Photos of the Grand Theatre Center, including some shots of the renovated auditorium, run as a slide show on this page at the web site of ELS Architecture and Urban Design, the firm that designed the renovation. Kurt Schindler was the principal architect of the project.
The Grand Theatre now seats 560, and features continental seating on the main floor. Other restoration and adaptive reuse projects designed by ELS include the California Theatre in San Jose, the Fox Theatre in Oakland, and the former Portland Theatre, now Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, in Portland, Oregon.
Eleven theaters, including the Globe, are listed in the neighborhood theater guide in the January 17, 1928, issue of the Syracuse Journal. Here is a scan of the page at Google Documents.
Smalley’s Oxford Theatre first appears in 1937 in this finding aid to the records of Smalley’s Theatres held by the New York State Historical Association. That is most likely the year it was built.
Smalley’s Johnstown Theatre was built in 1928 on the site of the Grand Theatre, which burned early that year.
The obituary of Hazel Smalley, widow of William Smalley, was published in the February 5, 1969, issue of the Leader-Herald newspaper. It said that Smalley’s Johnstown Theatre had been renamed the Towne Theatre in 1960.
Most references to this Mission style house, opened in 1926, call it the Roland Courts or Roland Court Theatre, but the vertical sign seen in this ca.1945 photo says only Roland. I thinkt he small sign under the vertical says “2 Big Films”, but it’s a bit blurry so I couldn’t swear to it.
Video of a 2010 WVEC news report about the demolition, which includes a couple of vintage photos, can currently still be seen at this link.
A 1916 ad for the Casino Theatre on this web page gives its location as “One Half Block North of Siloam.” As near as I can figure, Siloam refers to Siloam Spring. A facility called the Hall of Waters was built at Siloam Spring in the 1930s, and today houses city offices, a visitors center, and a museum. It is on the south side of Broadway opposite the end of Elizabeth Street. This makes me think that perhaps the Siloam Theatre was the Casino Theatre, renamed.
Odd numbers are on the east sides of north-south streets in Excelsior Springs, so the Siloam Theatre would have been on the right side of Elizabeth Street as you go north from Broadway.
Despite the name on the marquee, this house still goes by the name Gordon Square Theatre, to differentiate it from the adjacent James Levin Theatre, also part of the Cleveland Public Theatre complex. The Gordon Square Theatre in its current configuration has 300 seats, and the Levin has 150.
The Cleveland Landmarks Commission attributes the design of the Gordon Square Theatre to architect George Allen Grieble, who also designed the Alhambra Theatre, the Olympia Theatre, and (possibly) the Penn Square Theatre, all between 1911 and 1913. However, an item in the November 3, 1917, issue of The Moving Picture World attributes the house to Arthur C. Yost. The item says:
“Arthur C. Yost, of the firm of Richardson and Yost, Cleveland theater architects, is enjoying a few weeks' rest after his strenuous six years building theaters in Ohio. Mr. Yost planned the Liberty, Mall, Gordon Square, Knickerbocker, Olympic, and other large theaters of Cleveland, and the Pastime, Akron and the Alhambra, Cuyahoga Falls.”
The Landmarks Commission attributes only one theater to the firm of Richardson & Yost, that being a 1914 house at 15511 Waterloo Road. The Landmarks Commission page doesn’t give the theater’s name, but it is the house that opened as the Keystone Theatre and later became the Abbey Theatre.
I’m not sure what to make of these conflicting claims. Very little information is available on the Internet about either Grieble or Yost, and the landmarks commission doesn’t cite sources for its attribution of the Gordon Square Theatre to Grieble. Clearing this up will likely require research in publications not available on the Internet, which means somebody with access to the Cleveland Public Library will probably have to do it.
The Liberty Theatre was established by Judson Herbert Ferguson, according to his biography in volume 2 of History of Oregon, by Charles Henry Carey. It probably opened before 1913, in which year it was called the Electric Theatre. It was in 1913 that Arthur Kolstad arrived in Hood River to take over management of the town’s two movie theaters, the other being the Gem at 103 Oak Street.
This house was still called the Electric Theatre in the 1917 City Directory, and must have been renamed the Liberty later that year, when the United States entered the World War.
