Fred C. Smith began showing moving pictures in Paola at the Mallory Opera House. That was going so well that Smith had a retail space converted for $10,000 creating the Empress Theatre. With tiled lobby, deluxe upholstered seating, and brass trim everywhere, the Empress opened in late summer 1915 exclusively for movies. The Mallory continued service as venue for live shows including traveling vaudeville shows by Smith. The Reverend O.B. Thurston took over the Empress on Sundays for sermons. Thursday was considered “big movie night” at the Empress.
Mentions about the Lincoln Theatre end in 1957. In 1958, the Kenyon-Barr Urban Renewal project targets the West End African American business district for urban renewal to build Interstate 75. In 1960, bulldozers are said to have cleared Fifth Street and Sixth at John Street likely doing in the Lincoln Theatre, Cordelia Hotel, Sky Pharmacy, and many other African American mainstays. If you follow the line from John Street at Third Street today to what just yards east of Interstate 75, you’ll have the spot of the former Lincoln.
This entry began as the Auditorium Theatre which was in Brillion at least since 1914. In 1929, manager Joe J. Ecker converted the Auditorium to sound movies choosing Movietone over Vitaphone. In 1933, Raymond Pfeiffer purchased the Auditorium but the State of Wisconsin closes it very briefly 1935 with Pfeiffer still in charge.
In 1939, Pfeiiffer does an extensive remodeling of the theatre with all new signage renaming it the Brillion Theatre. Likely on a 20-year lease, the Brillion ceases operation in December of 1959 after numerous ownership changing.. It’s offered for sale and was eventually repurposed for other retail operations.
Fred and Zell Jaynes announced the $250,000 Joy Theatre in 1948. After the War, West Memphis was a major sin city destination selling liquor on Sundays and inviting adult entertainment. At the Joy, it was racy acts that couldn’t find work in neighboring Memphis and at the Crittenden and Harlem, it was playing films banned by the censor board there and African American films.
Jaynes' Joy Theatre launched as a burlesque house and advertised regularly in Billboard magazine hoping to find controversial acts when it opened in 1949. It was the first live house in West Memphis since the Strand – known more for vaudeville – burned down in 1935. The Joy had a main floor with nearly 1,000 seats for White customers and a balcony for African American patrons. Jaynes' burly house was too successful and finally on February 8, 1951, West Memphis Mayor P.M. Dacus shut it down as indecent.
Jaynes decided to sell the Joy to film interests who would convert the theatre to the Avon Theatre opening in 1952 to replace the undersized Crittenden Theatre. The Avon famously played the films banned by the notorious censor board across the river in Memphis. But when the MPAA created its ratings system in 1968, the marketplace for banned films was all but over in West Memphis. The Avon would get one more shot returning as a live acts venue.
The Crittenden Theatre opened with a preview screening on September 13, 1937 which was the first theater since the airdrome in the silent era. It was targeted for $40,000 but costing $75,000 operated by J. Jackson Rhodes and managed by Norval E. Packwood for Crittenden Amusement Co.
The Crittenden Theatre grabbed national headlines for being a main outlet for films rejected by infamous censor Lloyd T. Binford, the Memphis censor who would censor films which had persons of color in the same scenes as white performers. Rhodes and Packwood booked virtually all mainstream films that Binford censored. Rhodes would then create the Harlem Theatre in 1945 as an African American theatre to play films that Binford would have rejected.
“Duel in the Sun” was “unquestionably the dirtiest movie I’ve ever seen,” said Binford which caused a huge crowd to come to the Crittenden (see image in photos). Lack of segregation of band members for “A Song is Born” led to it being banned on the Memphis side and over the the Crittenden in West Memphis. Trade newspaper “Variety” wrote the headline, “Memphis Bans ‘em; West Memphis OK’s ‘em” to describe the situation.
When the 1,000+ seat burlesque house, the Joy Theatre opened by Fred and Zell Jaynes in 1949, it was shuttered just two years later by then Mayor P.M. Dachas. The Joy returned under new owners as the movie house now known as the Avon Theatre. The Avon would replace the overrun Crittenden and West Memphis would get the Sunset Drive-In continuing to play Binford’s rejected films into the 1950s until his retirement in 1955 when he famously banned “Rebel Without a Cause.”
With Binford gone, West Memphis still played censored films but lost its marketing advantage when the MPAA instituted a self-regulatory ratings system in the 1960s. The town would eventually be theaterless as leases reached their termination..
