O'Brien and Werner were experienced theater architects, by the way, having already designed several San Francisco houses including the first Mission Theatre, the Princess Theatre (later the Ellis), the first post-fire Orpheum (later the Garrick), the Valencia Theatre, and the 16th Street Theatre (later the Victoria.)
Various issues of Building and Industrial News in 1911 indicate that the firm of O'Brien and Werner had already drawn the plans for this building before Alexander Pantages entered the project as lessee of the theater portion. At that time, B. Marcus Priteca was brought in to modify the theater design for Pantages. Had Priteca designed the building from the ground up, I’m sure the exterior would have been far more ornate than Matthew O'Brien and Carl Werner’s restrained commercial block.
The August 1, 1911, issue of Building and Industrial News had this item about a proposed theater in San Leandro:
“Theatre. 1 story and base, brick, $12,500. Architect W. H. Weeks. 251 Kearny St., S. F. Owner Daniel Best. The building has been designed for a modern moving picture house, and will have a seating capacity of about 800 people. There will be a modern ventilating system. The exterior will be faced with pressed brick. The plans for the work are complete and the architect is taking figures on the construction.”
There is a photo of the Best Theatre on page 87 of San Leandro, by Cynthia Vrilakas Simons. Lloyd Bridges Sr., father of the actor, was apparently connected with the theater in some way, as he appears in the photo.
Architect William H. Weeks designed hundreds of buildings in Northern California, a large percentage of them being schools, although Cinema Treasures does currently attribute two other theaters to him.
The College Arms Theatre might be the house mentioned in the November 15, 1913, issue of Southwest Contractor and Manufacturer, which said that bids were being taken for construction of a theater at Claremont that had been designed by Pomona architect Paul F. Higgs. The firm of Davis & Higgs also designed a theater at Pomona in 1911, but I’ve been unable to discover which one it was.
In June, 1911, The Architect & Engineer of California published this item:
“Architect B. Marcus Priteca of Seattle will open offices in San Francisco in the near future. He is associated with Messrs. Miller and Colmesnil in designing the new Pantages theatre to be erected on Market street by the A. E. Long Construction Company. In addition to the theatre a seven-story class A office building will be put up. Priteca’s offices will be in the Westbank building.”
Miller & Colmesnil were listed as the architects for the project in an item in the July 4, 1911, issue of the San Francisco trade journal Building and Industrial News, which noted that the contract for the structural steel and iron work on the project had just been awarded to the Central Iron Works.
Given the fact that Priteca was Pantages' protégé, hired specifically to design theaters, he undoubtedly designed the theater interior, but as he still had only limited experience as an architect (he was 22 years old), it seems most likely that Miller & Colmesnil, an established firm familiar with San Francisco’s building codes, designed the building itself. They surely would have designed the office building fronting the theater.
Around 1907, James Rupert Miller and George T. de Colmesnil hired Timothy Pflueger, then 15 years old, as an apprentice. in the late 1910s, after Colmesnil withdrew from the firm, Pflueger became a partner in the firm of Miller & Pflueger. As he had been with the firm for several years at the time the Pantages was built, it’s likely that he was involved in the project in some way, perhaps quite extensively. It’s easy to imagine Pflueger being impressed with the accomplishments of Priteca, who was less than three years his elder. Perhaps his involvement with the Pantages project had some influence on his decision to design theaters later in his career.
The caption of the photo of the Empress Theatre that Tinseltoes linked to on August 10 says that the architect was Geo. J. Bockmann of Flint. It must be a misspelling of George J. Bachmann, who designed several theaters in Michigan during the first half of the 20th century.
Here is a notice published in the July 19, 1924, issue of Building & Engineering News:
“Siebert & Hedden, Brock Bldg., associates with Frank Wynkoop, Kress Bldg., Long Beach, assoc. architect and engineers, have prepared preliminary sketches for a $35,000. two-story store, theatre and office building to be erected at the southwest corner of Seventh St. and Redondo Ave., Long Beach, for A. T. Shaw. Stucco exterior, tile and composition roof, plate glass store fronts.”