In 1921, Ferguson and Kolstad built the Rialto Theatre, Hood River’s largest movie house, at 406 Oak Street. The Gem apparently closed at that time. This house continued to operate as the Liberty Theatre at least as late as 1928. I’ve been unable to discover when it was renamed the Cascadia.
Considerable biographical information about Arthur Kolstad can be found in the NRHP registration form for Cliff Lodge, which he once owned. It is available as a PDF at this link. A Google Documents version can be read online at this link.
This house opened as Ye Liberty Theater on February 22, 1912, with 1,600 seats. The original operator, Young Chun, was involved in a lawsuit which is recorded in legal journals of the time.
The seating capacity is found in various editions of All About Hawaii, an annual publication of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. The house was still listed in the book as Ye Liberty Theater at least as late as 1921.
The Alhambra Theatre originally opened on December 21, 1907, according to that day’s issue of the Utica Herald Dispatch. The building, owned by the Lux Brothers, had previously been occupied by Lux & Sons Washington Market. I still haven’t been able to discover if whether the Alhambra Theatre of 1915 was entirely new construction or a rebuilding of this earlier structure.
During the years 1918 and 1919, the Geneva Daily Times carries ads for the Regent and Temple Theatres and for a vaudeville and movie house called the Strand Theatre, but I find no mentions of the opera house during that time. The ads for the Strand vanish by 1920, and the Smith Opera House reappears. I wonder if they were the same theater?
The Temple Theatre opened on January 20, 1912, according to Ranjit Sandhu’s list of the works of Leon H. Lempert & Son. Sandhu doesn’t attribute the original design to any architect, but cites an item in the June 21, 1913, issue of American Contractor saying that Leon Lempert Jr., was the architect for a stage that was being added to the house.
It’s possible that Lempert was also the original architect for the Temple Theatre. The lack of attribution simply means that Sandhu was unable to find one in publications from the period. I haven’t found one either.
This colorized postcard is probably later than the one we currently display. It shows that a marquee had been added to the building, glass doors had been put in place to create a vestibule, and a colorful fan light had been installed in the arch above the entrance.
Ranjit Sandhu’s partial list of the works of Leon H. Lempert & Son attributes the design of the Smith Opera House building to Pierce & Bickford, but says that Leon H. Lempert, Sr., designed the auditorium and stage of the theater itself, but he doesn’t cite a source for the claim.
The March 10, 1894, issue of The Engineering Record does note Lempert as the architect for William Smith’s proposed opera house at Geneva, but doesn’t mention Pierce & Bickford. It is possible that Smith decided to change architects, though its also possible that Lempert served as consulting architect for the theater portion of the building.
In any case, even if Lempert did design the auditorium, Victor Rigaumont’s later remodeling completely transformed the interior, so it’s unlikely that anything would remain of Lempert’s design today.
Google’s street views for Exchange Street are a complete mess. I’ve set the view as near the theater as it will get. Also, lostmemory was apparently right that the correct address for the Geneva Cinema 5 is 495 Exchange Street.
Periodicals from 1914-1915 confirm that the Regent Theatre was designed by Leon H. Lempert & Son, but as Leon Lempert, Sr. died in 1909, Leon H. Lempert, Jr. should be listed as the architect.
Thanks to Keith Wondra for the excellent photos of this splendid survivor.
Since my previous comments about him, a bit more information about the architect has appeared on the Internet, most notably in a publication from the City of Wichita’s Historic Preservation Office that indludes a brief biography (PDF file here.)
Samuel Siegfried Voigt was born in Leipzig, Germany, in 1885. His family moved to Wichita in 1896. He studied architecture and engineering through the International Correspondence Schools, earning a degree in 1909. He became a draftsman in the office of Wichita architect Fred G. McCune, and established his own practice in 1913. Voigt appears to have specialized mostly in institutional projects, as by 1929 he had designed over 400 schools and 200 churches, completing projects in four states according to that year’s edition of Who’s Who in Wichita. He died in 1937, so the Anthony Theatre was a fairly late project.
I still haven’t been able to discover if Voigt designed any theaters other than the Anthony.
