Hippodrome Theater
314 S. Main Street,
Los Angeles,
CA
90013
314 S. Main Street,
Los Angeles,
CA
90013
7 people
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Showing 76 - 100 of 180 comments
I just noticed a post by ken mc on May 25, 2007 at 5:23pm above that probably clears up this whole Main Street Gym thing. His post says that the Main Street Gym is being demolished for a parking lot after 33 years and has been there since 1951….the same year that the Main Street Gym that I’ve been talking about burned. I guess they just moved across the street.
That silent era page must be referring to another New Star. The one I’ve been talking about wouldn’t have been showing anything by 1925. It was a gym and men’s club by then. Plus, that list is a little misleading since in 1925 every theater that showed movies would have been showing silent movies.
All due credit due you for this hitherto unknown Main Street cinema.
I think I’ll add this theater unless someone else wants to do it. With Ken’s last two posts there is no question that there was a theater that played movies at least part of the time at 323 S. Main.
It would have been New Star-Bijou-Theatre Royal-Regal.
The Regal is also listed in the 1914 directory, which was posted on 8/14/07.
Remember the 1908 directory I posted a while ago? 323 S. Main is the Theatre Royal, as opposed to the Royal Theater over on Broadway:
http://tinyurl.com/2bnoph
Similarly the New Moon may have been a permutation of the Moon which was the Gaiety etc etc. That one has too many aliases to keep track of.
There was a Star Theater at 529 S. Main that is already on CT. It’s possible that the Star was advertised as the New Star for a time.
That wouldn’t be this one. The name New Star only shows up from 1906-1908. Then its called the Bijou for a year and then the Regal until 1919 when it is turned into the Los Angeles Men’s club.
So do you think it should be added on CT? There seems to be plenty of evidence that there was a New Star/Bijou/Regal Theater within the building. Also, as I mentioned above, there are many articles from around 1910 about labor disputes at the theater. My theory about the gym is that after the 1951 fire it reopened across the street. Or, there could have been two gyms at the same time with the same owner for awhile.
This is long, and not Hippodrome-related, but it relates to recent comments above about a theatre across Main Street from the Hip:
I don’t think Cinema Treasures has a page for the theatre at 323 S. Main yet. The Turn Halle (aka Turnverein Germania) at that location was L.A.’s third. All three of them appear to have served multiple purposes as the Turners' gymnasiums, as theatres and as ballrooms and meeting rooms. The first Turnverein was dedicated in 1872, the year after the L.A. chapter of the club was founded. It was demolished in 1887. I haven’t been able to track down it’s exact location, but one reference places it on Spring Street between 2nd and 3rd, so it might have been either at the location of the second Turnverein or the lot north of that where the first Los Angeles Theatre was built.
The second Turnverein was at 227 S. Spring Street, next door to the first Los Angeles Theatre (which was later the second L.A. Orpheum and then the Lyceum.) The two buildings can be seen in this photo from the L.A. library. Both of them date to 1887.
The cornerstone of the third Turnverein, across Main Street from the Hippodrome’s site, was laid in October of 1893, and the building was opened in April of 1894. This photo from the L.A. library depicts the Main Street Turnverein (though the library dates the photo as being from 1888, six years before it actually opened.)
Another Turnverein hall was built in 1925 at Washington and Toberman, but the various articles referenced in comments above indicate that the Turners must have sold or leased out this location on Main Street well before then. I don’t know what year it was converted into the Main Street Gym.
I don’t know if the Los Angeles Turners Club still exists as an organization today, but it was around to celebrate its centennial in 1971 with a banquet at the old Turner Inn Hofbrau restaurant which I beleieve was on 15th Street. Also, the Washington Boulevard Turner Hall was later renamed Rodger Young Auditorium and was demolished in 1978.
I guess it had one more little name change:
(Feb. 19, 1908)
Bijou Theater
323 South Main St.
This afternoon and evening, all this week. The Tommy Burns-Gunner Moir fight pictures taken at London, England, ten rounds and knockout. Admission 25c, any seat.
Here’s one for the New Star name:
(June 6, 1906)
NEW STAR THEATER-323 South Main St.
