The 1911 Crystal (later Lakes) Theatre of Antioch dates was owned by Fred Remer and was sold to Percy Chinn the following year. By 1946 it was renamed the Lakes Theatre. (In 1958, the Lakes Theatre company proposed building a 400-car outdoor theatre on the northwest corner of Route 59 and Grass Lake Road. Strong opposition ended the plan.)
In 1964, the local Palette, Masque and Lyre amateur players began presenting productions at the Lakes Theatre, and in January, 1984 they were able to purchase the theatre. Much of the interior ornament was lost thereafter but the three oval facade windows that had been bricked over were restored after a bequest left by Dolly Spiering. In 2015, the players were able to purchase an adjoining commercial building as a concessions venue.
Editorial: Antioch Theatre rebirth more than a victory for nostalgia (April 04, 2016 - Daily Herald)
In our bigger-is-better world, small businesses often take a beating.
That’s particularly true of one-screen movie theaters that were once staples of community downtowns. Mostly they have disappeared from today’s suburbs, as owners found it difficult to compete with giant multiplexes that offer many more movie choices and a glitzier experience complete with reclining chairs and a nice merlot.
And, that’s what makes the renovation of the old Antioch Theatre, and the community effort that supported the project, so noteworthy and an experience worth saluting.
Sure, it’s a victory for nostalgia, joining the Liberty Theatre in Libertyville and the Catlow in Barrington as another old movie house rebirth.
But the public-private partnership that spurred the project’s success also shows early signs of being a catalyst for other downtown Antioch improvements. The approach could make it a project worth watching by others looking for ways to boost their downtown improvement efforts.
Tim Downey launched the $750,000 plan to rehab the theater building, where deteriorating conditions, slumping attendance and outdated equipment had put it on the endangered list. It was built in 1919 as the Majestic Theatre, a live performance house, and it was converted to the Antioch Theatre five years later. It was never a grand movie house, but it had been a downtown fixture for generations of residents.
Downey invested $300,000 of his own money, found four core sponsors to contribute $150,000, and sold engraved sidewalk stars. With what they said was a “degree of reluctance,” village board members agreed to provide a $200,000 loan, supported by a village-backed 75-cents per-ticket tax. In a town with a tight budget, like many of its neighbors, and concerns about offering overly generous tax incentives, it was no small gesture.
However, the roll of the dice for all involved seems to be paying off.
The updated version with new seats, restrooms, carpeting, facade, marquee, digital technology and more attracted some 40,000 moviegoers in the first year since the reopening, Downey said. That generated enough money for him to make monthly payments - he’s repaid nearly $30,000 - on the 10-year village note.
Village officials and downtown supporters alike said the Antioch Theatre project has been good for the downtown. It has sparked renovations at some other downtown businesses, boosted foot traffic that is aiding other nearby businesses by bringing people to the area and it is helping renew interest in a downtown development initiative. It is once again a vital part of the village’s historic downtown district, they say.
“It’s fun to report my confidence in the community and the community’s confidence in me has paid off,” Downey told the Daily Herald’s Mick Zawislak.
What the born-again Antioch Theatre shows is that one little project with a motivated developer, a local government willing to take a chance and a supportive community can help spark big things.
(Chicago Tribune, March 12, 1917) Church Women Reveal Suggestive Acts After Peaceful “Raids” on Theaters
BY THE REV. W. B. NORTON.
SCANTILY dressed women, lewd jokes, the American flag disgraced, the Christian religion flouted, drinking, gambling, murder paraded, crowds of men and boys in the audience, many of the boys in knickerbockers.
These are some of the things which shocked the women of the Woman’s Church federation who made a round of a dozen or more of the theaters of Chicago Saturday evening.
Mrs. J. G. Boor, chairman of the morals committee of the Woman’s Church federation, was in charge. She was assisted by fourteen women and up several men, some of whom accompanied the women, while others went to ag the theaters where men only are admitted.
Mrs. H. T. Leslie, 6844 Lafayette avenue, was one of the women who visited the Gayety theater, 531 South State street.
“The performance was vulgar and degrading,” she said. We teach our children to honor the American flag. Here they disgraced it. Girls came on the stage in tights with shoulders and arms entirely bare, draped about the waist in the red, white and blue. They formed a pyramid and the one who came the nearest being nud formed the center of the pyramíd. In this attitude they sang a song entitled “My Country.” not our national anthem, while a flag was lowered from the ceiling.
Sample of “Humor.”
“One of the comedians said: ‘It doesn’t make any difference what a woman has on or whether she has anything on. O yes it does,’ another said. When Gen. Grant surrendered to Lee he only had on a ragged union suit. Our girls have more on than that.”
“One man told a girl he would strip her to the skin. He first made her take off her hat, then her dress, then her petticoat. She had on tights, but the suggestiveness of the act was plain to see.”
Mrs. L. E. Koontz, 653 North Lockwood avenue, was one of three who visited the Star and Garter theater, 815 West Madison street.
“We sat in the gallery,” she said, “and noted that the audience was chiefly made up of young men, some of them nice young, manly looking fellows, others were of the depraved kind. My heart ached for them because I realized their legitimate desires for amusement. The air was thick with tobacco smoke. The jokes were of the coarsest character and evidently intended to inflame the imagination. One comedian told how some one threw a brick through the window and struck the leg of the girl he was sitting with and broke three of his fingers, plainly implying his hand was in contact with the girl’s leg.
Some More “Comedy.”
“In a scene one girl and two men became intoxicated, the girl being dragged off the stage in a beastly state. The men spilled the liquor on the table, dipped their hands in it, and slapped each other. Finally they kicked over the table and spilled the rest of the liquor on the floor.
“The girls were called the Jolly Widows and were dressed in tights.”
Mrs. F. M. Reynolds of Austin confirmed the report of Mrs. Koontz.
“The performance is to be condemned from start to finish,” she said. “There was not one redeeming feature. There was a lewd poem recited about looking at women, in which the name of Christ was mentioned. The drinking scene and the pajama dance were disgusting.” Mrs. R. L. Moffett, 4618 North Racine avenue, visited the Casino at 403 North State street.
“Suggestive jokes and Hula Hula dancing such as I heard and saw ought not to be tolerated,” she said. The Hula Hula dancers were bare legged and their bodies were draped only in a shawl.
Better Features Applauded.
“Were there any more like you in the family?” one coarse joker asked another. “No, when father died mother lost the pattern.”
“I believe the audience would enjoy a higher grade of entertainment, because a moving picture of a war scene and the performance of a player on an accordion, which were good, received the loudest applause.”
Mrs. Boor found conditions at the National, 610 South State street, she said, disgusting in the extreme.
“A young woman described a dance in a most suggestive way. ‘What did you have on?’ her male companion asked. ‘I had on a string of beads, then a little space and another string.’ ‘You ought to leave off the two last strings,’ he replied. ‘Did you dance the seven veils dance?’ she was asked. ‘If you did you left off six and a half of the veils,’ he said.”
“Forty per cent of the audience was under 21 years, many of them young boys.”
“The theaters are not as obscene as they were. They have been improved 75 per cent over the theaters of a few years ago, but they are still demoralizing, corrupting, and a disgrace to a Christian civilization.”
the most objectionable of all,“ said Mrs. E. Pretty.
“The girls were dressed so they appeared perfectly nude. They came on the stage protecting themselves with parasols. They moved the parasols from side to side so as to expose themselves for a moment to full view. Then they sang, ‘To see a little more you must meet us at the door.’ Could there be any plainer solicitation to evil than that?”
Mrs. A. C. O'Neal, 2512 West Sixty-sixth street, expressed in the strongest terms indignation of what she saw at the Haymarket theater, 722 West Madison street.
“If there is anything worse than I saw at the Haymarket, I hope I may never see it,” she said. “There was awful profanity, and from beginning to end vile love making and sexual suggestion. The twenty girls dressed in tights ran out on the run board into the center of the audience, and stooping over to the men sang songs of invitation and suggestion. I saw only two other women in the audience besides the four women in our party.”
Many Theaters Visited.
Among the theaters visited were: the South side, Gayety, National, Gem, and Stella; north side, Casino, Hippodrome; west side, Haymarket and Star and Garter.
“To describe the chorus girls of any theater as shapely, scantily clothed, alluring to men, will displease no owner or manager,” said Mrs. Boor.
“To picture the horror or even wrath of good women at witnessing the members of their sex on exhibition like well groomed prize winners at the international stock exhibit will merely cause a smile of ill concealed approval by those interested in the box office.
“But to pass a law giving authority to close such theaters under an injunction and abatement act, by which managers and owners are held responsible for the character of the performance, will raise a storm of protest because such a law will close the show.”
Need for New Law.
“But this is what led us women to brave the disgraceful and distasteful houses of entertainment which we believe are destructive of the young life of our city. We want our legislature to know that there is a crying need for the passage of the law offering relief from the menace of the immoral show such as is provided by the senate bill 130, introduced by Senator J. J. Barbour, and a similar one introduced by Representative Allen J. Carter, which make the owners and managers liable for whatever is exhibited in the theaters they control.”
(Chicago Tribune, March 12, 1917) Church Women Reveal Suggestive Acts After Peaceful “Raids” on Theaters
BY THE REV. W. B. NORTON.
SCANTILY dressed women, lewd jokes, the American flag disgraced, the Christian religion flouted, drinking, gambling, murder paraded, crowds of men and boys in the audience, many of the boys in knickerbockers.
These are some of the things which shocked the women of the Woman’s Church federation who made a round of a dozen or more of the theaters of Chicago Saturday evening.
Mrs. J. G. Boor, chairman of the morals committee of the Woman’s Church federation, was in charge. She was assisted by fourteen women and up several men, some of whom accompanied the women, while others went to ag the theaters where men only are admitted.
Mrs. H. T. Leslie, 6844 Lafayette avenue, was one of the women who visited the Gayety theater, 531 South State street.
“The performance was vulgar and degrading,” she said. We teach our children to honor the American flag. Here they disgraced it. Girls came on the stage in tights with shoulders and arms entirely bare, draped about the waist in the red, white and blue. They formed a pyramid and the one who came the nearest being nud formed the center of the pyramíd. In this attitude they sang a song entitled “My Country.” not our national anthem, while a flag was lowered from the ceiling.
Sample of “Humor.”
“One of the comedians said: ‘It doesn’t make any difference what a woman has on or whether she has anything on. O yes it does,’ another said. When Gen. Grant surrendered to Lee he only had on a ragged union suit. Our girls have more on than that.”
“One man told a girl he would strip her to the skin. He first made her take off her hat, then her dress, then her petticoat. She had on tights, but the suggestiveness of the act was plain to see.”
Mrs. L. E. Koontz, 653 North Lockwood avenue, was one of three who visited the Star and Garter theater, 815 West Madison street.
“We sat in the gallery,” she said, “and noted that the audience was chiefly made up of young men, some of them nice young, manly looking fellows, others were of the depraved kind. My heart ached for them because I realized their legitimate desires for amusement. The air was thick with tobacco smoke. The jokes were of the coarsest character and evidently intended to inflame the imagination. One comedian told how some one threw a brick through the window and struck the leg of the girl he was sitting with and broke three of his fingers, plainly implying his hand was in contact with the girl’s leg.
Some More “Comedy.”
“In a scene one girl and two men became intoxicated, the girl being dragged off the stage in a beastly state. The men spilled the liquor on the table, dipped their hands in it, and slapped each other. Finally they kicked over the table and spilled the rest of the liquor on the floor.
“The girls were called the Jolly Widows and were dressed in tights.”
Mrs. F. M. Reynolds of Austin confirmed the report of Mrs. Koontz.
“The performance is to be condemned from start to finish,” she said. “There was not one redeeming feature. There was a lewd poem recited about looking at women, in which the name of Christ was mentioned. The drinking scene and the pajama dance were disgusting.” Mrs. R. L. Moffett, 4618 North Racine avenue, visited the Casino at 403 North State street.
“Suggestive jokes and Hula Hula dancing such as I heard and saw ought not to be tolerated,” she said. The Hula Hula dancers were bare legged and their bodies were draped only in a shawl.
Better Features Applauded.
“Were there any more like you in the family?” one coarse joker asked another. “No, when father died mother lost the pattern.”
“I believe the audience would enjoy a higher grade of entertainment, because a moving picture of a war scene and the performance of a player on an accordion, which were good, received the loudest applause.”
Mrs. Boor found conditions at the National, 610 South State street, she said, disgusting in the extreme.
“A young woman described a dance in a most suggestive way. ‘What did you have on?’ her male companion asked. ‘I had on a string of beads, then a little space and another string.’ ‘You ought to leave off the two last strings,’ he replied. ‘Did you dance the seven veils dance?’ she was asked. ‘If you did you left off six and a half of the veils,’ he said.”
“Forty per cent of the audience was under 21 years, many of them young boys.”
“The theaters are not as obscene as they were. They have been improved 75 per cent over the theaters of a few years ago, but they are still demoralizing, corrupting, and a disgrace to a Christian civilization.”
the most objectionable of all,“ said Mrs. E. Pretty.
“The girls were dressed so they appeared perfectly nude. They came on the stage protecting themselves with parasols. They moved the parasols from side to side so as to expose themselves for a moment to full view. Then they sang, ‘To see a little more you must meet us at the door.’ Could there be any plainer solicitation to evil than that?”
Mrs. A. C. O'Neal, 2512 West Sixty-sixth street, expressed in the strongest terms indignation of what she saw at the Haymarket theater, 722 West Madison street.
“If there is anything worse than I saw at the Haymarket, I hope I may never see it,” she said. “There was awful profanity, and from beginning to end vile love making and sexual suggestion. The twenty girls dressed in tights ran out on the run board into the center of the audience, and stooping over to the men sang songs of invitation and suggestion. I saw only two other women in the audience besides the four women in our party.”
Many Theaters Visited.
Among the theaters visited were: the South side, Gayety, National, Gem, and Stella; north side, Casino, Hippodrome; west side, Haymarket and Star and Garter.
“To describe the chorus girls of any theater as shapely, scantily clothed, alluring to men, will displease no owner or manager,” said Mrs. Boor.
“To picture the horror or even wrath of good women at witnessing the members of their sex on exhibition like well groomed prize winners at the international stock exhibit will merely cause a smile of ill concealed approval by those interested in the box office.
“But to pass a law giving authority to close such theaters under an injunction and abatement act, by which managers and owners are held responsible for the character of the performance, will raise a storm of protest because such a law will close the show.”
Need for New Law.
“But this is what led us women to brave the disgraceful and distasteful houses of entertainment which we believe are destructive of the young life of our city. We want our legislature to know that there is a crying need for the passage of the law offering relief from the menace of the immoral show such as is provided by the senate bill 130, introduced by Senator J. J. Barbour, and a similar one introduced by Representative Allen J. Carter, which make the owners and managers liable for whatever is exhibited in the theaters they control.”
May 26, 1946 - Star and Garter Theater Sold for $110,000 Cash
The Star & Garter theater building. 815 W. Madison st., was sold by the Hyde & Behman Amusement company and the Richard Hyde estate of New York City, to Harold L. Clamage, of St. Louis, and Harold W. Huchberger, of Chicago, for $110,000 cash, thru Thomas H. Fitzgerald. The building will be air conditioned and modernized at an estimated cost of $35,000 and operated with pictures and stage shows, it was said.