West Memphis had no movie theater other than a short-lived airdrome in the early sound era until the Crittenden Theatre opened in 1937 by J. Jackson Rhodes and Crittenden Amusement Co. The Crittenden Theatre grabbed national headlines for being a main outlet for films rejected by infamous censor Lloyd T. Binford, the Memphis censor who would censor films which had persons of color in the same scenes as white performers.
Rhodes realized he’d hit pay dirt as people ventured across the bridge from Memphis, TN to West Memphis, AR. With a censor banning African American films, Rhodes would then create the Harlem Theatre in 1945 as Binfordized films would be of interest to the African American community. With workers helping in WW2-related factories, Rhodes got the approval to build the theater despite war shortages. He ended up months behind because there simply were no available theatre seats.
Sadly, the movie marketplace would never be the same in West Memphis post-Binford the Crittenden, Avon, Sunset Drive-In and the Harlem would all close.
The 494-seat Carver Theatre opened on June 2, 1947 as an African American Quonset Hut styled venue designed by owner Jesse C. Cox. The $60,000 project had been announced at the first of the year as the Lincoln Theatre by Rock Hill Theatres Inc. before settling on the Carver. Images in Photos section. In 1953, the Carver brought suit against the major film distributors over lack of access to top feature films. In 1957, the case finally made it to federal court. In 1961, a jury awarded treble damages to the Carver in the case but awarded just $12,000. The theatre eventually closed and was demolished.
Finally established opening of Dal-Sec as October of 1926 as J.P. Seeburg Co. delivered a Celesta DeLuxe organ to the new Dal-Sec in time for its opening.
The National Theatre fire that destroyed much of the original gave architects B.F. Churchill & Sons of Iola, Kansas some flexibility as three of the National walls were salvageable post-fire as well as the stage and boiler. On May 10, 1938, the new Mitchell opened. Images in photos section.
The Meuller Theatre opened in March of 1921 with seating for 600 at opening with Bartola pipe organ, a blizzard cooling system and operated by E.A. Harms.
In 1938, Lawrence Grobeck took on the theatre and it was modernized to the plans of architect H.A. Raapke (see sketches in photos) for $37,500. Seating was expanded to 700 seats and the name of the theatre was changed to the Muller Theatre – the name it assumed until closure.
Opened September 7, 1938 to a press screening featuring Paramount and Hearst with shorter clips from Pathé, Universal, and Fox. Cardinal Hayes' death led the news. The Penn Newsreel opened to the public a day later on September 8, 1939 at 15 cents before 1p and 25 cents thereafter. The $150,000 Penn Newsreel began a ten-year lease with a projected nut to break even at around $2,500 to $2,800. That proved to be challenging.
Picketing in late October likely hurt box office prospects. Given that the Penn changed policies abruptly in January of 1939 to a repertory cinema house, it would not be unusual that payments to the newsreel providers weren’t timely or to the distributor’s goals.
Just two weeks later, the theatre was shuttered that same January just after four-plus months of operation. More payment issues seem to appear as mechanics' liens against the theatre operators appear in court records beginning in late December and continue on January 26, 1939 and also in February of 1939 prior to the entire operation being demo’d.
The Forum came in as a low-cost grind house of second-run features. It would evolve or devolve into one of Ohio’s greatest grind houses. By the 1960s, the low-cost theatre posted no start times and often had imaginative thematic triple features. However, it was drawing sketchy crowds and a well-covered altercation in late 1967 didn’t help the theater’s reputation.
The Forum’s last showing was January 28, 1968 with a triple feature of “Deadly Bees,” “Vulture,” and “St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.” At the end of its 30-year lease, it celebrated the end of its triple feature with the dreaded “all fixtures, seats and equipment” sale just hours after the last showing. Few theaters in the history of non-porn houses could top of the sheer volume of prints that were shown in a thirty year period than the Forum.
Three different owners had three different concepts for restoring the Forum arose in 1971, 1973 and 1985. The most ambitious of those was the latter which, ironically, led to an extensive analysis of the theater’s condition and why the long boarded-up theatre would get razed late that year becoming a vacant lot.
The Princeton Playhouse opened in 1937 (images in photos) as part of a $6 million project that included a square of businesses around the Nassau Inn. It ran for more than 40 years and was demolished on December 27, 1980. Princeton University brought the repertory cinema to its end in 1980 and sold the property for $17 million.
