Comments from DavidZornig

1949 photo added courtesy of the Americas Past In Photo’s Facebook page.

As the Valuskis Theatre in 1951.
Photo courtesy of the USC digital archives, from the now dead link.

Coincidentally, below copy courtesy of Verl Stanford:

It was May 19, 1951 when Patty was kidnapped by Henry Ford McCracken. The film playing that day was “The Bird of Paradise” (as shown on the marquee in the photo added). And, it just so happened that that film was about a kidnapping. McCracken was a sexual psychopath. “ In 1946, his concerned mother petitioned the Orange County Superior Court to have him committed to a mental hospital. His behavior and record as a serial child sex offender, however, failed to impress medical examiners who said he had "mild schizophrenia with anxiety neurosis but can distinguish between right and wrong.” THEY WERE WRONG! “After his "mild schizophrenia” diagnosis, McCracken moved from Orange County to Michigan, where his string of child sex offenses continued. In the fall of 1950, after nine arrests, Detroit Police prepared documents to have him permanently committed to a mental institution. Before the documents were filed, McCracken fled back to Orange County. A few weeks later, he was arrested in Santa Ana for failing to register as a sex offender. He served a six-month jail sentence. On May 6, 1951, he was on the streets again.“ "McCracken immediately gravitated to an auto court cottage on Grand Ave. down the street from the Valuski’s Theater where he took up residence. (Today that is a vacant lot right next to the Coyote Creek flood control channel.) He worked nights entertaining at the nearby White Elephant Cafe (that was on Beach Blvd. and Commonwealth where the Bank of America branch is today). Just 12 days after his release from the Santa Ana Jail, he took an empty seat at a Saturday matinee, next to Patty Jean Hull.” In later years before Mr. Valuski sold the theater he had hired Patty’s brothers, Jack and Jim Hull, to be projectionists in the theater. Many local people still patronized the theater but because it was old fashioned and outmoded Mr. Valuski sold out and retired that theater to new owners.

11/21/69-12/04/69 photo added, photo credit John P. Keating Jr.

Longtime Fox organist Larry-Douglas Embury has passe away.

http://www.ajc.com/news/news/local/fox-theatre-organist-dies-at-home/nqTDt/

Here is a 1991 Chicago Reader article courtesy of Tim O'Neill, about the failed attempt to revive the Hi-Way as a performing art center. The Hi-Way was torn down about 5 years later.

http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/hi-way-slobbery-who-blew-the-boulevard-arts-center-deal/Content?oid=878681#.VsSa0nrbiks.facebook

Thanks. Apparently it does not have it’s own CT page.

1974 photo added via Kevin-Michael Moore‎. The Music Box Theatre to the right of the Fox, is neither the former Liberty Theater nor the other Music Box listed in Portland on CT. Any ideas of what it’s former name might have been, so I can post the photo on that page too?

Photos of the Esquire, Strand & Wisconsin Theatres in below 2/11/16 link.

http://onmilwaukee.com/buzz/articles/9downtown70spics.html

Photos of the Esquire, Strand & Wisconsin Theatres in below 2/11/16 link.

http://onmilwaukee.com/buzz/articles/9downtown70spics.html

1941 photo added courtesy of the Jackson-Township Historical Preservation Facebook page.

Katie Pagana writes: This threare suffered damage when a boiler underneath exploded. It happened during a mitinee for kids. My brother Pete and I awere there when the explosion occurred. It was so loud and the floor raised. We were terrified as this was our first matinee ever. I believe it happened about 1948 or 1949. We were about pre-teen at the time.

July 4, 1968 print ad as Woodland Drive-In added, courtesy of the Riverside Drive-In Facebook page.

Circa 1960 photo added courtesy of the AmeriCar The Beautiful Facebook page.