Google Maps will be unable to find the correct location from the old address. A long stretch of what is now Peachtree Street SW used to be Whitehall Street (from Spring Street SW north to the railroad tracks about midway between Marietta Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Drive.)
In addition to the renaming, the numbers have been changed. Comparing the 1911 Sanborn Map (in Volume 4, on sheet 465,) what was then 82 Whitehall St. SW did not become 82 Peachtree St. SW, but is in the next block south, between MLK JR. Drive (formerly Hunter Street) and Mitchell Street.
That block now has addresses from 100 to 134, but the entire even side of the block has been rebuilt with a massive single project, so the modern address would be a guess. The Sanborn map shows 82 about the middle of that block, which then had numbers from 66 to 102 Whitehall. If the lot the Vaudette was on still had its own number it would probably be approximately 116 Peachtree St. SW.
The 1911 map also shows movie theaters in buildings at 98 and 100 Whitehall SW. Whatever theaters they were would have modern addresses of approximately 128 and 130 Peachtree SW.
Sanborn Maps for Georgia can be found at this page of the Digital Library of Georgia, but the format they are presented in does not make them very easy to use. I’m grateful to DLG for making them available, but I wish they’d used a format more like the one the University of North Carolina uses for their collection.
This is interesting. The May, 1917, issue of The Cornell Countryman, a University publication, published a reminiscence about earlier days at the College of Agriculture that has these lines:
“Our largest auditorium was what was then known as Library Hall. This hall is in the Cornell Library Building in Ithaca, and is the room now occupied by the Happy Hour moving picture theatre.”
This page from the University web site has information about the early days of the Cornell Public Library, but doesn’t mention the Happy Hour Theatre. It does say that the building was designed by Albany architect William Hodgins. The text under the thumbnail of a photo of the library (top of sidebar, right) says that the building was sold to a bank in 1960 and demolished shortly after.
Dave Kenney’s Twin cities Picture Show tells how Liebenberg & Kaplan got the job of remodeling the Arion Theatre in 1923. The Arion was then owned by Louis Rubenstein and Abe Kaplan, and Abe Kaplan was architect Seeman Kaplan’s brother. It was a serendipitous bit of nepotism that launched Liebenberg & Kaplan’s long, distinguished career as theater architects.
Dave Kenney’s Twin cities Picture Show says that the Calhoun Theatre was converted into a ballroom by owners Finkelstein & Rubin. They had taken over the house in 1918, and then took over the larger and newer nearby rival, the Lagoon Theatre, shortly after.
Sometime between 1930 and 1935, the building was converted from a ballroom into a showroom for a Nash automobile dealer. The Hennepin County Library has a photo made at the time of the conversion (I don’t know if this link will work, as the library doesn’t provide designated permalinks.)
Text on the photo’s page gives the address as 1400 W. Lake Street, which is certainly the correct current address. The building is still standing, but has had additional windows punched into it, and Clifford McElroy’s beautiful tapestry brick facade has been painted over.
In a classified advertisement in the May 9, 1914, issue of shoe trade journal Boot and Shoe Recorder, the Refowich Brothers offered for rent: “Store room in the new Refowich Vaudeville Theatre, Freeland, Pa. Best corner in town, best town for its size- 7,000 population.”
Here is a photo of the Rialto which appears to be from the 1930s. The second of two frame houses up the block appears to still be standing in Google street view.
The Auditorium Theatre operated as a movie house from 1931 to 1954, according to this web page about entertainment in Freeland. There is a photo, the caption of which says that, after closing as a theater, the building was converted into a recreation center. Google has no street view for the location, but a Bing Maps bird’s eye view shows that the building is no longer there. It appears to have been replaced by a modern structure.
The renovation of the Alamo Theatre for Northeast Historic Film was designed by Boston architect Thomas Bakalars. Bakalars was a member of the Board of Directors of NHF. The Winter, 2001, issue of the organization’s newsletter, Moving Image Review, featured an article about the project (PDF here.) A digitized archive of the newsletters from Winter, 1988, through Winter, 2007, is also available here from the Internet Archive and Open Library.
