Boxoffice of January 17, 1966 listed a new house for Blumenfeld Theatres under construction in the Montecito Plaza Shopping Center at San Rafael. The Montecito Plaza project was still under construction when Blumenfeld’s Northgate Theatre opened at another location in San Rafael on May 26, but it must have opened that year.
An article about Blumenfeld’s Northgate Theatre appeared in the San Rafael Independent-Journal on May 25, 1966, the day before the house opened. Though a rather small house, at 460 seats, the Northgate was the first theater in the Marin County to feature 70mm projection. Architects for the project were William B. David & Associates.
The Rootsweb history page I cited in my earlier comment has a few problems, notably glaring omissions and a couple of egregious errors which call other information it contains into question. It turns out that the Regal Theatre was built in 1923, probably opened in early 1924, and it replaced a house (under the same ownership but with a different name) which had burned in early 1923. The site also got the owner’s name wrong. It was Bollinger, not Burlinger. The May 12, 1923 issue of Moving Picture World said:
“W. T. Bollinger, of Elvins, Mo., whose theatre was destroyed by fire several weeks ago, has perfected plans to open an airdome in Elvins early in May. He also plans to rebuild the Electric Theatre.”
I’ve been unable to discover if the Regal Theatre was built on the site of the burned Electric Theater. Mr. Bollinger’s recent opening of the new Regal was noted in the February 9, 1924 issue of MPW.
A brief notice about this house appeared in the “New Theatre Building Projects” column of Motion Picture News for September 2, 1927: “Cumberland— Contractor, John I. Vandergrift. Thea. and store (2) bldg., 40 x 90. Seating capacity, 500. Colored patronage. Name: Howard. Location, North Mechanic St.”
A notice about this house appeared in the September 2, 1927 issue of Motion Picture News: “Anderson— Construction started on thea. and store room bldg., costing $50,000. Location, 23rd St. & Columbus Ave. 67 x 115. Seating capacity, 700.”
Motion Picture News of August 26, 1927 ran this belated notice about the Broad Theatre and the Loews-United Artists partnership’s other new theater planned for Columbus:
“The first of the new Loew-United Artists houses will open in Columbus on August 21st. This is the Broad, a combination house seating 2,700. The other Columbus house, the Ohio, is not scheduled to open until December. It has 3,300 seats and the policy will be pictures and presentations.”
In the 1930s Aberdeen had a movie house called the Harbor Theatre, listed in the 1933 FDY with 400 seats. I wonder if this could have been the Roxy under an earlier name? In the 1926 through 1929 editions of the FDY There was a house called the Dream Theatre, also with 400 seats. A Dream Theatre was listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, though the address and seating capacity were not given.
Although the Grand Theatre was not listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, the January 15, 1916 issue of Moving Picture World noted that “[t]he Grand theater has been reopened by G. H. Nye.” George H. Nye was manager of the Grand in 1914 when it was operating as a legitimate house, and still managing the house in 1925. The Grand advertised in the yearbooks of Aberdeen’s Weatherwax High School both of those years.
The Grand was not one of the four theaters listed at Aberdeen in the 1926 FDY, but was one of six listed in the 1927 edition, when it had 980 seats. It was still listed in 1929, but was gone by 1930.
The July 12, 1924 issue of Moving Picture World said that the new D & R Theatre in Aberdeen (the “Finest in Southwest Washington”) had recently opened after ten months of construction. The September 15, 1923 issue of Pacific Builder & Engineer had noted that construction was underway on a new theater at Aberdeen for Dolan and Ripley. The architect for the project was George B. Purvis of Seattle.
The only appearance of the Dreamland I’ve found in the trade publications is a passing mention in the January 4, 1919 Moving Picture World, which said it had booked the same programs as the Bijou Theatre.
The Lyric Theatre was listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. In 1914 the Lyric and another house called the Bijou were being run by a Harry H. Burford, mentioned multiple times in the trade journals that year. There was news about the Lyric Theatre in the February 13, 1915 issue of Moving Picture World:
“The Lyric theater at Tower avenue and Twelfth street in Superior, Wis., has been taken over by the Northland Theater Company of that place, which also operates the Princess theater and which has secured a site for another house at Tower avenue and Fourteenth street. Frank C. Buckley will be manager of the newly acquired house, having resigned his position as ticket agent at the Union depot, which he held for a decade, in order to devote all his time to the amusement enterprises of the company. The house has been remodeled and will be operated on the same policy as that ruling at the Princess, featuring high class pictures. The object of erecting a large house at Tower and Fourteenth street survives despite the acquisition of a theater in that vicinity.”
