Opened in the ‘Teens, the Clay is still in operation, and has recently been nicely refurbished. The ornamentation on the upper portion of the facade is original.
Opening originally in the 1920s as the Riviera, this theatre was the work of the prolific Reid Bros. architectural firm. Its original decor can probably best be described as Franco-Italian Rennaissance, much like the Reids' Grand Lake Theatre, only simpler. In the late 1930s the Riviera was extensively redecorated in Moderne style and renamed the Midtown, with a lofty stepped facade and a zigzag style neon vertical and marquee applied over the original facade.
In the ‘30s remodel much of the original interior plasterwork was retained, along with the cast iron staircase and Mezzanine railings, but all the light fixtures were replaced with Moderne fixtures of wrought sheet metal and stenciled ground glass.
Sometime in the 1950s, the theatre closed and became a church—the marquee and vertical sign ultimately removed and replaced by a neon “Jesus Saves” cross-shaped sign.
By the 1990s, the church had vacated.
In 1998, I was part of the crew which salvaged as many of the fixtures from the theatre as possible before it was gutted and turned into loft apartments. There was extensive water damage to the plaster, but several of the plaster bowl-shaped EXIT sign fixtures, flanked by female gargoyles, were saved. All of the auditorium wall light fixtures which hadn’t been completely smashed by falling rotten plaster were salvaged, as well as fixtures on the walls and ceiling of the Mezzanine, Lobby, and Vestibule. The only reasonably intact light fixture not saved by our crew was the largest chandelier in the Main Lobby. It was partially damaged and much too large to fit through the doors. Most of the cast iron staircase and Mezzanine railing sections were saved as well.
When the gutting of the theatre was taking place, the 1930s facade was removed, revealing the original 1920s facade, which emerged heavily damaged, although floral relief panels and remains of false balcony niches with iron railings were revealed. The new facade which was subsequently applied to the building retains a few historic features, but is largely a Postmodern style approximation, painted in the original sandstone tint.
The architects were James and Merrit Reid. This was the last of many Bay Area theatres to be designed by them. Merrit died while the theatre was in the works, and James closed their office, though he lived on into the 1940s.
To my knowledge, this is the only one of their theatres which still has its original marquee.
The soft polychromatic paint finishes on the textured wall surfaces in the auditorium are original.
This was the work of S. Charles Lee, the Carlos being one of a handful of Northern California theatres designed by this prolific Southern California architect. Other Bay Area theatres by him include the Vogue in Alameda (now a church), the Hopkins in Oakland (now a video store), and the 1939 remodel of the Rafael Theatre (restored/renovated and operating).
The Carlos had a trapezoidal marquee of a design used on many Fox theatres in the late 30s (other examples of this design were on the Nile in Bakersfield, and the Fox, Watsonville). The facade of the Carlos was simple and unremarkable, but its assymetrically placed soaring sign tower set it apart. On El Camino Real near San Carlos Avenue, there is a little moderne building called the Carlos Club, which has a vertical sign similar to that which the Carlos Theatre had, but MUCH smaller.
The Carlos interior featured swirling floral motif murals illuminated by black light, and a likewise curvelinear covelit ceiling.
Located at the point on Mission Street where Ocean Ave. angles-into it and ends, this theatre originally opened as the Excelsior. When the Granada Theatre downtown on Market Street became the Paramount, one of its “Granada” vertical signs was moved over to the Excelsior (renamed Granada) and hung on a majestic Spanish-deco style tower added to the facade, its contours all outlined in neon. The theatre operated into the early 1980s, and that old Granada vertical sign remained until the end. After closing, the building was converted to other uses, the lobby becoming retail space and the auditorium becoming a warehouse. A new plain plastic sign replaced the old theatre vertical sign, and has bourne the names of more than one business. The Spanish-deco facade still stands intact, showing anyone who cares that there was once a large neighborhood theatre at the spot.