The firm Thomas Bakalars Architects has designed numerous theaters, including at least two for Hoyts.
The Westborough Stadium 12 was one of at least two multiplexes designed for Hoyts Cinemas by the Boston firm Thomas Bakalars Architects. There are a few photos at the firm’s web site. There are also photos of Hoyts Cinema 10 in Augusta, Maine.
Thomas Bakalars also designed the renovation of the Alamo Theatre in Bucksport, Maine, as the headquarters of Northeast Historic Film.
According to Architect, the magazine of the AIA, the entire Patriot Place complex, including the cinema, was designed by the Boston architectural firm Arrowstreet, Inc.
Arrowstreet designed several multiplexes for Hoyts America from the mid-1990s until 2003, when most of that circuit’s locations were sold to Regal Entertainment.
A 1917 photo of the Champlain Theatre in Swanton appears in the Summer, 2003, issue of Northeast Historic Film’s newsletter, Moving Image Review: Archive.org.
This 1918 photo shows the original Majestic Theatre in the background.
I notice that the caption of the 1916 auditorium photo uploaded by CharmaineZoe says that the Majestic had a cry room. That’s the earliest instance of that particular convenience I’ve seen yet.
For some reason Google Maps is sticking the pin icon for the Campbell Theatre in West Hazleton. It should be on Broad Street between Wyoming and Laurel Streets in downtown Hazleton. Currently, the building can still be see in Google’s street view, but its site is a vacant lot in the more recent satellite view, so we can mark this one demolished.
Deception, with Bette Davis, and the coming attraction Wake Up and Dream were both released in the latter part of 1946, so the photo most likely dates from 1947. A small town like Whitney Point would not have gotten a movie for anywhere from several weeks to a few months after its release in major markets.
The destruction of the Palace Theatre was reported in the July, 1917, issue of Safety Engineering:
“April 26, 1917. Hazleton, Pa. Palace theater and C. Sasso’s department store. Wyoming and Green streets. Vaudeville and motion pictures; department store. Two 2- and 3-story buildings destroyed. Walls, brick. Floors, wood. Roofs, slag. Cause, unknown. Fire started in rear of stage in theater. Discovered by passerby about 3:45 a. m. Alarm, box. Duration, 10 hours. Stopped at department store. Fire was favored by metal ceilings in both buildings. Private fire apparatus, several lines of hose and extinguishers. Persons in building, none. Injured, 1. Means of escape, fairly good. Value of buildings and contents, $220,000. Property loss, $85,000.”
This was the second Capitol Theatre to be built on this site. The original house was destroyed by a fire on May 22, 1946. A fairly detailed story of the fire can be found in this post at Central PA Fire Forums. From the description, it appears that the new theater was built at least partly within the shell of the old theater.
The Capitol Theatre was listed in the 1926 FDY with only 430 seats, while the description of the fire says it had 1,400 seats in 1946. Either it had been expanded or rebuilt at some point after 1926, or there was an earlier Capitol Theatre at another location in Shenandoah.
I don’t think the new opera house of 1906 ever got finished. The 1909-1910 Cahn guide still lists only the Hogan Opera House in Susquehana, and the description is the same as in the 1906 guide so it was not a new theater. There was a new manager, though. Doherty & Shanahan had been replaced by J. J. Ryan.
However, The May 27, 1916, issue of The American Contractor had an item about a planned new opera house in Susquehanna. It was to seat 1,100, cost $50,000, and be designed by Leon H. Lempert. The promoter of the project was J. J. Ryan. The construction contract had been let.
But that project appears to have fallen through too. Then in 1921 the March 19 issue of the same magazine reported that J. J. Ryan was contemplating the building of a moving picture theater at Susquehanna. It was to cost about $50,000 and to be designed by Leon Lempert, which sounds like a recycling of the project from 1916. I don’t think that the 1921 project got built, either. The 1926 Yearbook of Motion Pictures lists only the 400-seat Opera House for Suquehanna.
