The Varsity underwent major remodeling in 1965, after the original owners, Mr. and Mrs. McCurdy, sold the house to the Commonwealth Theatres circuit.
Boxoffice Magazine of October 4 reported that the Kansas City firm of Milton Costlow & Associates designed the $100,000 project, which involved the demolition of the proscenium to expand the auditorium into the former stage area, the removal of the original ceiling, and the rearrangement of the lobby and foyer.
Space formerly occupied by tenants in the building would be used for theater facilities as well. The house would be entirely reseated and carpeted, and the booth would be equipped for both 35 and 70mm projection.
Boxoffice published the obituary of J.M. Ensor in its issue of July 3, 1937. It credits him with being one of the organizers of the Tri-State Association of Motion Picture Theatre Owners of America and an early member of the Independent Theatre Owners Association of Arkansas. He died on June 25, at the age of 67. He had operated the Crescent Theatre for 22 years.
The January 28, 1956, issue of Boxoffice reported that the Crescent Theatre had been closed and would be demolished to make way for a bank’s parking lot. The Crescent had been in operation for forty years.
As some of the comments above have said, this theater was designed by architect William I. Hohauser. An article about the new Normandie, with three small photos, appeared in the March 8, 1952, issue of Boxoffice Magazine.
The listed address of 27 W. Church Street must be wrong, then, or maybe Orlando has renumbered the lots on that block. Mako’s, the bar in the building in the Flickr photo, is listed at 27 W. Church, and Antigua is at 41 W. Church. If the Rialto was in the location where the high rise is now, then its address must have been in the high 40s or the 50s.
Of course it’s also possible that the Rialto had two locations, starting out as a storefront theater in that old brick building at 27 W. Church and then moving down the street to a purpose-built theater building in the 1930s.
I found this 1938 map of Orlando which locates the Rialto just where Jeff D says it was, assuming that what looks like an entrance to underground parking on the south side of the street now is at the location of the short street that ends at Church Street on the map. The black building was apparently opposite the end of that street (I can’t read the street’s name on the map) and that would put the Rialto’s location right where the high rise is now.
I’ve been unable to find the Strand in South Portland mentioned in Boxoffice Magazine, thought here was a Strand in Portland that got mentioned a few times. I found a single mention of the Seville Theatre in South Portland, in the October 9, 1937, issue, which said that the operator, Russell Mack, had gotten married.
The South Portland theater that got the most exposure in Boxoffice was called the Cape Theatre, a 450-seat house opened in September, 1938. It was operating as late as 1958, but after that is mentioned only twice that I can find, and those mentions are retrospective.
But the Cape was not the only theater operating in South Portland in 1944, when the August 12 issue of Boxoffice reported that Leon Gorman had sold the Cape Theatre to Ralph Snider of the R.E. Snider Circuit. “Snider now operates three houses in South Portland,” the item said. It’s possible that the Strand/Seville was one of the unnamed two.
The July 19, 1941, issue of Boxoffice mentioned Mr. L.M. Fong, who was opening the Blue Heaven Theatre in Marianna.
The May 23, 1942, issue of Boxoffice reported that L. Man Fong was putting on a “Chinese Relief Show” at the Blue Heaven Theatre on the 26th and 27th. Chinese movies would be shown, with English translation provided. Film exchanges were asked to make donations to the Chinese Relief Fund.
The Blue Heaven Theatre was offered for sale in a classified ad in the July 4, 1953, issue of Boxoffice. That’s the most recent I’ve found it mentioned in the magazine.
Here’s a change from the usual conflagrations Boxoffice was so fond of reporting. The headline in the September 25, 1972, issue read “Rain Storm Causes Roof Of Theatre to Cave In.” The item reported that the Imperial Theatre, which had suffered the disaster the previous month, had been dark since December, 1971.
The most recent mention of the Dixie in Boxoffice is an item in the December 29, 1956, issue saying that the owner, T.E. Smith, had closed the theater.
A theater was opened in Marmaduke in 1938 by Tom Ford, but the September 24 issue of Boxoffice that year said that the new house, set to open the following Friday, was to be named the Marmaduke. I can’t find the name Marmaduke Theatre in any later issues of Boxoffice, but then the earliest mention of the Dixie I’ve found is from 1947. Most likely the Marmaduke and the Dixie were the same house in any case.