I attended this theatre frequently as a child. It was known as the Fox then, and was a stand-alone shopping center theatre. I remember the exterior walls were clad in a pebbly texture which was so common in those days.
At first, Rossmoor was a separate community from Seal Beach, but was later annexed, thus Seal Beach instantly had two theatres—the Fox, and the 1940s era BAY downtown (still in operation).
I particularly remember seeing a double feature of “101 Dalmatians” and a Disney live action B-feature, “Hang Your Hat on the Wind.”
When we moved from Seal Beach in 1973, the Fox was still a single screener, but I’m told that under Mann Theatres it was quadded (and very cramped). I drove by it a few years ago, and it had been turned into a bank.
I do know this theatre was in use as a movie house in the early 1930s, because my mother lived in Sierra Madre at the time and saw her first movie there, a Charles Ferrel and Janet Gaynor picture, called “Seventh Heaven.”
A plan to include this church/theatre in this year’s American Theatre Organ Society Convention’s program fell through. An Allen electronic theatre organ was to have been temporarily installed in the organ chambers for a concert. That this isn’t going to happen is truly a disappointment.
A very recent visit to the Crystal revealed that samples of every single cast concrete decorative motif have been removed from the facade, presumably for replication on the new multiscreen theatre building. A sign with an architectural illustration of the project was also on site which shows a huge arched entrance with neon marquee, and much fine vintage style architectural ornament standing between the original Crystal facade and the facade of the tiny former nickelodeon building at the other end of the project site.
The plans to move ahead and turn the Amazon/Apollo building into a Walgreens and housing are moving ahead.
A friend of mine in the architectural salvage business recently got a contract to remove all light fixtures, display cases, and many other items from the theatre. Otherwise, these would have been destroyed. The building owners had no plans to keep these features. Removal was completed last week. Particularly challenging was an art deco fixture which had been added to the ceiling of the entrance foyer, which had to be cut loose. This was done successfully, and the resulting hole revealed an earlier, higher ceiling with stenciled detailing. This was photodocumented, since it looks like only the shell of the theatre is going to remain, with facade and vertical sign.
Another discovery was that the original curtain was still hanging in the auditorium. Vintage photos confirmed that it was identical to the long-vanished curtain of the State (Golden State) Theatre in Monterey, for which much renovation work is currently being done. An effort was made by this writer and others to get people interested in removing this curtain from the Amazon and rehanging it in the State. Complexities arose with liability, cost, and safety issues, and so the curtain has been photographed, and the photos will be kept by those involved with the State Theatre project, so that hopefully one day a new accurate replica curtain can be made for that theatre.
Though the Amazon will no longer be a theatre, at least much has been salvaged from it to be enjoyed and reused in other buildings, and the exterior will give ample evidence of its former use, much like what was done with San Francisco’s Coliseum Theatre, only a bit more so.
To answer the previous user’s question in general: The California was on Main St., a block or so Southeast of the Broadway theatre district.
Main Street was the original theatre district for Downtown LA, and when it was eclipsed by the bigger palaces on Broadway, became a burlesque and cut-rate movie district, though the California maintained a degree of class longer than its neighbors.
My father, who lived in Waterbury in the 20s and 30s, said this theatre was down a ways from the East Main Street principal concentration of movie theatres. He said tough kids went there and so he and his friends didn’t.
I also have a old newspaper of the era which has a little ad for this theatre with the slogan, “Where Sound is Perfect.”
My late father told me he remembered this theatre opening as the Cameo when he lived in Watertown. According to him, it was a pre-existing auditorium which had been used for a variety of purposes including movies, but was rather lackluster. It was when refurbished as the Cameo that Watertown really felt they had a proper movie theatre. The person behind this refurbishing was a woman who also owned and operated one of the big theatres over in Waterbury, either the State or the Strand, I can’t remember which.
Watertown also had a first-rate movie screening facility in the auditorium of Taft School, a private prep-school for boys. In the Thirties, the son of one of the Skouras brothers was a student there, and so his father equipped the school’s auditorium with then state of the art projection equipment. It was at that time not unheard of for brand new movies to make a one-night stop at Taft School while en route from one nearby city to another.
