Meralta Theatre

Whoops! I typed too soon! Now if you could only get information on the Meralto Theatre at 330 North Downey Avenue, a single screener in Downey…

Hey, William, the board ate your previous comments about the Meralta (actually in Culver City, not Los Angeles):
“William > Feb 18, 2003 2:48 PM EST
During the early 1930s, the Meralta Theatre was operated by Fox West Coast Theatres. The master lease was under a chain called Principal Theatres Corp.. Fox subleased theatres from the Principal chain. It was listed in Fox West Coast records as Fox West Coast Theatres, Principal Division. The Meralta has been demolished since the early 1990s. It was replaced by a new Culver City building. The Meralta theatre was a medium sized theatre; very plain in its style. During its last years it ran as a budget house, before being razed. Culver City had its first little theatre on Main Street, on the site of The Culver Hotel. The theatre occupied the main floor, with the city offices above, where the early trustees met. When Harry Culver built his Hotel Hunt (now the Culver Hotel) in 1924, the city moved down the street to Van Buren Place. The theatre moved into a new structure in the 9600 block of Culver Boulevard and was known as the Meralta. It was in the same block as the Western Union, Southern California Water Co., Pulone’s "Sweet Shop,” (where my mother met my father), the Edison Co., Holland’s Draperies, attorney R. H. Coombs, Mayo D. Wright Insurance and the Blaine-Walker Building which housed the early courthouse . Will Rogers acted as the Master of Ceremonies to open the new theatre while Thomas Ince provided the movie, “The Galloping Fish” for viewing. “Meralta” was derived from owners' Pearl Merrill and Laura Peralta’s surnames. They lived above the new plush theatre. It appears, from old directories, that Merrill also had a real estate office and later an insurance office, first on Irving Place, then on Culver next to the theatre. In a 1990 interview, retired principal Gladys Chandler, described Pearl Merrill, who served on the Board of Education, as “forceful, positive, with a big heart.” She told me that Merrill traveled all over the country at her own expense to interview teachers. During World War II, the Meralta Theatre caught fire. There was a wartime moratorium on building, so the city allowed the theatre to relocate temporarily to the second floor auditorium of the city hall (corner of Culver and Duquesne). The projection booth remained until the city hall was demolished to make way the new city hall, which opened in 1995. The rebuilt Meralta Theatre operated for many years. The Meralta Plaza was constructed on the site of the old Meralta Theatre as a redevelopment project in 1983."