The shuttered Portage Theater, 4050 N. Milwaukee Ave., is under contract to be sold for $25,000 to Chris Bauman, founder of the Zenith Music Group that has operated the Patio Theater and Avondale Music Hall, according to recent court testimony.
Any buyer of the theater would presumably also have to pay the county more than $500,000 in back taxes, Curt Bettiker, the count-appointed receiver for the theater, said at a Sept. 11 housing court hearing.
The city of Chicago last year took the theater’s ownership to court over building code issues. A receivership was appointed to help secure and maintain the building after the ownership or its representatives stopped attending court hearings on the matter.
It was reported at the hearing that the Portage Theater LLC has entered a sales contract to sell the theater to Bauman.
Bauman took over operations of the Patio in 2018 but around a year ago another entity took the helm at the Patio, according to Alderman Nicholas Sposato (38th). A license for the Patio expired on May and there is no active business license for 6008 W. Irving Park Road, the theater’s address, according to the city Department of Business Affairs.
No representatives of Bauman nor the Portage Theater LLC were at the Sept. 11 court hearing.
Bettiker, who represents Chicagoland Neighborhood Resources LLC, said that he has been contacted several times about the need for someone to get into the theater to read a water meter so that the sale of the property can proceed. However, it was reported at the hearing that the meter may be located in the residential portion of the building, which has a different owner.
As receiver, Bettiker has control over the theater’s locks and he said that an alarm system needs to be installed. “There’s a number of kids breaking into the building literally to just hang out,” Bettiker said.
If the deal with Bauman is not finished by the next court hearing, scheduled for Oct. 16, city attorney Glenn Angel said that the city may ask the court to give Bettiker permission to sell the theater.
At the hearing, Bettiker told another potential buyer, “My hands are kind of tied. The owner still owns the building. … We have to let the contract (with Bauman) play out.”
It was reported at the hearing that the name of a “known real estate investor” was on the sales contract, but the person was not identified.
Currently scaffolding is in place in the front of theater due to safety concerns regarding the marquee. “It’s protecting the public way for when it falls,” Bettiker said.
The theater’s ownership was not covering the cost of city permit fees for the scaffolding, prompting the need for the receivership to pay those fees.
Also at the hearing, a lawyer reported that his client has an $80,000 mechanics lien against the property for unpaid services.
The Portage Theater is a city landmark, and a representative of Preservation Chicago attended the court hearing.
The site originally housed the large 1880s Columbia Hall, which was demolished beginning on September 2, 1916, and ground was broken immediately for the Butterfly Theatre in September of 1916. Racine brewery owner/investor Ernst Klinkert and Kenosha exhibitor Charles Pacini paid a total of $45,000, with Pacini to be the operator with a long term lease. George Lindemann was the general contractor,Tully as the masonry contractor, and designed by local architect Charles O. Augustine for 650 seats and a 14-member orchestra pit. (Pacini already operated the Majestic downtown. the New Strand uptown, and the Cozy Theatre one block south of the Butterfly, which closed, with its equipment transferred to the Butterfly .
The Butterfly Theatre, with its signature butterfly-wings framing the proscenium arch, opened on March 17, 1917 to Chaplin’s “Easy Street,” and the Helen Rosson drama “The Undertow.”
Pacini was murdered in August 1920 (the case remains unsolved) and the Butterfly became a Collins theatre with the Burke and Virginian. By 1929, a Movietone sound system was installed but the Butterfly closed in February 1930, reopening in August 1932 after a major redecoration including a larger screen. Closed again for another redecoration, it reopened in May of 1941 as the Hollywood Theatre.
By April of 1952, and struggling against the threat of free television, the last desperate Hollywood Theatre programs were two 1942 East Side Kids films, “The Smart Alecks” and “The Wise Guy”.
But manager Bill Exton tried again in October 1953 with two popular second-run features - “Niagara” with Marilyn Monroe and Joseph Cotten, paired with “Invaders from Mars”. But it wasn’t enough.
In 1955, the Hollywood Theatre housed the Kenosha Missionary Baptist Church (which by 1959 became the Temple Baptist Church at 47th Ave. and 52nd Street), and in 1963, the Auxiliary of the Polish Legion of American Veterans began raising funds to convert the theatre into its hall. It remained so into its sale in the Spring of 2012 and reopened as Circa on Seventh in 2013. (This article appeared in a September, 2025 Kenosha History Center post.)
This week marks the windup of Bill Exton’s tenth year and start of his eleventh year as owner-manager of the independent Roosevelt Theater, 29th Ave. and Roosevelt Rd.
Wednesday afternoon at 1:30 he will present his tenth annual Back-to-School show for the children. This idea was introduced to Kenosha by Exton during his first year at the Kenosha theater, and has been continued by him every year since taking over the Roosevelt. A special program is booked for the occasion.
The remodeling of the entire front of the theater has just been completed, with the latest design of canopy construction injected, making the appearance much different than other local theaters.
Exton has no affiliations with any other theaters in the state, but he has associated for the past year and a half with the Zion theater at Zion, III.
The Roosevelt staff consists of the following: Franklyn Williams, assistant, third year; Jack Schumaker and Wayne Burke, first year; Gilda Zaubrauskis and Margaret Vittorio, cleaners, third year; Terry Matoska and Meredith Gentes, vendettes, second year, and Joan Saeger, Gladys Strusky and June Baterl, the most recent additions to the staff, well on to their first year of service.
Since taking over the Roosevelt, Exton has completely remodeled the booth, and has the latest and most efficient equipment necessary for proper projection and sound, which has received much praisworthy comment from patrons.
The Roosevelt operates as a family neighborhood theater, opening each evening at 6:30 and continuous from 1 p. m. on Sunday. It is a theater with a personality, since each member of the staff has been there long enough to become acquainted with the patrons, and Exton himself is always on hand during the hours of theater operation, giving patrons that glad-to-see-you feeling as they enter the doors.
Although he announces himself as the only independent theater operator in Kenosha, Exton has no interference from any of the other theaters, since he is designated as a third run situation and his programs and booking availabilities reach him regularly on scheduled dates. Pictures playing at the first runs in downtown Kenosha usually reach the Roosevelt screen about 70 days afterward, so that steady Roosevelt patrons get the benefit of first run operation on the west side of Kenosha.
Opinion: Why I bought the Uptown Theatre
By Jerry Mickelsen, August 15, 2025 (Chicago Tribune - chicagotribune.com )
I fell in love with the Uptown Theatre upon walking into that amazing lobby in 1975 and was able to truly come to appreciate it even more over the next six years when Jam Productions produced all of the many outstanding concerts on its stage. I could not put my finger on it back then, but when it closed at the end of 1981 I always had this feeling that I would at some point cross paths with the Uptown Theatre again. It was my fate to be part of this theater’s preservation.
From 1978 until 2008 there was a line of nefarious owners who had no plan on how to resuscitate the theater, which ended up drowning in financial trouble, burdened with multiple mortgages and unpaid debts. The only reason the Uptown Theatre survived during that 30-year period was due to the tireless efforts of Bob Boin, Dave Syfczak, Jimmy Wiggins, Curt Mangel, former 48th Ward Ald. Mary Ann Smith and Friends of the Uptown.
In 2007, I met with the first mortgage holder, who revealed his plan to turn the Uptown into an indoor go-kart track. That conversation lit a fire in me to start piecing together this distressed property’s future in order to bring it back to life.
In 2008, I was the only bidder who showed up at the foreclosure auction - and I became the Uptown’s new owner. On that day, I had no clear plan for how I was going to save it, only a deep conviction that it needed my help. The one thing I did know was that Jam Productions had the content, programming and management expertise to support the theater once it opened.
But this quest is about more than saving the Uptown Theatre. As the Urban Land Institute (ULI) report pointed out, this theater could be the catalyst for the economic development of the Uptown community.
The ULI report provided a road map on how to get this project completed: “The challenging opportunities facing Uptown cannot be met with limited resources. A wide array of both private and public sector resources will need to be tapped. Assistance from all levels of government - local, state and federal - will be needed to achieve the panel’s strategy outlined in the Uptown plan.”
In addition, tax increment financing for Uptown needs a special provision for new and special taxes. Since an ordinary TIF district will not generate sufficient funds to cover all the needs of Uptown, the panel suggests new TIF taxes, including the allocation of taxes generated by parking, amusement, utilities and any other tax generators to which a connection to the Uptown Theatre can be shown.
The Uptown Theatre turns 100 on Aug. 18. That is incredible - and a reminder of both its storied past and the challenges ahead. As Chicago’s grandest movie palace even larger than Radio City Music Hall, its 100-year mark underscores its cultural importance to our city and state, but most importantly, the Uptown community.
I completely understand the skepticism surrounding this project. People have heard about the Uptown’s potential comeback for a long time, only to see the doors remain shut. But here’s why this time is different: We’re not chasing a dream; we’re building a plan. The conversations now taking place with the city are serious, strategic and grounded in reality. Hopefully there’s alignment between public and private interests that hasn’t existed before, and a clear recognition of the Uptown Theatre’s value not just as a historic gem, but as an economic engine for the entire Uptown neighborhood as well as the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois.
That said, confidence comes from progress, and the single most important step right now is securing the city’s financial commitment. Once that piece is in place, everything else will fall in line. Private investors, philanthropic partners, and cultural institutions will, with any luck, follow - but they need to see that the city believes in this project first.
Saving the Uptown isn’t just about preserving bricks, plaster, and history - it’s about creating real jobs and opportunities at the theater for our youth, drawing talent from After School Matters, Chicago Public Schools, Merit School, ChiArts, and the People’s Music School that will ignite opportunities for Chicago’s young people. It’s about honoring Chicago’s legacy as the birthplace of the movie palace. And above all, it’s about choosing hope over cynicism.
The time is now.
The Uptown Theatre must be saved because it is one of the most extraordinary and historically significant movie palaces ever built - not just in Chicago, but anywhere in the United States. Opportunities like this come once in a lifetime. The Uptown has waited decades for its second act. Now it’s our turn to make it happen in order to restore a legacy, uplift a community, and leave a lasting mark on Chicago’s cultural history.
We are at a rare and powerful moment when timing, vision and talent have all aligned. We have an extraordinary lineup of professionals, each a leader in their field, working to bring the Uptown Theatre back to life. With their collective expertise, there can be no doubt we have the right team in place.
This project needs the support of people who see the Uptown for what it truly is: a living, breathing work of art and a rare cultural jewel that can once again inspire millions. We need those who have the wherewithal to help, who understand that giving isn’t just about money, but about preserving beauty, culture, and community for generations to come. We need people who fall in love with masterpieces of architecture not just for their grandeur, but for the stories they hold, the history they safeguard, and the inspiration they spark. The Uptown is more than a building; it is a stage for human connection, a monument to creativity, and a beacon of what can be achieved when vision meets commitment.
Preserving the theater calls to those who understand that true legacy is built not just through wealth, but through what that wealth makes possible. Let’s not stand by while time takes it from us. The Uptown’s story can end in silence or rise again in brilliance.
A new $200,000 32-foot marquee for the Mineral Point Opera House from Sign Art Studio in Mount Horeb (which recently restored the 55-foot vertical sign for the Orpheum Theatre in Madison) is set to be installed in late August and lighted on Sept. 4. The 1915 marquee had fallen into disrepair and lacked lights at the front. It’s part of a $400,000 exterior project: new front doors and poster boxes, roof work and tuckpointing.
A recent $2.25 million interior restoration included upgrades to sprinklers, electricals, HVAC, dressing rooms/green rooms, and lighting and audio systems with new cushioned wood seats and carpeting, correct color schemes, and repairs to the ornate plaster. (In 2003, nearly $100,000 went to improve restroom facilities and to restore the lobby and ticket booth.) The city owns the theatre and rents it to the board for $1 yearly.
A $100,000 matching grant for the marquee came from the National Park Service in 2021. The Trump administration revoked the grant this year, but the park service reapproved the grant.
Designed by Claude and Stark of Madison (also the Orpheum Theatre there) and opened in February 1915 with “The Misleading Lady”, the 725-seat Mineral Point Municipal Theatre and Opera House hosted many famous stars and acts. But alterations over the decades cut capacity to 386 seats.
The Mineral Point Opera House is now the planned venue for a new film society.
The city Landmarks Commission Wednesday night declined to recommend placing a six-month hold on razing the Orpheum Theater building.
Meanwhile, a city official warned that authorities should consider measures to rehabilitate the Kenosha Theater, 5915 Sixth Ave., which has been vacant for about 30 years.
Commission Member Louis Rugani’s proposal on the Orpheum was defeated, 5-2, after 90 minutes of sometimes heated debate. Rugani wanted the City Council to not appropriate money to raze the building. 5819-31 Sixth Ave., for six months so other options could be considered.
“I’m not saying, ‘Save the building’ anymore.” Rugani said. “If all the alternatives are exhausted, I’ll be the first one to say, ‘We tried.” "
Vernon Gerth, city chief of inspection, has said the city is about to seek offers from companies wishing to raze the building. He said the building could be down by the summer.
Alderman Lydia Spottswood, chairman of the commission, opposed Rugani’s proposal. She said the commission should meet with the city Redevelopment Authority to find out if the authority had plans to redevelop the area.
In addition, she said the commission should consider forming a task force to discuss the future of the four-story building. The building does not have landmark status.
At one point, Rugani and Spottswood each said the other was “out of order” during the meeting. Rugani spoke many times on the matter, holding the floor for several minutes.
Spottswood near the end of the debate interrupted Rugani to make a point. Rugani said, “You have a history of interrupting me and it won’t be tolerated.”
Rugani, who said he thought the building should have landmark status, later said he could continue talking as long as he had the floor and Spottswood quickly asked him if he was attempting to filibuster so no vote could be taken. Rugani moments later relinquished the floor.
Four downtown business owners and the manager of the Lakeshore Business Improvement District attended to voice support in razing the building.
“I look at the Orpheum build ing and I don’t see, at least in my layman’s eyes, much architectural significance,” said Michael Bjorn, 3813 16th Ave.
Bjorn and other downtown businessmen told the commission it would be difficult to redevelop that part of the neighborhood if the Orpheum still were standing. The theater in the Orpheum showed its last movie in the middle 1970s, officials said.
Gerth gave a rough estimate of $200,000 to raze the building. The city would pay the cost and place a special assessment on the owner, Trend Setters Inc: San Antonio.
Mayor John Antaramian, who did not attend the meeting, said in a telephone interview there currently was no money for rażing the building in the budget, but there were some areas in the Capital Improvements Plan that could be amended to pay for the removal.
Gerth also said the commission should consider what to do with the Kenosha Theater, which does have landmark status. He said the building has no heat, roof and water damage and other general deterioration.
“I have looked at it and it is in bad shape, unfortunately, Gerth said. "We need to conceńtrate on that building if we wish to save it.”
