has posted some photos of the Pantages on her website:
http://www.amyhiggins.com/Pantages.htm
The Crest is partially visible in this postcard, circa mid 1950s. You can see that the marquee is different than the one seen in the photo posted on 8/3/06:
http://tinyurl.com/arqg9k
The Loyola was not open in 2004. It hasn’t shown movies in a long time.
Here is a 1957 ad from the LA Times:
http://tinyurl.com/bccuud
How funny to see the Google view of Chestnut Street as it is today. Starting from the theater going east, I managed an Arby’s on the corner of 15th and Chestnut, circa 1983, that is now a Wendy’s. Before it was Arby’s there was a restaurant in that space called the Busy Butcher. Going around the corner on 15th the Royal Bank building occupies the space of the former Budco Goldman. Tempus fugit.
It was noted back in April 2006 that the theater had been razed, so the status should be changed to closed/demolished.
This is from the LA Times, 3/2/69:
WEST COVINA-Construction is under way on twin motion picture theaters on the south side of Service Ave. across from the Civic Center. The Wescove Cinema, being built by Sanborn Theaters, will feature auditoriums with 900 seats and 450 seats, respectively. There will be a common lobby, projection booth and walled-in patio.
No pun intended, I presume.
Here is some of the 2001 LA Times article, no library card needed:
Jim Dee is squatting in the back of a True Value hardware store, surveying a stack of 79-cents-a-foot rolls of clear vinyl tubing. “I’d like 3 feet of that,” he says to the store manager. “In fact, why don’t you make it 4.”
It’s just hours before the big Friday night movie crowd arrives at the Palm Theater here, and the owner of the town’s only art- house theater is busy fixing a leak in the hose of his popcorn concession’s canola oil machine. The Palm is a true mom-and-pop movie enterprise. Dee’s wife, Patty, served as the contractor when the theater was renovated in 1988. His eldest daughter, 16-year-old Nicole, now works part time at the concession stand. And when the popcorn machine’s on the fritz, it’s Dee who makes a run to the hardware store.
The Palm may be 225 miles away from the glamour capital of Hollywood, where lunchtime chat focuses on opening-weekend grosses, but the art-house theater is on another front line of filmgoing: It’s a place where people flock to see good movies. When the theater is swamped, its 49-year-old owner takes tickets himself, steering patrons to one of the Palm’s three screens; the biggest theater seats 135 people, the smallest 50.
Dee has been in the art-house business for more than two decades. He ran a nearby 160-seat theater in the 1980s before converting an abandoned employment development office into the Palm. He bought the building in 1991 and created a three-screen theater in 1993. Dee is a minor celebrity; when we walk across town to have lunch, people stop to say hello and ask what movies are coming to the theater.
But in the competitive world of film exhibition, he’s a small fish in a little pond. San Luis Obispo has a theater glut of its own. As recently as 1990, Dee’s only competition was the Edwards Theatres chain, which had seven screens in town. But in the early 1990s, SoCal Cinemas came and built a theater with seven more screens. “There I was, suddenly going up against 14 screens,“ says Dee. "And to fill up their seventh screen, they started taking movies I would normally play and I was left out in the cold.”
The Palm, like a lot of small businesses, survives on word of mouth. That’s why Dee often hangs around, taking tickets, just to hear what his patrons say when they leave. “When they say they really loved a movie and can’t wait to tell their friends about it, that’s when I say, ‘I’m keeping that movie for another week.”
Right now, business is on an upswing. On a recent Friday night, Dee drove up to the theater just in time to see a line of about 30 people stretched out from the ticket window. “Hey, look at that,” he said excitedly. “We’ve got a crowd!”
Here is a letter from an unhappy Arclight customer back in May 2002, via the LA Times:
I have swallowed—hook, line and sinker—the idea of Arclight Cinemas. I bought into the $14 tickets. I joined the membership club even before I set foot into the theater. I first went to Arclight to see “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” and I loved every minute of the experience: the sound, the seats, the lack of advertisements, the picture. Going to the movies is a redefined experience.
Then comes the first blockbuster of the summer, “Spider-Man.” I cannot wait to see this at Arclight, and this time I want to see it at the Dome—the refurbished Cinerama Dome. According to the Arclight Web site, it has even more added features than the multiplex auditoriums. I sold my friends on the idea of $14 tickets by reciting news articles and the Web site.
I loved telling them that the theaters “exceed THX standards” with their state-of-the-art “Kinoton projectors, JBL speakers and Dolby and SDDS sound systems.” Some of them asked me if I was a spokesman for Arclight. I bought the tickets online; a bunch of tickets had already been sold, so I had to take seats in the back of the theater, Row Z.
Everything I had bought into, and therefore sold my friends on as well, was false for Row Z. It seems that the moviegoing experience described doesn’t fully apply to the last five or so rows in the Cinerama Dome. Imagine the dome and a circle’s perimeter. The last couple of rows are outside this perimeter, underneath the projection booth. This makes most of the features of the Arclight movie experience moot.
All of the speakers (and even the projectors) are way in front of you. I could hear the people around me eating their caramel popcorn and the girls talking about Tobey Maguire’s abs better than I could hear the film. Here’s a little more sensory overload. Imagine this space (outside the perimeter) with a short ceiling and walls on three sides, jammed with five rows of people. The warmth of body heat was unbearable for the first hour, not to mention the combination of popcorn, chocolate, hot-dog and other less pleasant smells.
I have had better theater experiences at the Bose store in the mall—and those were free.
Boxoffice then reported in November 1947 that Guy Trauger re-purchased the theater from Cecil Joliffe. Stay tuned.
Here is an item from Boxoffice magazine in November 1947:
VALLEY, NEB.-As fas as John Fisher is concerned his old Gem Theater here will have nothing but a tarnished record in his memory-even though it served for 40 years. Several weeks ago fire destroyed it for further use. Fisher decided to put the past behind him and build anew. First step was to get rid of the old charred shell that remained.
He tried to set fire to it, but it wouldn’t burn. He brought out a supply of gasoline-and then only after plenty of trouble was he able to burn down the rest of the structure.
Here is some information about the renovation:
http://www.downtownhillsboro.org/towntheater.html
Here is an article from 2000 about the red light district where the Gayety was located:
http://tinyurl.com/djognl
This is a March 1940 ad from the LA Times:
http://tinyurl.com/cktbrh
Here is a 1980 photo from the UCLA collection:
http://tinyurl.com/b94zqg
Photo and information here:
http://tinyurl.com/co99s2
Here is an item from Boxoffice magazine, November 1947:
WAUKESHA-“Forever Amber” has folded at the Pix Theater because of a lack of attendance at the $1.20 admission figure. The film had also been target of an attack by a Waukesha Catholic priest.
That was my mistake. That’s the LaMar in Manhattan Beach, CA.