Pomona Valley Auditorium
235 W. 3rd Street,
Pomona,
CA
91766
235 W. 3rd Street,
Pomona,
CA
91766
3 people
favorited this theater
Showing 26 - 29 of 29 comments
While I haven’t been in that neighborhood for at least two or three years, I was surprised to hear thatg the UA theater had burned down. The most forgettable movie, “Che” staring Omar Shariff and Jack Palance had its premiere there to a half-filled house. I was one of those present.
I’m surprised to hear how old that theatre was, considering how stark the interior was. Rather modern for a 20s movie palace.
I beleive this theatre is still there.
I drove by this block and when in the parking lot of the Washington Mutual building across the street, I noticed what looked like a stage house in the back of the building. From the front, you can tell that its not the original facade, but there is only a set of center doors to enter teh building.
I have looked at it on Google Earth, and you can see something that looks like a stage house and the roof that looks like it could angle where the seats are.
I have uploaded a pic of it here from Google Earth.:
View link
Opened by West Coast Theatres as the California Theatre with a seating capacity of 1,275. The style of the theatre was described as Egyptian (somewhat) on the exterior and Assyrian (somewhat) on the interior. Eventually it came under the Fox West Coast Theatres management and was known as the Fox California Theatre.
During later years of operation it was known as the United Artists Theatre and lastly went over to Spanish language films which were not a success. It lay empty for a few years until it burnt down in late 1977.
The start of construction on this theater was announced in an article in The Los Angeles Times on August 6th, 1922.
The grand opening was covered in another Times article, published on November 27th, 1923 under the headline “Playhouse elaborate in details.”