The original Wurlitzer organ from this 1928 theatre remained until 1938, when it was removed and spent many years in a Salinas church. Today it sounds fourth in the State Theatre (Golden State), Monterey, where it has been playing since 1994.
Last year for a brief time during the ongoing remodel of this building, the original facade was exposed intact when the 1960s facade was removed. There was a single large arch in the center, flanked by gryphons, with three small arches over it. I had no camera with me so I sketched it instead, made color notes, and produced a fairly accurate color drawing. The gyphons and arches are gone now, though some basic traces of the facade (some flat inset panels and fluting) remain around the modern rectangular windows which were inserted. Now even the ornamental arches on the back of the stagehouse have been brutally hacked through with new windows, giving no regard to harmonizing with the existing features. Definitely the work of a second-rate architect unaware of history at all.
Though I don’t know who was the architect from the structural standpoint, this theatre was one of many which were conceptualized on the drawing boards of Carl G. Moeller, during the tenure of Charles P. Skouras at Fox West Coast Theatres. A couple of similar examples of such Skouras-era neon extravagance are the Crest in Sacramento (operating), and the Fox Belmont, Long Beach (standing but converted to a health club/gym).
The architects were Reid Bros. The original theme of the building was predominantly Gothic. As this is appropriate for a church, these features have been maintained. Last year, however, the church group elected to remove all the light fixtures (products of a 30s remodeling) and throw them away. Fortunately a local architectural salvage/antiques specialist heard of this and removed them himself. The fixtures, though sold and dispersed were at least saved from destruction. A pair of ceiling lights are intended to go to the Del Mar, Santa Cruz. A pair of restroom signs, to the State, Monterey.
This really is not a significant item in the history of the Eureka, but for me it is: This was the first theatre I ever took a picture of—in September of 1981, when I was just out of High School and beginning to get seriously interested in old movie theatres. I remember one of the movies on the marquee then was “Dragonslayer.”
At some point under the “Rev’s” occupancy of the building, the old paint job was covered up with the abovementioned sky and clouds look, and the walls repainted white, blue, and purple. This had been after the Rev had been in the attic and stepped on a section of the ceiling and severely damaged it (as related by him to my friend who later salvaged items from the theatre). The cast plaster ornament was gold. During demolition it was possible to see that the original proscenium, organ grilles, and seats had survived up to the end.
The etched peach-mirrored vanity in the Ladies Lounge was salvaged just prior to demolition, as well as a few items of cast plaster.
Though I don’t know the present status of the organ from this theatre, it can be heard on the album, “Million Dollar Echoes,” by the late Gaylord Carter.
The original decorative feel was an eclectic blend of Arts and Crafts and Italian Renaissance, with hints of Moorish. The Mezzanine featured faux fireplaces and furnishings worthy of the finest bungalows. Later, sometime in the Twenties, the theatre underwent a slight redecoration, but the most significant remodeling occurred c. 1930 at the hands of LA architect S. Charles Lee. The predominantly silver and black “high art deco” interior scheme could be called a budget version of the interior of Lee’s Fox Wilshire in LA. In any case by the end of the decade, perhaps being deemed too distracting, the decor was toned down considerably, with the rich ornamental art deco plasterwork fronting the organ chambers remaining, but repainted along with the entire interior, in subdued colors with Greco-deco nudes painted along the sidewalls. The lobby was drastically redecorated in the Sixties, with the main floor being reseated around the same time. At some point the balcony fire escapes were deemed unsafe, and so for the remaining years of the Coliseum’s operation the vast balcony was kept closed and became a sort of time capsule, with seating from the 1930s remodel undisturbed, along with the carpet.
I visited the closed Coliseum in 1995 through a connection in United Artists, and was able to photograph the entire interior. Even though it was day, we turned on the vertical sign and marquee for the photos. This was likely the last time they were ever on.
