When General Drive-In Corporation (which became General Cinema Corporation in 1964) began building indoor theaters in shopping centers throughout the country in the 1960s, the company hired architect William Reisman to design them. There were a handful of basic plans, and virtually all new General Cinema houses for more than a decade were variations on one or another of them.
This weblog post has renderings of six of the the GC houses Reisman designed. I don’t think the house at Capital Plaza is among them, but it might have resembled one of them.
The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Ashburn is one of seven projects for the chain that have been designed by the Dallas architectural firm Hodges & Associates. A location at Littleton, Colorado, is also open, and locations in Austin, TX, Yonkers, NY, Richardson, TX, Kalamazoo, MI and San Francisco, CA are either under construction or in the bidding stage.
Gallatin Valley Cinema is the name on this theater’s front as seen in a slide show on this page of the web site of Hodges & Associates, the Dallas architectural firm that designed this and several other projects for Hollywood Theatres.
The Metropolitan Cinemas was designed by the Dallas architectural firm Hodges & Associates. Three photos can be seen on this page of the firm’s web site.
The Alamo Quarry Cinema was designed by the Dallas architectural firm Hodges & Associates. Photos of it are featured on this page of the firm’s web site.
Gold Class Cinemas at The Arboretum was designed for Village Roadshow by the Dallas architectural firm Hodges & Associates. It is one of several Gold Class Cinemas pictured in a slide show at the firm’s web site.
This multiplex was opened on May 7, 2010, as part of the expansion into the United States of the theater division of Australian entertainment conglomerate Village Roadshow Limited. Originally operated as Gold Class Cinemas, the theater offered a bar, cafe, food service in the auditorium, and a ticket price of $29.
iPic-Gold Class Entertainment took over operation of Village Roadshow’s American locations in September, 2010, and the following year, the locations were rebranded as iPic Theatre, and began offering admission at the lower price of $19 for patrons who didn’t want full food service in the auditorium.
Another Gold Class Cinemas multiplex opened at Fairview, Texas, on the same day the Austin house opened. Both were designed by the Dallas architectural firm Hodges & Associates, also designers of other Gold Class Cinema projects. Photos of several Gold Class Cinemas (but without identification of the specific locations) are displayed at the firm’s web site.
Hodges' Entertainment Design Group continues to design projects for iPic, and currently has a theater under construction in Los Angeles, at the former location of the Avco Center Cinemas in Westwood. The firm also designs projects for Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas.
This article from the Kansas City Business Journal of June 25, 2000, says that the Chelsea Theatre had run its last show on June 15. The only other information about the theater was that it had about 200 seats and a large stage, had been presenting adult entertainment for about a quarter of a century, and occupied a building from the early 20th century that had once housed a glove factory.
Somebody has bothered to give the Chelsea Theatre a page at Emporis, but the only useful information is that construction on the building ended in 1972. That suggests that it was converted from its former use at that time, so it must never have operated as anything other than an adult theater. Internet searches fetch quite a few results for the Old Chelsea Theatre (as they usually call it), but all of them refer to events from the 1970s or later. It appears that the house usually presented live burlesque, with movies as an added attraction.
Reed Construction Data lists an 8-screen multiplex built at Columbus, Mississippi, in 2004 as one of several projects designed for Malco by the Memphis architectural firm Atkins Buchner Price Architects.
An article in the December 9, 2001, issue of Memphis Business Journal said that demolition would begin the next week to remove a building on the site of the proposed Malco multiplex cinema at Poplar Avenue and Mendenhall Road. The 14-screen house was tentatively to be called either the Rialto or the Paradiso.
The project was designed by the Memphis architectural firm Atkins Buchner Price Architects. Principal architect on the project, Robert S. Price, had previously been design and production manager at Mark E. Watson & Associates, the firm which had designed Malco’s Majestic Cinema and Wolfchase Cinema, both opened in 1997.
An article in the June 24, 1997, issue of the Memphis Daily News said that Malco’s new 11-screen multiplex, The Majestic, would open in August. The project was designed by the Memphis architectural firm Mark E. Watson & Associates.