Information about the Strand Theatre in Ranjit Sandhu’s list of works by Leon H. Lempert & Son says that this house was designed by Lempert, Jr.; that it opened on January 22, 1913; that its auditorium was new construction but its lobby was in the structure formerly occupied by a nickelodeon called the Golden Palace; and that the auditorium was demolished in 1923 and the lobby structure in 1956.
This web page about the Stone Opera House says that it is likely that Elfred Bartoo and Sanford O. Lacey designed the Stone Opera House under the supervision of architect Isaac G. Perry.
This brief biography of Elfred Bartoo says that he worked as a draftsman on the State Capitol project with Perry in 1891, which is also the year Charles Stone announced his intention of building this theater. The biography also notes that, prior to forming his partnership with Bartoo, Sanford Lacey had been Isaac Perry’s senior draftsman.
Ranjit Sandhu, who compiled a partial list of the works of Leon H. Lempert & Son, says that Lempert acted as consulting architect on the Stone Opera House. He also credits I. G. Perry as the architect of the project, though he doesn’t cite a source for the claim. Still, it seems likely that Stone would have chosen Binghamton’s leading architect to design his theater, and also likely that Perry, as busy as he was with the State Capitol and other projects at the time, would turn the project over to his trusted draftsmen.
The web page about the Opera House I cited earlier also says that the house opened as the Columbia Theatre, but came to be called the Stone Opera House within a year. The house, then under construction, was referred to as the Columbia Theatre in an item in the July 6, 1892, issue of The Electrical Engineer.
Research by Ranjit Sandhu reveals that Leon H. Lempert, Sr., was the architect of the 1900 remodeling of the Dellinger Opera House, and Leon H. Lempert, Jr., designed alterations made in 1912 (Lempert, Sr., went into semi-retirement in 1906 and died in 1909, but the firm name Leon H. Lempert & Son was still in use at least as late as 1922.)
Additional alterations were done in 1926, but Lempert Junior’s plans for that project were rejected in favor of plans by architect Simon Fennel.
In a partial list of work by Leon H. Lempert & Son, Ranjit Sandhu says that the Family Theatre was rebuilt in 1923 with the design done by Leon Lempert, Junior.
Lempert Senior went into semi-retirement in 1906 and died in 1909, so Lempert, Jr. must have been the architect for the original Family Theatre design of 1912 as well.
Despite Senior’s death in 1909, the firm name Leon H. Lempert & Son still appeared on a list of architecture firms in New York that was published by the new York Society of Architects as late as 1922. I’ve found the firm name used in announcements about current projects appearing in trade publications as late as 1920.
A partial list of the works of architects Leon H. Lempert & Son compiled by Ranjit Sandhu (it says “Rough Draft- Not for Publication or Distribution” but somebody has posted a PDF to the Internet) credits Leon Lempert Sr. with the design of both the Burtis Opera House and Burtis Auditorium.
It gives the opening date of the Auditorium as June 14, 1904, and gives the house the aka Loew’s Strand. I think Sandhu got the demolition dates of the two house reversed though, as he says that the Capitol Theatre (former Opera House) was demolished in 1939 and the Strand in 1953. We know that the Capitol was still in operation in the early 1950s, so I’m thinking it was more likely the Strand that was demolished in 1939, even though it was still being listed in the FDY in the early 1940s.
The January, 1905, issue of National Magazine mentioned the Burtis Auditorium in Auburn as having been “just erected.” It must have opened in late 1904 or early 1905.
The March 6, 1907, issue of the Auburn Citizen said that a five-cent vaudeville and movie theater had opened the previous night in the Burtis Auditorium Annex. As early items abut the Burtis Auditorium gave it a seating capacity of up to 6,000, and one report said that its stage was 100 feet wide and 42 feet deep, I wonder if it was this annex that eventually became the Strand Theatre? If not, then the auditorium itself must have been downsized considerably.
auburnbeer: This house was never called Burtis Auditorium. The Auditorium was located at 80 Water Street, and was built in 1904. It later became the Strand Theatre.
The Empire Theatre opened in June, 1909, but the original building was destroyed by fire in July, 1912. The house was rebuilt, and reopened on Christmas Day, 1913. The entrance of the Empire Theatre was on N. Cameron Street, but when the house was taken over by Warner Brothers as the Capitol Theatre it was remodeled and a new entrance was opened on Rouss Avenue.
