The October 10, 1941, issue of The Film Daily says that John and Drew Eberson designed the new theater being built at Salamanca for the Schine circuit:
“Schine Realty Corp. has awarded
contract for erection of new fireproof theater, seating 1,142 persons, in Salamanca, N. Y., to the Benz Engineering Corp. of that city. Work has already been started. John and Drew Eberson are the architects for the house.”
I still don’t know why this project is missing from the Wolfsonian’s Eberson Archive.
The NRHP registration form for the Blue Fox Theatre says that it was built on the lot west of the Lyric Theatre. With only 300 seats, the Lyric probably didn’t occupy the entire lot to the east of the Blue Fox, so it was probably the second door from the corner, which would make its address about 106 W. Main Street.
The November 15, 1947, issue of Motion Picture Herald said that the Gloria Theatre was being enlarged:
“The owners of the Gloria theatre at Myrtle Beach, S. C, have started work on alterations and improvement. A balcony will be added to increase the capacity to 800, and new sound and projection equipment will be installed.”
This web page has a photo of the Gloria Theatre, and also says that the house was listed in city directories as the Gloria Theatre from 1959 to 1972, but was listed as the Fox Theatre in 1974-1978.
This web page says that the Osoyoos Theatre in Oroville opened in 1936, and cites a contemporary source as saying that the house was “…said to be the largest and finest theatre building and best equipment between Wenatchee and Penticton, B.C.”
The Orada Theatre was in operation prior to 1947, in which year it suffered a fire. The July 16 issue of Motion Picture Daily said: “Seattle, July 15. — L. A. Gillespie of Okanogan, whose Orada Theatre in Oroville was destroyed by fire last week, said today that he will rebuild the theatre.”
The rebuilding took a long time, probably due to lingering shortages of materials and restrictions on construction in the postwar period. The November 15, 1948, issue of Motion Picture Herald had this item about the reopening: “The Orada theatre in Oroville, Wash., which was destroyed by fire several months ago, has reopened. The rebuilt house has 700 seats and a ‘cry-room.’”
The December 27, 2012, issue of the Okanogan Valley Gazette-Tribune said that the site of the Orada Theatre had become the parking lot of the 76 Quick Mart. The Quick Mart is at 1501 Main Street, and the address of the parking lot would be a bit higher, probably 1505 Main Street. The current building is certainly more than two years old so must be the same one mentioned in the newspaper in 2012.
This item about the Colony Theatre is from the November 15, 1947, issue of Motion Picture Herald:
“Construction work is nearing completion on the new Colony theatre in Easley, S. C, according to Harold Armistead, manager of the Lyric theatre who will also manage the new house. The Colony will have a capacity of 707 on two levels, and facilities will include a soda shop. Eventually a coffee shop will be added to the second floor. The Lyric and Colony are owned by Mrs. E. A. Armistead.”
The September 1, 1923, issue of Exhibitors Herald said “E. A. Armistead has purchased the Lyric theatre at Easley, S. C, which he has opened.” Mr. Armistead contributed a number of capsule movie reviews to the magazine that year and in 1924.
Additional information about the Armistead family’s involvement in the theater business in Easley can be found in this comment on the Colony Theatre page.
The Mason Opera House on Broadway had a separate entrance on Hill Street to a gallery seating people of color. I believe the Morosco (Globe) Theatre also had a segregated gallery with an entrance from the alley.
DocSouth’s Going to the Show lists the Star Theatre at 59 Broad Street from around 1913 to around 1920. This was the same address as the earlier Amuses or Amusea Theatre, 1907 to 1910, and the generically-named Moving Picture Show, 1912-1913.
The “Name Changes” April 20, 1948, issue of The Film Daily said that the Bern Theatre in New Bern had been renamed the Ritz. I’ve been unable to discover how long the Bern Theatre had been in operation at that time.
Here is an item from the November 3, 1917, issue of The Moving Picture World telling of the conversion of the Masonic Theatre into a moving picture house:
“NEW BERN, N. C. — For the first time in many years there is to be opposition in the motion picture field in New Bern, one of the best show towns in the state, but which has remained under control of Messrs. Lovick and Taylor for a long time. While the public has not been informed of the fact, plans have been drawn and the deal is closed by which F. W. Hahn, a picture man of experience, will, after alterations, open the Masonic theater, and will conduct it exclusively as a high class motion picture theater. It is expected that the new theater will open about November 1 or probably a week earlier if alterations can be completed in time.
