Was the Monroe an L shaped building? Perhaps the auditorium was built to the rear and inside the L and up against the Hotel Monroe with the stage and screen area behind the Court Street side of the building.
There are two sets of fire escapes visible on the Monroe. One is on Court and the other is on High. The fire escape on High is curious as it goes down at an angle as exits might leading from balconies. However, that fire escape goes to the top floor which would indicate they were for the hotel and not the theater. Could that indicate the Monroe was hemmed in at the rear thus requiring an exit plan for the upper floors to High and Court rather then to alley’s to the rear leading to Queen? If the Gates was inside the L, it’s fire plan must have led to alley’s to the North that eventually led to Queen St?
All I know about the configuration is the hotel entrance was once on Court Street. Decorative dogs once stood and defined the entrance. The dogs were moved to a home in Waterview. I’ve seen the dogs but both have since been removed. This is useless information. Good luck.
The lobby of the theater opened into a common area shared with at least two other large businesses creating a mini mall effect. At one point the two other businesses were a pharmacy and a steak house. The shopping center has been torn down with the exception of a few out parcels and replaced by a Harris Teeter store.
I was in the Colony a few times when the initial night club occupied the building in the mid to late 1980’s. The stage was intact and during breaks in the entertainment a movie size screen was sometimes lowered. Music videos were sometimes shown. I can recall seeing Point of No Return by Nu Shooz during one break with giant pairs of shoes racing across the screen.
I think this is the theater that was part of, or built into, the Monroe Hotel. I don’t know if the theater was part of the original construction. The Monroe was a very old building, probably built in the 19th century. I’ve heard the theater portion was destroyed in the hotel fire of 1957. The corner lot was rebuilt as The Famous and it appears the lots that contained the Gates was replaced by the building that now contains a Dollar General. I’ve seen an old photograph that shows a People’s Drug Store occupying a store front next to and to the west of the Gates theater entrance. For at least a portion of the 1980’s, the building that now contains Dollar General was a Revco Drug Store, the successor to many People’s locations in the Tidewater area. It could be coincidence that Revco ended up occupying the site because People’s had already closed most or all of their center city locations in Tidewater well before Revco took over their stores.
Thank you for the information. I was only in the building two times and only once in the auditorium. Because of little lighting, the cold, and the pidgeons flying about, my mind was not as fully concentrated on the details as I wish it had been.
The room above the box office the Fitzgerald’s used as their office was a large room with a very high ceiling. Plaster had fallen in many places and the framing around the large windows was in terrible condition. The Fitzgerald’s heated that room with a space heater which barely made a dent in the cold. They worked under layers of blankets.
If my memory is correct, the several levels of dressing rooms were located behind a door on the left side of the stage(west side). I saw the door and the stairs but I did not go beyond the foyer. I was told the west side lacked a fire escape which was another major problem that would have to be resolved. I assume the fire exits for the dressing rooms had been sealed and the ladders removed sometime after the theater was only showing movies.
Thanks. I clicked on the street view option, which I had not done, and saw the new building. That’s how it looks to me as well. The theater was about where the parking garage is now located. About where the fire escape is visible on the rear of the Tazewell Hotel(formerly the Thomas Nelson) is where the bridge that joined the two buildings was located. It was a multi story bridge that connected the upper floors of the Thomas Nelson to the hotel portion of the Colonial buiding. The basement opening to the left of the Tazewell Hotel entrance was once the street entrance to a barber shop(circa mid 1950’s). The barber shop was also accessible by another entrance from inside the hotel. Around the corner on Granby where Snapper’s is located was the location of the restaurant that serviced the Thomas Nelson. It was accessible from either the Granby entrance or glass doors inside the hotel and near the lobby. As the hotel declined the entrance off the lobby was kep’t closed and locked although never walled over to my knowledge.
Do you know if the Colonial had boxes? I seem to rememer one or two boxes on the east side. Is my memory correct or am I confused?
A directory available on the internet from 1917 list the address of the Colonial as 116 West Tazewell St. The same directory list the address of the Hotel Princess as 118 West Tazewell St. The building was never at the corner but stood directly at the rear of the Thomas Nelson about midway between Granby and Boush. From at least the early 1970’s the corner lots were vacant and occupied by a parking lot. I don’t know what’s at the corner now.
