I hate to see any theatre torn down, and that includes the VENETIAN, even though I have never been inside it. You ask if it should be saved, and I must answer: For What Purpose? You are aware of the deteriorating neighborhood and the fact that even if cinema were very much desired thereabouts, would it be safe to go there, at least for White people? If safety were not an issue, then the matter becomes How to Program the Space? What does one put on the stage that is so good that people will travel on public transportation (there is no real parking nearby) for miles to fill its thousand plus seats often enough to support it? Even if one could find an ‘angel’ who would not mind sinking a million dollars into rehabilitation and operation, what would he do with it? Some people toss around vague statements such as it becoming a ‘community center’ as if wishful thinking will cause some charity to take it on and somehow be able to restore it to some level of service and still have funds left over to help the ‘community.’ That was tried by a group of African women who bought the long lost EGYPTIAN on a land lease, and went bankrupt trying to pay for the enormous costs of running a huge, deteriorating building. At the time of its demolition, there were 30 outstanding building inspection orders, and when the owner simply stopped paying taxes, it was seized and eventually demolished for public safety. Really, it appears to be the same situation for the VENETIAN. It is now dangerous structurally, and any visitor there would have to proceed with the utmost caution, for many reasons.
Is there another theatre that warrants ‘saving’? Definitely, the prime one is the former WARNER, now called the GRAND downtown on Wis. Ave. at 2nd St. I was on a tour of it in November and it is being well heated and is primed for reuse, if a farsighted entrepreneur can be found. I am in touch with the owner of the land under the building, and he is anxious to see it reopen to some good use. Marcus Theatres has a lease till 2015, and is responsible to keep up the building to some extent till then, but after that, it is anyone’s guess. Several local performing groups have looked over the theatre, but it is mostly too large for them, The Symphony caused Marcus to remove the dividing floor, so now one can see its seats in a still ornate and reclaimable auditorium, which the Symphony cannot now afford to buy and keep. It awaits the thousands of dollars it will take to reclaim it. Click on the word MILWAUKEE at the top and you will be taken to a list of our theatres, and there will be the WARNER/GRAND; click on it for more, or click on my name in blue below and you will be taken to my Profile page where you click on Contact Information and you will see how to approach me directly if you have ideas.
The village of Ferndale California was the site of the mock-up of the facade of the title cinema for the film THE MAJESTIC. They have a web site showing a sequence of photos of the construction of the facade on a parking lot there: www.victorianferndale.org/chamber/parklot.htm
The sequence of photos displays in the same spot as the page loads upon your screen, so be patient for all of them to load.
A complete site for the movie on the Internet Movie Data Base is found here. The actual model for the MAJESTIC was no one theatre, but an amalgam of several facades of the past with the plot line and interior of the lobby of the BIJOU in the 1951 film THE SMALLEST SHOW ON EARTH. It too was a series of set pieces so well strung together that one believes that he is in the same place. In fact, when the MAJESTIC was being planned, the Director wrote to the Guestbook of the Theatre Historical Soc. of America, and I was among those who responded to his inquiry for examples of historic movie palaces to draw his inspiration from and to direct his art department to. I replied with various examples, and inquired if he knew of the British film of 1951 I mention above, and he replied that he was amazed that anyone remembered the little-known film. It turned out that his design for the lobby of the MAJESTIC was based on that film, though the lobby of the 19th century BIJOU was really out of date with any movie palace, though I doubt he realized or cared about that. So, the MAJESTIC was also a series of sets and no such actual theatre existed for the film of 2001.
One of the best sites for information on the operation of cinemas/theatres is www.BigScreenBiz.com where the FORUMS are some of the best around. It will take some reading on your part to cruise through the Archived comments there, but it is well worth it. You will find that the majority of the pros there will discourage any attempt at single screen operation for a cinema in today’s economics of exhibition. Your theatre may be a special situation, and they do sell books on their front page to help in the business plan, but you should realize that operating a single screen today is seldom profitable. If you have other attractions in view, you may have a viable plan, assuming that you have deep pockets to begin with and little in the way of steep overhead costs. Best Wishes on the venture, and there are several firms that provide professional management/fund raising talent for a fee, such as: http://www.rjha.net/mainpage.htm
and http://www.grandevenues.com/
You might also find helpful my own little summary at: http://www.cinematour.com/article.php?id=3
Today, there is very little or nothing in the way of grants to help in such an enterprise as compared to the 1980s, for example, but it might be possible to get a loan from the Small Business Administration of the federal Dept. of Commerce. They will be looking for a good, viable business plan from you. There are books and computer programs designed to help you make up such a plan, but more than in most cases, here you will need excellent demographic analysis and statistics, as well as someone experienced in running a theatre, since the business is so different from others service industries; it is largely dependent upon someone else’s product over which you have no control. This is one of the reasons that most single screen theatres have closed. Still, Best Wishes in any case; grand old theatres are treasures that should not be lost to us!