Google Maps will be unable to find the correct location from the old address. A long stretch of what is now Peachtree Street SW used to be Whitehall Street (from Spring Street SW north to the railroad tracks about midway between Marietta Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Drive.)
In addition to the renaming, the numbers have been changed. Comparing the 1911 Sanborn Map (in Volume 4, on sheet 465,) what was then 82 Whitehall St. SW did not become 82 Peachtree St. SW, but is in the next block south, between MLK JR. Drive (formerly Hunter Street) and Mitchell Street.
That block now has addresses from 100 to 134, but the entire even side of the block has been rebuilt with a massive single project, so the modern address would be a guess. The Sanborn map shows 82 about the middle of that block, which then had numbers from 66 to 102 Whitehall. If the lot the Vaudette was on still had its own number it would probably be approximately 116 Peachtree St. SW.
The 1911 map also shows movie theaters in buildings at 98 and 100 Whitehall SW. Whatever theaters they were would have modern addresses of approximately 128 and 130 Peachtree SW.
Sanborn Maps for Georgia can be found at this page of the Digital Library of Georgia, but the format they are presented in does not make them very easy to use. I’m grateful to DLG for making them available, but I wish they’d used a format more like the one the University of North Carolina uses for their collection.
This is interesting. The May, 1917, issue of The Cornell Countryman, a University publication, published a reminiscence about earlier days at the College of Agriculture that has these lines:
This page from the University web site has information about the early days of the Cornell Public Library, but doesn’t mention the Happy Hour Theatre. It does say that the building was designed by Albany architect William Hodgins. The text under the thumbnail of a photo of the library (top of sidebar, right) says that the building was sold to a bank in 1960 and demolished shortly after.Dave Kenney’s Twin Cities Picture Show says that the 1932-33 rebuilding of the Strand Theatre was the work of architects Liebenberg & Kaplan.
Dave Kenney’s Twin cities Picture Show says that in the early 1930s the Faust Theatre was given a modern makeover designed by Liebenberg & Kaplan.
Dave Kenney’s Twin cities Picture Show tells how Liebenberg & Kaplan got the job of remodeling the Arion Theatre in 1923. The Arion was then owned by Louis Rubenstein and Abe Kaplan, and Abe Kaplan was architect Seeman Kaplan’s brother. It was a serendipitous bit of nepotism that launched Liebenberg & Kaplan’s long, distinguished career as theater architects.
Dave Kenney’s Twin cities Picture Show says that the Calhoun Theatre was converted into a ballroom by owners Finkelstein & Rubin. They had taken over the house in 1918, and then took over the larger and newer nearby rival, the Lagoon Theatre, shortly after.
Sometime between 1930 and 1935, the building was converted from a ballroom into a showroom for a Nash automobile dealer. The Hennepin County Library has a photo made at the time of the conversion (I don’t know if this link will work, as the library doesn’t provide designated permalinks.)
Text on the photo’s page gives the address as 1400 W. Lake Street, which is certainly the correct current address. The building is still standing, but has had additional windows punched into it, and Clifford McElroy’s beautiful tapestry brick facade has been painted over.
In a classified advertisement in the May 9, 1914, issue of shoe trade journal Boot and Shoe Recorder, the Refowich Brothers offered for rent: “Store room in the new Refowich Vaudeville Theatre, Freeland, Pa. Best corner in town, best town for its size- 7,000 population.”
Here is a photo of the Rialto which appears to be from the 1930s. The second of two frame houses up the block appears to still be standing in Google street view.
The Auditorium Theatre operated as a movie house from 1931 to 1954, according to this web page about entertainment in Freeland. There is a photo, the caption of which says that, after closing as a theater, the building was converted into a recreation center. Google has no street view for the location, but a Bing Maps bird’s eye view shows that the building is no longer there. It appears to have been replaced by a modern structure.
The renovation of the Alamo Theatre for Northeast Historic Film was designed by Boston architect Thomas Bakalars. Bakalars was a member of the Board of Directors of NHF. The Winter, 2001, issue of the organization’s newsletter, Moving Image Review, featured an article about the project (PDF here.) A digitized archive of the newsletters from Winter, 1988, through Winter, 2007, is also available here from the Internet Archive and Open Library.