Although I have done much shopping at Princess Anne Plaza and can recall many stores, I have no memory of the theater although I do remember the nearby Princess Theater. There was a small mini mall somewhere on the east side and I suspect the theater may have been there. That section has been redevolped as a Harris Teeter.
Little of the original shopping center remains. The west side, formerly a Rice’s, has been demolished and redeveloped. The east side which formerly contained a Colonial Store, has been demolished and is now Harris Teeter. About two thirds of the south side, including a Rose’s department store, has been demolished and redevolped.
The theater’s were on the north side of the mall. Pembroke Mall has made many changes to the north side over the year’s. In addition to the detached theater building, an open air mall that connected to the main building was once there. An outside strip section with store openings near the theater was also there. Eventually this area was redeveloped as a Hess department store and the open air portion was modified and enclosed. The theater moved to the newly enclosed area and the original building was demolished. Since then the entire north section has been redeveloped as a Target. Because of the many modifications on the north side, the original theater site is difficult to locate.
According to the newspaper, as well as my parents memory, the Roland was used by the Little Theatre of Virginia Beach sometime in the 1950’s or 1960’s. A cousin had an efficiency(one room) apartment on the second floor when her husband was performing at the ballrooms and nightclubs at Virginia Beach. His name was Jack Ryan or John Joseph Ryan, Jr. and he was with the Dorsey brothers.
In my memory the theater was closed and not noticeable. The entrance at the end of the court or alley had become a single windowless door.
The theater was at Hilltop Square, the shopping center that currently has a Kmart(formerly Grant’s). The building was across from Kmart/Grant’s. It still stands and is now All Pet.
It was ABC before Plitt. A feature I thought was unique were curtains over the screens that were opened and closed electronically when a movie was starting or ending.
That’s how I recall the theater through the 1970’s. The more popular films seemed to be at the Beach and the not as popular at the Bayne. I saw many movies at the Beach. I remember seeing The Empire Strikes Back, the Goodbye Girl, as well as revivals of The Sound of Music and Pinocchio at The Beach. The parking on 25th Street could also be easier which I’m sure made the theater more popular.
The opening to the left of the large window with the small glass panes(Atlantic Ave side) was the access to the office portion of the building. At one point my parents dentist was there. The large opening on the 25th Street side under the three side by side windows is where patrons exited following a movie. The three windows were for the lounge. The theater had a stage but I suspect it was for community productions or corporate events. I was never in the theater to see the stage used for anything other then to house the screen.
I appologize for the wording of my previous post. The building was modern for it’s time. However, by the time of my visit, the utilities were damaged and not useable, including the electrical system. The electrical system was one of countless obstacles preventing the reopening. I was told the building even containted an early cooling system and that some of the apparatus was still in the building. I did not see the remaining cooling equipment.
My partial tour of the theater was by accident. I was walking on Tazewell and noticed the lights, Christmas decorations, and the notice about the play. I cannot recall the name of the play and I did not know and had never heard of the Fitzgerald’s. There was a sign in the lobby welcoming visitors. Part of the sign read something to the extent “Merry Christmas, come inside, make yourself at home.” I entered the lobby, was approached by Mr. Fitzgerald, and was promptly given a partial tour. There was a door on one side of the stage that I was told led to several levels of dressing rooms. According to Mr. Fitzgerald, theater equipment was still in storeage. As the previous post pointed out, there was junk throughout the theater spanning the decades of operation. At the time of my visit the Fitzgerald’s were in the process of collecting and sorting the material they had found. They had large file folders of paperwork collected from here and there they hoped would aid in writing a history.
The Hotel Princess was located above the second floor, not the third. The former hotel entrance is visible in the above photo and is the opening at the far left. In the photo the bottom floor has had some slight cosmetic renovations. Although the entrance is still accessible, the masonry outling the entrance has been covered over by the update. Eventually the marquis was removed and the first level was completely covered and sealed with the exception of one of the theater lobby doors.