One of the best sites for information on the operation of cinemas/theatres is www.BigScreenBiz.com where the FORUMS are some of the best around. It will take some reading on your part to cruise through the Archived comments there, but it is well worth it. You will find that the majority of the pros there will discourage any attempt at single screen operation for a cinema in today’s economics of exhibition. The CREST may be a special situation, and they do sell books on their front page to help in the business plan, but you should realize that operating a single screen today is seldom profitable. If you have other attractions in view, you may have a viable plan, assuming that you have deep pockets to begin with and little in the way of steep overhead costs. Best Wishes on the venture, and there are several firms that provide professional management/fund raising talent for a fee, such as: http://www.rjha.net/mainpage.htm
and http://www.grandevenues.com/
You might also find helpful my own little summary at: http://www.cinematour.com/article.php?id=3
Of course these theatres shouldn’t be allowed to be demolished or to deteriorate to that state, but as always it is a cold, hard fact of money, or the lack of it. Theatres are wonderful things, but there is nothing practical about them; they cost and cost. If you and others on this site do not have the funds personally to invest in them through some sort of a foundation set legally to preserve them, consider approaching the owner to get them to hire one of the specialists in theatre/cinema renovation and rehabilitation. The League of Historic American Theatres ( www.LHAT.org ) is set up to help rescue such treasures, and here are just two of the national firms that specialize in bringing such palaces back to life:
The Theatre Historical Soc. of America is just outside of Chicago in Elmhurst ( www.HistoricTheatres.org ) and may be willing to join in consultation with the owners, if a responsible would-be owner/operator steps forward. There are several historic preservation groups in the Chicago area; surely one of them could spearhead this effort if a committee of concerned citizens formed a ‘Save-the-Patio’ group. I have left some of my own recommendations at: http://www.cinematour.com/article.php?id=3
“Life’s too short” is right; it is too short for the locals to simply sit back and lament the loss of what is their own, as though such works of art were disposable. Let us hope a Chicagolander is reading this, as well as the local press.
It is sad if today’s remodeling of the soffit of the marquee is not being done to the standards with which it was built, but one can understand the replacement of the incandescents with fluorescent lamps, even though they are ‘colder’ in appearance than the “fire-like' bulbs. Fluorescents are much cheaper in the long run, and that is how the accountants of the management are responsible to look at it. The Hall is not owned by a charity, but by businessmen who intend to make a profit, else they will abandon the whole thing, and then once again, the Hall will be in danger of demolition! The odd light bulb sockets Benjamin does see now, may well be the remains of the 1950s trend of adding Goose Neck lamp holders to project on occasional banners under the marquee or even one sheets or standees. These did the spotlight job cheaply, but they also rusted out over the years and now many a marquee bears scars of where they once were, often with eye screws poking out of the metal with remnants of the hanging wire that once went down to the PAR-type bulb that was in the gooseneck lamp holder to keep it in the curved position. Just a little speculation on my part, but I have a hunch that it is true.
Greg Filardo got the gaines out years ago. Now the legal status of the rapidly deteriorating place is open to question. Reportely, the place is in tax arrears, so the city could take posetion of the place, so just whom to contact is open to question, since the place obviously abandoned. Entering it without the legal owners' obvious assistance, leaves one opne to arrest and prosecution, even he does manage to enter and exit in that neighborhood without injury. Fred Hermes of Hermes Insurance in Racine supposedly led a flashlight tour in September, but you would have to ask him about that.
Sorry about the mistake of mine in labeling Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart as Polish; he was, of course, German. I was thinking of the CHOPIN cinema also on the south side, and possibly I will write something about this little place which is now a plumbing store on S. 13th St.
Thank you Keith, glad I could be of help, but you don’t tell us what your connection or interest in the VENETIAN is, and what you hope to do with the information. By the way, the EXHIBITORS HERALD article may very well be in volumes at THSA since it was their former editor, John “Andrew Corsini” Fowler, who sent it to me. Best Wishes. Jim
The REGENT was a photoplay parlor that had a larger budget than was usual to construct a substantial building of brick and steel one story high. In 1915 the owners engaged Milwaukee architect Arthur Swager to construct a “moving picture show” of 878 seats. While no photos remain of this era, it appears from microfilmed blue prints that the high ceiling of the auditorium had five pilaster-and-box-beam bays with the beams having a covering of heavily molded plaster which formed handsome coffers.
When sound films came in 1927, and the elaborate movie palaces were opening (including the VENETIAN only a few blocks away), the Fred Seegert family (owners since 1920) saw the demise of photoplay parlors, and revised the plan of this property. Ironically, the Seegerts engaged Dick & Bauer, prominent theatre architects in Milwaukee, to remodel this theatre into the “Regent Recreation Building,” thereby eliminating the theatre. In 1929 a permit was issued to make $15,000 of alterations. It became larger by buying the lot adjoining the Regent to the east and by adding a second story. The REGENT THEATRE had a recessed arch front which framed two island box offices which flanked the entry doors, but the new construction eliminated everything but the foundation and the auditorium ceiling.