The Ritz doesn’t appear to have been exactly on the corner, but magazines weren’t always precise when giving locations, so there’s a good chance the project was the Ritz. If someone could discover the opening year it would help.
Bertie Crewe designed at least one other theater in Balfast besides the Royal Hippdrome/New Vic, though I don’t know if the project was carried out or not, and if it was I don’t know its name. The August 8, 1915, issue of The Building News said that demolition of the Theatre Royal had begun, and that the house was to be replaced by a modern picture theatre of 1,500 seats, which had been designed by the architect of the Royal Hippodrome, Mr. Crewe.
this web page has a history of the Theatre Royal, but nothing about its fate. It says that the theater was on Arthur Square, which Bing Maps (Google doesn’t identify it, and the intersection has been closed to traffic so Google’s street view camera never captured it) informs me was a small open area just east of the intersection of Castle Lane and Arthur Street, which is a half block east of the site of the Gaumont Belfast. Unless the theater that was to have replaced the Theatre Royal was never built, there must have been another large house in the neighborhood of the Gaumont that we don’t have listed yet.
Looking at Bing Maps' bird’s eye view, there’s a modern building on the southwest corner of Castle Lane and Arthur Street which looks like its parcel is big enough to have once held a theater, though 1,500 seats would have been a tight squeeze. The only other likely site would have been the southeast corner of William Street South and Ann Street, where Bing’s view, dated this year, shows modern construction underway.
The Fresno Bee story cited by RonP in his comment of July 12, 2009, is confirmed by items published in Southwest Contractor & Manufacturer in 1914. It was Robert Boller, not Carl, who worked on the White Theatre, with Lee DeCamp, and the firm was Boller & DeCamp, not Boller Brothers. The architect who supervised construction was Edward T. Foulkes.
Robert Boller joined his older brother Carl’s firm in 1905 as an apprentice draftsman. He was then 18 years old, about half Carl’s age. In 1911, Robert moved to San Francisco to become the construction supervisor for the theaters Lee DeCamp was designing for the Sullivan & Considine vaudeville circuit. By 1914 Sullivan & Considine was on the verge of collapse, and Boller & DeCamp had begun doing other projects, such as the White Theatre. Boller returned to Kansas City in 1915, and took over operation of the Boller Brothers office there when Carl moved to Los Angeles to open a branch office in the early 1920s.
I haven’t been able to find much about Lee DeCamp on the Internet, and almost all of what I have found deals with his association with Sullivan & Considine. He maintained some association with the Bollers even after his partnership with Robert was dissolved, as I’ve found references to him supervising some Boller projects as late as the 1930s.
Of the three architects associated with the White Theatre, Edward T. Foulkes was probably the one with the most impressive training. He apprenticed in Boston with Clarence Blackall, then worked in New York City, first in the offices of Cass Gilbert and then with Carrere & Hastings. After winning a scholarship in 1903, he studied at the Ecole de Beaux-Arts in Paris, then traveled extensively not only in Britain and Europe but in the Middle East, India, China, and Japan, before establishing his office in San Francisco in 1906. He opened a Fresno office in 1910, but the White Theatre was probably among his last projects there. He returned to the Bay Area later in 1914 to work on projects associated with the Panama-Pacific Exposition of 1915, and thereafter designed many buildings in the area, especially in Oakland.
The May 4, 1918, issue of The Moving Picture World said that the Codman Square Theatre was rapidly nearing completion and that the date of its opening would soon be announced. It was to be combination house (vaudeville and movies) with two shows a day.
I think Ken McIntyre’s description of this theater is mistaken about the Turlock Theatre having been renamed the Fox Theatre. Evidence that this was an error comes from Ken McIntyre in his February 16, 2009, comment quoting the 1976 Modesto Bee article that begins with the line “The Turlock Theater at 128 N. Broadway was destroyed early this morning by fire…” In the 1950s and 1960s, ads for the theater in the Modesto Bee list it as the Fox Turlock Theatre, but the name Turlock apparently remained on the marquee, and by the 1970s the ads were back to listing it simply as the Turlock Theatre.