The Dome Theatre was mentioned in this item from Moving Picture World of January 1, 1916:
“Michael Barry and Michael Abraham have purchased the building occupied by the Dome theater on the north side of La Crosse. They have also purchased the theater from Mr. and Mrs. Henry Liesenfeld, and Barry, who has had photoplay experience in San Francisco and Duluth, will operate it.”
dallasmovietheaters is undoubtedly right about the ultimate architects of the Grand Theatre, except that the second partner was named Payson, not Payton. Albert S. Owen, Charles H. Payson, and Robin B. Carswell also designed the Temple Theatre in Mount Pleasant, Iowa in 1923. Carswell left the firm by 1926 and was replaced by William Sayler. As Owen, Sayler & Payson the firm designed the 1926 Kansas City Masonic auditorium that last operated as the Lyric Theatre.
The Victoria Theatre at Mays Landing was mentioned in the August 24, 1918 issue of Moving Picture World. In March, 1935, Philadelphia Exhibitor said “William Rhoads, Wildwood, N.J., has opened up the Victoria, Mays Landing, N. J., after house was dark for many seasons.”
A list of organs produced by the Estey company says that their opus 1531, built in 1917, was originally installed in the Osran Amusement Company’s Dream Theatre in Bremerton, but was eventually moved to Fremont Baptist Church in Seattle. Puget Sound Theatre Organ Society has a page for it, but the only information about the theater itself is that the organ was installed in 1917 and sold to the church for $2,500 in 1924. The house was most likely closed and dismantled that year. The Osran company would not have let the valuable organ sit idle for long.
The Osran Amusement Company, operating the Rialto, Dream, and Rex theaters in Bremerton was mentioned in the July 12, 1919 issue of Motion Picture News.
This comment by msetty on the Pine Ridge Theatre page says that the auditorium was un-twinned by the church that moved in after the theater closed, so the house did operate as a twin until closing.
The house on Foster Road is already listed as the Pine Ridge Theatre, though my description of it is not as thorough as the one above. One thing puzzles me, though. I have no memory of the Foster Road Pine Ridge returning to single-screen status before closing. Since I never went to either theater I don’t know firsthand, but it seems to me that both Pine Ridge houses remained twins to the end, based on my (admittedly vague) memory of the theater ads in the local newspaper.
I had no idea that the Strattons had operated another store in town before I moved there in 1986. Their market on Sawmill Road on the east side of town remained open as Stratton’s until it was destroyed by the 2018 fire, though the family had sold it to another owner several years earlier.
This part of Union City was once known as West Hoboken, and this section of Bergenline Avenue was once called Spring Street, so this item from the November 17, 1917 issue of Moving Picture World is about this house:
“West Hoboken, N. J.— Israel Spark of 1563 First avenue, New York City, has filed as the trade name of the moving picture theater at 530 Spring street, the City theater of West Hoboken.”
The City Theatre was not a new house at this time, but only under new ownership. The City Theatre is listed at the Spring Street address in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. West Hoboken merged with adjacent Union Hill to become Union City in 1925, which is when the City Theatre’s address and street name were changed. The records of the Theatre Historical Society say that the City Theatre underwent alterations in 1926, and finally closed on April 1, 1951.
Before acquiring its own building, the Crystal Theatre operated in a lodge hall, as noted in this item from the April 5, 1913 issue of Moving Picture World: “Onalaska, Wis.— The Crystal Co., which has been operating a moving picture theater in the Woodman Hall, has bought a site, formerly occupied by Thompson’s general store and will erect a picture play house.” The April 13 issue of MPW said that plans for the Crystal had been completed, but I haven’t found an opening announcement.
According to this article from the Cincinnati Enquirer, The People’s Theatre opened in 1877 as Heuck’s Opera House. The name was changed to People’s Theatre in 1884, following the opening of a new Heuck’s Opera House.
Here is a vintage postcard view of the Latimer Theatre. Note that the upper section of the building is set back several feet from the property line. This makes me suspect that the Latimer is the same theater that last operated as The Picture Show, which was in a building of the same size with the same setback above the street floor, but the space had been filled in by one of those fake mansards popular in the 1970s.
Could the claim in the description that this theater opened in 1918 be a typo that was meant to read 1928? The Union is not listed in the 1926 FDY, as such a large house surely would have been, and also there is this item datelined Attleboro from the May 9, 1927 issue of Exhibitors Daily Review: “Architect R. M. Stowell, 184 Boylston St., Boston, preparing plans for $150,000 theatre, 90x115, at Union St. Owner, Union Theatre, Inc., care architect.”
There is a brief history of the Park Theatre on this Facebook page. The theater opened as Smythe’s Hall in 1856, and over the years also went under the names Gorman’s Theatre, the Music Hall, and New Elm Street Theatre before settling on Park Theatre in 1899. The building was located at approximately 1042-1050 Elm Street.