The Louvee Theatre was built in 1937 and launched in 1938. It operated until 2003 after being twinned. In a restoration project, it was restored to single screen status but had not reopened as of 2016.
Correction: The Park Theatre closed on November 25, 1967 showings of “The Cool Ones” and “Up the Down Staircase.” The December 1, 1967 ad said “closed due to storm” and did not re-open until becoming a church the following spring of 1968.
Grunkmeyer & Sullivan architected the second Emery Theatre launching in 1938 which had operated since at least 1922.. Last ad for the new Emery was on January 14, 1962 lists “Ma and Pa Kettle in the Ozarks,” “Explosive Generation,” and “Tammy Tell Me True” likely spelling the end of the Emery.
Spahr Swift opened the Colonial late in 1913 which initially competes well against the Lyric, Pastime, and Lincoln theaters. Swift adds electric fans in 1914 to resolve ventilation complaints as the theater is reportedly full quite often. But the 250-seat theatre is soon dwarfed by new competition including the Strand. Swift closes the Colonial in 1916.
The theatre is reopened in 1917 by Colonial Amusement Circuit only to close it within months and the venue is set to be retrofitted for other purposes. A new operator takes a lease in 1918 to reopen it as a theatre and it’s sold within months to a new operator. Finding success with showmanship, the Colonial is remodeled and fitted for sound. It closes during the Depression in 1933. But a new operator takes on the theatre in 1934 operating only Saturdays and Sundays and – with its long-running manager reinstalled – has a nice run as a second run house until its closure in the 1940s.
The (New) New Globe Theatre was the fourth and final Globe location in Savannah and launched in November of 1946. The (New) New Globe was necessitated after the original New Globe Theatre burned down during World War II in 1943. War material shortages forced owner M.B. “Doc” Presley to use a converted church as the temporary replacement for his New Globe.
Once the war ended, the new theatre was built in 1946 becoming the longest running of the four Globe locations.
Fred Hartley opened the original Globe Theatre on April 20, 1914. The small town got a second theatre from Clarence E. Cook and V.O. Moore who announce the Tivoli Theatre in 1936 which opened in the Fall of 1937. The town struggled to keep both operations going so Presley purchased the Tivoli Theatre from Cook & Moore. A week later, the Tivoli became the New Globe Theatre ending the short run of the Tivoli. From there it was fire gutting the theatre, moving to a church, and on to this fourth and final Globe location.
Fred Hartley opened the original Globe Theatre on April 20, 1914. M.B. “Doc” Presley takes on the original Globe Theatre. The small town gets a second theatre from Clarence E. Cook and V.O. Moore who announce the Tivoli Theatre in 1936 which opens in the Fall of 1937. With dollars stretched thin with two theatres, in 1938, Presley purchased the Tivoli Theatre. A week later it’s called the New Globe Theatre ending the brief run of the Tivoli. Jerome Crowley of Kansas City is credited as the architect on the project. And it is also the end of the original Globe Theatre closing March 19, 1938.
In 1943 and during World War II, it burns down. War shortages didn’t allow for a new structure. This forced Presley to create the “Not-So-New” Globe Theatre in a converted church. With war shortages, the project replacing the New Globe Theatre was finally built in 1946 becoming the (New) New Globe Theatre and launching in November of 1946.
The town of Jeanerette’s first venue for films was under the canvas of its Airdome launching in 1908. A success, four years later, the Bijou Theatre is under construction to give the city a more permanent structure that would combine film and vaudeville.
The Bijou makes the transition to talkies with Western Electric sound and drops live shows. In 1932, the Bijou suffers a fire all but gutting the facility. Seymour Construction from Texas redesigns and rebuilds the theatre within the same walls with an expanded mezzanine to increase seat count. The theatre is renamed the Avalon Theatre. It receives a sleek new front that gives the exterior a brand new deco-era look.
As the Avalon, the theatre installs widescreen to show CinemaScope films in 1953. In 1963, under its final owners Walter Hebert and William Conrad, the theatre received its final major interior updating and renovation which it had until its closure. Stripped of its sign tower, the building was repurposed.
The Jewel Theatre was in business for less than a half year before the mayor came after its operators as a numbers front and charged with other illegal gaming activities. That’s old school Brooklyn!