Puzzling information datelined Kenedy from Boxoffice, June 5, 1937:
“Remodeling of the old Rialto Theatre was completed this week by Hall Industries and the opening set for June 10, it was announced by Boyd Atkinson, local Hall manager. The house name, however, will be changed to ‘The Rex.’ New upholstered chairs and projection equipment are to be installed.”
The Rex is mentioned again in the April 5, 1941, issue of Boxoffice, which says:
“BOXOFFICE has been informed that the building formerly occupied by the Rialto, Kenedy, is being remodeled to serve as a cafe, according to its owner, August Loos of that city. The only other theatre in Kenedy is the Rex.”
But by 1958, Boxoffice is once again publishing items about the Rialto Theatre, and I find no mentions of the Rex after 1941. Possibly the Rex resumed its former name. But the Rialto was probably the nameless theater mentioned in a May 2, 1936, Boxoffice article about Henry Hall, which said:
“In Kenedy, a small town of about 2,500 population, he built a magnificent 1000-seat theatre, a credit to a key city.”
Motion Picture Times of March 11, 1930, listed the Rialto as one of the Texas theaters which had recently installed RCA sound equipment. As near as I can figure from these various items, there have been two Rialto Theatres in Kenedy, but the lack of follow-up items to so many Boxoffice articles about the town leaves their history somewhat ambiguous.
I’ve also found these bits about other theaters in Kenedy: The April 20, 1940, issue of Boxoffice said: “Jack Farr has just opened the new Bear in Kenedy, Texas.” That’s the only mention of the Bear I’ve found.
Motion Picture Times of May 13, 1930 said: “B.F. Mumm, who lost the Grand at Kenedy by fire, starts this week to rebuild the theatre….” The fire had taken place in March, according to an earlier issue of the magazine. A 1948 “From the Boxoffice Files” feature cited a 1928 item saying that B.F. Mumm had purchased the Grand Theatre in Kenedy. Aside from that retrospective item, I’ve found no mention of the Grand after 1930.
There were also two mentions of what was probably a Spanish language theater in Kenedy. The December 1, 1945, issue of Boxoffice mentions Juan Monsivais of the Carpa Theatre in Kenedy, and the October 3, 1953, issue mentions Juan Monsivais of the Monsivias Theatre in Kenedy.
The July 5, 1941, issue of Boxoffice mentioned the Cameo as one of several theaters opened in recent months by the Florida State Circuit.
The January 18, 1947, issue of Boxoffice ran this item datelined Orlando: “The Cameo Theatre in Colonialtown, closed during the war years, has been reopened. The theatre is booked to show return engagements.”
Those are the only mentions of the Cameo I’ve been able to find in Boxoffice.
A Rialto Theatre in Orlando was mentioned in the May 6, 1930, issue of Motion Picture Times as being one of several Florida houses that had recently installed air conditioning. If it was the same Rialto then 1930 is the latest year it could have been opened, and it could easily date from the 1920s or earlier. Maybe it had a different name before becoming the Rialto.
Flickr user Roloff says that this photo depicts the former Rialto at 27 W. Church Street. If that’s so then it isn’t demolished. The building looks like it was originally built for retail use and not as a theater, probably in the late 19th or early 20th century, so if this was the actual location then the Rialto was probably a storefront conversion. The building doesn’t look big enough to have held 450 seats, though.
The April 23, 1949, issue of Boxoffice reported that the Port Theatre had opened on April 16. The architect of the 1,250-seat house was E.C.A. Bullock of New York.
An article in the October 13, 1951, issue of Boxoffice said that the Cinema in Framingham had opened on October 4. The building was designed by Ketchum, Gina & Sharp, architects of the shopping center, and the theater architect was Benjamin Schlanger. An additional article about the theater, with two small photos, appeared in the October 4, 1952, issue of Boxoffice.
If the writer of the item in the April 23, 1955, issue of Boxoffice got the facts right, the Sutton must have opened in the mid-1930s. The article said that the opening week of “Marty” had given the Sutton the biggest gross in its 21-year history.