Photos of the Grand Theatre Center, including some shots of the renovated auditorium, run as a slide show on this page at the web site of ELS Architecture and Urban Design, the firm that designed the renovation. Kurt Schindler was the principal architect of the project.
The Grand Theatre now seats 560, and features continental seating on the main floor. Other restoration and adaptive reuse projects designed by ELS include the California Theatre in San Jose, the Fox Theatre in Oakland, and the former Portland Theatre, now Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, in Portland, Oregon.
Eleven theaters, including the Globe, are listed in the neighborhood theater guide in the January 17, 1928, issue of the Syracuse Journal. Here is a scan of the page at Google Documents.
Smalley’s Oxford Theatre first appears in 1937 in this finding aid to the records of Smalley’s Theatres held by the New York State Historical Association. That is most likely the year it was built.
Smalley’s Johnstown Theatre was built in 1928 on the site of the Grand Theatre, which burned early that year.
The obituary of Hazel Smalley, widow of William Smalley, was published in the February 5, 1969, issue of the Leader-Herald newspaper. It said that Smalley’s Johnstown Theatre had been renamed the Towne Theatre in 1960.
A History of Fulton County published in 1892 says that the Johnstown Opera House was designed by architect Leon H. Lempert.
Most references to this Mission style house, opened in 1926, call it the Roland Courts or Roland Court Theatre, but the vertical sign seen in this ca.1945 photo says only Roland. I thinkt he small sign under the vertical says “2 Big Films”, but it’s a bit blurry so I couldn’t swear to it.
Video of a 2010 WVEC news report about the demolition, which includes a couple of vintage photos, can currently still be seen at this link.
A 1916 ad for the Casino Theatre on this web page gives its location as “One Half Block North of Siloam.” As near as I can figure, Siloam refers to Siloam Spring. A facility called the Hall of Waters was built at Siloam Spring in the 1930s, and today houses city offices, a visitors center, and a museum. It is on the south side of Broadway opposite the end of Elizabeth Street. This makes me think that perhaps the Siloam Theatre was the Casino Theatre, renamed.
Odd numbers are on the east sides of north-south streets in Excelsior Springs, so the Siloam Theatre would have been on the right side of Elizabeth Street as you go north from Broadway.
Despite the name on the marquee, this house still goes by the name Gordon Square Theatre, to differentiate it from the adjacent James Levin Theatre, also part of the Cleveland Public Theatre complex. The Gordon Square Theatre in its current configuration has 300 seats, and the Levin has 150.
The Cleveland Landmarks Commission attributes the design of the Gordon Square Theatre to architect George Allen Grieble, who also designed the Alhambra Theatre, the Olympia Theatre, and (possibly) the Penn Square Theatre, all between 1911 and 1913. However, an item in the November 3, 1917, issue of The Moving Picture World attributes the house to Arthur C. Yost. The item says:
The Landmarks Commission attributes only one theater to the firm of Richardson & Yost, that being a 1914 house at 15511 Waterloo Road. The Landmarks Commission page doesn’t give the theater’s name, but it is the house that opened as the Keystone Theatre and later became the Abbey Theatre.I’m not sure what to make of these conflicting claims. Very little information is available on the Internet about either Grieble or Yost, and the landmarks commission doesn’t cite sources for its attribution of the Gordon Square Theatre to Grieble. Clearing this up will likely require research in publications not available on the Internet, which means somebody with access to the Cleveland Public Library will probably have to do it.
The Liberty Theatre was established by Judson Herbert Ferguson, according to his biography in volume 2 of History of Oregon, by Charles Henry Carey. It probably opened before 1913, in which year it was called the Electric Theatre. It was in 1913 that Arthur Kolstad arrived in Hood River to take over management of the town’s two movie theaters, the other being the Gem at 103 Oak Street.
This house was still called the Electric Theatre in the 1917 City Directory, and must have been renamed the Liberty later that year, when the United States entered the World War.
In 1921, Ferguson and Kolstad built the Rialto Theatre, Hood River’s largest movie house, at 406 Oak Street. The Gem apparently closed at that time. This house continued to operate as the Liberty Theatre at least as late as 1928. I’ve been unable to discover when it was renamed the Cascadia.
