Rhode Center for the Arts

LouisRugani on July 31, 2006 at 8:26 pm

I wanted to note a little-known fact about this theatre related to me by a long-ago member of the projectionists' union:

He said the original entrance was to be in the 5500 block of Main Street (now Sixth Avenue) but the City wouldn’t allow it so the current Market Street (now 56th Street) location was chosen instead.

It’s true that if you’ll look on the east side of Sixth Avenue, the upper brick and ornamental stone Spanish-deco facade is obviously a Rapp design intended to match the Saxe’s Gateway facade around the corner. But I don’t think the City ever stepped in; I think it’s more likely it was actually designed as a secondary lobby and that Saxe Amusements decided to omit that smaller west lobby from the final design at the last moment for economy purposes. It has always been commercial space (a 1928 photograph shows it as a vacant storefront) but it does line up perfectly with the blank west inner-lobby wall at the Gateway/Rhode.

I hope the mystery will someday be unraveled, but the next time you’re in downtown Kenosha, be sure to see the facade on this almost-lobby for the Saxe’s Gateway Theatre.

nstreit on August 24, 2004 at 6:39 pm

I’m a drama student in Kenosha, and I must say the Rhode theatre is quite beautiful. We rent costumes from them for plays at the Tremper High School Auditorium and everytime we go there I always have to stop and look. It’s almost impossible to describe the beauty of the Rhode without having seen it yourself.