The earliest mention of the Sutton I’ve found in Boxoffice so far is from the August 28, 1943, issue which said that the house had been taken over by the R&B circuit, and that after being renovated the Sutton would be operated with the same policy as the circuit’s Art Theatre and 8th Street Playhouse, both of which were in Greenwich Village.
The May 18, 1970, issue of Boxoffice ran an article about the Jerry Lewis Cinema. They gave the opening date as March 25, 1970. The company that built the Jerry Lewis theaters, Network Cinemas Corporation, had been formed in September, 1969, so they had managed to get their first theater open in about six months. The interiors of the theater were designed by Robin Wagner, but Boxoffice didn’t give the name of the architect.
The architect for the conversion of the Murray Hill into a quad in 1990 was John W. Averett, Averett Associates. He also designed the renovations for the City Cinemas Village East, opened the same year, and City Cinemas' East 86th Street Cinemas, Completed at the end of the 1990s.
In 1999, The New York Times published this article about the rather complex history of the building at this address (the article will probably vanish from the Internets soon if The Times decides to put its content behind a pay wall, so if you aren’t a Times subscriber read it while it lasts.)
The original building at 210 E. 86th Street, built for the Musical Mutual Protective Union in 1904 and designed by architects Trowbridge & Livingston, was replaced by a modern building in 1966, but the greater part of the East 86th Street Cinemas is located behind the surviving facade of an annex built on 85th Street in 1919, which was designed by the same architects. The entrance to the theater is in the 1966 building on 86th Street.
I don’t know who designed the 1966 building, but the architect for the 1999 renovation of the theater into a four-plex was John W. Averitt, Averitt Associates, who was best known for designing live performance spaces but who did at least three renovation projects for City Cinemas. The others that I know of were the City Cinemas Village East and the Murray Hill cinema, both done earlier than the 86th Street Cinemas.
The conversion of this theater into a seven-screen multiplex was the work of the late John W. Averitt, Averitt Associates, an architect who designed at least two other projects for City Cinemas: the East 86th Street Cinemas and the Murray Hill Cinemas. Averitt was best known for his designs for live performance spaces.
An article about the conversion of the Village East appeared in the June, 1991, issue of Boxoffice Magazine. The article mentioned one of the theater’s aka’s that is not yet listed above, the Molly Picon.
The Northpoint was built by ABC Theatres of California and was designed by ABC-Paramount’s consulting architect of the 1960s and 1970s, Henry George Greene.
The June 19, 1946, issue of Boxoffice said that Mr. and Mrs. T.W. Mattern planned to open the Oaks Theatre at Columbus in September. The item referred to the theater as a 650-seat house “…new from the ground up.” Another brief item in the same issue (actually on the previous page) gave the same projected opening date, but listed the seating capacity as 624.
On December 7, 1964, Boxoffice reported the death of exhibitor W.A. Struss, who had built the Orphic Theatre in Columbus in 1929. The obituary said that Struss had bought the Oaks Theatre from Tommy Mattern in 1947 and operated it until his death.
In 1968, the Oaks was one of many theaters in Texas that were part of the circuit operated by Rubin S. Frels. Frels had been the booker for Struss’s Orphic, and the association continued when Struss took over the Oaks the year after it was built. Frels had a long association with Columbus, having bought the Columbus Theatre there in 1928, according to Motion Picture Times of August 4 that year.
The Savannah was called the Churchill Theatre prior to 1940, and was operated by E.W. Churchill. The July 27, 1940, issue of Boxoffice said that Churchill had sold his theater to R.B. Gooch effective July 20. The item said that Churchill had operated the house for fifteen years. The September 14, 1940, issue of Boxoffice said that Gooch had formally opened the theater as the Savannah on September 8.
The June 19, 1954, issue of Boxoffice reported a fire at the Savannah Theatre had forced the evacuation of about 100 patrons. The item said that damage was heavy but covered by insurance. I haven’t found any follow-up articles about the event or about repairs to the theater.
The October 13, 1956, issue of Boxoffice announced that the Skyvue Drive-In at Savannah would close November 10, and the Savannah Theatre would open on November 11. Savannah was one of a number of towns in the region where drive-ins operated during the summer and the business would be moved over to hardtops for the colder seasons.