We also have an address discrepancy. The ads and the article in the Modesto Bee give the address of the Fox Turlock/Turlock as 128 N. Broadway, but we have both houses listed at 120 N. Broadway. Was the burned Turlock rebuilt on the same site in 1948, or was it moved a few doors up the street?
The photo Tinseltoes uploaded for the New Turlock Theatre page shows that the marquee and vertical signs on the house in 1959 were only slightly altered versions of the ones on the theater at the time of the 1946 fire. It looks like the front of the original building might have survived. If that’s the case, then the theater was always at 128 N. Broadway, at the corner of Olive Avenue. In the 1946 photo of the fire it certainly looks like the building was at the corner.
A photo from 1948 or later showing the entire facade of the rebuilt theater would be very helpful, as would a photo from any time from 1920 to 1976 showing the entire block.
I’m not sure that the Fox Theatre in the ACI photo lostmemory linked to was at Turlock. In 1942, the Fox was in the building in the postcard photo at the top of this page. In the 1950s it was converted into a bowling alley seen in this photo. In 1972 or 1973, the building was destroyed by a fire seen in this photo (the caption gives the date of the fire as July 1, 1973. I don’t know which year is right.)
The Fox name was supposed to have been moved to the Turlock Theatre in 1954, but there’s a photo of the Turlock with movies from 1958 and 1959 on its marquee. I’m beginning to question the claim that the Turlock was ever renamed the Fox. Maybe this house was the only Fox Theatre Turlock ever had.
Here is a photo of the 1946 fire that supposedly destroyed the Turlock Theatre. The job was not thorough. The marquee and vertical sign in the 1959 photo appear to be the same ones, only slightly modified from those in the 1946 photo.
I’m thinking that the theater’s walls might have survived the fire. Our listed seating capacity for the rebuilt house is larger, though. The footprint of the auditorium might have been expanded, or perhaps a balcony was added in the rebuilding.
I’ve just realized that the movies on the marquee in that photo also contradict the description on the Fox Theatre page, which says that the Fox name was moved to the Turlock Theatre when the first Fox was closed in 1954. The page for the first Fox implies the same thing. But here we have the Turlock name on the marquee with movies released in 1958 and 1959. The name switch had to have been later.
If the New Turlock was destroyed in 1945, the photo above can’t be it. The Warrior and the Slave Girl was released in 1958 and The 30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock in 1959.
Here is a fresh link to the photo RoadsideArchitecture linked to.
The July 4, 1914, issue of The Moving Picture World said “W. V. Schmidt will be manager of the new Grand moving picture theater which is nearing completion at Breese. The house will seat 450 persons.”
The July 4, 1914, issue of The Moving Picture World said that J. W. Jespersen and A. C. Dippo’s new, 400-seat theater on San Pablo Avenue at 27th Street was to be opened on July 27. As it is listed with 740 seats it was obviously expanded at some point. Possibly the 1915 opening gsmurph cites was a reopening after an expansion. It was not unknown for theaters to be expanded within a year or two of opening in those days.
There’s a photo of the 01 South block of El Dorado Street showing the Imperial Theatre on this web page. Scroll about 1/3 of the way down the page to the bold-type line that says “9 South El Dorado” and click the adjacent thumbnail photo. The Imperial’s marquee can be seen just left of center.
Building and Engineering News of June 27, 1919, reported that contracts had been let for a brick and steel theater to be built on N. Broadway in Turlock for A. H. and K. Arakelian. The architect for the project was A. W. Cornelius. This must have been the Turlock Theatre.
The Esquire that ran X-rated movies in the 1960s-1970s was a different theater, and this Esquire was long gone by then. The photo currently displayed above depicts the former State Theatre, which was renamed the Esquire after the original Esquire was closed in 1954, at which time it was either demolished and replaced by a department store or was converted into a department store.
Here is a 1936 photo of the State. It is a close shot, but the brickwork on the facade is recognizable as the same brick in the Esquire photo above. The photo should be moved to the State Theatre page. JasHarv’s and mjprigge’s comments, or course, also pertain to the former State.