“The Masonic theater, formerly playing road attractions exclusively, with its large seating capacity will furnish the people of New Bern one of the most comfortable theaters in the state. Modern equipment from booth to screen will be installed by Mr. Hahn, and every effort will be made to give the picture patrons of New Bern the best service possible. Henry Randall, of the Famous Players Exchange, Washington, closed the first contract for the new theater, putting in the entire output of the Paramount-Artcraft group to begin November 1.”
The houses operated by Lovick and Taylor mentioned in the article were the Athens and the Star.
Liebenberg & Kaplan were the architects for the 1936 remodeling of the Cecil Theatre that kencmcintyre referred to in his comment on March 11, 2009.
Another major remodeling took place in 1953, when the open windows between the foyer and the auditorium were closed in, and the lobby, foyer, stairs, lounges, rest rooms, and office were all given a modern makeover. According to articles in the Mason City Globe-Gazette, the auditorium had been restored and repainted, but that in style and configuration it was still substantially as it had been when the house opened in 1912. Even the boxes were still intact.
The 1953 renovations coincided with Mason City’s centennial, and with the fiftieth anniversary of manager Thomas Arthur’s arrival in town to take over management of the Cecil’s predecessor, the Wilson Theatre.
The Cecil Theatre is listed in the 1913-1914 Cahn guide with 595 seats on the main floor, 410 in the balcony, 360 in the gallery, and 36 in the boxes. It was slightly larger than the Wilson Theatre had been.
The Liberty might have closed for a while in 1929, but by 1932 it was open again and being run by Art and Leah Struck, who came to Mason City that year. In November, 1936 they opened the Arlee Theatre across the street, and on its opening the Liberty was closed for good.
Down Mason City’s Memory Lane, by Dale C. Fancher, has several lines about the Liberty, including a brief description saying “…there were three arches in the front with light bulbs to outline the top of the arches, with the ticket booth centered in the middle arch and the doors to the auditorium on either side of the booth.”
The Liberty was owned for a time by an A. W. Ackerman, Fancher says, and later by a John Bolinger. Mr. Ackerman had an earlier association with Mason City, according to this item in the December 13, 1913, issue of The Moving Picture World:
“Ray Montgomery has purchased the lease on the Lyric Opera House at Mason City, which has been conducted by Mr. and Mrs. A. W. Ackerman for the last five years. Mr. Ackerman will continue to manage the Prospect Opera House at Greenview, where he has been giving picture shows, as well as at Middletown and San Jose.”
The Mark Strand Theatre in Lynn was designed by Thomas Lamb. This item is from the April 3, 1915, issue of The Moving Picture World:
“NEW STRAND AT LYNN.
“A new Strand theater is now under construction in Lynn, Mass. The new theater will have a seating capacity of 2,000 and represents an expenditure of $250,000. It is located on Union street and takes in an entire block measuring 22,500 square feet. Thomas W. Lamb, who drew the plans for the Strand theater in Manhattan, is the architect, and Moe Mark is the president of the company controlling the theater which will open September 1. The building will be similar to the New York Strand and will contain stores and offices. Mr. Mark will also erect a new Strand theater in Worcester, Mass., which will have a seating capacity of 2,000. The operations will commence early in April.”
Worcester’s Royal Theatre is mentioned in the June 7, 1919, issue of The Moving Picture World:
“The Royal Theatre, seating 800, admission 10 and 15 cents, is a downtown house, under the management of O. S. Reiseroff. He uses Paramount, Select, Triangle, Vitagraph and Universal. Business is fair here.”
This web page has a photo of the entrance of the Park Theatre taken around 1955. An earlier Park Theatre in downtown Worcester was probably gone by the time this house opened in 1937.
National Amusements (Redstone Theatres) took over this house and modernized it in the early 1960s. One source said that it was called Cinema One for a while before being twinned and renamed Webster Square Cinemas.
The Strand Theatre was built by Moe and Mitchel Mark. Their company’s intention to build at Worcester was noted in an item in the April 3, 1915, issue of The Moving Picture World. The company had the Strand Theatre at Lynn, Massachusetts, under construction at the time, and the Worcester house was to be about the same size. The item noted that the Lynn Strand had been designed by Thomas Lamb, who was also the architect of the Mark Strand Theatre in Manhattan. Although the item didn’t say so, it is very likely that the Worcester Strand was also designed by Lamb.
A brief piece about Worcester’s theaters in the June 7, 1919, issue of The Moving Picture World has a few lines about the Rialto and indicates that it was built in 1918:
“Worcester is another New England town in very good shape; there are about twelve theatres in town doing business, among them being the Bijou, seating 600, admission 6 and 10 cents, and the Rialto, seating 1,200, admission 11 cents. The latter house was erected about one year ago at a cost of $75,000. It is up to date, has a three-piece orchestra and is owned and operated by James J. Greeko, who has made a success in the motion picture business as an exhibitor. I asked Mr. Greeko if he uses newspapers and he informed me that he employs a paper which reaches the working men in his neighborhood.”