Fred C. Smith began showing moving pictures in Paola at the Mallory Opera House. That was going so well that Smith had a retail space converted for $10,000 creating the Empress Theatre. With tiled lobby, deluxe upholstered seating, and brass trim everywhere, the Empress opened in late summer 1915 exclusively for movies. The Mallory continued service as venue for live shows including traveling vaudeville shows by Smith. The Reverend O.B. Thurston took over the Empress on Sundays for sermons. Thursday was considered “big movie night” at the Empress.
Mentions about the Lincoln Theatre end in 1957. In 1958, the Kenyon-Barr Urban Renewal project targets the West End African American business district for urban renewal to build Interstate 75. In 1960, bulldozers are said to have cleared Fifth Street and Sixth at John Street likely doing in the Lincoln Theatre, Cordelia Hotel, Sky Pharmacy, and many other African American mainstays. If you follow the line from John Street at Third Street today to what just yards east of Interstate 75, you’ll have the spot of the former Lincoln.
This entry began as the Auditorium Theatre which was in Brillion at least since 1914. In 1929, manager Joe J. Ecker converted the Auditorium to sound movies choosing Movietone over Vitaphone. In 1933, Raymond Pfeiffer purchased the Auditorium but the State of Wisconsin closes it very briefly 1935 with Pfeiffer still in charge.
In 1939, Pfeiiffer does an extensive remodeling of the theatre with all new signage renaming it the Brillion Theatre. Likely on a 20-year lease, the Brillion ceases operation in December of 1959 after numerous ownership changing.. It’s offered for sale and was eventually repurposed for other retail operations.
Fred and Zell Jaynes announced the $250,000 Joy Theatre in 1948. After the War, West Memphis was a major sin city destination selling liquor on Sundays and inviting adult entertainment. At the Joy, it was racy acts that couldn’t find work in neighboring Memphis and at the Crittenden and Harlem, it was playing films banned by the censor board there and African American films.
Jaynes' Joy Theatre launched as a burlesque house and advertised regularly in Billboard magazine hoping to find controversial acts when it opened in 1949. It was the first live house in West Memphis since the Strand – known more for vaudeville – burned down in 1935. The Joy had a main floor with nearly 1,000 seats for White customers and a balcony for African American patrons. Jaynes' burly house was too successful and finally on February 8, 1951, West Memphis Mayor P.M. Dacus shut it down as indecent.
Jaynes decided to sell the Joy to film interests who would convert the theatre to the Avon Theatre opening in 1952 to replace the undersized Crittenden Theatre. The Avon famously played the films banned by the notorious censor board across the river in Memphis. But when the MPAA created its ratings system in 1968, the marketplace for banned films was all but over in West Memphis. The Avon would get one more shot returning as a live acts venue.
The Crittenden Theatre opened with a preview screening on September 13, 1937 which was the first theater since the airdrome in the silent era. It was targeted for $40,000 but costing $75,000 operated by J. Jackson Rhodes and managed by Norval E. Packwood for Crittenden Amusement Co.
The Crittenden Theatre grabbed national headlines for being a main outlet for films rejected by infamous censor Lloyd T. Binford, the Memphis censor who would censor films which had persons of color in the same scenes as white performers. Rhodes and Packwood booked virtually all mainstream films that Binford censored. Rhodes would then create the Harlem Theatre in 1945 as an African American theatre to play films that Binford would have rejected.
“Duel in the Sun” was “unquestionably the dirtiest movie I’ve ever seen,” said Binford which caused a huge crowd to come to the Crittenden (see image in photos). Lack of segregation of band members for “A Song is Born” led to it being banned on the Memphis side and over the the Crittenden in West Memphis. Trade newspaper “Variety” wrote the headline, “Memphis Bans ‘em; West Memphis OK’s ‘em” to describe the situation.
When the 1,000+ seat burlesque house, the Joy Theatre opened by Fred and Zell Jaynes in 1949, it was shuttered just two years later by then Mayor P.M. Dachas. The Joy returned under new owners as the movie house now known as the Avon Theatre. The Avon would replace the overrun Crittenden and West Memphis would get the Sunset Drive-In continuing to play Binford’s rejected films into the 1950s until his retirement in 1955 when he famously banned “Rebel Without a Cause.”
With Binford gone, West Memphis still played censored films but lost its marketing advantage when the MPAA instituted a self-regulatory ratings system in the 1960s. The town would eventually be theaterless as leases reached their termination..
Estes W. Mann of Memphis was the architect in 1947 with sketch in photos.