A note that the name Esquire was moved to the former State Theatre in 1954 should probably be added to the introduction, to reduce confusion. And as the State operated as the Esquire from 1954 until at least the early 1970s, maybe that page should be renamed as well.
O'Brien and Werner were experienced theater architects, by the way, having already designed several San Francisco houses including the first Mission Theatre, the Princess Theatre (later the Ellis), the first post-fire Orpheum (later the Garrick), the Valencia Theatre, and the 16th Street Theatre (later the Victoria.)
Various issues of Building and Industrial News in 1911 indicate that the firm of O'Brien and Werner had already drawn the plans for this building before Alexander Pantages entered the project as lessee of the theater portion. At that time, B. Marcus Priteca was brought in to modify the theater design for Pantages. Had Priteca designed the building from the ground up, I’m sure the exterior would have been far more ornate than Matthew O'Brien and Carl Werner’s restrained commercial block.
The August 1, 1911, issue of Building and Industrial News had this item about a proposed theater in San Leandro:
There is a photo of the Best Theatre on page 87 of San Leandro, by Cynthia Vrilakas Simons. Lloyd Bridges Sr., father of the actor, was apparently connected with the theater in some way, as he appears in the photo.Architect William H. Weeks designed hundreds of buildings in Northern California, a large percentage of them being schools, although Cinema Treasures does currently attribute two other theaters to him.
The College Arms Theatre might be the house mentioned in the November 15, 1913, issue of Southwest Contractor and Manufacturer, which said that bids were being taken for construction of a theater at Claremont that had been designed by Pomona architect Paul F. Higgs. The firm of Davis & Higgs also designed a theater at Pomona in 1911, but I’ve been unable to discover which one it was.
In June, 1911, The Architect & Engineer of California published this item:
Miller & Colmesnil were listed as the architects for the project in an item in the July 4, 1911, issue of the San Francisco trade journal Building and Industrial News, which noted that the contract for the structural steel and iron work on the project had just been awarded to the Central Iron Works.Given the fact that Priteca was Pantages' protégé, hired specifically to design theaters, he undoubtedly designed the theater interior, but as he still had only limited experience as an architect (he was 22 years old), it seems most likely that Miller & Colmesnil, an established firm familiar with San Francisco’s building codes, designed the building itself. They surely would have designed the office building fronting the theater.
Around 1907, James Rupert Miller and George T. de Colmesnil hired Timothy Pflueger, then 15 years old, as an apprentice. in the late 1910s, after Colmesnil withdrew from the firm, Pflueger became a partner in the firm of Miller & Pflueger. As he had been with the firm for several years at the time the Pantages was built, it’s likely that he was involved in the project in some way, perhaps quite extensively. It’s easy to imagine Pflueger being impressed with the accomplishments of Priteca, who was less than three years his elder. Perhaps his involvement with the Pantages project had some influence on his decision to design theaters later in his career.
The caption of the photo of the Empress Theatre that Tinseltoes linked to on August 10 says that the architect was Geo. J. Bockmann of Flint. It must be a misspelling of George J. Bachmann, who designed several theaters in Michigan during the first half of the 20th century.
Here is a notice published in the July 19, 1924, issue of Building & Engineering News:
The Ritz doesn’t appear to have been exactly on the corner, but magazines weren’t always precise when giving locations, so there’s a good chance the project was the Ritz. If someone could discover the opening year it would help.See my comment on the Gaumont Belfast page for information about another possible Bertie Crewe-designed theater in Belfast.
Bertie Crewe designed at least one other theater in Balfast besides the Royal Hippdrome/New Vic, though I don’t know if the project was carried out or not, and if it was I don’t know its name. The August 8, 1915, issue of The Building News said that demolition of the Theatre Royal had begun, and that the house was to be replaced by a modern picture theatre of 1,500 seats, which had been designed by the architect of the Royal Hippodrome, Mr. Crewe.
this web page has a history of the Theatre Royal, but nothing about its fate. It says that the theater was on Arthur Square, which Bing Maps (Google doesn’t identify it, and the intersection has been closed to traffic so Google’s street view camera never captured it) informs me was a small open area just east of the intersection of Castle Lane and Arthur Street, which is a half block east of the site of the Gaumont Belfast. Unless the theater that was to have replaced the Theatre Royal was never built, there must have been another large house in the neighborhood of the Gaumont that we don’t have listed yet.
