Gaiety Theatre
523 S. Main Street,
Los Angeles,
CA
90013
523 S. Main Street,
Los Angeles,
CA
90013
4 people
favorited this theater
Showing 76 - 82 of 82 comments
This entry needs to be corrected. I beleive the correct address is 523 South Main. 533 South Main was the address of the Optic Theatre. This rough map, c1950, shows the “Gayety” theatre north of the Star Theatre, which was at 529 South Main. I believe that the Gaiety was a later name for the theatre at 523 South Main, which was opened by Charles Alphin some years before 1914, and at various times went by the names Olympic (before 1914), Alphin (c1914), Omar (c1917) and Moon (c1923.)
Here is a circa 1917 photograph showing the Omar Theatre at lower left. I’ve come to these conclusions about this theatre mainly from information in various comments by vokoban, ken mc, and Alphin on Cinema Treasures Optic Theatre page.
This map, circa 1950, shows the location of the theater on Main Street:
http://www.uncanny.net/~wetzel/subwayarea.htm
“Gaiety” may have been a very late name for the theatre— 1950s or so, perhaps.
It’s strange, but I can’t find anything about an actual building called the Gaiety Theater. I find things about the Gaiety Theater company performing at the Morosco Theater and it’s spelled both ‘Gaiety’ and ‘Gayety’. There was definitely a Gayety Theater at 2407 S. Central Ave. that showed movies in the 20’s, but I don’t see it on CT. Maybe it has a different name before or later.
Here is the Optic Theatre entry with the correct URL.
Now that 533 South Main has been discovered to be the correct address of the Optic Theatre, either the address of the Gaiety is wrong, or the Optic was known as the Gaiety at one time. As the Optic opened as the Optic about 1910, and was called the Optic when it was demolished some time after the mid-1960s, I think it more likely that the Gaiety was another name for the Olympic/Alphin/Omar/Moon theatre, which was at 523 South Main. See the recent comments at Cinema Treasures' Optic Theatre page for more details.
The Gaiety, together with the Optic Theatre, 523 S. Main St. and the Art Theatre, 551 S. Main St. were all located on the same block on the West side of S. Main Street.
All have been demolished and a huge parking structure now takes up most of the block.