The firm Thomas Bakalars Architects has designed numerous theaters, including at least two for Hoyts.
The Westborough Stadium 12 was one of at least two multiplexes designed for Hoyts Cinemas by the Boston firm Thomas Bakalars Architects. There are a few photos at the firm’s web site. There are also photos of Hoyts Cinema 10 in Augusta, Maine.
Thomas Bakalars also designed the renovation of the Alamo Theatre in Bucksport, Maine, as the headquarters of Northeast Historic Film.
According to Architect, the magazine of the AIA, the entire Patriot Place complex, including the cinema, was designed by the Boston architectural firm Arrowstreet, Inc.
Arrowstreet designed several multiplexes for Hoyts America from the mid-1990s until 2003, when most of that circuit’s locations were sold to Regal Entertainment.
A 1917 photo of the Champlain Theatre in Swanton appears in the Summer, 2003, issue of Northeast Historic Film’s newsletter, Moving Image Review: Archive.org.
This 1918 photo shows the original Majestic Theatre in the background.
I notice that the caption of the 1916 auditorium photo uploaded by CharmaineZoe says that the Majestic had a cry room. That’s the earliest instance of that particular convenience I’ve seen yet.
For some reason Google Maps is sticking the pin icon for the Campbell Theatre in West Hazleton. It should be on Broad Street between Wyoming and Laurel Streets in downtown Hazleton. Currently, the building can still be see in Google’s street view, but its site is a vacant lot in the more recent satellite view, so we can mark this one demolished.
Deception, with Bette Davis, and the coming attraction Wake Up and Dream were both released in the latter part of 1946, so the photo most likely dates from 1947. A small town like Whitney Point would not have gotten a movie for anywhere from several weeks to a few months after its release in major markets.
The destruction of the Palace Theatre was reported in the July, 1917, issue of Safety Engineering:
The Great Escape Omaha Stadium 16 was opened in October, 2006. It was designed by the Grand Rapids architectural firm Paradigm Design.
The MJR Westland Grand Digital 16 opened on November 4, 2011, according to this page at the web site of Paradigm Design, the project’s architects.
The MJR Cinema 14 at Partridge Creek was one of several projects designed for the chain by the Grand Rapids architectural firm Paradigm Design.
The Quality 10 GDX in Saginaw was designed by the Grand Rapids architectural firm Paradigm Design.
The Hamilton 16 was designed by the Grand Rapids architectural firm Paradigm Design.
The seating capacity of the Southpark Mall Stadium 16 is 3,076.
This was the second Capitol Theatre to be built on this site. The original house was destroyed by a fire on May 22, 1946. A fairly detailed story of the fire can be found in this post at Central PA Fire Forums. From the description, it appears that the new theater was built at least partly within the shell of the old theater.
The Capitol Theatre was listed in the 1926 FDY with only 430 seats, while the description of the fire says it had 1,400 seats in 1946. Either it had been expanded or rebuilt at some point after 1926, or there was an earlier Capitol Theatre at another location in Shenandoah.
I don’t think the new opera house of 1906 ever got finished. The 1909-1910 Cahn guide still lists only the Hogan Opera House in Susquehana, and the description is the same as in the 1906 guide so it was not a new theater. There was a new manager, though. Doherty & Shanahan had been replaced by J. J. Ryan.
However, The May 27, 1916, issue of The American Contractor had an item about a planned new opera house in Susquehanna. It was to seat 1,100, cost $50,000, and be designed by Leon H. Lempert. The promoter of the project was J. J. Ryan. The construction contract had been let.
But that project appears to have fallen through too. Then in 1921 the March 19 issue of the same magazine reported that J. J. Ryan was contemplating the building of a moving picture theater at Susquehanna. It was to cost about $50,000 and to be designed by Leon Lempert, which sounds like a recycling of the project from 1916. I don’t think that the 1921 project got built, either. The 1926 Yearbook of Motion Pictures lists only the 400-seat Opera House for Suquehanna.