There were two balcony’s but by the time of my visit both had weakened and were considered unsafe for use. The initial renovation that never took place called for repair of the lower level only. After the initial repairs the Fitzgerald’s hoped to open with a play written by Mrs. Fitzgerald and advertisements promoting the play were displayed in the box office window. Since it was the holiday season, the lobby and windows were decorated with Christmas decorations.
I disagree with some of the above information. The entrance for the African Americans was actually built as the street access for the Hotel Princess. The Hotel Princess was located above the third floor of the front one quarter of the building facing Tazewell Street. Eventually the Hotel Princess became an annex for the neighboring Thomas Nelson Hotel by building a bridge across the alley. After the two buildings were joined and the theater began showing films is probably when the former hotel entrance was converted for use by black patrons of the theater. The entrance in question was located at the extreme west end of the building facing Tazewell Street. The entrance was outlined with decorative masonry which distinguished it from the theater entrances. As a side note, the Hotel Princess sign, painted in white at the top of the west side above the fire escapes on the brick, continued to be faintly visible until the building was demolished.
I visited the theater during Christmas, 1976. At that time the theater was leased by Mr. & Mrs. Edward Fitzgerald and had been renamed the Corinthian Theatre. The Fitzgerald’s hoped to restore and open the theater. In the meantime they rented the building to theater groups who used the stage area for rehearsals even though the building lacked heat and had little electricity. Power was provided by a maze of extension cords which ran to the stage, lobby, and the second floor room above the ticket booth and perhaps other areas of the building. The second floor room was used as an “office” and reception area for visitors of the Fitzgerald’s. The theater was indeed in bad shape but seemed mostly intact. Pidgeons had invaded the building through a broken window at the top of the stage area on the north east side. This window functioned as a fire escape and had a ladder running to the street/alley. There were signs of much water damage, including a collapsed mural above the stage as well as crumbling plaster throughout the building. The building was demolished during Jan. and Feb., 1997. I witnessed some of the demolition and there are at least two newspaper articles availble at the Virginian-Pilot to verify when the building was demolished.
My father remembers Lowe’s having an organ(circa 1930’s). He walked to the theater from East Ghent.
Was the Monroe an L shaped building? Perhaps the auditorium was built to the rear and inside the L and up against the Hotel Monroe with the stage and screen area behind the Court Street side of the building.
There are two sets of fire escapes visible on the Monroe. One is on Court and the other is on High. The fire escape on High is curious as it goes down at an angle as exits might leading from balconies. However, that fire escape goes to the top floor which would indicate they were for the hotel and not the theater. Could that indicate the Monroe was hemmed in at the rear thus requiring an exit plan for the upper floors to High and Court rather then to alley’s to the rear leading to Queen? If the Gates was inside the L, it’s fire plan must have led to alley’s to the North that eventually led to Queen St?
All I know about the configuration is the hotel entrance was once on Court Street. Decorative dogs once stood and defined the entrance. The dogs were moved to a home in Waterview. I’ve seen the dogs but both have since been removed. This is useless information. Good luck.
I knew the Hotel Monroe was old but I would never have guessed it dated to 1855.
This theater was a church in the 1980’s(Christdelphian?). The marquee remained intact although covered over by church signs.
The lobby of the theater opened into a common area shared with at least two other large businesses creating a mini mall effect. At one point the two other businesses were a pharmacy and a steak house. The shopping center has been torn down with the exception of a few out parcels and replaced by a Harris Teeter store.
I was in the Colony a few times when the initial night club occupied the building in the mid to late 1980’s. The stage was intact and during breaks in the entertainment a movie size screen was sometimes lowered. Music videos were sometimes shown. I can recall seeing Point of No Return by Nu Shooz during one break with giant pairs of shoes racing across the screen.
I think this is the theater that was part of, or built into, the Monroe Hotel. I don’t know if the theater was part of the original construction. The Monroe was a very old building, probably built in the 19th century. I’ve heard the theater portion was destroyed in the hotel fire of 1957. The corner lot was rebuilt as The Famous and it appears the lots that contained the Gates was replaced by the building that now contains a Dollar General. I’ve seen an old photograph that shows a People’s Drug Store occupying a store front next to and to the west of the Gates theater entrance. For at least a portion of the 1980’s, the building that now contains Dollar General was a Revco Drug Store, the successor to many People’s locations in the Tidewater area. It could be coincidence that Revco ended up occupying the site because People’s had already closed most or all of their center city locations in Tidewater well before Revco took over their stores.