Looking at Bing Maps' bird’s eye view, there’s a modern building on the southwest corner of Castle Lane and Arthur Street which looks like its parcel is big enough to have once held a theater, though 1,500 seats would have been a tight squeeze. The only other likely site would have been the southeast corner of William Street South and Ann Street, where Bing’s view, dated this year, shows modern construction underway.
The Fresno Bee story cited by RonP in his comment of July 12, 2009, is confirmed by items published in Southwest Contractor & Manufacturer in 1914. It was Robert Boller, not Carl, who worked on the White Theatre, with Lee DeCamp, and the firm was Boller & DeCamp, not Boller Brothers. The architect who supervised construction was Edward T. Foulkes.
Robert Boller joined his older brother Carl’s firm in 1905 as an apprentice draftsman. He was then 18 years old, about half Carl’s age. In 1911, Robert moved to San Francisco to become the construction supervisor for the theaters Lee DeCamp was designing for the Sullivan & Considine vaudeville circuit. By 1914 Sullivan & Considine was on the verge of collapse, and Boller & DeCamp had begun doing other projects, such as the White Theatre. Boller returned to Kansas City in 1915, and took over operation of the Boller Brothers office there when Carl moved to Los Angeles to open a branch office in the early 1920s.
I haven’t been able to find much about Lee DeCamp on the Internet, and almost all of what I have found deals with his association with Sullivan & Considine. He maintained some association with the Bollers even after his partnership with Robert was dissolved, as I’ve found references to him supervising some Boller projects as late as the 1930s.
Of the three architects associated with the White Theatre, Edward T. Foulkes was probably the one with the most impressive training. He apprenticed in Boston with Clarence Blackall, then worked in New York City, first in the offices of Cass Gilbert and then with Carrere & Hastings. After winning a scholarship in 1903, he studied at the Ecole de Beaux-Arts in Paris, then traveled extensively not only in Britain and Europe but in the Middle East, India, China, and Japan, before establishing his office in San Francisco in 1906. He opened a Fresno office in 1910, but the White Theatre was probably among his last projects there. He returned to the Bay Area later in 1914 to work on projects associated with the Panama-Pacific Exposition of 1915, and thereafter designed many buildings in the area, especially in Oakland.
Street View needs to shift just a bit right to get a full frontal view of the Rialto’s building, now the Miraculous Word Christian Center.
The May 4, 1918, issue of The Moving Picture World said that the Codman Square Theatre was rapidly nearing completion and that the date of its opening would soon be announced. It was to be combination house (vaudeville and movies) with two shows a day.
I think Ken McIntyre’s description of this theater is mistaken about the Turlock Theatre having been renamed the Fox Theatre. Evidence that this was an error comes from Ken McIntyre in his February 16, 2009, comment quoting the 1976 Modesto Bee article that begins with the line “The Turlock Theater at 128 N. Broadway was destroyed early this morning by fire…” In the 1950s and 1960s, ads for the theater in the Modesto Bee list it as the Fox Turlock Theatre, but the name Turlock apparently remained on the marquee, and by the 1970s the ads were back to listing it simply as the Turlock Theatre.
We also have an address discrepancy. The ads and the article in the Modesto Bee give the address of the Fox Turlock/Turlock as 128 N. Broadway, but we have both houses listed at 120 N. Broadway. Was the burned Turlock rebuilt on the same site in 1948, or was it moved a few doors up the street?
The photo Tinseltoes uploaded for the New Turlock Theatre page shows that the marquee and vertical signs on the house in 1959 were only slightly altered versions of the ones on the theater at the time of the 1946 fire. It looks like the front of the original building might have survived. If that’s the case, then the theater was always at 128 N. Broadway, at the corner of Olive Avenue. In the 1946 photo of the fire it certainly looks like the building was at the corner.