AEC Group Inc. Architectural Engineering Division
SUMMARY OF INVESTIGATION & FINDINGS
KENOSHA/RHODE THEATRE STUDY
MARCH 27, 1989
Investigations indicated a local theatre market area consisting of Kenosha and Racine counties in Wisconsin, population 258,000, and Lake County, Illinois, population in excess of 500,000, provides a potential local market of ¾ million people. Organized bus tours and effective tourism promotion can extend a theatre’s market area to over a 50 mile radius. This extended market area is especially important for a dinner theatre. This size market area has the potential to support both a performing art theatre and a dinner theatre. Through a questionnaire Kenosha and Racine counties were surveyed. Source of Lake County information is a 1987 art study. Questionnaires were circulated in Walworth County through the newspapers and a few by direct mailing with no success.
The questionnaire survey was conducted as follows:
1. Newspapers: Display ads in the Kenosha News, the Midweek Bulletin, the Kenosha News Courier and the Messenger.
2. Direct Mailing #1: Selection of individual’s names at a pre-determined interval established so that 406 selected names would span the entire Kenosha, Wisconsin Bell telephone directory.
3. Direct Mailing #2: Individual names (1048) selected from the Racine Theatre Guild mailing list.
4. Services and Professional Organizations: Members of nine organizations, Kiwanis, Lions, Rotary clubs and the County Bar and the County Dental associations; completed questionnaire during their meetings.
Provide for a concession area in the main lobby and on the mezzanine level.
Redesign the dressing areas below and to the east of the stage creating stage storage behind the stage and new, more flexible dressing facilities below the stage.
The Kenosha Theatre and the Rhode Opera House both are capable and worthwhile to restore. The structural systems are sound in each building. Each have good design details that, when fully restored, will provide a House of Enchantment for theater goers of all ages. However, to be a viable asset to the community each theater must meet certain criterion.
Have a defined purpose.tt
Provide quality entertainment at reasonable prices.
Facilities must be convenient and comfortable.
Be a year-round operation.
Develop a reputation that will draw beyond the local market area.
Be a part of a viable ‘People Collecting’ center with a ‘I would like to be there’ image.
Meet the needs for local performance participation.
Have sound management.
Both theatres appear, at this stage of the study, to have the potential to satisfy the criterion.
Alterations over the years: The major alterations are the twinning of the House, the abandoned balcony, and alterations to the mezzanine foyer. The marquee is not original. Original construction drawings have not been located, so all original features cannot be identified.
Decorating:
The theatre has been cleaned and there has been limited use of the facilities. As a dinner theatre, complete renovation and decorating would be required.
The study has identified definite local support and persuasive reasons as to why the Kenosha Theatre and the Rhode Opera House have the potential to play a supportive role in the redevelopment of the Lakeshore and the revitalizing of the adjacent business district. The two theatres would support a lakeshore recreation/entertainment image and enhance the culture image of Kenosha. By expansion of the local entertainment facilities many area people will be able to participate and/or enjoy theatre art more often. The previous quoted comment is only one of many expressing this desire. The theatres, properly managed and promoted, will also bring people into the lakeshore area. New higher income housing in the immediate and adjacent areas will be an asset to the theatres.
General atmosphere after renovation/restoration:
Spacious, ornate, impressive lobby and staircase. The House; more intimate relationship with performance, a more relaxed atmosphere, with well designed, orderly, decorative features.
Current general conditions:
In considerably better condition. Some decay due to inadequate maintenance during recent years. Can be restored to original splendor.
Size - Seating, can influence the price of tickets for some events.
1,100/1,200 seating capacity on main floor and small balcony. Existing seats can be restored. Seats have been removed in balcony.
AEC Group Inc. Architectural Engineering Division
SUMMARY OF INVESTIGATION & FINDINGS
KENOSHA/RHODE THEATRE STUDY
MARCH 27, 1989
Investigations indicated a local theatre market area consisting of Kenosha and Racine counties in Wisconsin, population 258,000, and Lake County, Illinois, population in excess of 500,000, provides a potential local market of ¾ million people. Organized bus tours and effective tourism promotion can extend a theatre’s market area to over a 50 mile radius. This extended market area is especially important for a dinner theatre. This size market area has the potential to support both a performing art theatre and a dinner theatre. Through a questionnaire Kenosha and Racine counties were surveyed. Source of Lake County information is a 1987 art study. Questionnaires were circulated in Walworth County through the newspapers and a few by direct mailing with no success.
The questionnaire survey was conducted as follows:
1. Newspapers: Display ads in the Kenosha News, the Midweek Bulletin, the Kenosha News Courier and the Messenger.
2. Direct Mailing #1: Selection of individual’s names at a pre-determined interval established so that 406 selected names would span the entire Kenosha, Wisconsin Bell telephone directory.
3. Direct Mailing #2: Individual names (1048) selected from the Racine Theatre Guild mailing list.
4. Services and Professional Organizations: Members of nine organizations, Kiwanis, Lions, Rotary clubs and the County Bar and the County Dental associations; completed questionnaire during their meetings.
Provide for a concession area in the main lobby and on the mezzanine level. Redesign the dressing areas below and to the east of the stage creating stage storage behind the stage and new, more flexible dressing facilities below the stage.
The Kenosha Theatre and the Rhode Opera House both are capable and worthwhile to restore. The structural systems are sound in each building. Each have good design details that, when fully restored, will provide a House of Enchantment for theater goers of all ages. However, to be a viable asset to the community each theater must meet certain criterion.
1. Have a defined purpose.
2. Provide quality entertainment at reasonable prices.
3. Facilities must be convenient and comfortable.
4. Be a year-round operation.
5. Develop a reputation that will draw beyond the local market area.
Be a part of a viable ‘People Collecting’ center with a ‘I would like to be there’ image.
Meet the needs for local performance participation.
Have sound management.
Both theatres appear, at this stage of the study, to have the potential to satisfy the criterion.
Alterations over the years: Has only limited alterations. Most notable is the entrance and the missing marquee. Marble drinking fountain, decorative lighting fixtures and other decorative artifacts are missing.
Theatrical systems:
Will require all new rigging, curtains, sound, and stage lighting systems. Projection equipment will be required.
Decorating:
Complete cleaning and decorating of the entire theatre required.
Systems:
Renovation of the General, Plumbing, Fire/Sprinkler, HVAC and Electrical systems of the Kenosha are detailed in the budget estimate.
As a restored performing art theatre the Kenosha will need the following:
New restrooms on the main floor and rehabilitated restrooms on the mezzanine level.
Relocation of the lower run of the rear exit stairs in the apartments to relocate the exit door to the south end of the building.
Conversion of the north street level store front into a theatre office.
The study has identified definite local support and persuasive reasons as to why the Kenosha Theatre and the Rhode Opera House have the potential to play a supportive role in the redevelopment of the Lakeshore and the revitalizing of the adjacent business district. The two theatres would support a lakeshore recreation/entertainment image and enhance the culture image of Kenosha. By expansion of the local entertainment facilities many area people will be able to participate and/or enjoy theatre art more often. The previous quoted comment is only one of many expressing this desire. The theatres, properly managed and promoted, will also bring people into the lakeshore area. New higher income housing in the immediate and adjacent areas will be an asset to the theatres.
Comparisons of the features of the Kenosha Theatre - General atmosphere after renovation/restoration:
Impressive lobby, foyers and staircases. The House; spacious, elaborate, ornate, a theatrical extravaganza.
Current general conditions:
Decayed from lack of use and maintenance for many years. Not completely secured from the elements. Can be restored to its original splendor.
Size - Seating, can influence the price of tickets for some events. 2,200/2,300 seating capacity on main floor and large balcony. Seats have been removed.
The Vogue Theatre still stands, mute testament to an era when movie theatres were more than screening houses for new films before they hit the home market but centers of community life.
Even today, passersby along busy 52nd Street might imagine the old Vogue Theatre alive again, with several hundred excited kids in line for a 1940s Saturday afternoon double feature, each clutching his or her ten-cent admission. For twenty-eight years, the Vogue was mainly an unpretentious neighborhood theatre, never attempting to outdo the grander downtown movie palaces but fulfilling its modest role in Kenosha’s entertainment scene, until a sudden change in national trends sealed not only the Vogue’s fate but that of thousands of similar movie houses across America.
The Vogue opened its doors on September 15, 1923. In that year, Kenosha’s operating film theaters included the Rhode Opera House, the new Orpheum, the Butterfly, the Burke (later Cameo) at 618-56th Street, the Majestic on the 5700 block of Sixth Avenue, the Lincoln at 6923-14th Avenue, the Strand (later Norge, demolished in 1982) at 5611-22nd Avenue and the Columbia, 2220-63rd Street. The Kenosha, Gateway and Roosevelt Theatres were four years into the future.
Walter Schlager, who ran several taverns with his wife, Rose, was looking for a solid investment, as prohibition had effectively put a damper to his tavern business. He selected some long-vacant properties at 1820-52nd Street and had wellknown Kenosha architect Charles Augustine design a state-of-the-art theatre for the site. The Vogue’s doors opened at 6 P.M. and adult tickets were 25 cents; children paid a dime.
The opening program was modest: the Kenosha premiere of Ralph Ince’s horseracing yarn, “Counterfeit Love,” an Our Gang comedy, “The Cobbler,” an Aesop’s Fable short, a Pathe newsreel, and organ solos by an unnamed woman at the keyboard of the Vogue’s new two-manual Moller pipe organ, which Schlager had obtained through the Salak Bros. Piano Company of Racine.
The decorator, Eugene Potente of 7302-14th Avenue, selected shades of deep cream for the interior, so patrons would be “bathed in a sunshine glow.” The lofty ceiling gave a feeling of more spaciousness than there really was. Unusual cast-plaster ceiling fixtures were shaped like six-pointed stars with a bare bulb at each point and a large bulb in the center, and they had to be relamped from the floor with a clumsy long wooden pole. The stage was rather small, about 16 feet deep and 25 feet across, but it was adequate for the live acts that did play there. Mostly these included jugglers, comics, acrobats and small musical groups.
Walter Schlager ran the Vogue for two years, then leased it to the short-lived United Theaters chain, who also took over the Butterfly and Lincoln. Walter and Rose went back to operating a soft-drink tavern, but with United Theaters' demise, was back operating the Vogue by 1930. In 1934, Francis B. “Butch” Schlax and George Fischer leased the Vogue, beginning a long career in theatre management for Schlax, who ended up operating virtually every theatre in Kenosha, including the Mid-City and Keno outdoor theaters.
Many Kenoshans found employment through the years at the Vogue. Some of the better-remembered projectionists include Kenneth Hahn, Fred Sherry, Ray Bacon, Louis Goodare, Richard Schnell and Percy Garton. They were the unsung heroes, invisible souls high up in their cramped booths for which audiences gave nary a thought … except if the film broke or the arc lamp failed. Then the unseen projectionist would be roundly cursed with a hail of insults, whistles and foot-stomping until the picture would resume. Sometimes he would be pressed into part-time security duty, patrolling the balcony for overly-amorous or rowdy patrons. But there was a potentially deadly aspect of the job as well -
Until World War Two, movies were made of nitrate stock, which could burn explosively and emit toxic gases. This nitrate film passed continuously just inches from a 2,000-degree arc flame. Louis Goodare was operating the Vogue’s twin Simplex projectors one night when the film caught fire. Ever the alert operator, Goodare somehow snatched the flaming reel and pitched it from a front window in the nick of time, where it landed, blazing, atop the Vogue’s marquee. Goodare’s trousers were burned, and he later billed the Standard Theaters chain of Milwaukee, which operated the Vogue at the time. (The chain denied the claim.)
Schlax had been promoted to being Standard’s citywide manager. His son Robert recalled accompanying his father every Thursday night during the war years to the Vogue and other local theatres, watching snippets of films while his dad tallied receipts in the various manager’s offices. During this period, the Vogue’s two-rank Moller pipe organ was sold and moved (“probably to some church,” according to Fred Hermes of the Dairyland Theatre Organ Society).
By this time, the Vogue was a comfortable if unspectacular addition to the city’s entertainment scene. Many of its patrons were blue-collar families, often newly-arrived Italian immigrants. On occasion, an Italian-language film would grace the theatre’s screen, which usually drew a crowd, giving the Vogue its good-natured nickname: The Garlic Opera House. To many of these people, the Vogue was a gathering place second only to their churches. Robert Schlax recalled many Vogue employees dropping off tomatoes and other vegetables from their gardens, as well as homemade wine, for the boss.
Most neighborhood theatres encountered three major crises: the coming of sound, the great depression and the Tube. The first saw the end of several Kenosha theatres unwilling or unable to convert to sound - the Columbia, the Strand (later Norge) and the Majestic being the most notable. The Depression forced the remaining theatres to adopt concession stands as an income supplement, as well as off-night promotions like Dish Night, Bank Night, Grocery Night and Amateur Night.
The Vogue offered its Dish Nights usually on slower Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Women patrons got a coupon which, when combined with attendance at the next week’s Dish Night, got them one piece of china. A lobby display showed the entire set, which could be hers if she attended faithfully each week on Dish Night. (Today, complete sets of theatre dishes are collectors' items.)
One neighborhood resident told of the Gravy Boat Fiasco at the Vogue one night at the end of a long dish promotion, the night the Vogue would be dispensing the expensive gravy boats that would complete that particular set. Previously, the ladies had been tucking the flat dinnerware into their large and practical handbags, but the bulbous gravy boats couldn’t be stashed so easily. They sat through the double feature, newsreel, cartoons, previews and short subjects with the gravy boats balanced precariously on their laps or entrusted to some family member. The show was regularly punctuated by the loud crash of china on the painted concrete floor, accompanied by ever-louder jeers and laughter from the less-sympathetic patrons. To add to the fun, there was a lot of crunchy footwork during intermission.
Bank Night was a simple lottery: tickets were collected and one number was drawn for a cash award. The catch was, the barrel contained many tickets from weeks past, so patrons were thus encouraged to attend on every Bank Night. Weeks or months might pass with no jackpot award, so the kitty could easily surpass one thousand dollars - until a new state anti-lottery law passed during the war years outlawed Bank Night. Grocery Night was similar to Bank Night, and Amateur Night provided cash prizes or free prizes to the best singer, tap dancer, accordionist or spoon player, as determined by applause levels. Contestants were thus encouraged to pack the audience with their supporters.
All these gimmicks, and the ever-more important concession stand, proved important to the Vogue and other neighborhood theatres during the lean Depression years. And times were lean for the movies then. Every theatre in downtown Kenosha was closed by 1933 - the Kenosha, Orpheum, Gateway Cameo - but the Vogue somehow endured.
By 1939, a semblance of prosperity had returned, and the movies were now entering the peak of their popularity as patrons jammed theaters for escapism, light musicals and sentimental fare. On Sunday, December 7, 1941, the Vogue abruptly halted “Life Begins for Andy Hardy”; the star-shaped ceiling fixtures came on, and the matinee audience was told that the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii had been swept in a surprise attack from Japanese planes. Stunned, many patrons quietly made their way out. The Vogue and nearly every theatre in America became the focal point for the war effort.
Hollywood stars took new roles - filmed appeals to the audiences for the sale of war bonds as ushers patrolled the aisles to sell bonds to those with raised hands. In this way, America’s theatres helped to win the war.