The front is still seen today with four stores in addition to a sixteen-lane bowling alley and a billiards hall above it. The theatre was gone, but the Seegert family continued as owners until years later when the building was unprofitable, vandalized and abandoned. It is now the property of the Department of City Development which hopes to turn the idle building into a youth center. The word ‘Regent’ means who rules in the place of a sovereign, and we can only hope that good times will again rule here rather than the street gangs of today.
The word ‘peerless’ means ‘without equal’ but oftentimes it is really ballyhoo and hyperbole to mean ‘the very best!’ At only some 400 seats, Milwaukee’s PEERLESS once on Center St. may have had something unique, but it certainly had many peers of similar construction in its era! It was razed many years ago.
The MOZART was not really any compliment to the famous composer of that name (though he was Polish and this was then a solidly Polish neighborhood), but its 30x120-foot brick building did seat 430 in some form of musical amusement in the early days of the silent films. When local architect Peter Christiansen was asked to design this modest cinema, he at least did put in mirrors and draperies of unknown design to help lift it above the nickelodeons which had preceded it. This did not please the building inspectors, for in their Inspection of 1912, they ordered them removed as possible hazards to the sudden egress of the audience in an emergency. This was standard policy at the time when memories of such as the Iroquois Theatre tragedy in Chicago were fresh in the minds of the safety minded, not that mirrors or draperies really figured in that catastrophe. The three aisles did lead to the seven by twenty foot stage platform, but it is not know if it had a proscenium wall, something often omitted in these early days when the screen was often simply adhered to the back wall. There was no air cooling in this modest structure, so this plus the flight to the suburbs after the second World War, caused the demise of this and many others of its ilk in those days of the dawn of Television.
The listing for the MOJUVATE theatre was originally found in a Polish language newspaper long defunct, so maybe it is a Polish term, but then perhaps it was simply a play on the word ‘motivate.’ In any case, virtually nothing is known about this 450-seater that was at some point called the WHITE HOUSE. It has been demolished.
The name MIRAMAR is Spanish for ‘View of the sea’ and since there is no sea within view of the MIRAMAR theatre (it faces away from Lake Michigan, about ten blocks east of it) one can only speculate if the original owner had been to the communities named such in Florida or California, or the original in Italy. Nonetheless, the history given on the theatre’s current we site may vanish, so I take the liberty of reproducing it here:
“ PROVENANCE
The Miramar Theatre was built in 1913 as the Miramar movie house. Its name was eventually changed to the Oakland Theatre, and motion pictures continued to be shown through the late forties. In July of 1954, Drama Incorporated, under the chairmanship of Fred Miller, head of the Miller Brewing Company, entered into an agreement to rent the Oakland Theatre for what would eventually become The Milwaukee Repertory Theater. On September 16th 1954, The Milwaukee Journal announced that the name selected through a "name-the-theatre” contest was the “Milwaukee City Circle”. The new name however was never used. Tragically, Fred Miller was killed in a small plane crash in December of that year, and the board of directors for Drama Inc. voted to name the theatre The Frederick C. Miller Memorial Theatre. The Fred Miller Theatre opened its doors January 25th, 1955.
The Fred Miller Theatre began operation under what is known as the star system. Throughout the fifties, show business luminaries such as Geraldine Brooks, Edward Everett Horton, Sylvia Sidney, Eva LeGallienne, John Kerr, Gloria Grahame, Geraldine Page, Uta Hagen, John Ireland, Fay Bainter, Monique Van Vooren and many others trod the Oakland Avenue boards. In 1969, after 138 productions, The Milwaukee Repertory Theater moved to the Todd Wehr Theater in the new Performing Arts Center downtown.
Throughout the better portion of the 1970’s the theatre was the J. Pellman Theatre, a star vehicle venue for musicals and other productions featuring stars such as Mickey Rooney, Rita Moreno, John Astin, Patty Duke, Bernadette Peters, Robet Horton, and Guy Madison, as well as the site for boxing and wrestling matches!
In the late 1970’s, until 1981, the theatre became the Metropole Nightclub, featuring numerous rock acts. The Eastbrook Church purchased the building in 1983, only two days away from its scheduled demolition, and considerably repaired and remodeled what had become exceedingly run-down. In 1995, the congregation of Eastbrook Church had grown to such an extent that it became necessary to move to larger quarters. Even though attempts were made to sell the property to some smaller religious organizations, for the most part, the theatre stood empty for three years.
In October of 1998,William Stace of Walls Have Ears Studios, and his wife Pamela Brown Stace of Amethyst Productions purchased the building with the intent of housing both the new Walls Have Ears recording Studio, as well as the theatre, which would become not only the home of Amethyst Productions, but a rental venue for the performing arts."