After being closed in June, 1972, the refurbished Norwalk Theatre reopened as the Norwalk Cinema on November 1 that year. The independent operator who reopened the house was Leonard Jefferson, and the opening feature was “Fiddler On the Roof” according to Boxoffice Magazine of November 27.
The August 3, 1935, issue of Boxoffice mentions a Forum Theatre in Norwalk, taken over that year by Schine after having been built the previous year. It’s not listed here yet.
The Varsity underwent major remodeling in 1965, after the original owners, Mr. and Mrs. McCurdy, sold the house to the Commonwealth Theatres circuit.
Boxoffice Magazine of October 4 reported that the Kansas City firm of Milton Costlow & Associates designed the $100,000 project, which involved the demolition of the proscenium to expand the auditorium into the former stage area, the removal of the original ceiling, and the rearrangement of the lobby and foyer.
Space formerly occupied by tenants in the building would be used for theater facilities as well. The house would be entirely reseated and carpeted, and the booth would be equipped for both 35 and 70mm projection.
Boxoffice published the obituary of J.M. Ensor in its issue of July 3, 1937. It credits him with being one of the organizers of the Tri-State Association of Motion Picture Theatre Owners of America and an early member of the Independent Theatre Owners Association of Arkansas. He died on June 25, at the age of 67. He had operated the Crescent Theatre for 22 years.
The January 28, 1956, issue of Boxoffice reported that the Crescent Theatre had been closed and would be demolished to make way for a bank’s parking lot. The Crescent had been in operation for forty years.
As some of the comments above have said, this theater was designed by architect William I. Hohauser. An article about the new Normandie, with three small photos, appeared in the March 8, 1952, issue of Boxoffice Magazine.
The listed address of 27 W. Church Street must be wrong, then, or maybe Orlando has renumbered the lots on that block. Mako’s, the bar in the building in the Flickr photo, is listed at 27 W. Church, and Antigua is at 41 W. Church. If the Rialto was in the location where the high rise is now, then its address must have been in the high 40s or the 50s.
Of course it’s also possible that the Rialto had two locations, starting out as a storefront theater in that old brick building at 27 W. Church and then moving down the street to a purpose-built theater building in the 1930s.
I found this 1938 map of Orlando which locates the Rialto just where Jeff D says it was, assuming that what looks like an entrance to underground parking on the south side of the street now is at the location of the short street that ends at Church Street on the map. The black building was apparently opposite the end of that street (I can’t read the street’s name on the map) and that would put the Rialto’s location right where the high rise is now.
Can anybody confirm the address of the Rialto?
I’ve been unable to find the Strand in South Portland mentioned in Boxoffice Magazine, thought here was a Strand in Portland that got mentioned a few times. I found a single mention of the Seville Theatre in South Portland, in the October 9, 1937, issue, which said that the operator, Russell Mack, had gotten married.
The South Portland theater that got the most exposure in Boxoffice was called the Cape Theatre, a 450-seat house opened in September, 1938. It was operating as late as 1958, but after that is mentioned only twice that I can find, and those mentions are retrospective.
But the Cape was not the only theater operating in South Portland in 1944, when the August 12 issue of Boxoffice reported that Leon Gorman had sold the Cape Theatre to Ralph Snider of the R.E. Snider Circuit. “Snider now operates three houses in South Portland,” the item said. It’s possible that the Strand/Seville was one of the unnamed two.
The July 19, 1941, issue of Boxoffice mentioned Mr. L.M. Fong, who was opening the Blue Heaven Theatre in Marianna.
The May 23, 1942, issue of Boxoffice reported that L. Man Fong was putting on a “Chinese Relief Show” at the Blue Heaven Theatre on the 26th and 27th. Chinese movies would be shown, with English translation provided. Film exchanges were asked to make donations to the Chinese Relief Fund.
The Blue Heaven Theatre was offered for sale in a classified ad in the July 4, 1953, issue of Boxoffice. That’s the most recent I’ve found it mentioned in the magazine.
Here’s a change from the usual conflagrations Boxoffice was so fond of reporting. The headline in the September 25, 1972, issue read “Rain Storm Causes Roof Of Theatre to Cave In.” The item reported that the Imperial Theatre, which had suffered the disaster the previous month, had been dark since December, 1971.