A photo from 1948 or later showing the entire facade of the rebuilt theater would be very helpful, as would a photo from any time from 1920 to 1976 showing the entire block.
I’m not sure that the Fox Theatre in the ACI photo lostmemory linked to was at Turlock. In 1942, the Fox was in the building in the postcard photo at the top of this page. In the 1950s it was converted into a bowling alley seen in this photo. In 1972 or 1973, the building was destroyed by a fire seen in this photo (the caption gives the date of the fire as July 1, 1973. I don’t know which year is right.)
The Fox name was supposed to have been moved to the Turlock Theatre in 1954, but there’s a photo of the Turlock with movies from 1958 and 1959 on its marquee. I’m beginning to question the claim that the Turlock was ever renamed the Fox. Maybe this house was the only Fox Theatre Turlock ever had.
Here is a photo of the 1946 fire that supposedly destroyed the Turlock Theatre. The job was not thorough. The marquee and vertical sign in the 1959 photo appear to be the same ones, only slightly modified from those in the 1946 photo.
I’m thinking that the theater’s walls might have survived the fire. Our listed seating capacity for the rebuilt house is larger, though. The footprint of the auditorium might have been expanded, or perhaps a balcony was added in the rebuilding.
I’ve just realized that the movies on the marquee in that photo also contradict the description on the Fox Theatre page, which says that the Fox name was moved to the Turlock Theatre when the first Fox was closed in 1954. The page for the first Fox implies the same thing. But here we have the Turlock name on the marquee with movies released in 1958 and 1959. The name switch had to have been later.
If the New Turlock was destroyed in 1945, the photo above can’t be it. The Warrior and the Slave Girl was released in 1958 and The 30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock in 1959.
Here is a fresh link to the photo RoadsideArchitecture linked to.
The July 4, 1914, issue of The Moving Picture World said “W. V. Schmidt will be manager of the new Grand moving picture theater which is nearing completion at Breese. The house will seat 450 persons.”
As the Cinema Annex was a separate theater it should have its own Cinema Treasures page.
The July 4, 1914, issue of The Moving Picture World said that J. W. Jespersen and A. C. Dippo’s new, 400-seat theater on San Pablo Avenue at 27th Street was to be opened on July 27. As it is listed with 740 seats it was obviously expanded at some point. Possibly the 1915 opening gsmurph cites was a reopening after an expansion. It was not unknown for theaters to be expanded within a year or two of opening in those days.
kschneiderstl: Liberty was an early aka for the house listed at Cinema Treasures as the Sun Theatre.
There’s a photo of the 01 South block of El Dorado Street showing the Imperial Theatre on this web page. Scroll about 1/3 of the way down the page to the bold-type line that says “9 South El Dorado” and click the adjacent thumbnail photo. The Imperial’s marquee can be seen just left of center.
Building and Engineering News of June 27, 1919, reported that contracts had been let for a brick and steel theater to be built on N. Broadway in Turlock for A. H. and K. Arakelian. The architect for the project was A. W. Cornelius. This must have been the Turlock Theatre.
The Sierra Theatre was at 520 E. Main Street. The building is now occupied by a retail establishment, Solario’s Furniture and Jewelery.
The Esquire that ran X-rated movies in the 1960s-1970s was a different theater, and this Esquire was long gone by then. The photo currently displayed above depicts the former State Theatre, which was renamed the Esquire after the original Esquire was closed in 1954, at which time it was either demolished and replaced by a department store or was converted into a department store.
Here is a 1936 photo of the State. It is a close shot, but the brickwork on the facade is recognizable as the same brick in the Esquire photo above. The photo should be moved to the State Theatre page. JasHarv’s and mjprigge’s comments, or course, also pertain to the former State.
A note that the name Esquire was moved to the former State Theatre in 1954 should probably be added to the introduction, to reduce confusion. And as the State operated as the Esquire from 1954 until at least the early 1970s, maybe that page should be renamed as well.