West Memphis had no movie theater other than a short-lived airdrome in the early sound era until the Crittenden Theatre opened in 1937 by J. Jackson Rhodes and Crittenden Amusement Co. The Crittenden Theatre grabbed national headlines for being a main outlet for films rejected by infamous censor Lloyd T. Binford, the Memphis censor who would censor films which had persons of color in the same scenes as white performers.
Rhodes realized he’d hit pay dirt as people ventured across the bridge from Memphis, TN to West Memphis, AR. With a censor banning African American films, Rhodes would then create the Harlem Theatre in 1945 as Binfordized films would be of interest to the African American community. With workers helping in WW2-related factories, Rhodes got the approval to build the theater despite war shortages. He ended up months behind because there simply were no available theatre seats.
Sadly, the movie marketplace would never be the same in West Memphis post-Binford the Crittenden, Avon, Sunset Drive-In and the Harlem would all close.
1937
The 494-seat Carver Theatre opened on June 2, 1947 as an African American Quonset Hut styled venue designed by owner Jesse C. Cox. The $60,000 project had been announced at the first of the year as the Lincoln Theatre by Rock Hill Theatres Inc. before settling on the Carver. Images in Photos section. In 1953, the Carver brought suit against the major film distributors over lack of access to top feature films. In 1957, the case finally made it to federal court. In 1961, a jury awarded treble damages to the Carver in the case but awarded just $12,000. The theatre eventually closed and was demolished.
Finally established opening of Dal-Sec as October of 1926 as J.P. Seeburg Co. delivered a Celesta DeLuxe organ to the new Dal-Sec in time for its opening.
A 1938 deco remodel by Toronto architects Kaplan & Sprachman is reflected in photos.
The National Theatre fire that destroyed much of the original gave architects B.F. Churchill & Sons of Iola, Kansas some flexibility as three of the National walls were salvageable post-fire as well as the stage and boiler. On May 10, 1938, the new Mitchell opened. Images in photos section.
The Meuller Theatre opened in March of 1921 with seating for 600 at opening with Bartola pipe organ, a blizzard cooling system and operated by E.A. Harms.
In 1938, Lawrence Grobeck took on the theatre and it was modernized to the plans of architect H.A. Raapke (see sketches in photos) for $37,500. Seating was expanded to 700 seats and the name of the theatre was changed to the Muller Theatre – the name it assumed until closure.
The building was still standing in 2015.
Opened September 7, 1938 to a press screening featuring Paramount and Hearst with shorter clips from Pathé, Universal, and Fox. Cardinal Hayes' death led the news. The Penn Newsreel opened to the public a day later on September 8, 1939 at 15 cents before 1p and 25 cents thereafter. The $150,000 Penn Newsreel began a ten-year lease with a projected nut to break even at around $2,500 to $2,800. That proved to be challenging.
Picketing in late October likely hurt box office prospects. Given that the Penn changed policies abruptly in January of 1939 to a repertory cinema house, it would not be unusual that payments to the newsreel providers weren’t timely or to the distributor’s goals.
Just two weeks later, the theatre was shuttered that same January just after four-plus months of operation. More payment issues seem to appear as mechanics' liens against the theatre operators appear in court records beginning in late December and continue on January 26, 1939 and also in February of 1939 prior to the entire operation being demo’d.
Architect Roy B. Blass' now-removed 1938 remodeled deco front shown in photos.
The Forum came in as a low-cost grind house of second-run features. It would evolve or devolve into one of Ohio’s greatest grind houses. By the 1960s, the low-cost theatre posted no start times and often had imaginative thematic triple features. However, it was drawing sketchy crowds and a well-covered altercation in late 1967 didn’t help the theater’s reputation.
The Forum’s last showing was January 28, 1968 with a triple feature of “Deadly Bees,” “Vulture,” and “St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.” At the end of its 30-year lease, it celebrated the end of its triple feature with the dreaded “all fixtures, seats and equipment” sale just hours after the last showing. Few theaters in the history of non-porn houses could top of the sheer volume of prints that were shown in a thirty year period than the Forum.
Three different owners had three different concepts for restoring the Forum arose in 1971, 1973 and 1985. The most ambitious of those was the latter which, ironically, led to an extensive analysis of the theater’s condition and why the long boarded-up theatre would get razed late that year becoming a vacant lot.