Throughout the 1940s, box office receipts soared. But the heavy crush led to premature wear on carpets and seats; walls and draperies grew soiled and dingy, accelerated by soot from coal furnaces used to heat theatres. It hardly slowed business; movies were “in.” Ninety million Americans attended each week (though Hollywood chose to ignore the hidden warnings in a survey in which moviegoers were asked which medium they would prefer, movies or radio. Eighty-five percent said radio.)
The Vogue never had air-conditioning, but employee Dominick Gallo said he would order truckloads of ice to be dumped into the coal chutes, and turning on the high rotary blower would cool the theater nicely. And cheaply.
Gallo recalled the Saturday matinees, where for nine cents any kid could see a one-hour western starring the likes of Hopalong Cassidy, Lash LaRue, Sunset Carson or Johnny Mack Brown (who seemed to be the local hero) plus several cartoons and one chapter of a serial thriller such as “The Clutching Hand”, “The Invisible Monster” or “Mystery Squadron”. Of course, vending revenues would zoom higher than Flash Gordon’s rocket ship during these weekend shows; no one got off spending just nine cents.
Another Vogue promotion: perforated cards of tickets sold through schools. For a dollar, any kid could see perhaps a dozen quality films such as “The Green Years,” “Destination Moon,” “Father Was a Fullback” and more on consecutive weekend matinees. The Vogue would be packed, and schools got a cut of the take. An old photo shows the Vogue with folding chairs set up in the aisles to handle the overflow. It wasn’t unusual to see late-coming kids sit on the floor to catch the show. All that was all coming to an end, however.
In 1950, television swept the nation. The novelty of free entertainment in one’s own living room was enormous. The entire movie industry at first ignored the new threat, but by 1951, the theaters began to close. The first to go dark were the smaller, shabbier movie houses in older areas.
Until 1950, business had been so good that maintenance hadn’t been top priority in many theatres. Suddenly, the audiences began to thin out and thus began a vicious circle - these theatres, physically worn out from the good years, were competing with free TV. Standard Theaters, perhaps predicting the future, gave up its lease on the Vogue, but Bill Exton, the longtime operator of the Roosevelt, picked up the Vogue (and Hollywood, which had already closed) and forged ahead with his new mini-chain of local theatres.
Bill Exton tried hard, but he didn’t have the resources to redecorate and repair the Vogue, which was visibly worn from millions of admissions over the years, and despite his best efforts, revenues now began to decline alarmingly.
One cost-cutting move Exton made was perhaps ill-advised and too obvious: rather than change the marquee letters every three days, he simply put up his longtime motto, “Always a Good Show.” But that was a clear signal the Vogue was in trouble.
By autumn, 1951, losses were mounting. Bill Exton tried cutting back the Vogue’s operation to a weekend-only policy.
I recall my last visit to the Vogue, at a weekend matinee in the autumn of 1951; “Captain Horatio Hornblower” with Gregory Peck was playing. The large preteen audience was getting noisy during the “talky” parts. Mr. Exton stopped the film, turned on the house lights and quietly addressed the audience, which sat in surprised silence. He said that some people had paid good money to enjoy the film, and although he knew we didn’t mean to, we were spoiling their fun. He expected us to respect that, and if we could show that we understood, he would reward us later by having the projectionist run an extra cartoon. And that’s exactly what happened. True to his word, Mr. Exton delivered on his promise of “always a good show.”
But the Vogue was dying, and its end was no doubt hastened by the vicious cold wave that settled over the Midwest in December, 1951.
Over the years, the Vogue had offered foreign films on occasion, usually Italian, Polish or German, and on a Sunday that December, the Vogue screened the opera film “La Traviata” by Verdi, for a final touch of class.
There’s no record of how many people left their warm living rooms and new 16-inch TV screens to attend the final double feature of “Warpath” and “Bandit Queen” on Sunday, December 15, 1951, but we do know the mercury was at 20 degrees below zero.
The Vogue never reopened. Its passing left scarcely a ripple.
By the following April, the Hollywood was gone forever, too. Bill Exton concentrated on his Roosevelt Theater until his retirement nearly two decades later.
At the darkened Vogue, the marquee still promised “Always A Good Show”, until years of wind and snow knocked enough letters off to render the phrase unintelligible. Local businessman David Korf took the building over and put up a For Sale sign. There were no takers.
The movies did make a brief comeback to the Vogue in 1970. A group of inspired youths restored the old box office (now demolished), set up folding chairs and a 16mm projector and ran classic films on weekends under the banner of the New Vogue Theatre, a tribute to the well-remembered neighborhood movie house of decades past.
There was a time when Chicago glistened with stars in its eyes. They shined within fantasy galaxies built to create resplendent heavens of imagination. As the motion pictures declared within them, they were places where dreams were born. Too spectacular to be called mere theaters, they were palaces, breathtaking, hard to believe structures more dazzling than the entertainment on their stages. The Uptown was the largest in the nation. Through decades of volunteer efforts, its sheer grandeur has fought back the march of time and it remains preserved like a buried city. The captivating images and stories in this book impel to support the efforts that will allow the UPTOWN to hold its place in Chicago’s architectural firmament.
By DON JENSEN Staff Writer, Kenosha News (3/14/1984)
The Lake Theater in downtown Kenosha will show its last film Thursday.
After 58 years as a movie theater, it will close its doors for lack of business.
It is the last remaining downtown movie house, and the largest of Kenosha’s grand old movie houses to remain in business.
Jack Belasco, executive vice president of Essaness Theaters Corp., Chicago, which owns the theater at 514 56th St., cited “terrible losses” and a generally poor business climate in the downtown area.
Essaness also owns the Keno and MidCity outdoor theaters here.
“We’d like to operate, but not at the losses we’ve suffered,” Belasco said.
He indicated the firm would try to sell or lease the building.
For many years the theater was in competition with the also-large Kenosha and Orpheum theaters for downtown’s substantial movie business, along with one or two smaller houses off Sixth Avenue. Only the Roosevelt Theater on the city’s west side, built on a smaller scale, still remains as an example of the old-fashioned movie theaters stylish before television, and now videotaped movies, came on the scene.
There has been a theater located at the Lake Theater site since 1891 when Peter Rhode built his first opera house.
In 1926, the Saxe Amusement Co. of Milwaukee purchased the old opera house, tore it down and constructed a half-million dollar movie palace, the Gateway Theater.
The theater, opulently decorated, had a reputation for having perfect line-of-sight vision of the large screen from any seat in the house, and for its near-perfect acoustics.
It remained the Gateway until a remodeling in the late 1950s, when it was renamed the Lake Theater. (Ed.: 1963)
In 1976, another renovation resulted in the dividing of the large auditorium into two smaller theaters each seating about 480 persons.
Duncanson at the Helm
The man who has never yet failed to “Put them over” (June 17, 1920)
As a matter of introducing the man upon whom the people of Racine will depend for their theatrical amusement and entertainment, much of anticipation and encouragement may be said. Mr. Duncanson, one of the men “behind the guns,” is a man well qualified by accomplishments and experience, to meet all your expectations and one who can appreciate your confidence and patronage. Mr. Duncanson was formerly Vice President and General Manager of a million dollar theatre comраnу, owning and operating a circuit of theatres. He has never failed to popularize and make a wonderfully paying proposition of any theatre he has ever taken charge of and he will popularize the “NATIONAL.” He is a man of foresight and faith in the future, and has the courage and judgment to back up his belief in humanity, with money and time. While others with equal opportunities hesitate and never “get out of the trenches,” he forges aheed. “CERTAINTIES HAVE THEIR LIMITATIONS WHILE LARGE PROFITS ARE MADE BY TAKING REASONABLE RISKS.” (June 17, 1920)
In these days of reaction from the great World War and an unheard of prosperity-theatres and the theatre business has become one of the greatest producers of un-taired wealth in the list of big businesses. Properly.con-ducted and under correct policy, the Orpheum (to be the “NATIONAL” in the future) will enter the Horor Roll of big financial and social successes. A thearre so hear tiful and comfortable, the pride of boosters of Racine, must have a policy that wil stand out as an example of culture and refinement, which the people of Racire may justly demand and which will make it possible for visit-ors and friends to carry away a good report of Racine as the amusement and social center of the state and it SHALL BE DONE, under the jurisdiction of the man who has never yet failed to do so.
New Theatre Company Forming (June 17, 1920) The new owners are organizing a new theatre company and the Orpheum will be the nucleus theatre around which will be formed a large circuit of high class theatres that will be the social and amusement center of every city where located. Some of the parties to be interested in the new Theatre Company are among the leading and public spirited people of Racine, whose civic pride prompts them, more than the large profits to be made, to associate themselves with the company. Just appreciation and credit is given Mr. John Bate for his manifest interest and public spirit in the institutions of Racine, by the building of this magnificent theatre. There are three institutions in a city from which it draws its good or bad name. The theatre, the church and the educational. Of these, the theatre is not the least important.
Pluto TV will bring back its award-winning ‘Free Movie Weekend’ program this summer to support independent theatres by offering complimentary movie tickets on select weekends. Pluto and director Sean Baker (a champion of independent theatres) celebrate the theatre-going experience as an invaluable part of the film entertainment ecosystem.
Pluto TV’s ‘Free Movie Weekend’ originated after the Covid pandemic to encourage patrons to return to theatres, now including 50 free weekends at theatres in 30 states.
Director Sean Baker (“Anora” )partnered with Pluto TV to nominate local theatres, saying “Free Movie Weekend is a meaningful initiative that shares a cause close to my heart. Local cinemas are cultural touchstones, they are gathering places where communities come together to experience stories as they were meant to be seen: on the big screen. I’m honored to partner with Pluto TV to help spotlight the independent theaters that play such a vital role in sustaining the art of cinema.”
For this year’s ‘Free Movie Weekend,' Sean Baker nominated Los Angeles local theater Gardena Cinema. Gardena Cinema is the last family-run independent single-screen indoor walk-in movie theater in South Los Angeles that was built in 1946 and has been operated by the Kim family since 1976. Daughter Judy Kim continues to manage the 800 seat cinema after the matriarch, Nancy Soo Myoung Kim died on Mother’s Day in 2022 from complications of uterine cancer.
The list for this year’s ‘Free Movie Weekend’:
Gardena Cinema, Los Angeles: June 7-8 Tara Theatre, Atlanta: June 14-15 Music Box Theatre, Chicago: June 21-22 Redford Theatre, Detroit: June 28-29 Colonial Theatre, Phoenixville, PA: July 5-6
The Owen Theatre began as the Idle Hour Theatre operated by the Collins family in the silent era, with films accompanied by young female pianists. Fire later destroyed the adjacent Griebenow-Weirich Hardware Store, damaging the theatre. Both were rebuilt in the summer of 1919, with a shared party wall and an agreement that continued almost 70 years.
In 1926, then-owner the H.E. Spaulding family sold the theatre to J. J. Schultz, who operated it for three years before selling it to Ben Krom who in 1931 redecorated the interior.
In April 1937 the exploitation studio Educational Road Show Pictures four-walled “Shame” for a midnight screening with a 35 cent admission to those over 16 years, telling of “the disappearance of 75,000 young girls yearly”. That year the name changed to Owen Theatre with a new marquee and a lighted vertical sign spelling out “Owen”.
In 1938, the Owen Theatre was purchased by George Krom, who sold it eight years later to Paul Stasek and Leonard Hamm. In 1949, the Owen Theatre was purchased by Virgil and Clarence Callahan, and the next year was taken over by Robert and Pauline Habighorst, whose family had spent thirty years with the Owen Theatre.
In 1981, family friend Judy Vollrath and her husband Phil took over the Owen through a land contract with daughter Katie Habighorst and her siblings. They painted the entire auditorium by themselves and installed a Dolby stereo sound system.
By 1986 the Vollraths were feeling the effects of cable TV and home video, and closed the doors just before that Christmas after a free Santa Claus show, the final feature, “ a terribly sad day,” said Judy Vollrath. “We took time cleaning that day and we were so sad. The time finally came to leave and we stood at the door after we locked it. I, of course, was in tears, and Phil was unbelievably sad.”
The Owen Theatre was converted to use as a shipping warehouse. The popcorn machine was donated to the school; some seats went to the Abbotsford Theatre, and some to a church.
On 2 September 1916, the Kenosha News reported that “This morning workmen laid the pick an axe to old Columbia Hall and it is to be leveled…”
The Butterfly Theatre cost Ernst Klinkert of Racine and Kenosha’s Charles Pacini a total of $45,000; Pacini would be the operator with a long-term lease. George Lindemann was general contractor and Tully as the masonry contractor. it was claimed the theater would seat 1000 people but by the time it opened that dropped to 650. Charles O. Augustine of Kenosha was the architect. Reports said the ventilation was powerful enough to completely cycle the air in the theater every six minutes, that it had separate flush toilets for gentlemen and ladies, floors that could be sanitized, a pipe organ, and space for an orchestra of fourteen.
Pacini was already operating the Majestic Theatre downtown and the Cozy Theatre a block south of the Butterfly. He would close the Cozy and transfer its equipment to the new Butterfly.
It opened 17 March 1917 to showings of Chaplin’s “Easy Street” and a 5-reel Helen Rosson drama, “The Undertow.”
(Pacini - murdered in August 1920, a case still unsolved - owned the Majestic, Butterfly, and New Strand theatres and had a lease on the land of the Eichelman Hotel at Sixth Avenue and 58th Street, where he was planning a skyscraper with a large theater.)
The Butterfly became a Collins theatre, which also controlled the Burke and Virginian. In 1929, a Movietone system was installed to allow for talkies, but closed not long after. In August 1932, the Butterfly Theatre reopened after a major redecoration, which included a larger screen.
In early May of 1941, it was redecorated again and reopened as the Hollywood Theatre.
In decline and struggling by April of 1952, the listings ended after a last offering of two 1942 East Side Kids features, “The Smart Alecks” and “The Wise Guy.” But the Hollywood Theatre reopened with renewed hopes in October 1953 with Marilyn Monroe and Joseph Cotten in “Niagara” paired with “Invaders from Mars,” a picture credited today with inspiring young Stephen Spielberg, Joe Dante, John Landis and Martin Scorsese.
By 1955, the Hollywood was home to the Kenosha Missionary Baptist Church, moving in 1959 to become the Temple Baptist Church on 47th Ave and 52nd St.
In 1963, the Auxiliary of the Polish Legion of American Veterans began raising funds to convert the Hollywood Theater into a home for the post; it remained so for 49 years until the spring of 2012 when it was sold and reopened the next year as Circa on Seventh, a meeting hall with much of it’s original glamour restored.
Atty. James Erwin represents a potential buyer who says his client “would like to see the theater preserved and returned to its use” as a showplace.
Erwin did not name his client, but he said they work in real estate and have many multi-unit buildings on the Northwest Side. Erwin did not respond to requests for comment after Thursday’s hearing. Over $228,000 in taxes on the property are due, and Chicago Neighborhood Resources Advisors LLC is to do a study on redeeming both the overdue taxes and the cost of repairs including shoring up the weakened marquee. Then, if CNRA is appointed receiver, it can stabilize the marquee. Atty. Erwin said his client anticipates working with CNRA. A tax hearing is set for 10am on May 8.
The Portage Theatre closed as a cinema in 2001 but was used sporadically, became a City Landmark in May, 2013, was abandoned in 2018, and was named one of Illinois’s most endangered historic sites.