“Electric Theatre” was the early British term to denote film theatres without stage shows, which later came to be called cinemas. Little is known of the two that Trinz built in Milwaukee in the same year, 1907, but both were designed by the same architect: Nicholas Dornbach. This was the slightly larger of the two at 300 seats, and had these other names throughout its life: OLYMPIA, IDEAL, and STAR. The TRINZ ELECTRIC THEATRE on Mitchell Street became a fabric store; this one was demolished.
Almost nothing is known of this 580-seat theatre designed by Charles Smith in 1911, the year that the fabulous BUTTERFLY opened downtown and reflected the beginning of the Photoplay Parlor era of exhibition, but it is doubtful that this neighborhood house had anything as remotely ornate. Since no listing for a theatre pipe organ was found, it is likely that it, like many of its cogeners, had only a player piano to accompany its originally silent films.
Marcus Theatres bought the old TELENEWS cinema and drastically remodeled it into a theatre with a more elegant name: the ESQUIRE. New art moderne elements constituted the decor including a 2-story facade of plain white limestone tiles surmounted along the parapet by a single line of light bulbs in a shallow arc from one side pilaster to the same on the other side. The marquee was a 3-foot-high band of light bulbs that swung outward from one side of the facade to the other, having only the name outlined in contrasting color bulbs. Mounted above this canopy was a double sided attraction board bordered in light bulbs but backed in fluorescents. This was one of the first of local Poblocki Sign company’s new “Inside Service” marquees, where a door was on the second floor level and opened directly from the facade into the attraction boards so that they could be changed without the old fashioned placing of a ladder upon the sidewalk below. It was more efficient and a lot more healthy in Wisconsin’s sometimes difficult climate. Such “Inside Service” marquees were subsequently built across the Mid-West.
The auditorium of the 470-seat cinema by Ralph Phillips was not at all noteworthy, having no balcony or stagehouse and almost nothing in the way of ornamentation, but there was a memorable feature in the basement below the lobby that served as the lounge for the restrooms: a street scene from Paris, complete with wire tables and chairs, concession stands made up to resemble cafes with awnings, and a mock sky ceiling above with a cobblestone floor below. It apparently didn’t work out as intended, since the stands were closed soon, and all refreshments had to be bought at a smaller stand in the lobby above.
The ESQUIRE was going strong when it was announced that the city was condemning the entire block in preparation for the new Federal Office building to be built there. That blue glass walled office building that did arise was the tombstone for a number of theatres on that block: The ALHAMBRA, TELENEWS/ESQUIRE, VAUDETTE/MAGNET, WHITEHOUSE, MILLER/TOWNE, and the notorious NEW STAR/SAXE/ORPHEUM/GAYETY/EMPRESS.
I can only add that this 800-seat theatre was designed by Arthur Swager, and had a two manual, eight rank theatre pipe organ of unknown make. If you learn more about this theatre named after the street it is on which was named to honor a New Hampshire lawyer of the local land developer in 1856, please post it here.
Just how much comfort the 600 wooden seats of the COMFORT provided to its patrons is not known, but recent photos show the facade of the single story building to be so altered that it is indeed difficult to believe that it ever was a cinema, since it never had a stagehouse. The front is now covered in false brick and wooden vertical planks, but something of the marquee remains in form of the suspended canopy which is badly banged up, but the amateur non-illuminated painted signs read only “Andy’s Place” or “Beer/Liquor,” but perhaps the single glass pane and security grilled door now does lead to something reflecting the building’s past, since a small sign on the side of the wall reads: “Giant TV.” The former COMFORT may now provide that only the form of a bottle to this deteriorating north side neighborhood, sad to say.
It is odd that the owners chose that name, since the ‘climax’ in theatrs for Meister and Freuler was opend the same year in the form of the BUTTERFLY, that remarkable facade on downtown’s main street of a huge butterfly in light bulbs. It is profiled on this site.
If you learn anything more about this theatre, please post it here, or click on my name in blue below, and send it to me via my E-mail address given on my Profile page as CONTACT.
This depends upon whom one asks. If you read the previous story about the new cinema to be built in Bay View, you will find toward the bottom the statement that owner Craig Ellsworth wants $2.5 million for the building, but others claim that he isn’t really interested in selling else he would price the building realistically. Others say that he is just stubborn and miffed that the city has repeatedly refused to grant a liquor/beer license to him and so he is deliberately trying to antagonize the neighbors. He has demolished the box office, and removed the marquee name sign, but beyond that I do not know what damages have been done inside, though the item about the removal of the organ, above, should give one some idea. Approach with caution.