The most recent mention of the Dixie in Boxoffice is an item in the December 29, 1956, issue saying that the owner, T.E. Smith, had closed the theater.
A theater was opened in Marmaduke in 1938 by Tom Ford, but the September 24 issue of Boxoffice that year said that the new house, set to open the following Friday, was to be named the Marmaduke. I can’t find the name Marmaduke Theatre in any later issues of Boxoffice, but then the earliest mention of the Dixie I’ve found is from 1947. Most likely the Marmaduke and the Dixie were the same house in any case.
Puzzling information datelined Kenedy from Boxoffice, June 5, 1937:
The Rex is mentioned again in the April 5, 1941, issue of Boxoffice, which says:But by 1958, Boxoffice is once again publishing items about the Rialto Theatre, and I find no mentions of the Rex after 1941. Possibly the Rex resumed its former name. But the Rialto was probably the nameless theater mentioned in a May 2, 1936, Boxoffice article about Henry Hall, which said:Motion Picture Times of March 11, 1930, listed the Rialto as one of the Texas theaters which had recently installed RCA sound equipment. As near as I can figure from these various items, there have been two Rialto Theatres in Kenedy, but the lack of follow-up items to so many Boxoffice articles about the town leaves their history somewhat ambiguous.I’ve also found these bits about other theaters in Kenedy: The April 20, 1940, issue of Boxoffice said: “Jack Farr has just opened the new Bear in Kenedy, Texas.” That’s the only mention of the Bear I’ve found.
Motion Picture Times of May 13, 1930 said: “B.F. Mumm, who lost the Grand at Kenedy by fire, starts this week to rebuild the theatre….” The fire had taken place in March, according to an earlier issue of the magazine. A 1948 “From the Boxoffice Files” feature cited a 1928 item saying that B.F. Mumm had purchased the Grand Theatre in Kenedy. Aside from that retrospective item, I’ve found no mention of the Grand after 1930.
There were also two mentions of what was probably a Spanish language theater in Kenedy. The December 1, 1945, issue of Boxoffice mentions Juan Monsivais of the Carpa Theatre in Kenedy, and the October 3, 1953, issue mentions Juan Monsivais of the Monsivias Theatre in Kenedy.
The July 5, 1941, issue of Boxoffice mentioned the Cameo as one of several theaters opened in recent months by the Florida State Circuit.
The January 18, 1947, issue of Boxoffice ran this item datelined Orlando: “The Cameo Theatre in Colonialtown, closed during the war years, has been reopened. The theatre is booked to show return engagements.”
Those are the only mentions of the Cameo I’ve been able to find in Boxoffice.
A Rialto Theatre in Orlando was mentioned in the May 6, 1930, issue of Motion Picture Times as being one of several Florida houses that had recently installed air conditioning. If it was the same Rialto then 1930 is the latest year it could have been opened, and it could easily date from the 1920s or earlier. Maybe it had a different name before becoming the Rialto.
Flickr user Roloff says that this photo depicts the former Rialto at 27 W. Church Street. If that’s so then it isn’t demolished. The building looks like it was originally built for retail use and not as a theater, probably in the late 19th or early 20th century, so if this was the actual location then the Rialto was probably a storefront conversion. The building doesn’t look big enough to have held 450 seats, though.
The April 23, 1949, issue of Boxoffice reported that the Port Theatre had opened on April 16. The architect of the 1,250-seat house was E.C.A. Bullock of New York.
Ah, I was in a rush last night and failed to read any of the recent comments that revealed the opening date.
An article in the October 13, 1951, issue of Boxoffice said that the Cinema in Framingham had opened on October 4. The building was designed by Ketchum, Gina & Sharp, architects of the shopping center, and the theater architect was Benjamin Schlanger. An additional article about the theater, with two small photos, appeared in the October 4, 1952, issue of Boxoffice.
If the writer of the item in the April 23, 1955, issue of Boxoffice got the facts right, the Sutton must have opened in the mid-1930s. The article said that the opening week of “Marty” had given the Sutton the biggest gross in its 21-year history.