This description of the A-Muse-U Theatre from History of Muscatine County, Iowa, by Irving Berdine Richman, was published in 1911, and says that the A-Muse-U opened in February that year, contradicting the 1940 Journal & News-Tribune article I cited in my previous comment which said it opened in 1908:
“The A-Muse-U is a theater given over exclusively to high-class motion pictures. The building, on Sycamore, between Second and Front streets, was opened in February, 1911. This place of amusement has scarcely a rival for beauty and convenience in the country. The front is pleasingly designed in stucco and the interior decorations and accessories are modern and entirely to the tastes and comforts of patrons. 600 people can be seated in the opera chairs and face a spacious stage.”
The book notes that Muscatine then had three other movie theaters, plus the Family Theatre presenting vaudeville and movies, and the Grand Opera House for stage productions and concerts.
This web page about Clinton’s builders and architects says that the Orpheum Theatre was built in 1907 and was designed by architect John H. Ladehoff. Ladehoff also designed the Palace Theatre in Muscatine.
Among the previous few months of theater changes noted in the January 15, 1938, issue of The Film Daily were the opening of the Westby Theatre and the dismantling of the Westby Opera House. Presumably the Opera House had been used as a movie theater and was no longer needed.
The October 10, 1941, issue of The Film Daily says that John and Drew Eberson designed the new theater being built at Salamanca for the Schine circuit:
I still don’t know why this project is missing from the Wolfsonian’s Eberson Archive.The NRHP registration form for the Blue Fox Theatre says that it was built on the lot west of the Lyric Theatre. With only 300 seats, the Lyric probably didn’t occupy the entire lot to the east of the Blue Fox, so it was probably the second door from the corner, which would make its address about 106 W. Main Street.
A list of recently chartered companies that was published in the January 13, 1948, issue of The Film Daily included two theaters in Easley:
The Colony was nearing completion in November, 1947, so the charters were apparently issued around the time the theaters opened.The “Theater Changes” section of the January 30, 1933, issue of The Film Daily listed the Pastime Theatre in Easley, South Carolina, as a new theater.
The November 15, 1947, issue of Motion Picture Herald said that the Gloria Theatre was being enlarged:
This web page has a photo of the Gloria Theatre, and also says that the house was listed in city directories as the Gloria Theatre from 1959 to 1972, but was listed as the Fox Theatre in 1974-1978.This web page says that the Osoyoos Theatre in Oroville opened in 1936, and cites a contemporary source as saying that the house was “…said to be the largest and finest theatre building and best equipment between Wenatchee and Penticton, B.C.”
The Orada Theatre was in operation prior to 1947, in which year it suffered a fire. The July 16 issue of Motion Picture Daily said: “Seattle, July 15. — L. A. Gillespie of Okanogan, whose Orada Theatre in Oroville was destroyed by fire last week, said today that he will rebuild the theatre.”
The rebuilding took a long time, probably due to lingering shortages of materials and restrictions on construction in the postwar period. The November 15, 1948, issue of Motion Picture Herald had this item about the reopening: “The Orada theatre in Oroville, Wash., which was destroyed by fire several months ago, has reopened. The rebuilt house has 700 seats and a ‘cry-room.’”
The December 27, 2012, issue of the Okanogan Valley Gazette-Tribune said that the site of the Orada Theatre had become the parking lot of the 76 Quick Mart. The Quick Mart is at 1501 Main Street, and the address of the parking lot would be a bit higher, probably 1505 Main Street. The current building is certainly more than two years old so must be the same one mentioned in the newspaper in 2012.
This item about the Colony Theatre is from the November 15, 1947, issue of Motion Picture Herald:
The September 1, 1923, issue of Exhibitors Herald said “E. A. Armistead has purchased the Lyric theatre at Easley, S. C, which he has opened.” Mr. Armistead contributed a number of capsule movie reviews to the magazine that year and in 1924.
Additional information about the Armistead family’s involvement in the theater business in Easley can be found in this comment on the Colony Theatre page.
The Mason Opera House on Broadway had a separate entrance on Hill Street to a gallery seating people of color. I believe the Morosco (Globe) Theatre also had a segregated gallery with an entrance from the alley.
DocSouth’s Going to the Show lists the Star Theatre at 59 Broad Street from around 1913 to around 1920. This was the same address as the earlier Amuses or Amusea Theatre, 1907 to 1910, and the generically-named Moving Picture Show, 1912-1913.