AS to contacting Steve Faytis, he does list any contact information under his “Havana Cinemas” link at the bottom of his message, but the People Pages View link
list him thus:
Stephen Faytis
1255I Sabal St
Sanibel, FL 33957
(239) 472 – 0225
Hello, Keith,
I hate to see any theatre torn down, and that includes the VENETIAN, even though I have never been inside it. You ask if it should be saved, and I must answer: For What Purpose? You are aware of the deteriorating neighborhood and the fact that even if cinema were very much desired thereabouts, would it be safe to go there, at least for White people? If safety were not an issue, then the matter becomes How to Program the Space? What does one put on the stage that is so good that people will travel on public transportation (there is no real parking nearby) for miles to fill its thousand plus seats often enough to support it? Even if one could find an ‘angel’ who would not mind sinking a million dollars into rehabilitation and operation, what would he do with it? Some people toss around vague statements such as it becoming a ‘community center’ as if wishful thinking will cause some charity to take it on and somehow be able to restore it to some level of service and still have funds left over to help the ‘community.’ That was tried by a group of African women who bought the long lost EGYPTIAN on a land lease, and went bankrupt trying to pay for the enormous costs of running a huge, deteriorating building. At the time of its demolition, there were 30 outstanding building inspection orders, and when the owner simply stopped paying taxes, it was seized and eventually demolished for public safety. Really, it appears to be the same situation for the VENETIAN. It is now dangerous structurally, and any visitor there would have to proceed with the utmost caution, for many reasons.
Is there another theatre that warrants ‘saving’? Definitely, the prime one is the former WARNER, now called the GRAND downtown on Wis. Ave. at 2nd St. I was on a tour of it in November and it is being well heated and is primed for reuse, if a farsighted entrepreneur can be found. I am in touch with the owner of the land under the building, and he is anxious to see it reopen to some good use. Marcus Theatres has a lease till 2015, and is responsible to keep up the building to some extent till then, but after that, it is anyone’s guess. Several local performing groups have looked over the theatre, but it is mostly too large for them, The Symphony caused Marcus to remove the dividing floor, so now one can see its seats in a still ornate and reclaimable auditorium, which the Symphony cannot now afford to buy and keep. It awaits the thousands of dollars it will take to reclaim it. Click on the word MILWAUKEE at the top and you will be taken to a list of our theatres, and there will be the WARNER/GRAND; click on it for more, or click on my name in blue below and you will be taken to my Profile page where you click on Contact Information and you will see how to approach me directly if you have ideas.
The village of Ferndale California was the site of the mock-up of the facade of the title cinema for the film THE MAJESTIC. They have a web site showing a sequence of photos of the construction of the facade on a parking lot there: www.victorianferndale.org/chamber/parklot.htm
The sequence of photos displays in the same spot as the page loads upon your screen, so be patient for all of them to load.
A complete site for the movie on the Internet Movie Data Base is found here. The actual model for the MAJESTIC was no one theatre, but an amalgam of several facades of the past with the plot line and interior of the lobby of the BIJOU in the 1951 film THE SMALLEST SHOW ON EARTH. It too was a series of set pieces so well strung together that one believes that he is in the same place. In fact, when the MAJESTIC was being planned, the Director wrote to the Guestbook of the Theatre Historical Soc. of America, and I was among those who responded to his inquiry for examples of historic movie palaces to draw his inspiration from and to direct his art department to. I replied with various examples, and inquired if he knew of the British film of 1951 I mention above, and he replied that he was amazed that anyone remembered the little-known film. It turned out that his design for the lobby of the MAJESTIC was based on that film, though the lobby of the 19th century BIJOU was really out of date with any movie palace, though I doubt he realized or cared about that. So, the MAJESTIC was also a series of sets and no such actual theatre existed for the film of 2001.
Mod-JEHS-kah
One of the best sites for information on the operation of cinemas/theatres is www.BigScreenBiz.com where the FORUMS are some of the best around. It will take some reading on your part to cruise through the Archived comments there, but it is well worth it. You will find that the majority of the pros there will discourage any attempt at single screen operation for a cinema in today’s economics of exhibition. Your theatre may be a special situation, and they do sell books on their front page to help in the business plan, but you should realize that operating a single screen today is seldom profitable. If you have other attractions in view, you may have a viable plan, assuming that you have deep pockets to begin with and little in the way of steep overhead costs. Best Wishes on the venture, and there are several firms that provide professional management/fund raising talent for a fee, such as:
http://www.rjha.net/mainpage.htm
and
http://www.grandevenues.com/
You might also find helpful my own little summary at:
http://www.cinematour.com/article.php?id=3
Today, there is very little or nothing in the way of grants to help in such an enterprise as compared to the 1980s, for example, but it might be possible to get a loan from the Small Business Administration of the federal Dept. of Commerce. They will be looking for a good, viable business plan from you. There are books and computer programs designed to help you make up such a plan, but more than in most cases, here you will need excellent demographic analysis and statistics, as well as someone experienced in running a theatre, since the business is so different from others service industries; it is largely dependent upon someone else’s product over which you have no control. This is one of the reasons that most single screen theatres have closed. Still, Best Wishes in any case; grand old theatres are treasures that should not be lost to us!