Considerable biographical information about Arthur Kolstad can be found in the NRHP registration form for Cliff Lodge, which he once owned. It is available as a PDF at this link. A Google Documents version can be read online at this link.
This house opened as Ye Liberty Theater on February 22, 1912, with 1,600 seats. The original operator, Young Chun, was involved in a lawsuit which is recorded in legal journals of the time.
The seating capacity is found in various editions of All About Hawaii, an annual publication of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. The house was still listed in the book as Ye Liberty Theater at least as late as 1921.
The Alhambra Theatre originally opened on December 21, 1907, according to that day’s issue of the Utica Herald Dispatch. The building, owned by the Lux Brothers, had previously been occupied by Lux & Sons Washington Market. I still haven’t been able to discover if whether the Alhambra Theatre of 1915 was entirely new construction or a rebuilding of this earlier structure.
During the years 1918 and 1919, the Geneva Daily Times carries ads for the Regent and Temple Theatres and for a vaudeville and movie house called the Strand Theatre, but I find no mentions of the opera house during that time. The ads for the Strand vanish by 1920, and the Smith Opera House reappears. I wonder if they were the same theater?
The Temple Theatre opened on January 20, 1912, according to Ranjit Sandhu’s list of the works of Leon H. Lempert & Son. Sandhu doesn’t attribute the original design to any architect, but cites an item in the June 21, 1913, issue of American Contractor saying that Leon Lempert Jr., was the architect for a stage that was being added to the house.
It’s possible that Lempert was also the original architect for the Temple Theatre. The lack of attribution simply means that Sandhu was unable to find one in publications from the period. I haven’t found one either.
This colorized postcard is probably later than the one we currently display. It shows that a marquee had been added to the building, glass doors had been put in place to create a vestibule, and a colorful fan light had been installed in the arch above the entrance.
Ranjit Sandhu’s partial list of the works of Leon H. Lempert & Son attributes the design of the Smith Opera House building to Pierce & Bickford, but says that Leon H. Lempert, Sr., designed the auditorium and stage of the theater itself, but he doesn’t cite a source for the claim.
The March 10, 1894, issue of The Engineering Record does note Lempert as the architect for William Smith’s proposed opera house at Geneva, but doesn’t mention Pierce & Bickford. It is possible that Smith decided to change architects, though its also possible that Lempert served as consulting architect for the theater portion of the building.
In any case, even if Lempert did design the auditorium, Victor Rigaumont’s later remodeling completely transformed the interior, so it’s unlikely that anything would remain of Lempert’s design today.
Google’s street views for Exchange Street are a complete mess. I’ve set the view as near the theater as it will get. Also, lostmemory was apparently right that the correct address for the Geneva Cinema 5 is 495 Exchange Street.
Periodicals from 1914-1915 confirm that the Regent Theatre was designed by Leon H. Lempert & Son, but as Leon Lempert, Sr. died in 1909, Leon H. Lempert, Jr. should be listed as the architect.
Thanks to Keith Wondra for the excellent photos of this splendid survivor.
Since my previous comments about him, a bit more information about the architect has appeared on the Internet, most notably in a publication from the City of Wichita’s Historic Preservation Office that indludes a brief biography (PDF file here.)
Samuel Siegfried Voigt was born in Leipzig, Germany, in 1885. His family moved to Wichita in 1896. He studied architecture and engineering through the International Correspondence Schools, earning a degree in 1909. He became a draftsman in the office of Wichita architect Fred G. McCune, and established his own practice in 1913. Voigt appears to have specialized mostly in institutional projects, as by 1929 he had designed over 400 schools and 200 churches, completing projects in four states according to that year’s edition of Who’s Who in Wichita. He died in 1937, so the Anthony Theatre was a fairly late project.
I still haven’t been able to discover if Voigt designed any theaters other than the Anthony.
Information about the Strand Theatre in Ranjit Sandhu’s list of works by Leon H. Lempert & Son says that this house was designed by Lempert, Jr.; that it opened on January 22, 1913; that its auditorium was new construction but its lobby was in the structure formerly occupied by a nickelodeon called the Golden Palace; and that the auditorium was demolished in 1923 and the lobby structure in 1956.