An article in the June 24, 1997, issue of the Memphis Daily News said that Malco’s Wolfchase Cinema had opened on March 30. The theater was designed by the Memphis architectural firm Mark E. Watson & Associates.
I lost track of this one. The California Theatre officially reopened on January 19, 2013, and is now slated to be the home of the Pittsburg Community Theatre. The closest thing I can find to an official web site for the theater itself is its Facebook page, which has a few photos. There is some stud lighting crowning the marquee, but the attraction board does not appear to be lit from within. I can’t find any events currently scheduled.
A privately-funded organization called the Union County Development Fund has purchased the Avalon Theatre building, as well as two other buildings in Uptown, Marysville’s historic business district. It intends to renovate and reopen the theater, but plans have been stalled for quite a while. This item appeared in the local paper over a year ago, and it’s the most recent information I’ve been able to find.
Articles about the opening of the Edge Moor Theatre appeared in the Wilmington Sunday Morning Star of November 30, 1941. The new house had opened the previous Wednesday. One article reveals that the Edge Moor Theatre was designed by architect Armand de Cortieux Carroll.
The introductory line of our description for this theater is a bit misleading. The Garden Cinemas was across Isaac Street from the corner of the parking lot behind the Globe/Roxy Theatre. Saying “…by the former Globe/Roxy” makes it sound like they were in neighboring buildings, when actually the back of one is a couple of hundred feet from the front of the other.
Google Maps camera car didn’t go down Isaac Street, but if you look south on Isaac from Wall Street, I believe the Cinema Norwalk/Garden Cinemas was in the building at the end of the block, with the red and white vertical stripes.
Yes, the Polonia Theatre is listed at 405-407 Maryland from 1915 to 1921, but I don’t know if that was a different building exactly a block away, or if Wilmington simply renumbered its blocks in 1921.
Maryland Avenue (aka Delaware 4) maps properly at Google Maps. The map for our page probably needs to be reset with the correct zip code, which is 19804.
The Library of Congress has this closeup photo of the State Theatre’s marquee and tower, dated 1937.
A catalog of copyrights issued in 1935 has an entry for a copyright issued to architect Victor A. Rigaumont for “…additions to State Theatre at Manchester, N. H., for M. A. Shea and associates.” It is dated April 12, 1935. There’s no indication as to the nature or extent of the additions.
This piece about the Empire Theatre (linked earlier by lostmemory) says that “New York architect, Claufflin, designed the new house.” Maine Memory is the only web site that makes any reference to a theater architect named Claufflin, and I don’t find him mentioned in any periodicals of the time.
I suppose that they must be referring to Fuller Claflin, the somewhat peripatetic theater architect who was practicing in New York City at the time the Empire was built. He had previously worked in San Francisco (1890-1895), and would open an office in Detroit in 1909.
The 1915 Manchester City Directory lists the Modern Theatre as 58 Amory Street. I don’t know if that is an error, or if the Modern Theatre actually moved across the street, or if Manchester flipped its odd and even numbers to the opposites sides of the streets.
There is no listing for a Notre Dame Theatre, though Notre Dame was an apt name in this district of Manchester. In the late 19th and early 20th century, the area west of the river was the home of many French Canadians who had come to work in the Amoskeag company’s textile mills.
The vertical sign and side wall of the Modern Theatre can be seen at the left in this photo from the Library of Congress. A large poster on the theater’s wall advertises the 1937 movie Thunder in the City, starring Edward G. Robinson.
As can be seen by comparing the photo with the Google Street View of this neighborhood, the entire area has been redeveloped and the Modern Theatre building is gone, along with everything else on the block.
When General Drive-In Corporation (which became General Cinema Corporation in 1964) began building indoor theaters in shopping centers throughout the country in the 1960s, the company hired architect William Reisman to design them. There were a handful of basic plans, and virtually all new General Cinema houses for more than a decade were variations on one or another of them.