One of the best sites for information on the operation of cinemas/theatres is www.BigScreenBiz.com where the FORUMS are some of the best around. It will take some reading on your part to cruise through the Archived comments there, but it is well worth it. You will find that the majority of the pros there will discourage any attempt at single screen operation for a cinema in today’s economics of exhibition. The CREST may be a special situation, and they do sell books on their front page to help in the business plan, but you should realize that operating a single screen today is seldom profitable. If you have other attractions in view, you may have a viable plan, assuming that you have deep pockets to begin with and little in the way of steep overhead costs. Best Wishes on the venture, and there are several firms that provide professional management/fund raising talent for a fee, such as:
http://www.rjha.net/mainpage.htm
and
http://www.grandevenues.com/
You might also find helpful my own little summary at:
http://www.cinematour.com/article.php?id=3
Of course these theatres shouldn’t be allowed to be demolished or to deteriorate to that state, but as always it is a cold, hard fact of money, or the lack of it. Theatres are wonderful things, but there is nothing practical about them; they cost and cost. If you and others on this site do not have the funds personally to invest in them through some sort of a foundation set legally to preserve them, consider approaching the owner to get them to hire one of the specialists in theatre/cinema renovation and rehabilitation. The League of Historic American Theatres ( www.LHAT.org ) is set up to help rescue such treasures, and here are just two of the national firms that specialize in bringing such palaces back to life:
http://www.grandevenues.com/
http://www.rjha.net/mainpage.htm
The Theatre Historical Soc. of America is just outside of Chicago in Elmhurst ( www.HistoricTheatres.org ) and may be willing to join in consultation with the owners, if a responsible would-be owner/operator steps forward. There are several historic preservation groups in the Chicago area; surely one of them could spearhead this effort if a committee of concerned citizens formed a ‘Save-the-Patio’ group. I have left some of my own recommendations at: http://www.cinematour.com/article.php?id=3
“Life’s too short” is right; it is too short for the locals to simply sit back and lament the loss of what is their own, as though such works of art were disposable. Let us hope a Chicagolander is reading this, as well as the local press.
It is sad if today’s remodeling of the soffit of the marquee is not being done to the standards with which it was built, but one can understand the replacement of the incandescents with fluorescent lamps, even though they are ‘colder’ in appearance than the “fire-like' bulbs. Fluorescents are much cheaper in the long run, and that is how the accountants of the management are responsible to look at it. The Hall is not owned by a charity, but by businessmen who intend to make a profit, else they will abandon the whole thing, and then once again, the Hall will be in danger of demolition! The odd light bulb sockets Benjamin does see now, may well be the remains of the 1950s trend of adding Goose Neck lamp holders to project on occasional banners under the marquee or even one sheets or standees. These did the spotlight job cheaply, but they also rusted out over the years and now many a marquee bears scars of where they once were, often with eye screws poking out of the metal with remnants of the hanging wire that once went down to the PAR-type bulb that was in the gooseneck lamp holder to keep it in the curved position. Just a little speculation on my part, but I have a hunch that it is true.
Greg Filardo got the gaines out years ago. Now the legal status of the rapidly deteriorating place is open to question. Reportely, the place is in tax arrears, so the city could take posetion of the place, so just whom to contact is open to question, since the place obviously abandoned. Entering it without the legal owners' obvious assistance, leaves one opne to arrest and prosecution, even he does manage to enter and exit in that neighborhood without injury. Fred Hermes of Hermes Insurance in Racine supposedly led a flashlight tour in September, but you would have to ask him about that.
Sorry about the mistake of mine in labeling Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart as Polish; he was, of course, German. I was thinking of the CHOPIN cinema also on the south side, and possibly I will write something about this little place which is now a plumbing store on S. 13th St.
Thank you Keith, glad I could be of help, but you don’t tell us what your connection or interest in the VENETIAN is, and what you hope to do with the information. By the way, the EXHIBITORS HERALD article may very well be in volumes at THSA since it was their former editor, John “Andrew Corsini” Fowler, who sent it to me. Best Wishes. Jim
The REGENT was a photoplay parlor that had a larger budget than was usual to construct a substantial building of brick and steel one story high. In 1915 the owners engaged Milwaukee architect Arthur Swager to construct a “moving picture show” of 878 seats. While no photos remain of this era, it appears from microfilmed blue prints that the high ceiling of the auditorium had five pilaster-and-box-beam bays with the beams having a covering of heavily molded plaster which formed handsome coffers.
When sound films came in 1927, and the elaborate movie palaces were opening (including the VENETIAN only a few blocks away), the Fred Seegert family (owners since 1920) saw the demise of photoplay parlors, and revised the plan of this property. Ironically, the Seegerts engaged Dick & Bauer, prominent theatre architects in Milwaukee, to remodel this theatre into the “Regent Recreation Building,” thereby eliminating the theatre. In 1929 a permit was issued to make $15,000 of alterations. It became larger by buying the lot adjoining the Regent to the east and by adding a second story. The REGENT THEATRE had a recessed arch front which framed two island box offices which flanked the entry doors, but the new construction eliminated everything but the foundation and the auditorium ceiling.
