Page 40 of Davenport, by Doug Smith (Google Books preview), features a 1920 photo of the Family Theatre at 215 West Third Street, so the name change from Family to State Theatre could have taken place no earlier than that year.
The Liberty Theatre placed an advertisement in the May 30, 1942, issue of The Billboard, seeking burlesque performers for the summer season. Another ad in the November 14 issue of The Billboard the same year touted the Liberty’s star attraction, Ina Lorraine, featured in a “…novelty dance characterization…” called The Virgin’s Dream.
I’ve been unable to find any earlier or later references to the Liberty Theatre, but in 1942 it was definitely operating as a burlesque house.
The Family Theatre was in operation at 215 Third Street by 1913, when it was mentioned in at least two issues of The Moving Picture World. A brief item in the August 21, 1915, issue of the same publication said that the Family Theatre was being remodeled into “…first class motion picture house….” at a cost of $10,000, and would be expanded to seat over 700 patrons. It was scheduled to reopen that month.
At some point, the American Theatre at 324 W. Third Street, which had been in operation since before 1910, was renamed the Family Theatre.
Volume 2 of The Papers of Will Rogers, edited by Steven K. Gragert and M. Jane Johansson, says that the Columbia Theatre was originally a two-a-day vaudeville house on the Orpheum circuit.
This page from Facebook user Davenport Iowa History has a photo of 3rd Street west from Harrison Street taken “about 1908” showing the American Theatre in the distance.
This page of Rudy’s web site lists the location at 326 Cedar Street, so it must still be there.
In satellite view and street view, the building has an odd shape, with one corner chopped off. I’m having a hard time figuring out how the auditorium was configured in that irregular space. Has the building been altered since it ceased to be a theater?
Also, I see that Google Maps has screwed up again, putting the pin icon about four blocks too far east. As Cedar Street is clearly labeled on their map, I can’t imagine why they missed it with their pin.
A photo of the front of the Westgate Theatre appears in the lower right corner of this page of the August 21, 1937, issue of Boxoffice. A photo of the auditorium appears on the subsequent page.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Page 40 of Davenport, by Doug Smith (Google Books preview), features a 1920 photo of the Family Theatre at 215 West Third Street, so the name change from Family to State Theatre could have taken place no earlier than that year.
The Liberty Theatre placed an advertisement in the May 30, 1942, issue of The Billboard, seeking burlesque performers for the summer season. Another ad in the November 14 issue of The Billboard the same year touted the Liberty’s star attraction, Ina Lorraine, featured in a “…novelty dance characterization…” called The Virgin’s Dream.
I’ve been unable to find any earlier or later references to the Liberty Theatre, but in 1942 it was definitely operating as a burlesque house.
The Family Theatre was in operation at 215 Third Street by 1913, when it was mentioned in at least two issues of The Moving Picture World. A brief item in the August 21, 1915, issue of the same publication said that the Family Theatre was being remodeled into “…first class motion picture house….” at a cost of $10,000, and would be expanded to seat over 700 patrons. It was scheduled to reopen that month.
At some point, the American Theatre at 324 W. Third Street, which had been in operation since before 1910, was renamed the Family Theatre.
Volume 2 of The Papers of Will Rogers, edited by Steven K. Gragert and M. Jane Johansson, says that the Columbia Theatre was originally a two-a-day vaudeville house on the Orpheum circuit.
The Davenport Iowa History web site has two photos of the Davenport Theatre under construction in 1912:
View 1
View 2
This page from Facebook user Davenport Iowa History has a photo of 3rd Street west from Harrison Street taken “about 1908” showing the American Theatre in the distance.
This page of Rudy’s web site lists the location at 326 Cedar Street, so it must still be there.
In satellite view and street view, the building has an odd shape, with one corner chopped off. I’m having a hard time figuring out how the auditorium was configured in that irregular space. Has the building been altered since it ceased to be a theater?
Also, I see that Google Maps has screwed up again, putting the pin icon about four blocks too far east. As Cedar Street is clearly labeled on their map, I can’t imagine why they missed it with their pin.
A photo of the front of the Westgate Theatre appears in the lower right corner of this page of the August 21, 1937, issue of Boxoffice. A photo of the auditorium appears on the subsequent page.
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.
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.
Linkrot repair: here is a fresh link to the 1937 Boxoffice article, with photo, about the Community Theatre in Toms River.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The 1922 Hamilton City Directory listed the Princess Theatre at 108-10 James Street North.
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.
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.