Comments from Joe Vogel

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Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel commented about Grand Theatre on May 24, 2013 at 4:27 am

I’ve found a reference to the Grand Theatre in Massillon operating as early as 1923.

If the spelling of the town’s name is corrected (it takes a double “s”), this house will be able to join its companions.

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel commented about Bucyrus Cinema on May 24, 2013 at 3:52 am

This web page about a Bucyrus Community Theatre is about this house. It says that the theater was built in the Art Deco style in 1936, and is now being restored after having been long vacant. Several web sites note that the Schine circuit opened the Bucyrus Theatre on February 14, 1936.

This article from early 2011, about a roofing job donated to the theater, mentions the theater having suffered a fire in 1991, after which it never reopened.

This single web page is as close to an official web site as I can find. It solicits contributions for the ongoing restoration project.

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel commented about Community Theater on May 24, 2013 at 2:34 am

Linkrot repair: here is a fresh link to the 1937 Boxoffice article, with photo, about the Community Theatre in Toms River.

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel commented about Victor Theatre on May 23, 2013 at 9:12 pm

A Nixon Theatre in New Castle was listed in the 1906-1907 edition of Julius Cahn’s guide as a first-floor house with 1,800 seats. This house was part of the Nixon & Zimmerman chain, which operated first-class theaters for touring companies in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio.

I don’t find the Nixon listed in later Cahn guides, though. Instead, there is a theater listed as the Opera House, with fewer than 1,100 seats. A New Castle theater called the New Opera House is on a list of Cahn-affiliated houses published in the December 5, 1908, issue of em>The Billboard.

But the Nixon was still in existence in 1913. This web page, which is mostly about a murder that was committed in New Castle 1905, mentions a meeting of spiritualists that took place at the Nixon Theatre on February 2, 1913.

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel commented about Austin Theater on May 21, 2013 at 4:39 am

The Austin Theatre was listed at the above address in the 1919 Chicago Daily News Almanac and Yearbook, which has a copyright date of 1918, so this theater must date from the 1910s.

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel commented about Chandler Crossroads 12 on May 21, 2013 at 3:06 am

Harkins Chandler Crossroads 12 was one of the multiplexes designed for the chain by Level4 Studios. Prior to the founding of Level4, partner Tim Ward was half owner of D&L Architects & Associates, which had also designed several projects for Harkins. Before that, he spent some years with United Artists Theatres, first as field project manager and later as director of design.

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel commented about Harkins Prescott Valley 14 on May 20, 2013 at 5:37 pm

Harkins Prescott Valley 14 was one of several multiplexes designed for the chain by D&L Architects & Associates, a firm half owned by architect Tim S. Ward. In 2005, Ward founded Level4 Studio with partner Nik Perkovich, and that firm also designed some theaters for Harkins.

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel commented about Harkins North Valley 16 on May 20, 2013 at 5:36 pm

Harkins North Valley 16 was one of several multiplexes designed for the chain by D&L Architects & Associates, a firm half owned by architect Tim S. Ward. In 2005, Ward founded Level4 Studio with partner Nik Perkovich, and that firm also designed some theaters for Harkins.

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel commented about Gateway Pavilions 18 on May 20, 2013 at 5:30 pm

The Level4 Studio web site has gone missing. Although a number of Harkins Theatres projects were featured in the firm’s online portfolio, it appears that most of them were designed before Tim Ward and Nik Perkovichi founded the firm. Before Level4 was founded, Tim Ward was half-owner of another firm, D&L Architects & Associates, and the Harkins theaters opened prior to 2005 that are attributed to Level4 should probably be attributed to D&L Architects, even though they were featured on Level4’s web site. As the Gateway Pavilions was opened in November, 2002, it is one of those projects.

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel commented about Harkins Arrowhead Fountains 18 on May 20, 2013 at 5:29 pm

The Level4 Studio web site has gone missing. Although a number of Harkins Theatres projects were featured in the firm’s online portfolio, it appears that most of them were designed before Tim Ward and Nik Perkovichi founded the firm. Before Level4 was founded, Tim Ward was half-owner of another firm, D&L Architects & Associates, and the Harkins theaters opened prior to 2005 that are attributed to Level4 should probably be attributed to D&L Architects, even though they were featured on Level4’s web site. As it opened in May, 2000, Harkins Arrowhead Fountains 18 is one of those projects.

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel commented about Harkins Chandler Fashion Center 20 on May 20, 2013 at 5:28 pm

The Level4 Studio web site has gone missing. Although a number of Harkins Theatres projects were featured in the firm’s online portfolio, it appears that most of them were designed before Tim Ward and Nik Perkovichi founded the firm. Before Level4 was founded, Tim Ward was half-owner of another firm, D&L Architects & Associates, and the Harkins theaters opened prior to 2005 that are attributed to Level4 should probably be attributed to D&L Architects, even though they were featured on Level4’s web site. As it opened in 2001, Harkins Chandler Fashion Center 20 is one of those projects.