A Carload of Pretty Girls, A Barrel of Good Singing and a Bunch of Fun-Real Burlesque Up To Date
Prices-10c, 20c, 30c, and a few at 50c
I wonder what 50 cents got you…..
Joe usually tells me where the Main Street theaters are listed. I would check with him before you add it.
Just one more because it makes me laugh….
(Dec. 24, 1920)
In the old Regal Theater, 321 South Main street, hundreds of old men gathered as the guests of the Los Angeles Men’s Club, and sang ‘Silver Threads Among the Gold,’ weeping the while, and then applauding vigorously to be allowed to sing it over again. A number of talks and vaudeville acts were also given.
I guess I shouldn’t be putting all of this on the Hippodrome page…maybe I should add the theater but I’ll wait to make sure it isn’t under another name.
It must have been a theater until 1919 before it was converted to the gym/men’s club:
(Jan. 15, 1919)
Dr. Gentry, Of Chicago
For 24 Years Exponent Of Divine Healing
and Preacher of Full Gospel of Christ, has been holding
Meetings at Regal Theater, 323 S. Main St.
(May 7, 1915)
Times $5000 Prosperity & Trade Contest.
Theaters
Regal Theater Musical Comedy, 323 S. Main.
I’ve searched for previous names on here for Regal and also New Star but nothing shows up. There was a Regal that showed movies, however:
(May 2, 1909)
The Main-street Regal Theater programme for the coming week will include the first appearance of the Sisters Petite, singers and dancers; Warren Ellsworth, story-teller and monologist; James Heatherington, in illustrated songs and travelogues; new moving pictures, and music by Ransom’s orchestra.
The strange thing is that I can’t find anything about a gym on the other side of the street….I’m having a strange deja vu….I remember writing about this a long time ago. There are a bunch of articles about union problems at the Regal Theater from 1909 on for a few years. There seems to have been a lot of cracked skulls and faces punched. Is Joe Vogel in the house?
Now I’m confused. I didn’t know there were dueling gyms on Main Street.
This could explain why a the city directory listings stop by 1916 (I haven’t been able to find the 1917 directory) for a theater.
(Sept. 4, 1919)
GERMAN SIGN CHIPPED FROM TURNER HALL: TO BECOME “DRY SALOON."
A workman with a mallet and chisel yesterday chipped off the German words "Turn Halle” from the front of the building at 321 South Main street, thus putting out of existence in name Turner Hall, where for many years the German-speaking people of Los Angeles danced and sang and met in lodge and club gatherings. Over the door the city will place an electric sign reading, “Los Angeles Men’s Club,” and this institution, the only municipal organization of its kind in the United States, will be formally opened in about two weeks. The city has leased the building from its owners, the Turn Verein Germania, for one year with the right to extend the lease five years, and the Play Ground Commission is spending $3000 in fitting up the building as a men’s club. It was primarily established to be a returned service men’s club, but all men are to be welcome, and it will be, in effect, as called by Play Ground Commission Superintendent Charles B. Raitt, a ‘dry saloon.’ In the basement there will be pool tables and hot and cold showers. On the street floor there will be reading and smoking-room, and lunches, soft drinks, cigars, tobacco and cigarettes will be sold. The large auditorium where many famous dances were held in years past, and where many steins of beer were drunk to the words, “Hoch der Kaiser,” becomes a municipal gymnasium, and the German club rooms become committee rooms where evening classes will be conducted by the Board of Education.
The mitt palace, located at 321 S. Main St., was the training arena for luminaries of the fight world from time to time. Joe Louis trained there for his bout with Jack Roper at Wrigley Field. …As late as a year ago, Jack Dempsey worked out there with his protege, Clarence Henry, and made a series of gym talks.
Then there must have been two gyms because there definitely was a gym and a theater in Turn Halle which took up the addresses from 319-325 S. Main. Here’s a picture showing the theater:
View link
(Feb. 5, 1951)
Fire Wins Round-In flame-swept Main Street Gym, Fire Capt. John Langston looks over damaged boxing gloves and other equipment. The gymnasium, 321 S Main St., has been training arena for fight luminaries.
You’re getting mixed up. The gym was at 318 ½, on the even side, so the Regal couldn’t have been there. As you pointed out, it would have been on the other side of the street. The Regal, if it’s here, would have been between the Jade at 315 and the Follies at 337.