Embassy Theatre
1125 Market Street,
San Francisco,
CA
94103
1125 Market Street,
San Francisco,
CA
94103
7 people
favorited this theater
Showing 26 - 35 of 35 comments
Here is an early photo of the America, from the SF Library. After the Iroquois Theater fire of 1903 in Chicago, which resulted in 602 deaths, many buildings went out of their way to advertise that they were fireproof and “safe”.
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i just had to make another comment. I loved the way, during the Ten Win Game, Dan McClean would say “if you’d like a big bag of popcorn absolutely free, just head to the candy counter right now, where it is all sacked up, nice and hot with lots of creamy butter on top.”
I have very fond memories of the Embassy. In 1975, I won the 4th & 10th double win spin, Royal Blue #25. I won $520.00, walked on the stage, and Dan McClean wrote out the check! Yes, I remember you Mary! Dan would always call out the number and you would verify from the box office that the ticket was in the house, it was wonderful. For a extra 50 cents, you were able to sit in the loge, which had beautiful red upholstered seats, you just sank in the cushions. Beautiful murals of vikings on ships on the walls. Before it closed, the loge entrance, which was a ramp and not stairs, was closed off with a iron gate. It was popular with the homeless and the restrooms were filthy. One time during the movie, everyone was coughing for some wierd reason, and a woman yelled out “WHAT IS THIS A F****** COUGHING CONTEST?” What was interesting was that the ramp had beautiful gold guilded iron on the sides, and you could look down to the floor below.
If anyone remembers the blonde lady who was the main cashier from the fifties through the eighties, thats my mom, Mary Olivares. She later worked at the York, the Strand and finally the Elmwood in Berkeley before retiring last year.
I had recalled the unique theatre from childhood in later post WWII 40’s, when family would go on greyhound from Marin City (let us take the bus A through the tunnel, not B) to SF, get off at the bus station, go for hotbeef sandwich with mashed potatoes? milkshake to a small restaurant where waitress knew us,then to movie (let it be balcony seats)expriencing my dad having one of the spinning wheel prizes, and, I believe once hearing a recording western star singing star singing a popular song during intermission. It was also around same years we got tickets to a popular western act (Lash LaRue, Sons of Pioneers, Roy Rogers etc)in a theatre that in my memory resembled the huge procenium of Embassy—Wasn’t a plosh neighborhood then, but sad it became drug pushers haven in later part of 80/90s
The Embassy was a unique movie going experience. The Ten-O-Win wheel was rolled out at intermission and a tuxedoed Dan McClean would call out the numbers and colors that the two arrows (each spun in a different direction) landed on. If you had the lucky ticket you would call out and an usher or usherette would come running to you hollering out “Balcony” (if the winner was seated in the balcony) “Pay $5”, or whatever the prize amount was, then peal off the ones to you. Does this sound like the 1950’s? This was still going on well into the 1980’s. By then it was not uncommon to see streetpeople sleeping it off in the front side orchestra where their snoring would not bother most of the audience. There was usually a double bill and the fare tended towards Charles Bronson pix, Peckinpaw, westerns, action films etc and occasionally something like “Nashville”. The feeling there was that it was a family operation – I remember seeing the same employees for over 15 years in the 70’s and 80’s. From the etched glass in the tunnels upstairs leading to the balcony, to the chain that dragged across the stage floor every time the curtains opened and closed (it had come loose from the left curtain’s bottom hem – I guess to weigh it down), to the free popcorn they gave away on Christmas eve, to the peeling paint over the proscenium and that colorful marquee the Embassy was unique on Market St.
Mike Thomas operated this theater from 1977 until its end. During this time, Thomas also owned the Strand (next door), as well as The Warfield, and the Crest (renamed the Egyptian).
There was a major fire in 1994 that ruined any chances that the Embassy could be saved.
Mr. Tillmany is correct, however, in that the Embassy CLOSED due to the quake. The fire was said to have been caused by homeless folks living in the shuttered theatre.
The architects of the theatre were Reid Bros.
Although most of the interior was remodeled in deco style, the original proscenium arch was always left alone, and was clearly visible at demolition time, with the sockets for a row of lightbulbs outlining the entire thing clearly visible.
The Embassy was demolished due to structural damage caused by a fire in the early 1990s, not due to the 1989 earthquake.