Of the various aka’s the house used the only one I’ve been able to put a date to is Gorman’s Theatre, which the 1894 New York Clipper Annual said opened on August 28, 1893. The 1907-1908 Cahn guide lists the Park Theatre with 1,450 seats, a stage 42 feet deep and 60 feet between the side walls, with a proscenium 35 feet wide and 20 feet high. The rigging loft was 60 feet high. The Park was then part of Julius Cahn’s own circuit, with manager John Stiles in charge.
Projection equipment was installed at some point, and there was an organ, but I haven’t been able to discover when. The house closed for the last time around 1930, but I don’t know how frequently it had been used for movies in the 1910s and 1920s. It was not one of the nine theaters listed at Manchester in the 1926 FDY. After closing, the theater remained vacant for decades, and the building was demolished around 1970.
Boxoffice of January 17, 1966 listed a new house for Blumenfeld Theatres under construction in the Montecito Plaza Shopping Center at San Rafael. The Montecito Plaza project was still under construction when Blumenfeld’s Northgate Theatre opened at another location in San Rafael on May 26, but it must have opened that year.
An article about Blumenfeld’s Northgate Theatre appeared in the San Rafael Independent-Journal on May 25, 1966, the day before the house opened. Though a rather small house, at 460 seats, the Northgate was the first theater in the Marin County to feature 70mm projection. Architects for the project were William B. David & Associates.
The Rootsweb history page I cited in my earlier comment has a few problems, notably glaring omissions and a couple of egregious errors which call other information it contains into question. It turns out that the Regal Theatre was built in 1923, probably opened in early 1924, and it replaced a house (under the same ownership but with a different name) which had burned in early 1923. The site also got the owner’s name wrong. It was Bollinger, not Burlinger. The May 12, 1923 issue of Moving Picture World said:
I’ve been unable to discover if the Regal Theatre was built on the site of the burned Electric Theater. Mr. Bollinger’s recent opening of the new Regal was noted in the February 9, 1924 issue of MPW.A brief notice about this house appeared in the “New Theatre Building Projects” column of Motion Picture News for September 2, 1927: “Cumberland— Contractor, John I. Vandergrift. Thea. and store (2) bldg., 40 x 90. Seating capacity, 500. Colored patronage. Name: Howard. Location, North Mechanic St.”
A notice about this house appeared in the September 2, 1927 issue of Motion Picture News: “Anderson— Construction started on thea. and store room bldg., costing $50,000. Location, 23rd St. & Columbus Ave. 67 x 115. Seating capacity, 700.”
Motion Picture News of August 26, 1927 ran this belated notice about the Broad Theatre and the Loews-United Artists partnership’s other new theater planned for Columbus:
In the 1930s Aberdeen had a movie house called the Harbor Theatre, listed in the 1933 FDY with 400 seats. I wonder if this could have been the Roxy under an earlier name? In the 1926 through 1929 editions of the FDY There was a house called the Dream Theatre, also with 400 seats. A Dream Theatre was listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, though the address and seating capacity were not given.
Although the Grand Theatre was not listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, the January 15, 1916 issue of Moving Picture World noted that “[t]he Grand theater has been reopened by G. H. Nye.” George H. Nye was manager of the Grand in 1914 when it was operating as a legitimate house, and still managing the house in 1925. The Grand advertised in the yearbooks of Aberdeen’s Weatherwax High School both of those years.
The Grand was not one of the four theaters listed at Aberdeen in the 1926 FDY, but was one of six listed in the 1927 edition, when it had 980 seats. It was still listed in 1929, but was gone by 1930.
The July 12, 1924 issue of Moving Picture World said that the new D & R Theatre in Aberdeen (the “Finest in Southwest Washington”) had recently opened after ten months of construction. The September 15, 1923 issue of Pacific Builder & Engineer had noted that construction was underway on a new theater at Aberdeen for Dolan and Ripley. The architect for the project was George B. Purvis of Seattle.
The Bex Theatre was one of six movie houses listed at Aberdeen in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory.
The only appearance of the Dreamland I’ve found in the trade publications is a passing mention in the January 4, 1919 Moving Picture World, which said it had booked the same programs as the Bijou Theatre.
The Lyric Theatre was listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. In 1914 the Lyric and another house called the Bijou were being run by a Harry H. Burford, mentioned multiple times in the trade journals that year. There was news about the Lyric Theatre in the February 13, 1915 issue of Moving Picture World:
The Dome Theatre was mentioned in this item from Moving Picture World of January 1, 1916:
dallasmovietheaters is undoubtedly right about the ultimate architects of the Grand Theatre, except that the second partner was named Payson, not Payton. Albert S. Owen, Charles H. Payson, and Robin B. Carswell also designed the Temple Theatre in Mount Pleasant, Iowa in 1923. Carswell left the firm by 1926 and was replaced by William Sayler. As Owen, Sayler & Payson the firm designed the 1926 Kansas City Masonic auditorium that last operated as the Lyric Theatre.