Thank you for the information. I was only in the building two times and only once in the auditorium. Because of little lighting, the cold, and the pidgeons flying about, my mind was not as fully concentrated on the details as I wish it had been.
The room above the box office the Fitzgerald’s used as their office was a large room with a very high ceiling. Plaster had fallen in many places and the framing around the large windows was in terrible condition. The Fitzgerald’s heated that room with a space heater which barely made a dent in the cold. They worked under layers of blankets.
If my memory is correct, the several levels of dressing rooms were located behind a door on the left side of the stage(west side). I saw the door and the stairs but I did not go beyond the foyer. I was told the west side lacked a fire escape which was another major problem that would have to be resolved. I assume the fire exits for the dressing rooms had been sealed and the ladders removed sometime after the theater was only showing movies.
Thanks. I clicked on the street view option, which I had not done, and saw the new building. That’s how it looks to me as well. The theater was about where the parking garage is now located. About where the fire escape is visible on the rear of the Tazewell Hotel(formerly the Thomas Nelson) is where the bridge that joined the two buildings was located. It was a multi story bridge that connected the upper floors of the Thomas Nelson to the hotel portion of the Colonial buiding. The basement opening to the left of the Tazewell Hotel entrance was once the street entrance to a barber shop(circa mid 1950’s). The barber shop was also accessible by another entrance from inside the hotel. Around the corner on Granby where Snapper’s is located was the location of the restaurant that serviced the Thomas Nelson. It was accessible from either the Granby entrance or glass doors inside the hotel and near the lobby. As the hotel declined the entrance off the lobby was kep’t closed and locked although never walled over to my knowledge.
Do you know if the Colonial had boxes? I seem to rememer one or two boxes on the east side. Is my memory correct or am I confused?
A directory available on the internet from 1917 list the address of the Colonial as 116 West Tazewell St. The same directory list the address of the Hotel Princess as 118 West Tazewell St. The building was never at the corner but stood directly at the rear of the Thomas Nelson about midway between Granby and Boush. From at least the early 1970’s the corner lots were vacant and occupied by a parking lot. I don’t know what’s at the corner now.
Although I have done much shopping at Princess Anne Plaza and can recall many stores, I have no memory of the theater although I do remember the nearby Princess Theater. There was a small mini mall somewhere on the east side and I suspect the theater may have been there. That section has been redevolped as a Harris Teeter.
Little of the original shopping center remains. The west side, formerly a Rice’s, has been demolished and redeveloped. The east side which formerly contained a Colonial Store, has been demolished and is now Harris Teeter. About two thirds of the south side, including a Rose’s department store, has been demolished and redevolped.
The theater’s were on the north side of the mall. Pembroke Mall has made many changes to the north side over the year’s. In addition to the detached theater building, an open air mall that connected to the main building was once there. An outside strip section with store openings near the theater was also there. Eventually this area was redeveloped as a Hess department store and the open air portion was modified and enclosed. The theater moved to the newly enclosed area and the original building was demolished. Since then the entire north section has been redeveloped as a Target. Because of the many modifications on the north side, the original theater site is difficult to locate.
According to the newspaper, as well as my parents memory, the Roland was used by the Little Theatre of Virginia Beach sometime in the 1950’s or 1960’s. A cousin had an efficiency(one room) apartment on the second floor when her husband was performing at the ballrooms and nightclubs at Virginia Beach. His name was Jack Ryan or John Joseph Ryan, Jr. and he was with the Dorsey brothers.
In my memory the theater was closed and not noticeable. The entrance at the end of the court or alley had become a single windowless door.
The theater was at Hilltop Square, the shopping center that currently has a Kmart(formerly Grant’s). The building was across from Kmart/Grant’s. It still stands and is now All Pet.
It was ABC before Plitt. A feature I thought was unique were curtains over the screens that were opened and closed electronically when a movie was starting or ending.