This weblog post has renderings of six of the the GC houses Reisman designed. I don’t think the house at Capital Plaza is among them, but it might have resembled one of them.
The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Ashburn is one of seven projects for the chain that have been designed by the Dallas architectural firm Hodges & Associates. A location at Littleton, Colorado, is also open, and locations in Austin, TX, Yonkers, NY, Richardson, TX, Kalamazoo, MI and San Francisco, CA are either under construction or in the bidding stage.
Gallatin Valley Cinema is the name on this theater’s front as seen in a slide show on this page of the web site of Hodges & Associates, the Dallas architectural firm that designed this and several other projects for Hollywood Theatres.
The Metropolitan Cinemas was designed by the Dallas architectural firm Hodges & Associates. Three photos can be seen on this page of the firm’s web site.
The Gateway Cinema was designed by the Dallas architectural firm Hodges & Associates. Four photos can be seen on this page of the firm’s web site.
Four Photos of the Colleyville Cinema can be seen on this page of the web site of the theater’s architects, Hodges & Associates.
The Alamo Quarry Cinema was designed by the Dallas architectural firm Hodges & Associates. Photos of it are featured on this page of the firm’s web site.
Here is Big Screen Cinema Guide’s photo gallery of this house when it still had the Village Roadshow signage on it.
Gold Class Cinemas at The Arboretum was designed for Village Roadshow by the Dallas architectural firm Hodges & Associates. It is one of several Gold Class Cinemas pictured in a slide show at the firm’s web site.
This multiplex was opened on May 7, 2010, as part of the expansion into the United States of the theater division of Australian entertainment conglomerate Village Roadshow Limited. Originally operated as Gold Class Cinemas, the theater offered a bar, cafe, food service in the auditorium, and a ticket price of $29.
iPic-Gold Class Entertainment took over operation of Village Roadshow’s American locations in September, 2010, and the following year, the locations were rebranded as iPic Theatre, and began offering admission at the lower price of $19 for patrons who didn’t want full food service in the auditorium.
Another Gold Class Cinemas multiplex opened at Fairview, Texas, on the same day the Austin house opened. Both were designed by the Dallas architectural firm Hodges & Associates, also designers of other Gold Class Cinema projects. Photos of several Gold Class Cinemas (but without identification of the specific locations) are displayed at the firm’s web site.
Hodges' Entertainment Design Group continues to design projects for iPic, and currently has a theater under construction in Los Angeles, at the former location of the Avco Center Cinemas in Westwood. The firm also designs projects for Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas.
It’s iPic on their web site, not Ipic.
This article from the Kansas City Business Journal of June 25, 2000, says that the Chelsea Theatre had run its last show on June 15. The only other information about the theater was that it had about 200 seats and a large stage, had been presenting adult entertainment for about a quarter of a century, and occupied a building from the early 20th century that had once housed a glove factory.
Somebody has bothered to give the Chelsea Theatre a page at Emporis, but the only useful information is that construction on the building ended in 1972. That suggests that it was converted from its former use at that time, so it must never have operated as anything other than an adult theater. Internet searches fetch quite a few results for the Old Chelsea Theatre (as they usually call it), but all of them refer to events from the 1970s or later. It appears that the house usually presented live burlesque, with movies as an added attraction.
Reed Construction Data lists an 8-screen multiplex built at Columbus, Mississippi, in 2004 as one of several projects designed for Malco by the Memphis architectural firm Atkins Buchner Price Architects.
An article in the December 9, 2001, issue of Memphis Business Journal said that demolition would begin the next week to remove a building on the site of the proposed Malco multiplex cinema at Poplar Avenue and Mendenhall Road. The 14-screen house was tentatively to be called either the Rialto or the Paradiso.
The project was designed by the Memphis architectural firm Atkins Buchner Price Architects. Principal architect on the project, Robert S. Price, had previously been design and production manager at Mark E. Watson & Associates, the firm which had designed Malco’s Majestic Cinema and Wolfchase Cinema, both opened in 1997.