This web page about the Stone Opera House says that it is likely that Elfred Bartoo and Sanford O. Lacey designed the Stone Opera House under the supervision of architect Isaac G. Perry.
This brief biography of Elfred Bartoo says that he worked as a draftsman on the State Capitol project with Perry in 1891, which is also the year Charles Stone announced his intention of building this theater. The biography also notes that, prior to forming his partnership with Bartoo, Sanford Lacey had been Isaac Perry’s senior draftsman.
Ranjit Sandhu, who compiled a partial list of the works of Leon H. Lempert & Son, says that Lempert acted as consulting architect on the Stone Opera House. He also credits I. G. Perry as the architect of the project, though he doesn’t cite a source for the claim. Still, it seems likely that Stone would have chosen Binghamton’s leading architect to design his theater, and also likely that Perry, as busy as he was with the State Capitol and other projects at the time, would turn the project over to his trusted draftsmen.
The web page about the Opera House I cited earlier also says that the house opened as the Columbia Theatre, but came to be called the Stone Opera House within a year. The house, then under construction, was referred to as the Columbia Theatre in an item in the July 6, 1892, issue of The Electrical Engineer.
Research by Ranjit Sandhu reveals that Leon H. Lempert, Sr., was the architect of the 1900 remodeling of the Dellinger Opera House, and Leon H. Lempert, Jr., designed alterations made in 1912 (Lempert, Sr., went into semi-retirement in 1906 and died in 1909, but the firm name Leon H. Lempert & Son was still in use at least as late as 1922.)
Additional alterations were done in 1926, but Lempert Junior’s plans for that project were rejected in favor of plans by architect Simon Fennel.
In a partial list of work by Leon H. Lempert & Son, Ranjit Sandhu says that the Family Theatre was rebuilt in 1923 with the design done by Leon Lempert, Junior.
Lempert Senior went into semi-retirement in 1906 and died in 1909, so Lempert, Jr. must have been the architect for the original Family Theatre design of 1912 as well.
Despite Senior’s death in 1909, the firm name Leon H. Lempert & Son still appeared on a list of architecture firms in New York that was published by the new York Society of Architects as late as 1922. I’ve found the firm name used in announcements about current projects appearing in trade publications as late as 1920.
A partial list of buildings designed by Leon H.Lempert & Son (PDF file) attributes the design of the Burtis Opera House to Leon H.Lempert, Sr.
A partial list of the works of architects Leon H. Lempert & Son compiled by Ranjit Sandhu (it says “Rough Draft- Not for Publication or Distribution” but somebody has posted a PDF to the Internet) credits Leon Lempert Sr. with the design of both the Burtis Opera House and Burtis Auditorium.
It gives the opening date of the Auditorium as June 14, 1904, and gives the house the aka Loew’s Strand. I think Sandhu got the demolition dates of the two house reversed though, as he says that the Capitol Theatre (former Opera House) was demolished in 1939 and the Strand in 1953. We know that the Capitol was still in operation in the early 1950s, so I’m thinking it was more likely the Strand that was demolished in 1939, even though it was still being listed in the FDY in the early 1940s.
The January, 1905, issue of National Magazine mentioned the Burtis Auditorium in Auburn as having been “just erected.” It must have opened in late 1904 or early 1905.
The March 6, 1907, issue of the Auburn Citizen said that a five-cent vaudeville and movie theater had opened the previous night in the Burtis Auditorium Annex. As early items abut the Burtis Auditorium gave it a seating capacity of up to 6,000, and one report said that its stage was 100 feet wide and 42 feet deep, I wonder if it was this annex that eventually became the Strand Theatre? If not, then the auditorium itself must have been downsized considerably.
auburnbeer: This house was never called Burtis Auditorium. The Auditorium was located at 80 Water Street, and was built in 1904. It later became the Strand Theatre.
The Empire Theatre opened in June, 1909, but the original building was destroyed by fire in July, 1912. The house was rebuilt, and reopened on Christmas Day, 1913. The entrance of the Empire Theatre was on N. Cameron Street, but when the house was taken over by Warner Brothers as the Capitol Theatre it was remodeled and a new entrance was opened on Rouss Avenue.