The front is still seen today with four stores in addition to a sixteen-lane bowling alley and a billiards hall above it. The theatre was gone, but the Seegert family continued as owners until years later when the building was unprofitable, vandalized and abandoned. It is now the property of the Department of City Development which hopes to turn the idle building into a youth center. The word ‘Regent’ means who rules in the place of a sovereign, and we can only hope that good times will again rule here rather than the street gangs of today.
The word ‘peerless’ means ‘without equal’ but oftentimes it is really ballyhoo and hyperbole to mean ‘the very best!’ At only some 400 seats, Milwaukee’s PEERLESS once on Center St. may have had something unique, but it certainly had many peers of similar construction in its era! It was razed many years ago.
The MOZART was not really any compliment to the famous composer of that name (though he was Polish and this was then a solidly Polish neighborhood), but its 30x120-foot brick building did seat 430 in some form of musical amusement in the early days of the silent films. When local architect Peter Christiansen was asked to design this modest cinema, he at least did put in mirrors and draperies of unknown design to help lift it above the nickelodeons which had preceded it. This did not please the building inspectors, for in their Inspection of 1912, they ordered them removed as possible hazards to the sudden egress of the audience in an emergency. This was standard policy at the time when memories of such as the Iroquois Theatre tragedy in Chicago were fresh in the minds of the safety minded, not that mirrors or draperies really figured in that catastrophe. The three aisles did lead to the seven by twenty foot stage platform, but it is not know if it had a proscenium wall, something often omitted in these early days when the screen was often simply adhered to the back wall. There was no air cooling in this modest structure, so this plus the flight to the suburbs after the second World War, caused the demise of this and many others of its ilk in those days of the dawn of Television.
The listing for the MOJUVATE theatre was originally found in a Polish language newspaper long defunct, so maybe it is a Polish term, but then perhaps it was simply a play on the word ‘motivate.’ In any case, virtually nothing is known about this 450-seater that was at some point called the WHITE HOUSE. It has been demolished.
The name MIRAMAR is Spanish for ‘View of the sea’ and since there is no sea within view of the MIRAMAR theatre (it faces away from Lake Michigan, about ten blocks east of it) one can only speculate if the original owner had been to the communities named such in Florida or California, or the original in Italy. Nonetheless, the history given on the theatre’s current we site may vanish, so I take the liberty of reproducing it here:
“ PROVENANCE
The Miramar Theatre was built in 1913 as the Miramar movie house. Its name was eventually changed to the Oakland Theatre, and motion pictures continued to be shown through the late forties. In July of 1954, Drama Incorporated, under the chairmanship of Fred Miller, head of the Miller Brewing Company, entered into an agreement to rent the Oakland Theatre for what would eventually become The Milwaukee Repertory Theater. On September 16th 1954, The Milwaukee Journal announced that the name selected through a "name-the-theatre” contest was the “Milwaukee City Circle”. The new name however was never used. Tragically, Fred Miller was killed in a small plane crash in December of that year, and the board of directors for Drama Inc. voted to name the theatre The Frederick C. Miller Memorial Theatre. The Fred Miller Theatre opened its doors January 25th, 1955.
The Fred Miller Theatre began operation under what is known as the star system. Throughout the fifties, show business luminaries such as Geraldine Brooks, Edward Everett Horton, Sylvia Sidney, Eva LeGallienne, John Kerr, Gloria Grahame, Geraldine Page, Uta Hagen, John Ireland, Fay Bainter, Monique Van Vooren and many others trod the Oakland Avenue boards. In 1969, after 138 productions, The Milwaukee Repertory Theater moved to the Todd Wehr Theater in the new Performing Arts Center downtown.
Throughout the better portion of the 1970’s the theatre was the J. Pellman Theatre, a star vehicle venue for musicals and other productions featuring stars such as Mickey Rooney, Rita Moreno, John Astin, Patty Duke, Bernadette Peters, Robet Horton, and Guy Madison, as well as the site for boxing and wrestling matches!
In the late 1970’s, until 1981, the theatre became the Metropole Nightclub, featuring numerous rock acts. The Eastbrook Church purchased the building in 1983, only two days away from its scheduled demolition, and considerably repaired and remodeled what had become exceedingly run-down. In 1995, the congregation of Eastbrook Church had grown to such an extent that it became necessary to move to larger quarters. Even though attempts were made to sell the property to some smaller religious organizations, for the most part, the theatre stood empty for three years.
In October of 1998,William Stace of Walls Have Ears Studios, and his wife Pamela Brown Stace of Amethyst Productions purchased the building with the intent of housing both the new Walls Have Ears recording Studio, as well as the theatre, which would become not only the home of Amethyst Productions, but a rental venue for the performing arts."