The 1911 Crystal (later Lakes) Theatre of Antioch dates was owned by Fred Remer and was sold to Percy Chinn the following year. By 1946 it was renamed the Lakes Theatre. (In 1958, the Lakes Theatre company proposed building a 400-car outdoor theatre on the northwest corner of Route 59 and Grass Lake Road. Strong opposition ended the plan.)
In 1964, the local Palette, Masque and Lyre amateur players began presenting productions at the Lakes Theatre, and in January, 1984 they were able to purchase the theatre. Much of the interior ornament was lost thereafter but the three oval facade windows that had been bricked over were restored after a bequest left by Dolly Spiering. In 2015, the players were able to purchase an adjoining commercial building as a concessions venue.
Editorial: Antioch Theatre rebirth more than a victory for nostalgia (April 04, 2016 - Daily Herald) In our bigger-is-better world, small businesses often take a beating.
That’s particularly true of one-screen movie theaters that were once staples of community downtowns. Mostly they have disappeared from today’s suburbs, as owners found it difficult to compete with giant multiplexes that offer many more movie choices and a glitzier experience complete with reclining chairs and a nice merlot.
And, that’s what makes the renovation of the old Antioch Theatre, and the community effort that supported the project, so noteworthy and an experience worth saluting.
Sure, it’s a victory for nostalgia, joining the Liberty Theatre in Libertyville and the Catlow in Barrington as another old movie house rebirth.
But the public-private partnership that spurred the project’s success also shows early signs of being a catalyst for other downtown Antioch improvements. The approach could make it a project worth watching by others looking for ways to boost their downtown improvement efforts.
Tim Downey launched the $750,000 plan to rehab the theater building, where deteriorating conditions, slumping attendance and outdated equipment had put it on the endangered list. It was built in 1919 as the Majestic Theatre, a live performance house, and it was converted to the Antioch Theatre five years later. It was never a grand movie house, but it had been a downtown fixture for generations of residents.
Downey invested $300,000 of his own money, found four core sponsors to contribute $150,000, and sold engraved sidewalk stars. With what they said was a “degree of reluctance,” village board members agreed to provide a $200,000 loan, supported by a village-backed 75-cents per-ticket tax. In a town with a tight budget, like many of its neighbors, and concerns about offering overly generous tax incentives, it was no small gesture.
However, the roll of the dice for all involved seems to be paying off.
The updated version with new seats, restrooms, carpeting, facade, marquee, digital technology and more attracted some 40,000 moviegoers in the first year since the reopening, Downey said. That generated enough money for him to make monthly payments - he’s repaid nearly $30,000 - on the 10-year village note.
Village officials and downtown supporters alike said the Antioch Theatre project has been good for the downtown. It has sparked renovations at some other downtown businesses, boosted foot traffic that is aiding other nearby businesses by bringing people to the area and it is helping renew interest in a downtown development initiative. It is once again a vital part of the village’s historic downtown district, they say.
“It’s fun to report my confidence in the community and the community’s confidence in me has paid off,” Downey told the Daily Herald’s Mick Zawislak.
What the born-again Antioch Theatre shows is that one little project with a motivated developer, a local government willing to take a chance and a supportive community can help spark big things.
(Chicago Tribune, March 12, 1917) Church Women Reveal Suggestive Acts After Peaceful “Raids” on Theaters
BY THE REV. W. B. NORTON.
SCANTILY dressed women, lewd jokes, the American flag disgraced, the Christian religion flouted, drinking, gambling, murder paraded, crowds of men and boys in the audience, many of the boys in knickerbockers.
These are some of the things which shocked the women of the Woman’s Church federation who made a round of a dozen or more of the theaters of Chicago Saturday evening.
Mrs. J. G. Boor, chairman of the morals committee of the Woman’s Church federation, was in charge. She was assisted by fourteen women and up several men, some of whom accompanied the women, while others went to ag the theaters where men only are admitted.
Mrs. H. T. Leslie, 6844 Lafayette avenue, was one of the women who visited the Gayety theater, 531 South State street.
“The performance was vulgar and degrading,” she said. We teach our children to honor the American flag. Here they disgraced it. Girls came on the stage in tights with shoulders and arms entirely bare, draped about the waist in the red, white and blue. They formed a pyramid and the one who came the nearest being nud formed the center of the pyramíd. In this attitude they sang a song entitled “My Country.” not our national anthem, while a flag was lowered from the ceiling.
Sample of “Humor.”
“One of the comedians said: ‘It doesn’t make any difference what a woman has on or whether she has anything on. O yes it does,’ another said. When Gen. Grant surrendered to Lee he only had on a ragged union suit. Our girls have more on than that.”
“One man told a girl he would strip her to the skin. He first made her take off her hat, then her dress, then her petticoat. She had on tights, but the suggestiveness of the act was plain to see.”
Mrs. L. E. Koontz, 653 North Lockwood avenue, was one of three who visited the Star and Garter theater, 815 West Madison street.
“We sat in the gallery,” she said, “and noted that the audience was chiefly made up of young men, some of them nice young, manly looking fellows, others were of the depraved kind. My heart ached for them because I realized their legitimate desires for amusement. The air was thick with tobacco smoke. The jokes were of the coarsest character and evidently intended to inflame the imagination. One comedian told how some one threw a brick through the window and struck the leg of the girl he was sitting with and broke three of his fingers, plainly implying his hand was in contact with the girl’s leg.
Some More “Comedy.”
“In a scene one girl and two men became intoxicated, the girl being dragged off the stage in a beastly state. The men spilled the liquor on the table, dipped their hands in it, and slapped each other. Finally they kicked over the table and spilled the rest of the liquor on the floor.
“The girls were called the Jolly Widows and were dressed in tights.”
Mrs. F. M. Reynolds of Austin confirmed the report of Mrs. Koontz.
“The performance is to be condemned from start to finish,” she said. “There was not one redeeming feature. There was a lewd poem recited about looking at women, in which the name of Christ was mentioned. The drinking scene and the pajama dance were disgusting.” Mrs. R. L. Moffett, 4618 North Racine avenue, visited the Casino at 403 North State street.
“Suggestive jokes and Hula Hula dancing such as I heard and saw ought not to be tolerated,” she said. The Hula Hula dancers were bare legged and their bodies were draped only in a shawl.
Better Features Applauded.
“Were there any more like you in the family?” one coarse joker asked another. “No, when father died mother lost the pattern.”
“I believe the audience would enjoy a higher grade of entertainment, because a moving picture of a war scene and the performance of a player on an accordion, which were good, received the loudest applause.”
Mrs. Boor found conditions at the National, 610 South State street, she said, disgusting in the extreme.
“A young woman described a dance in a most suggestive way. ‘What did you have on?’ her male companion asked. ‘I had on a string of beads, then a little space and another string.’ ‘You ought to leave off the two last strings,’ he replied. ‘Did you dance the seven veils dance?’ she was asked. ‘If you did you left off six and a half of the veils,’ he said.”
“Forty per cent of the audience was under 21 years, many of them young boys.”
“The theaters are not as obscene as they were. They have been improved 75 per cent over the theaters of a few years ago, but they are still demoralizing, corrupting, and a disgrace to a Christian civilization.”
the most objectionable of all,“ said Mrs. E. Pretty.
“The girls were dressed so they appeared perfectly nude. They came on the stage protecting themselves with parasols. They moved the parasols from side to side so as to expose themselves for a moment to full view. Then they sang, ‘To see a little more you must meet us at the door.’ Could there be any plainer solicitation to evil than that?”
Mrs. A. C. O'Neal, 2512 West Sixty-sixth street, expressed in the strongest terms indignation of what she saw at the Haymarket theater, 722 West Madison street.
“If there is anything worse than I saw at the Haymarket, I hope I may never see it,” she said. “There was awful profanity, and from beginning to end vile love making and sexual suggestion. The twenty girls dressed in tights ran out on the run board into the center of the audience, and stooping over to the men sang songs of invitation and suggestion. I saw only two other women in the audience besides the four women in our party.”
Many Theaters Visited.
Among the theaters visited were: the South side, Gayety, National, Gem, and Stella; north side, Casino, Hippodrome; west side, Haymarket and Star and Garter.
“To describe the chorus girls of any theater as shapely, scantily clothed, alluring to men, will displease no owner or manager,” said Mrs. Boor.
“To picture the horror or even wrath of good women at witnessing the members of their sex on exhibition like well groomed prize winners at the international stock exhibit will merely cause a smile of ill concealed approval by those interested in the box office.
“But to pass a law giving authority to close such theaters under an injunction and abatement act, by which managers and owners are held responsible for the character of the performance, will raise a storm of protest because such a law will close the show.”
Need for New Law.
“But this is what led us women to brave the disgraceful and distasteful houses of entertainment which we believe are destructive of the young life of our city. We want our legislature to know that there is a crying need for the passage of the law offering relief from the menace of the immoral show such as is provided by the senate bill 130, introduced by Senator J. J. Barbour, and a similar one introduced by Representative Allen J. Carter, which make the owners and managers liable for whatever is exhibited in the theaters they control.”
(Chicago Tribune, March 12, 1917) Church Women Reveal Suggestive Acts After Peaceful “Raids” on Theaters
BY THE REV. W. B. NORTON.
SCANTILY dressed women, lewd jokes, the American flag disgraced, the Christian religion flouted, drinking, gambling, murder paraded, crowds of men and boys in the audience, many of the boys in knickerbockers.
These are some of the things which shocked the women of the Woman’s Church federation who made a round of a dozen or more of the theaters of Chicago Saturday evening.
Mrs. J. G. Boor, chairman of the morals committee of the Woman’s Church federation, was in charge. She was assisted by fourteen women and up several men, some of whom accompanied the women, while others went to ag the theaters where men only are admitted.
Mrs. H. T. Leslie, 6844 Lafayette avenue, was one of the women who visited the Gayety theater, 531 South State street.
“The performance was vulgar and degrading,” she said. We teach our children to honor the American flag. Here they disgraced it. Girls came on the stage in tights with shoulders and arms entirely bare, draped about the waist in the red, white and blue. They formed a pyramid and the one who came the nearest being nud formed the center of the pyramíd. In this attitude they sang a song entitled “My Country.” not our national anthem, while a flag was lowered from the ceiling.
Sample of “Humor.”
“One of the comedians said: ‘It doesn’t make any difference what a woman has on or whether she has anything on. O yes it does,’ another said. When Gen. Grant surrendered to Lee he only had on a ragged union suit. Our girls have more on than that.”
“One man told a girl he would strip her to the skin. He first made her take off her hat, then her dress, then her petticoat. She had on tights, but the suggestiveness of the act was plain to see.”
Mrs. L. E. Koontz, 653 North Lockwood avenue, was one of three who visited the Star and Garter theater, 815 West Madison street.
“We sat in the gallery,” she said, “and noted that the audience was chiefly made up of young men, some of them nice young, manly looking fellows, others were of the depraved kind. My heart ached for them because I realized their legitimate desires for amusement. The air was thick with tobacco smoke. The jokes were of the coarsest character and evidently intended to inflame the imagination. One comedian told how some one threw a brick through the window and struck the leg of the girl he was sitting with and broke three of his fingers, plainly implying his hand was in contact with the girl’s leg.
Some More “Comedy.”
“In a scene one girl and two men became intoxicated, the girl being dragged off the stage in a beastly state. The men spilled the liquor on the table, dipped their hands in it, and slapped each other. Finally they kicked over the table and spilled the rest of the liquor on the floor.
“The girls were called the Jolly Widows and were dressed in tights.”
Mrs. F. M. Reynolds of Austin confirmed the report of Mrs. Koontz.
“The performance is to be condemned from start to finish,” she said. “There was not one redeeming feature. There was a lewd poem recited about looking at women, in which the name of Christ was mentioned. The drinking scene and the pajama dance were disgusting.” Mrs. R. L. Moffett, 4618 North Racine avenue, visited the Casino at 403 North State street.
“Suggestive jokes and Hula Hula dancing such as I heard and saw ought not to be tolerated,” she said. The Hula Hula dancers were bare legged and their bodies were draped only in a shawl.
Better Features Applauded.
“Were there any more like you in the family?” one coarse joker asked another. “No, when father died mother lost the pattern.”
“I believe the audience would enjoy a higher grade of entertainment, because a moving picture of a war scene and the performance of a player on an accordion, which were good, received the loudest applause.”
Mrs. Boor found conditions at the National, 610 South State street, she said, disgusting in the extreme.
“A young woman described a dance in a most suggestive way. ‘What did you have on?’ her male companion asked. ‘I had on a string of beads, then a little space and another string.’ ‘You ought to leave off the two last strings,’ he replied. ‘Did you dance the seven veils dance?’ she was asked. ‘If you did you left off six and a half of the veils,’ he said.”
“Forty per cent of the audience was under 21 years, many of them young boys.”
“The theaters are not as obscene as they were. They have been improved 75 per cent over the theaters of a few years ago, but they are still demoralizing, corrupting, and a disgrace to a Christian civilization.”
the most objectionable of all,“ said Mrs. E. Pretty.
“The girls were dressed so they appeared perfectly nude. They came on the stage protecting themselves with parasols. They moved the parasols from side to side so as to expose themselves for a moment to full view. Then they sang, ‘To see a little more you must meet us at the door.’ Could there be any plainer solicitation to evil than that?”
Mrs. A. C. O'Neal, 2512 West Sixty-sixth street, expressed in the strongest terms indignation of what she saw at the Haymarket theater, 722 West Madison street.
“If there is anything worse than I saw at the Haymarket, I hope I may never see it,” she said. “There was awful profanity, and from beginning to end vile love making and sexual suggestion. The twenty girls dressed in tights ran out on the run board into the center of the audience, and stooping over to the men sang songs of invitation and suggestion. I saw only two other women in the audience besides the four women in our party.”
Many Theaters Visited.
Among the theaters visited were: the South side, Gayety, National, Gem, and Stella; north side, Casino, Hippodrome; west side, Haymarket and Star and Garter.
“To describe the chorus girls of any theater as shapely, scantily clothed, alluring to men, will displease no owner or manager,” said Mrs. Boor.
“To picture the horror or even wrath of good women at witnessing the members of their sex on exhibition like well groomed prize winners at the international stock exhibit will merely cause a smile of ill concealed approval by those interested in the box office.
“But to pass a law giving authority to close such theaters under an injunction and abatement act, by which managers and owners are held responsible for the character of the performance, will raise a storm of protest because such a law will close the show.”
Need for New Law.
“But this is what led us women to brave the disgraceful and distasteful houses of entertainment which we believe are destructive of the young life of our city. We want our legislature to know that there is a crying need for the passage of the law offering relief from the menace of the immoral show such as is provided by the senate bill 130, introduced by Senator J. J. Barbour, and a similar one introduced by Representative Allen J. Carter, which make the owners and managers liable for whatever is exhibited in the theaters they control.”
May 26, 1946 - Star and Garter Theater Sold for $110,000 Cash
The Star & Garter theater building. 815 W. Madison st., was sold by the Hyde & Behman Amusement company and the Richard Hyde estate of New York City, to Harold L. Clamage, of St. Louis, and Harold W. Huchberger, of Chicago, for $110,000 cash, thru Thomas H. Fitzgerald. The building will be air conditioned and modernized at an estimated cost of $35,000 and operated with pictures and stage shows, it was said.