The Princeton Playhouse opened in 1937 (images in photos) as part of a $6 million project that included a square of businesses around the Nassau Inn. It ran for more than 40 years and was demolished on December 27, 1980. Princeton University brought the repertory cinema to its end in 1980 and sold the property for $17 million.
The Louvee Theatre was built in 1937 and launched in 1938. It operated until 2003 after being twinned. In a restoration project, it was restored to single screen status but had not reopened as of 2016.
Correction: The Park Theatre closed on November 25, 1967 showings of “The Cool Ones” and “Up the Down Staircase.” The December 1, 1967 ad said “closed due to storm” and did not re-open until becoming a church the following spring of 1968.
Grunkmeyer & Sullivan architected the second Emery Theatre launching in 1938 which had operated since at least 1922.. Last ad for the new Emery was on January 14, 1962 lists “Ma and Pa Kettle in the Ozarks,” “Explosive Generation,” and “Tammy Tell Me True” likely spelling the end of the Emery.
Spahr Swift opened the Colonial late in 1913 which initially competes well against the Lyric, Pastime, and Lincoln theaters. Swift adds electric fans in 1914 to resolve ventilation complaints as the theater is reportedly full quite often. But the 250-seat theatre is soon dwarfed by new competition including the Strand. Swift closes the Colonial in 1916.
The theatre is reopened in 1917 by Colonial Amusement Circuit only to close it within months and the venue is set to be retrofitted for other purposes. A new operator takes a lease in 1918 to reopen it as a theatre and it’s sold within months to a new operator. Finding success with showmanship, the Colonial is remodeled and fitted for sound. It closes during the Depression in 1933. But a new operator takes on the theatre in 1934 operating only Saturdays and Sundays and – with its long-running manager reinstalled – has a nice run as a second run house until its closure in the 1940s.
The (New) New Globe Theatre was the fourth and final Globe location in Savannah and launched in November of 1946. The (New) New Globe was necessitated after the original New Globe Theatre burned down during World War II in 1943. War material shortages forced owner M.B. “Doc” Presley to use a converted church as the temporary replacement for his New Globe.
Once the war ended, the new theatre was built in 1946 becoming the longest running of the four Globe locations.
Fred Hartley opened the original Globe Theatre on April 20, 1914. The small town got a second theatre from Clarence E. Cook and V.O. Moore who announce the Tivoli Theatre in 1936 which opened in the Fall of 1937. The town struggled to keep both operations going so Presley purchased the Tivoli Theatre from Cook & Moore. A week later, the Tivoli became the New Globe Theatre ending the short run of the Tivoli. From there it was fire gutting the theatre, moving to a church, and on to this fourth and final Globe location.
Fred Hartley opened the original Globe Theatre on April 20, 1914. M.B. “Doc” Presley takes on the original Globe Theatre. The small town gets a second theatre from Clarence E. Cook and V.O. Moore who announce the Tivoli Theatre in 1936 which opens in the Fall of 1937. With dollars stretched thin with two theatres, in 1938, Presley purchased the Tivoli Theatre. A week later it’s called the New Globe Theatre ending the brief run of the Tivoli. Jerome Crowley of Kansas City is credited as the architect on the project. And it is also the end of the original Globe Theatre closing March 19, 1938.
In 1943 and during World War II, it burns down. War shortages didn’t allow for a new structure. This forced Presley to create the “Not-So-New” Globe Theatre in a converted church. With war shortages, the project replacing the New Globe Theatre was finally built in 1946 becoming the (New) New Globe Theatre and launching in November of 1946.
The town of Jeanerette’s first venue for films was under the canvas of its Airdome launching in 1908. A success, four years later, the Bijou Theatre is under construction to give the city a more permanent structure that would combine film and vaudeville.
The Bijou makes the transition to talkies with Western Electric sound and drops live shows. In 1932, the Bijou suffers a fire all but gutting the facility. Seymour Construction from Texas redesigns and rebuilds the theatre within the same walls with an expanded mezzanine to increase seat count. The theatre is renamed the Avalon Theatre. It receives a sleek new front that gives the exterior a brand new deco-era look.
As the Avalon, the theatre installs widescreen to show CinemaScope films in 1953. In 1963, under its final owners Walter Hebert and William Conrad, the theatre received its final major interior updating and renovation which it had until its closure. Stripped of its sign tower, the building was repurposed.
The Jewel Theatre was in business for less than a half year before the mayor came after its operators as a numbers front and charged with other illegal gaming activities. That’s old school Brooklyn!