“Electric Theatre” was the early British term to denote film theatres without stage shows, which later came to be called cinemas. Little is known of the two that Trinz built in Milwaukee in the same year, 1907, but both were designed by the same architect: Nicholas Dornbach. This was the slightly larger of the two at 300 seats, and had these other names throughout its life: OLYMPIA, IDEAL, and STAR. The TRINZ ELECTRIC THEATRE on Mitchell Street became a fabric store; this one was demolished.
Almost nothing is known of this 580-seat theatre designed by Charles Smith in 1911, the year that the fabulous BUTTERFLY opened downtown and reflected the beginning of the Photoplay Parlor era of exhibition, but it is doubtful that this neighborhood house had anything as remotely ornate. Since no listing for a theatre pipe organ was found, it is likely that it, like many of its cogeners, had only a player piano to accompany its originally silent films.
Marcus Theatres bought the old TELENEWS cinema and drastically remodeled it into a theatre with a more elegant name: the ESQUIRE. New art moderne elements constituted the decor including a 2-story facade of plain white limestone tiles surmounted along the parapet by a single line of light bulbs in a shallow arc from one side pilaster to the same on the other side. The marquee was a 3-foot-high band of light bulbs that swung outward from one side of the facade to the other, having only the name outlined in contrasting color bulbs. Mounted above this canopy was a double sided attraction board bordered in light bulbs but backed in fluorescents. This was one of the first of local Poblocki Sign company’s new “Inside Service” marquees, where a door was on the second floor level and opened directly from the facade into the attraction boards so that they could be changed without the old fashioned placing of a ladder upon the sidewalk below. It was more efficient and a lot more healthy in Wisconsin’s sometimes difficult climate. Such “Inside Service” marquees were subsequently built across the Mid-West.
The auditorium of the 470-seat cinema by Ralph Phillips was not at all noteworthy, having no balcony or stagehouse and almost nothing in the way of ornamentation, but there was a memorable feature in the basement below the lobby that served as the lounge for the restrooms: a street scene from Paris, complete with wire tables and chairs, concession stands made up to resemble cafes with awnings, and a mock sky ceiling above with a cobblestone floor below. It apparently didn’t work out as intended, since the stands were closed soon, and all refreshments had to be bought at a smaller stand in the lobby above.
The ESQUIRE was going strong when it was announced that the city was condemning the entire block in preparation for the new Federal Office building to be built there. That blue glass walled office building that did arise was the tombstone for a number of theatres on that block: The ALHAMBRA, TELENEWS/ESQUIRE, VAUDETTE/MAGNET, WHITEHOUSE, MILLER/TOWNE, and the notorious NEW STAR/SAXE/ORPHEUM/GAYETY/EMPRESS.
I can only add that this 800-seat theatre was designed by Arthur Swager, and had a two manual, eight rank theatre pipe organ of unknown make. If you learn more about this theatre named after the street it is on which was named to honor a New Hampshire lawyer of the local land developer in 1856, please post it here.
Just how much comfort the 600 wooden seats of the COMFORT provided to its patrons is not known, but recent photos show the facade of the single story building to be so altered that it is indeed difficult to believe that it ever was a cinema, since it never had a stagehouse. The front is now covered in false brick and wooden vertical planks, but something of the marquee remains in form of the suspended canopy which is badly banged up, but the amateur non-illuminated painted signs read only “Andy’s Place” or “Beer/Liquor,” but perhaps the single glass pane and security grilled door now does lead to something reflecting the building’s past, since a small sign on the side of the wall reads: “Giant TV.” The former COMFORT may now provide that only the form of a bottle to this deteriorating north side neighborhood, sad to say.
It is odd that the owners chose that name, since the ‘climax’ in theatrs for Meister and Freuler was opend the same year in the form of the BUTTERFLY, that remarkable facade on downtown’s main street of a huge butterfly in light bulbs. It is profiled on this site.
Jim Searles did get the screen he needed from a local source, and so his show goes on, I’m happy to say. ‘Break a leg’ Jim.
If you learn anything more about this theatre, please post it here, or click on my name in blue below, and send it to me via my E-mail address given on my Profile page as CONTACT.
This depends upon whom one asks. If you read the previous story about the new cinema to be built in Bay View, you will find toward the bottom the statement that owner Craig Ellsworth wants $2.5 million for the building, but others claim that he isn’t really interested in selling else he would price the building realistically. Others say that he is just stubborn and miffed that the city has repeatedly refused to grant a liquor/beer license to him and so he is deliberately trying to antagonize the neighbors. He has demolished the box office, and removed the marquee name sign, but beyond that I do not know what damages have been done inside, though the item about the removal of the organ, above, should give one some idea. Approach with caution.
AS to contacting Steve Faytis, he does list any contact information under his “Havana Cinemas” link at the bottom of his message, but the People Pages
View link
list him thus:
Stephen Faytis
1255I Sabal St
Sanibel, FL 33957
(239) 472 – 0225