The shuttered Portage Theater, 4050 N. Milwaukee Ave., is under contract to be sold for $25,000 to Chris Bauman, founder of the Zenith Music Group that has operated the Patio Theater and Avondale Music Hall, according to recent court testimony.
Any buyer of the theater would presumably also have to pay the county more than $500,000 in back taxes, Curt Bettiker, the count-appointed receiver for the theater, said at a Sept. 11 housing court hearing.
The city of Chicago last year took the theater’s ownership to court over building code issues. A receivership was appointed to help secure and maintain the building after the ownership or its representatives stopped attending court hearings on the matter.
It was reported at the hearing that the Portage Theater LLC has entered a sales contract to sell the theater to Bauman. Bauman took over operations of the Patio in 2018 but around a year ago another entity took the helm at the Patio, according to Alderman Nicholas Sposato (38th). A license for the Patio expired on May and there is no active business license for 6008 W. Irving Park Road, the theater’s address, according to the city Department of Business Affairs.
No representatives of Bauman nor the Portage Theater LLC were at the Sept. 11 court hearing.
Bettiker, who represents Chicagoland Neighborhood Resources LLC, said that he has been contacted several times about the need for someone to get into the theater to read a water meter so that the sale of the property can proceed. However, it was reported at the hearing that the meter may be located in the residential portion of the building, which has a different owner.
As receiver, Bettiker has control over the theater’s locks and he said that an alarm system needs to be installed.
“There’s a number of kids breaking into the building literally to just hang out,” Bettiker said.
If the deal with Bauman is not finished by the next court hearing, scheduled for Oct. 16, city attorney Glenn Angel said that the city may ask the court to give Bettiker permission to sell the theater.
At the hearing, Bettiker told another potential buyer, “My hands are kind of tied. The owner still owns the building. … We have to let the contract (with Bauman) play out.”
It was reported at the hearing that the name of a “known real estate investor” was on the sales contract, but the person was not identified.
Currently scaffolding is in place in the front of theater due to safety concerns regarding the marquee. “It’s protecting the public way for when it falls,” Bettiker said.
The theater’s ownership was not covering the cost of city permit fees for the scaffolding, prompting the need for the receivership to pay those fees.
Also at the hearing, a lawyer reported that his client has an $80,000 mechanics lien against the property for unpaid services.
The Portage Theater is a city landmark, and a representative of Preservation Chicago attended the court hearing.
(Brian Nadig, Nadig Newspapers)
The site originally housed the large 1880s Columbia Hall, which was demolished beginning on September 2, 1916, and ground was broken immediately for the Butterfly Theatre in September of 1916. Racine brewery owner/investor Ernst Klinkert and Kenosha exhibitor Charles Pacini paid a total of $45,000, with Pacini to be the operator with a long term lease. George Lindemann was the general contractor,Tully as the masonry contractor, and designed by local architect Charles O. Augustine for 650 seats and a 14-member orchestra pit. (Pacini already operated the Majestic downtown. the New Strand uptown, and the Cozy Theatre one block south of the Butterfly, which closed, with its equipment transferred to the Butterfly .
The Butterfly Theatre, with its signature butterfly-wings framing the proscenium arch, opened on March 17, 1917 to Chaplin’s “Easy Street,” and the Helen Rosson drama “The Undertow.”
Pacini was murdered in August 1920 (the case remains unsolved) and the Butterfly became a Collins theatre with the Burke and Virginian. By 1929, a Movietone sound system was installed but the Butterfly closed in February 1930, reopening in August 1932 after a major redecoration including a larger screen. Closed again for another redecoration, it reopened in May of 1941 as the Hollywood Theatre.
By April of 1952, and struggling against the threat of free television, the last desperate Hollywood Theatre programs were two 1942 East Side Kids films, “The Smart Alecks” and “The Wise Guy”.
But manager Bill Exton tried again in October 1953 with two popular second-run features - “Niagara” with Marilyn Monroe and Joseph Cotten, paired with “Invaders from Mars”. But it wasn’t enough.
In 1955, the Hollywood Theatre housed the Kenosha Missionary Baptist Church (which by 1959 became the Temple Baptist Church at 47th Ave. and 52nd Street), and in 1963, the Auxiliary of the Polish Legion of American Veterans began raising funds to convert the theatre into its hall. It remained so into its sale in the Spring of 2012 and reopened as Circa on Seventh in 2013. (This article appeared in a September, 2025 Kenosha History Center post.)
(August 30, 1949) - Bill Exton Marks Anniversary
This week marks the windup of Bill Exton’s tenth year and start of his eleventh year as owner-manager of the independent Roosevelt Theater, 29th Ave. and Roosevelt Rd.
Wednesday afternoon at 1:30 he will present his tenth annual Back-to-School show for the children. This idea was introduced to Kenosha by Exton during his first year at the Kenosha theater, and has been continued by him every year since taking over the Roosevelt. A special program is booked for the occasion.
The remodeling of the entire front of the theater has just been completed, with the latest design of canopy construction injected, making the appearance much different than other local theaters.
Exton has no affiliations with any other theaters in the state, but he has associated for the past year and a half with the Zion theater at Zion, III.
The Roosevelt staff consists of the following: Franklyn Williams, assistant, third year; Jack Schumaker and Wayne Burke, first year; Gilda Zaubrauskis and Margaret Vittorio, cleaners, third year; Terry Matoska and Meredith Gentes, vendettes, second year, and Joan Saeger, Gladys Strusky and June Baterl, the most recent additions to the staff, well on to their first year of service.
Since taking over the Roosevelt, Exton has completely remodeled the booth, and has the latest and most efficient equipment necessary for proper projection and sound, which has received much praisworthy comment from patrons.
The Roosevelt operates as a family neighborhood theater, opening each evening at 6:30 and continuous from 1 p. m. on Sunday. It is a theater with a personality, since each member of the staff has been there long enough to become acquainted with the patrons, and Exton himself is always on hand during the hours of theater operation, giving patrons that glad-to-see-you feeling as they enter the doors.
Although he announces himself as the only independent theater operator in Kenosha, Exton has no interference from any of the other theaters, since he is designated as a third run situation and his programs and booking availabilities reach him regularly on scheduled dates. Pictures playing at the first runs in downtown Kenosha usually reach the Roosevelt screen about 70 days afterward, so that steady Roosevelt patrons get the benefit of first run operation on the west side of Kenosha.
Opinion: Why I bought the Uptown Theatre By Jerry Mickelsen, August 15, 2025 (Chicago Tribune - chicagotribune.com )
I fell in love with the Uptown Theatre upon walking into that amazing lobby in 1975 and was able to truly come to appreciate it even more over the next six years when Jam Productions produced all of the many outstanding concerts on its stage. I could not put my finger on it back then, but when it closed at the end of 1981 I always had this feeling that I would at some point cross paths with the Uptown Theatre again. It was my fate to be part of this theater’s preservation.
From 1978 until 2008 there was a line of nefarious owners who had no plan on how to resuscitate the theater, which ended up drowning in financial trouble, burdened with multiple mortgages and unpaid debts. The only reason the Uptown Theatre survived during that 30-year period was due to the tireless efforts of Bob Boin, Dave Syfczak, Jimmy Wiggins, Curt Mangel, former 48th Ward Ald. Mary Ann Smith and Friends of the Uptown.
In 2007, I met with the first mortgage holder, who revealed his plan to turn the Uptown into an indoor go-kart track. That conversation lit a fire in me to start piecing together this distressed property’s future in order to bring it back to life.
In 2008, I was the only bidder who showed up at the foreclosure auction - and I became the Uptown’s new owner. On that day, I had no clear plan for how I was going to save it, only a deep conviction that it needed my help. The one thing I did know was that Jam Productions had the content, programming and management expertise to support the theater once it opened.
But this quest is about more than saving the Uptown Theatre. As the Urban Land Institute (ULI) report pointed out, this theater could be the catalyst for the economic development of the Uptown community.
The ULI report provided a road map on how to get this project completed: “The challenging opportunities facing Uptown cannot be met with limited resources. A wide array of both private and public sector resources will need to be tapped. Assistance from all levels of government - local, state and federal - will be needed to achieve the panel’s strategy outlined in the Uptown plan.”
In addition, tax increment financing for Uptown needs a special provision for new and special taxes. Since an ordinary TIF district will not generate sufficient funds to cover all the needs of Uptown, the panel suggests new TIF taxes, including the allocation of taxes generated by parking, amusement, utilities and any other tax generators to which a connection to the Uptown Theatre can be shown.
The Uptown Theatre turns 100 on Aug. 18. That is incredible - and a reminder of both its storied past and the challenges ahead. As Chicago’s grandest movie palace even larger than Radio City Music Hall, its 100-year mark underscores its cultural importance to our city and state, but most importantly, the Uptown community.
I completely understand the skepticism surrounding this project. People have heard about the Uptown’s potential comeback for a long time, only to see the doors remain shut. But here’s why this time is different: We’re not chasing a dream; we’re building a plan. The conversations now taking place with the city are serious, strategic and grounded in reality. Hopefully there’s alignment between public and private interests that hasn’t existed before, and a clear recognition of the Uptown Theatre’s value not just as a historic gem, but as an economic engine for the entire Uptown neighborhood as well as the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois.
That said, confidence comes from progress, and the single most important step right now is securing the city’s financial commitment. Once that piece is in place, everything else will fall in line. Private investors, philanthropic partners, and cultural institutions will, with any luck, follow - but they need to see that the city believes in this project first.
Saving the Uptown isn’t just about preserving bricks, plaster, and history - it’s about creating real jobs and opportunities at the theater for our youth, drawing talent from After School Matters, Chicago Public Schools, Merit School, ChiArts, and the People’s Music School that will ignite opportunities for Chicago’s young people. It’s about honoring Chicago’s legacy as the birthplace of the movie palace. And above all, it’s about choosing hope over cynicism.
The time is now.
The Uptown Theatre must be saved because it is one of the most extraordinary and historically significant movie palaces ever built - not just in Chicago, but anywhere in the United States. Opportunities like this come once in a lifetime. The Uptown has waited decades for its second act. Now it’s our turn to make it happen in order to restore a legacy, uplift a community, and leave a lasting mark on Chicago’s cultural history.
We are at a rare and powerful moment when timing, vision and talent have all aligned. We have an extraordinary lineup of professionals, each a leader in their field, working to bring the Uptown Theatre back to life. With their collective expertise, there can be no doubt we have the right team in place.
This project needs the support of people who see the Uptown for what it truly is: a living, breathing work of art and a rare cultural jewel that can once again inspire millions. We need those who have the wherewithal to help, who understand that giving isn’t just about money, but about preserving beauty, culture, and community for generations to come. We need people who fall in love with masterpieces of architecture not just for their grandeur, but for the stories they hold, the history they safeguard, and the inspiration they spark. The Uptown is more than a building; it is a stage for human connection, a monument to creativity, and a beacon of what can be achieved when vision meets commitment.
Preserving the theater calls to those who understand that true legacy is built not just through wealth, but through what that wealth makes possible. Let’s not stand by while time takes it from us. The Uptown’s story can end in silence or rise again in brilliance.
A new $200,000 32-foot marquee for the Mineral Point Opera House from Sign Art Studio in Mount Horeb (which recently restored the 55-foot vertical sign for the Orpheum Theatre in Madison) is set to be installed in late August and lighted on Sept. 4. The 1915 marquee had fallen into disrepair and lacked lights at the front. It’s part of a $400,000 exterior project: new front doors and poster boxes, roof work and tuckpointing.
A recent $2.25 million interior restoration included upgrades to sprinklers, electricals, HVAC, dressing rooms/green rooms, and lighting and audio systems with new cushioned wood seats and carpeting, correct color schemes, and repairs to the ornate plaster. (In 2003, nearly $100,000 went to improve restroom facilities and to restore the lobby and ticket booth.) The city owns the theatre and rents it to the board for $1 yearly. A $100,000 matching grant for the marquee came from the National Park Service in 2021. The Trump administration revoked the grant this year, but the park service reapproved the grant. Designed by Claude and Stark of Madison (also the Orpheum Theatre there) and opened in February 1915 with “The Misleading Lady”, the 725-seat Mineral Point Municipal Theatre and Opera House hosted many famous stars and acts. But alterations over the decades cut capacity to 386 seats. The Mineral Point Opera House is now the planned venue for a new film society.
Panel says no to Orpheum reprieve
By Joe DiGiovanni Staff Writer
The city Landmarks Commission Wednesday night declined to recommend placing a six-month hold on razing the Orpheum Theater building.
Meanwhile, a city official warned that authorities should consider measures to rehabilitate the Kenosha Theater, 5915 Sixth Ave., which has been vacant for about 30 years.
Commission Member Louis Rugani’s proposal on the Orpheum was defeated, 5-2, after 90 minutes of sometimes heated debate. Rugani wanted the City Council to not appropriate money to raze the building. 5819-31 Sixth Ave., for six months so other options could be considered.
“I’m not saying, ‘Save the building’ anymore.” Rugani said. “If all the alternatives are exhausted, I’ll be the first one to say, ‘We tried.” "
Vernon Gerth, city chief of inspection, has said the city is about to seek offers from companies wishing to raze the building. He said the building could be down by the summer.
Alderman Lydia Spottswood, chairman of the commission, opposed Rugani’s proposal. She said the commission should meet with the city Redevelopment Authority to find out if the authority had plans to redevelop the area.
In addition, she said the commission should consider forming a task force to discuss the future of the four-story building. The building does not have landmark status.
At one point, Rugani and Spottswood each said the other was “out of order” during the meeting. Rugani spoke many times on the matter, holding the floor for several minutes.
Spottswood near the end of the debate interrupted Rugani to make a point. Rugani said, “You have a history of interrupting me and it won’t be tolerated.”
Rugani, who said he thought the building should have landmark status, later said he could continue talking as long as he had the floor and Spottswood quickly asked him if he was attempting to filibuster so no vote could be taken. Rugani moments later relinquished the floor.
Four downtown business owners and the manager of the Lakeshore Business Improvement District attended to voice support in razing the building.
“I look at the Orpheum build ing and I don’t see, at least in my layman’s eyes, much architectural significance,” said Michael Bjorn, 3813 16th Ave.
Bjorn and other downtown businessmen told the commission it would be difficult to redevelop that part of the neighborhood if the Orpheum still were standing. The theater in the Orpheum showed its last movie in the middle 1970s, officials said.
Gerth gave a rough estimate of $200,000 to raze the building. The city would pay the cost and place a special assessment on the owner, Trend Setters Inc: San Antonio.
Mayor John Antaramian, who did not attend the meeting, said in a telephone interview there currently was no money for rażing the building in the budget, but there were some areas in the Capital Improvements Plan that could be amended to pay for the removal.
Gerth also said the commission should consider what to do with the Kenosha Theater, which does have landmark status. He said the building has no heat, roof and water damage and other general deterioration.
“I have looked at it and it is in bad shape, unfortunately, Gerth said. "We need to conceńtrate on that building if we wish to save it.”