The Victoria Theatre at Mays Landing was mentioned in the August 24, 1918 issue of Moving Picture World. In March, 1935, Philadelphia Exhibitor said “William Rhoads, Wildwood, N.J., has opened up the Victoria, Mays Landing, N. J., after house was dark for many seasons.”
A list of organs produced by the Estey company says that their opus 1531, built in 1917, was originally installed in the Osran Amusement Company’s Dream Theatre in Bremerton, but was eventually moved to Fremont Baptist Church in Seattle. Puget Sound Theatre Organ Society has a page for it, but the only information about the theater itself is that the organ was installed in 1917 and sold to the church for $2,500 in 1924. The house was most likely closed and dismantled that year. The Osran company would not have let the valuable organ sit idle for long.
The Osran Amusement Company, operating the Rialto, Dream, and Rex theaters in Bremerton was mentioned in the July 12, 1919 issue of Motion Picture News.
A December 6, 1913 Moving Picture World item about the recent sale of the Palace Theatre in Plattsburgh give the seating capacity of the house as 462.
This comment by msetty on the Pine Ridge Theatre page says that the auditorium was un-twinned by the church that moved in after the theater closed, so the house did operate as a twin until closing.
The house on Foster Road is already listed as the Pine Ridge Theatre, though my description of it is not as thorough as the one above. One thing puzzles me, though. I have no memory of the Foster Road Pine Ridge returning to single-screen status before closing. Since I never went to either theater I don’t know firsthand, but it seems to me that both Pine Ridge houses remained twins to the end, based on my (admittedly vague) memory of the theater ads in the local newspaper.
I had no idea that the Strattons had operated another store in town before I moved there in 1986. Their market on Sawmill Road on the east side of town remained open as Stratton’s until it was destroyed by the 2018 fire, though the family had sold it to another owner several years earlier.
This part of Union City was once known as West Hoboken, and this section of Bergenline Avenue was once called Spring Street, so this item from the November 17, 1917 issue of Moving Picture World is about this house:
The City Theatre was not a new house at this time, but only under new ownership. The City Theatre is listed at the Spring Street address in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. West Hoboken merged with adjacent Union Hill to become Union City in 1925, which is when the City Theatre’s address and street name were changed. The records of the Theatre Historical Society say that the City Theatre underwent alterations in 1926, and finally closed on April 1, 1951.Before acquiring its own building, the Crystal Theatre operated in a lodge hall, as noted in this item from the April 5, 1913 issue of Moving Picture World: “Onalaska, Wis.— The Crystal Co., which has been operating a moving picture theater in the Woodman Hall, has bought a site, formerly occupied by Thompson’s general store and will erect a picture play house.” The April 13 issue of MPW said that plans for the Crystal had been completed, but I haven’t found an opening announcement.
According to this article from the Cincinnati Enquirer, The People’s Theatre opened in 1877 as Heuck’s Opera House. The name was changed to People’s Theatre in 1884, following the opening of a new Heuck’s Opera House.
Here is a vintage postcard view of the Latimer Theatre. Note that the upper section of the building is set back several feet from the property line. This makes me suspect that the Latimer is the same theater that last operated as The Picture Show, which was in a building of the same size with the same setback above the street floor, but the space had been filled in by one of those fake mansards popular in the 1970s.
Could the claim in the description that this theater opened in 1918 be a typo that was meant to read 1928? The Union is not listed in the 1926 FDY, as such a large house surely would have been, and also there is this item datelined Attleboro from the May 9, 1927 issue of Exhibitors Daily Review: “Architect R. M. Stowell, 184 Boylston St., Boston, preparing plans for $150,000 theatre, 90x115, at Union St. Owner, Union Theatre, Inc., care architect.”
There is a brief history of the Park Theatre on this Facebook page. The theater opened as Smythe’s Hall in 1856, and over the years also went under the names Gorman’s Theatre, the Music Hall, and New Elm Street Theatre before settling on Park Theatre in 1899. The building was located at approximately 1042-1050 Elm Street.
Of the various aka’s the house used the only one I’ve been able to put a date to is Gorman’s Theatre, which the 1894 New York Clipper Annual said opened on August 28, 1893. The 1907-1908 Cahn guide lists the Park Theatre with 1,450 seats, a stage 42 feet deep and 60 feet between the side walls, with a proscenium 35 feet wide and 20 feet high. The rigging loft was 60 feet high. The Park was then part of Julius Cahn’s own circuit, with manager John Stiles in charge.
Projection equipment was installed at some point, and there was an organ, but I haven’t been able to discover when. The house closed for the last time around 1930, but I don’t know how frequently it had been used for movies in the 1910s and 1920s. It was not one of the nine theaters listed at Manchester in the 1926 FDY. After closing, the theater remained vacant for decades, and the building was demolished around 1970.