That’s how I recall the theater through the 1970’s. The more popular films seemed to be at the Beach and the not as popular at the Bayne. I saw many movies at the Beach. I remember seeing The Empire Strikes Back, the Goodbye Girl, as well as revivals of The Sound of Music and Pinocchio at The Beach. The parking on 25th Street could also be easier which I’m sure made the theater more popular.
The opening to the left of the large window with the small glass panes(Atlantic Ave side) was the access to the office portion of the building. At one point my parents dentist was there. The large opening on the 25th Street side under the three side by side windows is where patrons exited following a movie. The three windows were for the lounge. The theater had a stage but I suspect it was for community productions or corporate events. I was never in the theater to see the stage used for anything other then to house the screen.
I appologize for the wording of my previous post. The building was modern for it’s time. However, by the time of my visit, the utilities were damaged and not useable, including the electrical system. The electrical system was one of countless obstacles preventing the reopening. I was told the building even containted an early cooling system and that some of the apparatus was still in the building. I did not see the remaining cooling equipment.
My partial tour of the theater was by accident. I was walking on Tazewell and noticed the lights, Christmas decorations, and the notice about the play. I cannot recall the name of the play and I did not know and had never heard of the Fitzgerald’s. There was a sign in the lobby welcoming visitors. Part of the sign read something to the extent “Merry Christmas, come inside, make yourself at home.” I entered the lobby, was approached by Mr. Fitzgerald, and was promptly given a partial tour. There was a door on one side of the stage that I was told led to several levels of dressing rooms. According to Mr. Fitzgerald, theater equipment was still in storeage. As the previous post pointed out, there was junk throughout the theater spanning the decades of operation. At the time of my visit the Fitzgerald’s were in the process of collecting and sorting the material they had found. They had large file folders of paperwork collected from here and there they hoped would aid in writing a history.
Correction and further information
The Hotel Princess was located above the second floor, not the third. The former hotel entrance is visible in the above photo and is the opening at the far left. In the photo the bottom floor has had some slight cosmetic renovations. Although the entrance is still accessible, the masonry outling the entrance has been covered over by the update. Eventually the marquis was removed and the first level was completely covered and sealed with the exception of one of the theater lobby doors.
There were two balcony’s but by the time of my visit both had weakened and were considered unsafe for use. The initial renovation that never took place called for repair of the lower level only. After the initial repairs the Fitzgerald’s hoped to open with a play written by Mrs. Fitzgerald and advertisements promoting the play were displayed in the box office window. Since it was the holiday season, the lobby and windows were decorated with Christmas decorations.
I disagree with some of the above information. The entrance for the African Americans was actually built as the street access for the Hotel Princess. The Hotel Princess was located above the third floor of the front one quarter of the building facing Tazewell Street. Eventually the Hotel Princess became an annex for the neighboring Thomas Nelson Hotel by building a bridge across the alley. After the two buildings were joined and the theater began showing films is probably when the former hotel entrance was converted for use by black patrons of the theater. The entrance in question was located at the extreme west end of the building facing Tazewell Street. The entrance was outlined with decorative masonry which distinguished it from the theater entrances. As a side note, the Hotel Princess sign, painted in white at the top of the west side above the fire escapes on the brick, continued to be faintly visible until the building was demolished.
I visited the theater during Christmas, 1976. At that time the theater was leased by Mr. & Mrs. Edward Fitzgerald and had been renamed the Corinthian Theatre. The Fitzgerald’s hoped to restore and open the theater. In the meantime they rented the building to theater groups who used the stage area for rehearsals even though the building lacked heat and had little electricity. Power was provided by a maze of extension cords which ran to the stage, lobby, and the second floor room above the ticket booth and perhaps other areas of the building. The second floor room was used as an “office” and reception area for visitors of the Fitzgerald’s. The theater was indeed in bad shape but seemed mostly intact. Pidgeons had invaded the building through a broken window at the top of the stage area on the north east side. This window functioned as a fire escape and had a ladder running to the street/alley. There were signs of much water damage, including a collapsed mural above the stage as well as crumbling plaster throughout the building. The building was demolished during Jan. and Feb., 1997. I witnessed some of the demolition and there are at least two newspaper articles availble at the Virginian-Pilot to verify when the building was demolished.