AEC Group Inc. Architectural Engineering Division SUMMARY OF INVESTIGATION & FINDINGS KENOSHA/RHODE THEATRE STUDY MARCH 27, 1989
Investigations indicated a local theatre market area consisting of Kenosha and Racine counties in Wisconsin, population 258,000, and Lake County, Illinois, population in excess of 500,000, provides a potential local market of ¾ million people. Organized bus tours and effective tourism promotion can extend a theatre’s market area to over a 50 mile radius. This extended market area is especially important for a dinner theatre. This size market area has the potential to support both a performing art theatre and a dinner theatre. Through a questionnaire Kenosha and Racine counties were surveyed. Source of Lake County information is a 1987 art study. Questionnaires were circulated in Walworth County through the newspapers and a few by direct mailing with no success.
The questionnaire survey was conducted as follows: 1. Newspapers: Display ads in the Kenosha News, the Midweek Bulletin, the Kenosha News Courier and the Messenger. 2. Direct Mailing #1: Selection of individual’s names at a pre-determined interval established so that 406 selected names would span the entire Kenosha, Wisconsin Bell telephone directory. 3. Direct Mailing #2: Individual names (1048) selected from the Racine Theatre Guild mailing list. 4. Services and Professional Organizations: Members of nine organizations, Kiwanis, Lions, Rotary clubs and the County Bar and the County Dental associations; completed questionnaire during their meetings.
Provide for a concession area in the main lobby and on the mezzanine level.
Redesign the dressing areas below and to the east of the stage creating stage storage behind the stage and new, more flexible dressing facilities below the stage.
The Kenosha Theatre and the Rhode Opera House both are capable and worthwhile to restore. The structural systems are sound in each building. Each have good design details that, when fully restored, will provide a House of Enchantment for theater goers of all ages. However, to be a viable asset to the community each theater must meet certain criterion.
Alterations over the years:
The major alterations are the twinning of the House, the abandoned balcony, and alterations to the mezzanine foyer. The marquee is not original. Original construction drawings have not been located, so all original features cannot be identified.
Decorating: The theatre has been cleaned and there has been limited use of the facilities. As a dinner theatre, complete renovation and decorating would be required.
The study has identified definite local support and persuasive reasons as to why the Kenosha Theatre and the Rhode Opera House have the potential to play a supportive role in the redevelopment of the Lakeshore and the revitalizing of the adjacent business district. The two theatres would support a lakeshore recreation/entertainment image and enhance the culture image of Kenosha. By expansion of the local entertainment facilities many area people will be able to participate and/or enjoy theatre art more often. The previous quoted comment is only one of many expressing this desire. The theatres, properly managed and promoted, will also bring people into the lakeshore area. New higher income housing in the immediate and adjacent areas will be an asset to the theatres.
General atmosphere after renovation/restoration: Spacious, ornate, impressive lobby and staircase. The House; more intimate relationship with performance, a more relaxed atmosphere, with well designed, orderly, decorative features.
Current general conditions: In considerably better condition. Some decay due to inadequate maintenance during recent years. Can be restored to original splendor.
Size - Seating, can influence the price of tickets for some events. 1,100/1,200 seating capacity on main floor and small balcony. Existing seats can be restored. Seats have been removed in balcony.
AEC Group Inc. Architectural Engineering Division SUMMARY OF INVESTIGATION & FINDINGS KENOSHA/RHODE THEATRE STUDY MARCH 27, 1989 Investigations indicated a local theatre market area consisting of Kenosha and Racine counties in Wisconsin, population 258,000, and Lake County, Illinois, population in excess of 500,000, provides a potential local market of ¾ million people. Organized bus tours and effective tourism promotion can extend a theatre’s market area to over a 50 mile radius. This extended market area is especially important for a dinner theatre. This size market area has the potential to support both a performing art theatre and a dinner theatre. Through a questionnaire Kenosha and Racine counties were surveyed. Source of Lake County information is a 1987 art study. Questionnaires were circulated in Walworth County through the newspapers and a few by direct mailing with no success.
The questionnaire survey was conducted as follows: 1. Newspapers: Display ads in the Kenosha News, the Midweek Bulletin, the Kenosha News Courier and the Messenger. 2. Direct Mailing #1: Selection of individual’s names at a pre-determined interval established so that 406 selected names would span the entire Kenosha, Wisconsin Bell telephone directory. 3. Direct Mailing #2: Individual names (1048) selected from the Racine Theatre Guild mailing list. 4. Services and Professional Organizations: Members of nine organizations, Kiwanis, Lions, Rotary clubs and the County Bar and the County Dental associations; completed questionnaire during their meetings.
Provide for a concession area in the main lobby and on the mezzanine level.
Redesign the dressing areas below and to the east of the stage creating stage storage behind the stage and new, more flexible dressing facilities below the stage.
The Kenosha Theatre and the Rhode Opera House both are capable and worthwhile to restore. The structural systems are sound in each building. Each have good design details that, when fully restored, will provide a House of Enchantment for theater goers of all ages. However, to be a viable asset to the community each theater must meet certain criterion. 1. Have a defined purpose. 2. Provide quality entertainment at reasonable prices. 3. Facilities must be convenient and comfortable. 4. Be a year-round operation. 5. Develop a reputation that will draw beyond the local market area.
Be a part of a viable ‘People Collecting’ center with a ‘I would like to be there’ image.
Meet the needs for local performance participation.
Have sound management.
Both theatres appear, at this stage of the study, to have the potential to satisfy the criterion.
Alterations over the years:
Has only limited alterations. Most notable is the entrance and the missing marquee. Marble drinking fountain, decorative lighting fixtures and other decorative artifacts are missing.
Theatrical systems: Will require all new rigging, curtains, sound, and stage lighting systems. Projection equipment will be required.
Decorating: Complete cleaning and decorating of the entire theatre required.
Systems: Renovation of the General, Plumbing, Fire/Sprinkler, HVAC and Electrical systems of the Kenosha are detailed in the budget estimate.
As a restored performing art theatre the Kenosha will need the following: New restrooms on the main floor and rehabilitated restrooms on the mezzanine level. Relocation of the lower run of the rear exit stairs in the apartments to relocate the exit door to the south end of the building. Conversion of the north street level store front into a theatre office.
The study has identified definite local support and persuasive reasons as to why the Kenosha Theatre and the Rhode Opera House have the potential to play a supportive role in the redevelopment of the Lakeshore and the revitalizing of the adjacent business district. The two theatres would support a lakeshore recreation/entertainment image and enhance the culture image of Kenosha. By expansion of the local entertainment facilities many area people will be able to participate and/or enjoy theatre art more often. The previous quoted comment is only one of many expressing this desire. The theatres, properly managed and promoted, will also bring people into the lakeshore area. New higher income housing in the immediate and adjacent areas will be an asset to the theatres.
Comparisons of the features of the Kenosha Theatre - General atmosphere after renovation/restoration:
Impressive lobby, foyers and staircases. The House; spacious, elaborate, ornate, a theatrical extravaganza.
Current general conditions: Decayed from lack of use and maintenance for many years. Not completely secured from the elements. Can be restored to its original splendor.
Size - Seating, can influence the price of tickets for some events. 2,200/2,300 seating capacity on main floor and large balcony. Seats have been removed.
The Vogue Theatre still stands, mute testament to an era when movie theatres were more than screening houses for new films before they hit the home market but centers of community life. Even today, passersby along busy 52nd Street might imagine the old Vogue Theatre alive again, with several hundred excited kids in line for a 1940s Saturday afternoon double feature, each clutching his or her ten-cent admission. For twenty-eight years, the Vogue was mainly an unpretentious neighborhood theatre, never attempting to outdo the grander downtown movie palaces but fulfilling its modest role in Kenosha’s entertainment scene, until a sudden change in national trends sealed not only the Vogue’s fate but that of thousands of similar movie houses across America.
The Vogue opened its doors on September 15, 1923. In that year, Kenosha’s operating film theaters included the Rhode Opera House, the new Orpheum, the Butterfly, the Burke (later Cameo) at 618-56th Street, the Majestic on the 5700 block of Sixth Avenue, the Lincoln at 6923-14th Avenue, the Strand (later Norge, demolished in 1982) at 5611-22nd Avenue and the Columbia, 2220-63rd Street. The Kenosha, Gateway and Roosevelt Theatres were four years into the future. Walter Schlager, who ran several taverns with his wife, Rose, was looking for a solid investment, as prohibition had effectively put a damper to his tavern business. He selected some long-vacant properties at 1820-52nd Street and had wellknown Kenosha architect Charles Augustine design a state-of-the-art theatre for the site. The Vogue’s doors opened at 6 P.M. and adult tickets were 25 cents; children paid a dime.
The opening program was modest: the Kenosha premiere of Ralph Ince’s horseracing yarn, “Counterfeit Love,” an Our Gang comedy, “The Cobbler,” an Aesop’s Fable short, a Pathe newsreel, and organ solos by an unnamed woman at the keyboard of the Vogue’s new two-manual Moller pipe organ, which Schlager had obtained through the Salak Bros. Piano Company of Racine.
The decorator, Eugene Potente of 7302-14th Avenue, selected shades of deep cream for the interior, so patrons would be “bathed in a sunshine glow.” The lofty ceiling gave a feeling of more spaciousness than there really was. Unusual cast-plaster ceiling fixtures were shaped like six-pointed stars with a bare bulb at each point and a large bulb in the center, and they had to be relamped from the floor with a clumsy long wooden pole. The stage was rather small, about 16 feet deep and 25 feet across, but it was adequate for the live acts that did play there. Mostly these included jugglers, comics, acrobats and small musical groups.
Walter Schlager ran the Vogue for two years, then leased it to the short-lived United Theaters chain, who also took over the Butterfly and Lincoln. Walter and Rose went back to operating a soft-drink tavern, but with United Theaters' demise, was back operating the Vogue by 1930. In 1934, Francis B. “Butch” Schlax and George Fischer leased the Vogue, beginning a long career in theatre management for Schlax, who ended up operating virtually every theatre in Kenosha, including the Mid-City and Keno outdoor theaters.
Many Kenoshans found employment through the years at the Vogue. Some of the better-remembered projectionists include Kenneth Hahn, Fred Sherry, Ray Bacon, Louis Goodare, Richard Schnell and Percy Garton. They were the unsung heroes, invisible souls high up in their cramped booths for which audiences gave nary a thought … except if the film broke or the arc lamp failed. Then the unseen projectionist would be roundly cursed with a hail of insults, whistles and foot-stomping until the picture would resume. Sometimes he would be pressed into part-time security duty, patrolling the balcony for overly-amorous or rowdy patrons. But there was a potentially deadly aspect of the job as well -
Until World War Two, movies were made of nitrate stock, which could burn explosively and emit toxic gases. This nitrate film passed continuously just inches from a 2,000-degree arc flame. Louis Goodare was operating the Vogue’s twin Simplex projectors one night when the film caught fire. Ever the alert operator, Goodare somehow snatched the flaming reel and pitched it from a front window in the nick of time, where it landed, blazing, atop the Vogue’s marquee. Goodare’s trousers were burned, and he later billed the Standard Theaters chain of Milwaukee, which operated the Vogue at the time. (The chain denied the claim.)
Schlax had been promoted to being Standard’s citywide manager. His son Robert recalled accompanying his father every Thursday night during the war years to the Vogue and other local theatres, watching snippets of films while his dad tallied receipts in the various manager’s offices. During this period, the Vogue’s two-rank Moller pipe organ was sold and moved (“probably to some church,” according to Fred Hermes of the Dairyland Theatre Organ Society).
By this time, the Vogue was a comfortable if unspectacular addition to the city’s entertainment scene. Many of its patrons were blue-collar families, often newly-arrived Italian immigrants. On occasion, an Italian-language film would grace the theatre’s screen, which usually drew a crowd, giving the Vogue its good-natured nickname: The Garlic Opera House. To many of these people, the Vogue was a gathering place second only to their churches. Robert Schlax recalled many Vogue employees dropping off tomatoes and other vegetables from their gardens, as well as homemade wine, for the boss.
Most neighborhood theatres encountered three major crises: the coming of sound, the great depression and the Tube. The first saw the end of several Kenosha theatres unwilling or unable to convert to sound - the Columbia, the Strand (later Norge) and the Majestic being the most notable. The Depression forced the remaining theatres to adopt concession stands as an income supplement, as well as off-night promotions like Dish Night, Bank Night, Grocery Night and Amateur Night.
The Vogue offered its Dish Nights usually on slower Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Women patrons got a coupon which, when combined with attendance at the next week’s Dish Night, got them one piece of china. A lobby display showed the entire set, which could be hers if she attended faithfully each week on Dish Night. (Today, complete sets of theatre dishes are collectors' items.)
One neighborhood resident told of the Gravy Boat Fiasco at the Vogue one night at the end of a long dish promotion, the night the Vogue would be dispensing the expensive gravy boats that would complete that particular set. Previously, the ladies had been tucking the flat dinnerware into their large and practical handbags, but the bulbous gravy boats couldn’t be stashed so easily. They sat through the double feature, newsreel, cartoons, previews and short subjects with the gravy boats balanced precariously on their laps or entrusted to some family member. The show was regularly punctuated by the loud crash of china on the painted concrete floor, accompanied by ever-louder jeers and laughter from the less-sympathetic patrons. To add to the fun, there was a lot of crunchy footwork during intermission.
Bank Night was a simple lottery: tickets were collected and one number was drawn for a cash award. The catch was, the barrel contained many tickets from weeks past, so patrons were thus encouraged to attend on every Bank Night. Weeks or months might pass with no jackpot award, so the kitty could easily surpass one thousand dollars - until a new state anti-lottery law passed during the war years outlawed Bank Night. Grocery Night was similar to Bank Night, and Amateur Night provided cash prizes or free prizes to the best singer, tap dancer, accordionist or spoon player, as determined by applause levels. Contestants were thus encouraged to pack the audience with their supporters.
All these gimmicks, and the ever-more important concession stand, proved important to the Vogue and other neighborhood theatres during the lean Depression years. And times were lean for the movies then. Every theatre in downtown Kenosha was closed by 1933 - the Kenosha, Orpheum, Gateway Cameo - but the Vogue somehow endured.
By 1939, a semblance of prosperity had returned, and the movies were now entering the peak of their popularity as patrons jammed theaters for escapism, light musicals and sentimental fare. On Sunday, December 7, 1941, the Vogue abruptly halted “Life Begins for Andy Hardy”; the star-shaped ceiling fixtures came on, and the matinee audience was told that the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii had been swept in a surprise attack from Japanese planes. Stunned, many patrons quietly made their way out. The Vogue and nearly every theatre in America became the focal point for the war effort.
Hollywood stars took new roles - filmed appeals to the audiences for the sale of war bonds as ushers patrolled the aisles to sell bonds to those with raised hands. In this way, America’s theatres helped to win the war.
Throughout the 1940s, box office receipts soared. But the heavy crush led to premature wear on carpets and seats; walls and draperies grew soiled and dingy, accelerated by soot from coal furnaces used to heat theatres. It hardly slowed business; movies were “in.” Ninety million Americans attended each week (though Hollywood chose to ignore the hidden warnings in a survey in which moviegoers were asked which medium they would prefer, movies or radio. Eighty-five percent said radio.)