The “Name Changes” April 20, 1948, issue of The Film Daily said that the Bern Theatre in New Bern had been renamed the Ritz. I’ve been unable to discover how long the Bern Theatre had been in operation at that time.
Here is an item from the November 3, 1917, issue of The Moving Picture World telling of the conversion of the Masonic Theatre into a moving picture house:
The houses operated by Lovick and Taylor mentioned in the article were the Athens and the Star.Liebenberg & Kaplan were the architects for the 1936 remodeling of the Cecil Theatre that kencmcintyre referred to in his comment on March 11, 2009.
Another major remodeling took place in 1953, when the open windows between the foyer and the auditorium were closed in, and the lobby, foyer, stairs, lounges, rest rooms, and office were all given a modern makeover. According to articles in the Mason City Globe-Gazette, the auditorium had been restored and repainted, but that in style and configuration it was still substantially as it had been when the house opened in 1912. Even the boxes were still intact.
The 1953 renovations coincided with Mason City’s centennial, and with the fiftieth anniversary of manager Thomas Arthur’s arrival in town to take over management of the Cecil’s predecessor, the Wilson Theatre.
The Cecil Theatre is listed in the 1913-1914 Cahn guide with 595 seats on the main floor, 410 in the balcony, 360 in the gallery, and 36 in the boxes. It was slightly larger than the Wilson Theatre had been.
The Liberty might have closed for a while in 1929, but by 1932 it was open again and being run by Art and Leah Struck, who came to Mason City that year. In November, 1936 they opened the Arlee Theatre across the street, and on its opening the Liberty was closed for good.
Down Mason City’s Memory Lane, by Dale C. Fancher, has several lines about the Liberty, including a brief description saying “…there were three arches in the front with light bulbs to outline the top of the arches, with the ticket booth centered in the middle arch and the doors to the auditorium on either side of the booth.”
The Liberty was owned for a time by an A. W. Ackerman, Fancher says, and later by a John Bolinger. Mr. Ackerman had an earlier association with Mason City, according to this item in the December 13, 1913, issue of The Moving Picture World:
The finding aid to the Liebenberg & Kaplan papers lists a State Theatre in Mason City as one of the firm’s projects from 1950.
The Mark Strand Theatre in Lynn was designed by Thomas Lamb. This item is from the April 3, 1915, issue of The Moving Picture World:
Worcester’s Royal Theatre is mentioned in the June 7, 1919, issue of The Moving Picture World:
This web page has a photo of the entrance of the Park Theatre taken around 1955. An earlier Park Theatre in downtown Worcester was probably gone by the time this house opened in 1937.
National Amusements (Redstone Theatres) took over this house and modernized it in the early 1960s. One source said that it was called Cinema One for a while before being twinned and renamed Webster Square Cinemas.
The Strand Theatre was built by Moe and Mitchel Mark. Their company’s intention to build at Worcester was noted in an item in the April 3, 1915, issue of The Moving Picture World. The company had the Strand Theatre at Lynn, Massachusetts, under construction at the time, and the Worcester house was to be about the same size. The item noted that the Lynn Strand had been designed by Thomas Lamb, who was also the architect of the Mark Strand Theatre in Manhattan. Although the item didn’t say so, it is very likely that the Worcester Strand was also designed by Lamb.
A brief piece about Worcester’s theaters in the June 7, 1919, issue of The Moving Picture World has a few lines about the Rialto and indicates that it was built in 1918:
This description of the A-Muse-U Theatre from History of Muscatine County, Iowa, by Irving Berdine Richman, was published in 1911, and says that the A-Muse-U opened in February that year, contradicting the 1940 Journal & News-Tribune article I cited in my previous comment which said it opened in 1908:
The book notes that Muscatine then had three other movie theaters, plus the Family Theatre presenting vaudeville and movies, and the Grand Opera House for stage productions and concerts.This item from the July 19, 1913, issue of The American Contractor is probably about the Palace Theatre, which was originally owned by E. M. Henle:
Architect John H. Ladehoff also designed the Orpheum Theatre in Clinton, built in 1907.This web page about Clinton’s builders and architects says that the Orpheum Theatre was built in 1907 and was designed by architect John H. Ladehoff. Ladehoff also designed the Palace Theatre in Muscatine.
Among the previous few months of theater changes noted in the January 15, 1938, issue of The Film Daily were the opening of the Westby Theatre and the dismantling of the Westby Opera House. Presumably the Opera House had been used as a movie theater and was no longer needed.