When the theatre was gutted in 2000, everything was gutted to the bare walls, though four of the nude goddesses on the auditorium walls remained, and were sealed behind new concrete shearwall. One of the huge auditorium chandeliers (there had been eight), and one of the small under-balcony hanging fixtures were rescued from destruction during the demolition process, and were subsequently beautifully restored and sold. Likewise the etched glass windows on the Mezzanine from the 1930 remodel which were hidden behind later drywall were saved.
At least the outside of the building still looks obviously like a theatre, with facade ornament intact and a simple marquee holding the Walgreens sign (the ground floor retail tenant). All the upper floors are housing.
The architects were Reid Bros. The interior of this theatre is kept wonderfully intact by the church. Even the original curtain has been retained.
The auditorium is a near twin to Reid Bros.‘ Golden State in Monterey (see “UA State” in Cinematreasures’ Theatre Guide—California). The front edge of the balcony however is more ornate, using the same plaster ornament found on that in the Grand Lake, Oakland. The lobby spaces of the Fairfax are completely different and less lofty than those in the State. Reid Bros. loved to include flag poles on the facades of their theatres. The Fairfax is one of very few to have these still extant, at least when I was there a few years ago. The marquee is a later (1930s) remodel.
My thanks to the Fairfax Lighthouse Deliverance Center’s Rev. Billy Sheard, who allowed me to see and photograph the interior in detail, when he learned that I was involved in the revival of the Fairfax’s “sister” theatre in Monterey. Should any fellow Classic Cinemaphiles be given access to this lovely theatre, I know they’d appreciate a donation as a Thank You.
Although its facade was completely modernized in the 60s when converted to bowling use, the side and back walls of the auditorium exterior were another story. Up until the end, one could see (and in my case photograph) original painted signs on the concrete reading, “Capitol Theatre… Photoplays.”
Opened in the ‘Teens, the Clay is still in operation, and has recently been nicely refurbished. The ornamentation on the upper portion of the facade is original.
Opening originally in the 1920s as the Riviera, this theatre was the work of the prolific Reid Bros. architectural firm. Its original decor can probably best be described as Franco-Italian Rennaissance, much like the Reids' Grand Lake Theatre, only simpler. In the late 1930s the Riviera was extensively redecorated in Moderne style and renamed the Midtown, with a lofty stepped facade and a zigzag style neon vertical and marquee applied over the original facade.
In the ‘30s remodel much of the original interior plasterwork was retained, along with the cast iron staircase and Mezzanine railings, but all the light fixtures were replaced with Moderne fixtures of wrought sheet metal and stenciled ground glass.
Sometime in the 1950s, the theatre closed and became a church—the marquee and vertical sign ultimately removed and replaced by a neon “Jesus Saves” cross-shaped sign.
By the 1990s, the church had vacated.
In 1998, I was part of the crew which salvaged as many of the fixtures from the theatre as possible before it was gutted and turned into loft apartments. There was extensive water damage to the plaster, but several of the plaster bowl-shaped EXIT sign fixtures, flanked by female gargoyles, were saved. All of the auditorium wall light fixtures which hadn’t been completely smashed by falling rotten plaster were salvaged, as well as fixtures on the walls and ceiling of the Mezzanine, Lobby, and Vestibule. The only reasonably intact light fixture not saved by our crew was the largest chandelier in the Main Lobby. It was partially damaged and much too large to fit through the doors. Most of the cast iron staircase and Mezzanine railing sections were saved as well.
When the gutting of the theatre was taking place, the 1930s facade was removed, revealing the original 1920s facade, which emerged heavily damaged, although floral relief panels and remains of false balcony niches with iron railings were revealed. The new facade which was subsequently applied to the building retains a few historic features, but is largely a Postmodern style approximation, painted in the original sandstone tint.
The architects were James and Merrit Reid. This was the last of many Bay Area theatres to be designed by them. Merrit died while the theatre was in the works, and James closed their office, though he lived on into the 1940s.