The Vogue never had air-conditioning, but employee Dominick Gallo said he would order truckloads of ice to be dumped into the coal chutes, and turning on the high rotary blower would cool the theater nicely. And cheaply. Gallo recalled the Saturday matinees, where for nine cents any kid could see a one-hour western starring the likes of Hopalong Cassidy, Lash LaRue, Sunset Carson or Johnny Mack Brown (who seemed to be the local hero) plus several cartoons and one chapter of a serial thriller such as “The Clutching Hand”, “The Invisible Monster” or “Mystery Squadron”. Of course, vending revenues would zoom higher than Flash Gordon’s rocket ship during these weekend shows; no one got off spending just nine cents.
Another Vogue promotion: perforated cards of tickets sold through schools. For a dollar, any kid could see perhaps a dozen quality films such as “The Green Years,” “Destination Moon,” “Father Was a Fullback” and more on consecutive weekend matinees. The Vogue would be packed, and schools got a cut of the take. An old photo shows the Vogue with folding chairs set up in the aisles to handle the overflow. It wasn’t unusual to see late-coming kids sit on the floor to catch the show. All that was all coming to an end, however.
In 1950, television swept the nation. The novelty of free entertainment in one’s own living room was enormous. The entire movie industry at first ignored the new threat, but by 1951, the theaters began to close. The first to go dark were the smaller, shabbier movie houses in older areas.
Until 1950, business had been so good that maintenance hadn’t been top priority in many theatres. Suddenly, the audiences began to thin out and thus began a vicious circle - these theatres, physically worn out from the good years, were competing with free TV. Standard Theaters, perhaps predicting the future, gave up its lease on the Vogue, but Bill Exton, the longtime operator of the Roosevelt, picked up the Vogue (and Hollywood, which had already closed) and forged ahead with his new mini-chain of local theatres.
Bill Exton tried hard, but he didn’t have the resources to redecorate and repair the Vogue, which was visibly worn from millions of admissions over the years, and despite his best efforts, revenues now began to decline alarmingly.
One cost-cutting move Exton made was perhaps ill-advised and too obvious: rather than change the marquee letters every three days, he simply put up his longtime motto, “Always a Good Show.” But that was a clear signal the Vogue was in trouble.
By autumn, 1951, losses were mounting. Bill Exton tried cutting back the Vogue’s operation to a weekend-only policy.
I recall my last visit to the Vogue, at a weekend matinee in the autumn of 1951; “Captain Horatio Hornblower” with Gregory Peck was playing. The large preteen audience was getting noisy during the “talky” parts. Mr. Exton stopped the film, turned on the house lights and quietly addressed the audience, which sat in surprised silence. He said that some people had paid good money to enjoy the film, and although he knew we didn’t mean to, we were spoiling their fun. He expected us to respect that, and if we could show that we understood, he would reward us later by having the projectionist run an extra cartoon. And that’s exactly what happened. True to his word, Mr. Exton delivered on his promise of “always a good show.”
But the Vogue was dying, and its end was no doubt hastened by the vicious cold wave that settled over the Midwest in December, 1951.
Over the years, the Vogue had offered foreign films on occasion, usually Italian, Polish or German, and on a Sunday that December, the Vogue screened the opera film “La Traviata” by Verdi, for a final touch of class.
There’s no record of how many people left their warm living rooms and new 16-inch TV screens to attend the final double feature of “Warpath” and “Bandit Queen” on Sunday, December 15, 1951, but we do know the mercury was at 20 degrees below zero.
The Vogue never reopened. Its passing left scarcely a ripple.
By the following April, the Hollywood was gone forever, too. Bill Exton concentrated on his Roosevelt Theater until his retirement nearly two decades later.
At the darkened Vogue, the marquee still promised “Always A Good Show”, until years of wind and snow knocked enough letters off to render the phrase unintelligible. Local businessman David Korf took the building over and put up a For Sale sign. There were no takers.
The movies did make a brief comeback to the Vogue in 1970. A group of inspired youths restored the old box office (now demolished), set up folding chairs and a 16mm projector and ran classic films on weekends under the banner of the New Vogue Theatre, a tribute to the well-remembered neighborhood movie house of decades past.
February 27, 2015.
There was a time when Chicago glistened with stars in its eyes. They shined within fantasy galaxies built to create resplendent heavens of imagination. As the motion pictures declared within them, they were places where dreams were born. Too spectacular to be called mere theaters, they were palaces, breathtaking, hard to believe structures more dazzling than the entertainment on their stages. The Uptown was the largest in the nation. Through decades of volunteer efforts, its sheer grandeur has fought back the march of time and it remains preserved like a buried city. The captivating images and stories in this book impel to support the efforts that will allow the UPTOWN to hold its place in Chicago’s architectural firmament.
BILL KURTIS
Journalist
Last downtown picture show closes
By DON JENSEN Staff Writer, Kenosha News (3/14/1984)
The Lake Theater in downtown Kenosha will show its last film Thursday.
After 58 years as a movie theater, it will close its doors for lack of business.
It is the last remaining downtown movie house, and the largest of Kenosha’s grand old movie houses to remain in business.
Jack Belasco, executive vice president of Essaness Theaters Corp., Chicago, which owns the theater at 514 56th St., cited “terrible losses” and a generally poor business climate in the downtown area.
Essaness also owns the Keno and MidCity outdoor theaters here.
“We’d like to operate, but not at the losses we’ve suffered,” Belasco said.
He indicated the firm would try to sell or lease the building.
For many years the theater was in competition with the also-large Kenosha and Orpheum theaters for downtown’s substantial movie business, along with one or two smaller houses off Sixth Avenue. Only the Roosevelt Theater on the city’s west side, built on a smaller scale, still remains as an example of the old-fashioned movie theaters stylish before television, and now videotaped movies, came on the scene.
There has been a theater located at the Lake Theater site since 1891 when Peter Rhode built his first opera house.
In 1926, the Saxe Amusement Co. of Milwaukee purchased the old opera house, tore it down and constructed a half-million dollar movie palace, the Gateway Theater.
The theater, opulently decorated, had a reputation for having perfect line-of-sight vision of the large screen from any seat in the house, and for its near-perfect acoustics.
It remained the Gateway until a remodeling in the late 1950s, when it was renamed the Lake Theater. (Ed.: 1963)
In 1976, another renovation resulted in the dividing of the large auditorium into two smaller theaters each seating about 480 persons.
As a matter of introducing the man upon whom the people of Racine will depend for their theatrical amusement and entertainment, much of anticipation and encouragement may be said. Mr. Duncanson, one of the men “behind the guns,” is a man well qualified by accomplishments and experience, to meet all your expectations and one who can appreciate your confidence and patronage. Mr. Duncanson was formerly Vice President and General Manager of a million dollar theatre comраnу, owning and operating a circuit of theatres. He has never failed to popularize and make a wonderfully paying proposition of any theatre he has ever taken charge of and he will popularize the “NATIONAL.” He is a man of foresight and faith in the future, and has the courage and judgment to back up his belief in humanity, with money and time. While others with equal opportunities hesitate and never “get out of the trenches,” he forges aheed. “CERTAINTIES HAVE THEIR LIMITATIONS WHILE LARGE PROFITS ARE MADE BY TAKING REASONABLE RISKS.” (June 17, 1920)
Wonderful Prosperity in Theatre Business
In these days of reaction from the great World War and an unheard of prosperity-theatres and the theatre business has become one of the greatest producers of un-taired wealth in the list of big businesses. Properly.con-ducted and under correct policy, the Orpheum (to be the “NATIONAL” in the future) will enter the Horor Roll of big financial and social successes. A thearre so hear tiful and comfortable, the pride of boosters of Racine, must have a policy that wil stand out as an example of culture and refinement, which the people of Racire may justly demand and which will make it possible for visit-ors and friends to carry away a good report of Racine as the amusement and social center of the state and it SHALL BE DONE, under the jurisdiction of the man who has never yet failed to do so.
New Theatre Company Forming (June 17, 1920) The new owners are organizing a new theatre company and the Orpheum will be the nucleus theatre around which will be formed a large circuit of high class theatres that will be the social and amusement center of every city where located. Some of the parties to be interested in the new Theatre Company are among the leading and public spirited people of Racine, whose civic pride prompts them, more than the large profits to be made, to associate themselves with the company. Just appreciation and credit is given Mr. John Bate for his manifest interest and public spirit in the institutions of Racine, by the building of this magnificent theatre. There are three institutions in a city from which it draws its good or bad name. The theatre, the church and the educational. Of these, the theatre is not the least important.
Pluto TV will bring back its award-winning ‘Free Movie Weekend’ program this summer to support independent theatres by offering complimentary movie tickets on select weekends. Pluto and director Sean Baker (a champion of independent theatres) celebrate the theatre-going experience as an invaluable part of the film entertainment ecosystem.
Pluto TV’s ‘Free Movie Weekend’ originated after the Covid pandemic to encourage patrons to return to theatres, now including 50 free weekends at theatres in 30 states.
Director Sean Baker (“Anora” )partnered with Pluto TV to nominate local theatres, saying “Free Movie Weekend is a meaningful initiative that shares a cause close to my heart. Local cinemas are cultural touchstones, they are gathering places where communities come together to experience stories as they were meant to be seen: on the big screen. I’m honored to partner with Pluto TV to help spotlight the independent theaters that play such a vital role in sustaining the art of cinema.”
For this year’s ‘Free Movie Weekend,' Sean Baker nominated Los Angeles local theater Gardena Cinema. Gardena Cinema is the last family-run independent single-screen indoor walk-in movie theater in South Los Angeles that was built in 1946 and has been operated by the Kim family since 1976. Daughter Judy Kim continues to manage the 800 seat cinema after the matriarch, Nancy Soo Myoung Kim died on Mother’s Day in 2022 from complications of uterine cancer.
The list for this year’s ‘Free Movie Weekend’:
Gardena Cinema, Los Angeles: June 7-8
Tara Theatre, Atlanta: June 14-15
Music Box Theatre, Chicago: June 21-22
Redford Theatre, Detroit: June 28-29
Colonial Theatre, Phoenixville, PA: July 5-6
The Owen Theatre began as the Idle Hour Theatre operated by the Collins family in the silent era, with films accompanied by young female pianists. Fire later destroyed the adjacent Griebenow-Weirich Hardware Store, damaging the theatre. Both were rebuilt in the summer of 1919, with a shared party wall and an agreement that continued almost 70 years.
In 1926, then-owner the H.E. Spaulding family sold the theatre to J. J. Schultz, who operated it for three years before selling it to Ben Krom who in 1931 redecorated the interior.
In April 1937 the exploitation studio Educational Road Show Pictures four-walled “Shame” for a midnight screening with a 35 cent admission to those over 16 years, telling of “the disappearance of 75,000 young girls yearly”. That year the name changed to Owen Theatre with a new marquee and a lighted vertical sign spelling out “Owen”.
In 1938, the Owen Theatre was purchased by George Krom, who sold it eight years later to Paul Stasek and Leonard Hamm. In 1949, the Owen Theatre was purchased by Virgil and Clarence Callahan, and the next year was taken over by Robert and Pauline Habighorst, whose family had spent thirty years with the Owen Theatre.
In 1981, family friend Judy Vollrath and her husband Phil took over the Owen through a land contract with daughter Katie Habighorst and her siblings. They painted the entire auditorium by themselves and installed a Dolby stereo sound system.
By 1986 the Vollraths were feeling the effects of cable TV and home video, and closed the doors just before that Christmas after a free Santa Claus show, the final feature, “ a terribly sad day,” said Judy Vollrath. “We took time cleaning that day and we were so sad. The time finally came to leave and we stood at the door after we locked it. I, of course, was in tears, and Phil was unbelievably sad.”
The Owen Theatre was converted to use as a shipping warehouse. The popcorn machine was donated to the school; some seats went to the Abbotsford Theatre, and some to a church.
This mid-1950s photo shows spectators viewing the South Milwaukee Spectacle of Music parade.
On 2 September 1916, the Kenosha News reported that “This morning workmen laid the pick an axe to old Columbia Hall and it is to be leveled…”
The Butterfly Theatre cost Ernst Klinkert of Racine and Kenosha’s Charles Pacini a total of $45,000; Pacini would be the operator with a long-term lease. George Lindemann was general contractor and Tully as the masonry contractor. it was claimed the theater would seat 1000 people but by the time it opened that dropped to 650. Charles O. Augustine of Kenosha was the architect. Reports said the ventilation was powerful enough to completely cycle the air in the theater every six minutes, that it had separate flush toilets for gentlemen and ladies, floors that could be sanitized, a pipe organ, and space for an orchestra of fourteen.
Pacini was already operating the Majestic Theatre downtown and the Cozy Theatre a block south of the Butterfly. He would close the Cozy and transfer its equipment to the new Butterfly.
It opened 17 March 1917 to showings of Chaplin’s “Easy Street” and a 5-reel Helen Rosson drama, “The Undertow.”
(Pacini - murdered in August 1920, a case still unsolved - owned the Majestic, Butterfly, and New Strand theatres and had a lease on the land of the Eichelman Hotel at Sixth Avenue and 58th Street, where he was planning a skyscraper with a large theater.)
The Butterfly became a Collins theatre, which also controlled the Burke and Virginian. In 1929, a Movietone system was installed to allow for talkies, but closed not long after. In August 1932, the Butterfly Theatre reopened after a major redecoration, which included a larger screen. In early May of 1941, it was redecorated again and reopened as the Hollywood Theatre.
In decline and struggling by April of 1952, the listings ended after a last offering of two 1942 East Side Kids features, “The Smart Alecks” and “The Wise Guy.” But the Hollywood Theatre reopened with renewed hopes in October 1953 with Marilyn Monroe and Joseph Cotten in “Niagara” paired with “Invaders from Mars,” a picture credited today with inspiring young Stephen Spielberg, Joe Dante, John Landis and Martin Scorsese.
By 1955, the Hollywood was home to the Kenosha Missionary Baptist Church, moving in 1959 to become the Temple Baptist Church on 47th Ave and 52nd St.
In 1963, the Auxiliary of the Polish Legion of American Veterans began raising funds to convert the Hollywood Theater into a home for the post; it remained so for 49 years until the spring of 2012 when it was sold and reopened the next year as Circa on Seventh, a meeting hall with much of it’s original glamour restored.
Atty. James Erwin represents a potential buyer who says his client “would like to see the theater preserved and returned to its use” as a showplace.
Erwin did not name his client, but he said they work in real estate and have many multi-unit buildings on the Northwest Side. Erwin did not respond to requests for comment after Thursday’s hearing. Over $228,000 in taxes on the property are due, and Chicago Neighborhood Resources Advisors LLC is to do a study on redeeming both the overdue taxes and the cost of repairs including shoring up the weakened marquee. Then, if CNRA is appointed receiver, it can stabilize the marquee. Atty. Erwin said his client anticipates working with CNRA. A tax hearing is set for 10am on May 8.
The Portage Theatre closed as a cinema in 2001 but was used sporadically, became a City Landmark in May, 2013, was abandoned in 2018, and was named one of Illinois’s most endangered historic sites.