An article in the June 24, 1997, issue of the Memphis Daily News said that Malco’s new 11-screen multiplex, The Majestic, would open in August. The project was designed by the Memphis architectural firm Mark E. Watson & Associates.
An article in the June 24, 1997, issue of the Memphis Daily News said that Malco’s Wolfchase Cinema had opened on March 30. The theater was designed by the Memphis architectural firm Mark E. Watson & Associates.
I lost track of this one. The California Theatre officially reopened on January 19, 2013, and is now slated to be the home of the Pittsburg Community Theatre. The closest thing I can find to an official web site for the theater itself is its Facebook page, which has a few photos. There is some stud lighting crowning the marquee, but the attraction board does not appear to be lit from within. I can’t find any events currently scheduled.
A privately-funded organization called the Union County Development Fund has purchased the Avalon Theatre building, as well as two other buildings in Uptown, Marysville’s historic business district. It intends to renovate and reopen the theater, but plans have been stalled for quite a while. This item appeared in the local paper over a year ago, and it’s the most recent information I’ve been able to find.
Articles about the opening of the Edge Moor Theatre appeared in the Wilmington Sunday Morning Star of November 30, 1941. The new house had opened the previous Wednesday. One article reveals that the Edge Moor Theatre was designed by architect Armand de Cortieux Carroll.
The introductory line of our description for this theater is a bit misleading. The Garden Cinemas was across Isaac Street from the corner of the parking lot behind the Globe/Roxy Theatre. Saying “…by the former Globe/Roxy” makes it sound like they were in neighboring buildings, when actually the back of one is a couple of hundred feet from the front of the other.
Google Maps camera car didn’t go down Isaac Street, but if you look south on Isaac from Wall Street, I believe the Cinema Norwalk/Garden Cinemas was in the building at the end of the block, with the red and white vertical stripes.
Yes, the Polonia Theatre is listed at 405-407 Maryland from 1915 to 1921, but I don’t know if that was a different building exactly a block away, or if Wilmington simply renumbered its blocks in 1921.
Maryland Avenue (aka Delaware 4) maps properly at Google Maps. The map for our page probably needs to be reset with the correct zip code, which is 19804.
The Library of Congress has this closeup photo of the State Theatre’s marquee and tower, dated 1937.
A catalog of copyrights issued in 1935 has an entry for a copyright issued to architect Victor A. Rigaumont for “…additions to State Theatre at Manchester, N. H., for M. A. Shea and associates.” It is dated April 12, 1935. There’s no indication as to the nature or extent of the additions.
This piece about the Empire Theatre (linked earlier by lostmemory) says that “New York architect, Claufflin, designed the new house.” Maine Memory is the only web site that makes any reference to a theater architect named Claufflin, and I don’t find him mentioned in any periodicals of the time.
I suppose that they must be referring to Fuller Claflin, the somewhat peripatetic theater architect who was practicing in New York City at the time the Empire was built. He had previously worked in San Francisco (1890-1895), and would open an office in Detroit in 1909.
This weblog post from MassHistory has several photos of the Buzzards Bay Theatre, including an early postcard that appears to be from the 1930s.
The 1915 Manchester City Directory lists the Modern Theatre as 58 Amory Street. I don’t know if that is an error, or if the Modern Theatre actually moved across the street, or if Manchester flipped its odd and even numbers to the opposites sides of the streets.
There is no listing for a Notre Dame Theatre, though Notre Dame was an apt name in this district of Manchester. In the late 19th and early 20th century, the area west of the river was the home of many French Canadians who had come to work in the Amoskeag company’s textile mills.
The vertical sign and side wall of the Modern Theatre can be seen at the left in this photo from the Library of Congress. A large poster on the theater’s wall advertises the 1937 movie Thunder in the City, starring Edward G. Robinson.
As can be seen by comparing the photo with the Google Street View of this neighborhood, the entire area has been redeveloped and the Modern Theatre building is gone, along with everything else on the block.