To my knowledge, this is the only one of their theatres which still has its original marquee.
The soft polychromatic paint finishes on the textured wall surfaces in the auditorium are original.
This was the work of S. Charles Lee, the Carlos being one of a handful of Northern California theatres designed by this prolific Southern California architect. Other Bay Area theatres by him include the Vogue in Alameda (now a church), the Hopkins in Oakland (now a video store), and the 1939 remodel of the Rafael Theatre (restored/renovated and operating).
The Carlos had a trapezoidal marquee of a design used on many Fox theatres in the late 30s (other examples of this design were on the Nile in Bakersfield, and the Fox, Watsonville). The facade of the Carlos was simple and unremarkable, but its assymetrically placed soaring sign tower set it apart. On El Camino Real near San Carlos Avenue, there is a little moderne building called the Carlos Club, which has a vertical sign similar to that which the Carlos Theatre had, but MUCH smaller.
The Carlos interior featured swirling floral motif murals illuminated by black light, and a likewise curvelinear covelit ceiling.
Located at the point on Mission Street where Ocean Ave. angles-into it and ends, this theatre originally opened as the Excelsior. When the Granada Theatre downtown on Market Street became the Paramount, one of its “Granada” vertical signs was moved over to the Excelsior (renamed Granada) and hung on a majestic Spanish-deco style tower added to the facade, its contours all outlined in neon. The theatre operated into the early 1980s, and that old Granada vertical sign remained until the end. After closing, the building was converted to other uses, the lobby becoming retail space and the auditorium becoming a warehouse. A new plain plastic sign replaced the old theatre vertical sign, and has bourne the names of more than one business. The Spanish-deco facade still stands intact, showing anyone who cares that there was once a large neighborhood theatre at the spot.
I attended this theatre frequently as a child. It was known as the Fox then, and was a stand-alone shopping center theatre. I remember the exterior walls were clad in a pebbly texture which was so common in those days.
At first, Rossmoor was a separate community from Seal Beach, but was later annexed, thus Seal Beach instantly had two theatres—the Fox, and the 1940s era BAY downtown (still in operation).
I particularly remember seeing a double feature of “101 Dalmatians” and a Disney live action B-feature, “Hang Your Hat on the Wind.”
When we moved from Seal Beach in 1973, the Fox was still a single screener, but I’m told that under Mann Theatres it was quadded (and very cramped). I drove by it a few years ago, and it had been turned into a bank.
The upper half of the facade still retains its original brickwork, and a terra cotta glazed LEAL THEATRE sign up near the cornice.
I do know this theatre was in use as a movie house in the early 1930s, because my mother lived in Sierra Madre at the time and saw her first movie there, a Charles Ferrel and Janet Gaynor picture, called “Seventh Heaven.”
A plan to include this church/theatre in this year’s American Theatre Organ Society Convention’s program fell through. An Allen electronic theatre organ was to have been temporarily installed in the organ chambers for a concert. That this isn’t going to happen is truly a disappointment.
A very recent visit to the Crystal revealed that samples of every single cast concrete decorative motif have been removed from the facade, presumably for replication on the new multiscreen theatre building. A sign with an architectural illustration of the project was also on site which shows a huge arched entrance with neon marquee, and much fine vintage style architectural ornament standing between the original Crystal facade and the facade of the tiny former nickelodeon building at the other end of the project site.
The plans to move ahead and turn the Amazon/Apollo building into a Walgreens and housing are moving ahead.
A friend of mine in the architectural salvage business recently got a contract to remove all light fixtures, display cases, and many other items from the theatre. Otherwise, these would have been destroyed. The building owners had no plans to keep these features. Removal was completed last week. Particularly challenging was an art deco fixture which had been added to the ceiling of the entrance foyer, which had to be cut loose. This was done successfully, and the resulting hole revealed an earlier, higher ceiling with stenciled detailing. This was photodocumented, since it looks like only the shell of the theatre is going to remain, with facade and vertical sign.