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel commented about Ritz Theatre on May 20, 2013 at 3:16 pm

Part of the introduction puzzles me. I don’t see how Pierre L'Enfant, who lived from 1754 to 1825, could have designed a company town in Illinois in 1901. This history of Zeigler says the town was planned by engineer L. V. Rice, working for the Chicago engineering firm Robert W. Hunt & Company.

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel commented about Van Curler Theatre on May 19, 2013 at 12:02 am

This article from the Schenectady Daily Gazette gives a brief history of the Van Curler Theatre. The theater opened as the Van Curler Opera House on March 1, 1893. In its later years it operated as a movie house as well as a vaudeville and burlesque theater. The Van Curler Theatre had been closed for several years when the auditorium was demolished in 1943. The entrance building was demolished eight years later.

The theater was not located on Van Curler Street, but in downtown Schenectady on Jay Street at the corner of Franklin Street. The article has two photos. The front of the theater was a typically Victorian assemblage of Moorish and Classical elements with a Queen Anne style tower of bay windows and belfry stuck onto one corner.

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel commented about Star Theatre on May 17, 2013 at 9:26 pm

Sassyrey1: The Star Theatre is currently closed. As of November, 2012, it was owned by a bank which had foreclosed on it, according to posts on this weblog.

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel commented about Princess Theatre on May 16, 2013 at 4:31 am

The 1922 Hamilton City Directory listed the Princess Theatre at 108-10 James Street North.

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel commented about Teck Theatre on May 16, 2013 at 3:20 am

Scroll down to the second illustration on this web page to see the original appearance of the Music Hall, as it was called from its opening in 1887 until 1900. The massive Romanesque Revival pile was designed by Richard Alfred Waite.

This page has a photo of the auditorium as originally designed, strikingly different from the Streamline Modern interior created in its 1946 rebuilding as Shea’s Teck Theatre (which, according to this earlier comment by roberttoplin, was designed by architect B. Frank Kelly with interiors by Theodore P. Vandercoy.) The building fronting the auditorium was apparently also replaced at that time.

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel commented about Star Theater on May 16, 2013 at 3:13 am

Judging from the interior photos linked earlier, I’d have guessed that the Star Theatre had at least 600 seats. The side section in this photo shows at least 28 rows with six seats per row, so the two side sections alone must have seated over 300, and the center section was probably about the size of the two side sections put together. Perhaps they removed every other row sometime late in the theater’s history.

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel commented about Harmony Theater on May 16, 2013 at 3:06 am

The building in the photo Chuck linked to doesn’t look big enough to have held 332 seats, but it looks old enough to have been around in 1916. The March 18, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World said that a 250-seat movie house called the Meteor Theatre had opened at Sand Springs on January 8. Could the Meteor and the Harmony have been the same theater?

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel commented about Canyon Theatre on May 15, 2013 at 8:15 pm

This web page has an article by Linda Kirkpatrick with considerable information about the Canyon Theatre, and a couple of photos. The Canyon Theatre was built in the early 1940s, but the article doesn’t give the date of closing.

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel commented about Paseo Camarillo Cinemas on May 13, 2013 at 5:58 pm

One error in the introduction- Lyndon Golin’s brother is named Andrew, not Michael.

A ShowTime Magazine profile of Lyndon Golin is online here.

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel commented about Variety Theatre on May 13, 2013 at 5:16 pm

This house was called the Wayne Theatre by 1939, the year Ralph Harold Ward became its manager, according to his obituary, published in 2008.

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel commented about Acme Theatre on May 13, 2013 at 4:21 am

Here is the Acme Theatre’s page at DocSouth’s Going to the Show collection. It operated from about 1914 to about 1928, and must have always been called the Acme.

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel commented about Acme Theatre on May 13, 2013 at 4:09 am

vbridgers is correct. Now that we have a photo of the Wayne Theatre, it clearly was not in the old Acme building at all, but in the building that housed the Center Theatre and later the Variety Theatre.

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel commented about Hilbert Circle Theater on May 12, 2013 at 10:38 pm

A Three Stooges movie party hosted at the Circle Theatre by a local television personality rated an article with photo in the November 11, 1963, issue of Boxoffice.

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel commented about West End Pussycat Cinema on May 12, 2013 at 10:28 pm

Linkrot repair: A brief item about the opening of E.M. Loew’s West End Cinema appeared in Boxoffice of November 11, 1963 (lower right). The architect for the remodeling of the old Lancaster Theatre into the West End Cinema was William Riseman.