Another discovery was that the original curtain was still hanging in the auditorium. Vintage photos confirmed that it was identical to the long-vanished curtain of the State (Golden State) Theatre in Monterey, for which much renovation work is currently being done. An effort was made by this writer and others to get people interested in removing this curtain from the Amazon and rehanging it in the State. Complexities arose with liability, cost, and safety issues, and so the curtain has been photographed, and the photos will be kept by those involved with the State Theatre project, so that hopefully one day a new accurate replica curtain can be made for that theatre.
Though the Amazon will no longer be a theatre, at least much has been salvaged from it to be enjoyed and reused in other buildings, and the exterior will give ample evidence of its former use, much like what was done with San Francisco’s Coliseum Theatre, only a bit more so.
To answer the previous user’s question in general: The California was on Main St., a block or so Southeast of the Broadway theatre district.
Main Street was the original theatre district for Downtown LA, and when it was eclipsed by the bigger palaces on Broadway, became a burlesque and cut-rate movie district, though the California maintained a degree of class longer than its neighbors.
My father, who lived in Waterbury in the 20s and 30s, said this theatre was down a ways from the East Main Street principal concentration of movie theatres. He said tough kids went there and so he and his friends didn’t.
I also have a old newspaper of the era which has a little ad for this theatre with the slogan, “Where Sound is Perfect.”
My late father told me he remembered this theatre opening as the Cameo when he lived in Watertown. According to him, it was a pre-existing auditorium which had been used for a variety of purposes including movies, but was rather lackluster. It was when refurbished as the Cameo that Watertown really felt they had a proper movie theatre. The person behind this refurbishing was a woman who also owned and operated one of the big theatres over in Waterbury, either the State or the Strand, I can’t remember which.
Watertown also had a first-rate movie screening facility in the auditorium of Taft School, a private prep-school for boys. In the Thirties, the son of one of the Skouras brothers was a student there, and so his father equipped the school’s auditorium with then state of the art projection equipment. It was at that time not unheard of for brand new movies to make a one-night stop at Taft School while en route from one nearby city to another.
The original Wurlitzer organ from this 1928 theatre remained until 1938, when it was removed and spent many years in a Salinas church. Today it sounds fourth in the State Theatre (Golden State), Monterey, where it has been playing since 1994.
Last year for a brief time during the ongoing remodel of this building, the original facade was exposed intact when the 1960s facade was removed. There was a single large arch in the center, flanked by gryphons, with three small arches over it. I had no camera with me so I sketched it instead, made color notes, and produced a fairly accurate color drawing. The gyphons and arches are gone now, though some basic traces of the facade (some flat inset panels and fluting) remain around the modern rectangular windows which were inserted. Now even the ornamental arches on the back of the stagehouse have been brutally hacked through with new windows, giving no regard to harmonizing with the existing features. Definitely the work of a second-rate architect unaware of history at all.
Though I don’t know who was the architect from the structural standpoint, this theatre was one of many which were conceptualized on the drawing boards of Carl G. Moeller, during the tenure of Charles P. Skouras at Fox West Coast Theatres. A couple of similar examples of such Skouras-era neon extravagance are the Crest in Sacramento (operating), and the Fox Belmont, Long Beach (standing but converted to a health club/gym).
The architects were Reid Bros. The original theme of the building was predominantly Gothic. As this is appropriate for a church, these features have been maintained. Last year, however, the church group elected to remove all the light fixtures (products of a 30s remodeling) and throw them away. Fortunately a local architectural salvage/antiques specialist heard of this and removed them himself. The fixtures, though sold and dispersed were at least saved from destruction. A pair of ceiling lights are intended to go to the Del Mar, Santa Cruz. A pair of restroom signs, to the State, Monterey.
This really is not a significant item in the history of the Eureka, but for me it is: This was the first theatre I ever took a picture of—in September of 1981, when I was just out of High School and beginning to get seriously interested in old movie theatres. I remember one of the movies on the marquee then was “Dragonslayer.”
Architects were Reid Bros.
At some point under the “Rev’s” occupancy of the building, the old paint job was covered up with the abovementioned sky and clouds look, and the walls repainted white, blue, and purple. This had been after the Rev had been in the attic and stepped on a section of the ceiling and severely damaged it (as related by him to my friend who later salvaged items from the theatre). The cast plaster ornament was gold. During demolition it was possible to see that the original proscenium, organ grilles, and seats had survived up to the end.
The etched peach-mirrored vanity in the Ladies Lounge was salvaged just prior to demolition, as well as a few items of cast plaster.
As of this writing, the Wurlitzer organ from the El Capitan is installed in the Fox California, Salinas, and has been used on a number of occasions.
Though I don’t know the present status of the organ from this theatre, it can be heard on the album, “Million Dollar Echoes,” by the late Gaylord Carter.
The architects were Reid Bros.
The original decorative feel was an eclectic blend of Arts and Crafts and Italian Renaissance, with hints of Moorish. The Mezzanine featured faux fireplaces and furnishings worthy of the finest bungalows. Later, sometime in the Twenties, the theatre underwent a slight redecoration, but the most significant remodeling occurred c. 1930 at the hands of LA architect S. Charles Lee. The predominantly silver and black “high art deco” interior scheme could be called a budget version of the interior of Lee’s Fox Wilshire in LA. In any case by the end of the decade, perhaps being deemed too distracting, the decor was toned down considerably, with the rich ornamental art deco plasterwork fronting the organ chambers remaining, but repainted along with the entire interior, in subdued colors with Greco-deco nudes painted along the sidewalls. The lobby was drastically redecorated in the Sixties, with the main floor being reseated around the same time. At some point the balcony fire escapes were deemed unsafe, and so for the remaining years of the Coliseum’s operation the vast balcony was kept closed and became a sort of time capsule, with seating from the 1930s remodel undisturbed, along with the carpet.
I visited the closed Coliseum in 1995 through a connection in United Artists, and was able to photograph the entire interior. Even though it was day, we turned on the vertical sign and marquee for the photos. This was likely the last time they were ever on.
When the theatre was gutted in 2000, everything was gutted to the bare walls, though four of the nude goddesses on the auditorium walls remained, and were sealed behind new concrete shearwall. One of the huge auditorium chandeliers (there had been eight), and one of the small under-balcony hanging fixtures were rescued from destruction during the demolition process, and were subsequently beautifully restored and sold. Likewise the etched glass windows on the Mezzanine from the 1930 remodel which were hidden behind later drywall were saved.
At least the outside of the building still looks obviously like a theatre, with facade ornament intact and a simple marquee holding the Walgreens sign (the ground floor retail tenant). All the upper floors are housing.
The architects were Reid Bros. The interior of this theatre is kept wonderfully intact by the church. Even the original curtain has been retained.
The auditorium is a near twin to Reid Bros.‘ Golden State in Monterey (see “UA State” in Cinematreasures’ Theatre Guide—California). The front edge of the balcony however is more ornate, using the same plaster ornament found on that in the Grand Lake, Oakland. The lobby spaces of the Fairfax are completely different and less lofty than those in the State. Reid Bros. loved to include flag poles on the facades of their theatres. The Fairfax is one of very few to have these still extant, at least when I was there a few years ago. The marquee is a later (1930s) remodel.
My thanks to the Fairfax Lighthouse Deliverance Center’s Rev. Billy Sheard, who allowed me to see and photograph the interior in detail, when he learned that I was involved in the revival of the Fairfax’s “sister” theatre in Monterey. Should any fellow Classic Cinemaphiles be given access to this lovely theatre, I know they’d appreciate a donation as a Thank You.
Although its facade was completely modernized in the 60s when converted to bowling use, the side and back walls of the auditorium exterior were another story. Up until the end, one could see (and in my case photograph) original painted signs on the concrete reading, “Capitol Theatre… Photoplays.”