The earliest mention of the Sutton I’ve found in Boxoffice so far is from the August 28, 1943, issue which said that the house had been taken over by the R&B circuit, and that after being renovated the Sutton would be operated with the same policy as the circuit’s Art Theatre and 8th Street Playhouse, both of which were in Greenwich Village.
Averitt died of cancer in 2004. Here’s an obituary.
The May 18, 1970, issue of Boxoffice ran an article about the Jerry Lewis Cinema. They gave the opening date as March 25, 1970. The company that built the Jerry Lewis theaters, Network Cinemas Corporation, had been formed in September, 1969, so they had managed to get their first theater open in about six months. The interiors of the theater were designed by Robin Wagner, but Boxoffice didn’t give the name of the architect.
The architect for the conversion of the Murray Hill into a quad in 1990 was John W. Averett, Averett Associates. He also designed the renovations for the City Cinemas Village East, opened the same year, and City Cinemas' East 86th Street Cinemas, Completed at the end of the 1990s.
In 1999, The New York Times published this article about the rather complex history of the building at this address (the article will probably vanish from the Internets soon if The Times decides to put its content behind a pay wall, so if you aren’t a Times subscriber read it while it lasts.)
The original building at 210 E. 86th Street, built for the Musical Mutual Protective Union in 1904 and designed by architects Trowbridge & Livingston, was replaced by a modern building in 1966, but the greater part of the East 86th Street Cinemas is located behind the surviving facade of an annex built on 85th Street in 1919, which was designed by the same architects. The entrance to the theater is in the 1966 building on 86th Street.
I don’t know who designed the 1966 building, but the architect for the 1999 renovation of the theater into a four-plex was John W. Averitt, Averitt Associates, who was best known for designing live performance spaces but who did at least three renovation projects for City Cinemas. The others that I know of were the City Cinemas Village East and the Murray Hill cinema, both done earlier than the 86th Street Cinemas.
The conversion of this theater into a seven-screen multiplex was the work of the late John W. Averitt, Averitt Associates, an architect who designed at least two other projects for City Cinemas: the East 86th Street Cinemas and the Murray Hill Cinemas. Averitt was best known for his designs for live performance spaces.
An article about the conversion of the Village East appeared in the June, 1991, issue of Boxoffice Magazine. The article mentioned one of the theater’s aka’s that is not yet listed above, the Molly Picon.
The Northpoint was built by ABC Theatres of California and was designed by ABC-Paramount’s consulting architect of the 1960s and 1970s, Henry George Greene.
The Capri Theatre, like other ABC houses of the 1960s and 1970s, was designed by architect Henry George Greene.
Here’s a photo of the former Capri Theatre.
The June 19, 1946, issue of Boxoffice said that Mr. and Mrs. T.W. Mattern planned to open the Oaks Theatre at Columbus in September. The item referred to the theater as a 650-seat house “…new from the ground up.” Another brief item in the same issue (actually on the previous page) gave the same projected opening date, but listed the seating capacity as 624.
On December 7, 1964, Boxoffice reported the death of exhibitor W.A. Struss, who had built the Orphic Theatre in Columbus in 1929. The obituary said that Struss had bought the Oaks Theatre from Tommy Mattern in 1947 and operated it until his death.
In 1968, the Oaks was one of many theaters in Texas that were part of the circuit operated by Rubin S. Frels. Frels had been the booker for Struss’s Orphic, and the association continued when Struss took over the Oaks the year after it was built. Frels had a long association with Columbus, having bought the Columbus Theatre there in 1928, according to Motion Picture Times of August 4 that year.
The Savannah was called the Churchill Theatre prior to 1940, and was operated by E.W. Churchill. The July 27, 1940, issue of Boxoffice said that Churchill had sold his theater to R.B. Gooch effective July 20. The item said that Churchill had operated the house for fifteen years. The September 14, 1940, issue of Boxoffice said that Gooch had formally opened the theater as the Savannah on September 8.
The June 19, 1954, issue of Boxoffice reported a fire at the Savannah Theatre had forced the evacuation of about 100 patrons. The item said that damage was heavy but covered by insurance. I haven’t found any follow-up articles about the event or about repairs to the theater.
The October 13, 1956, issue of Boxoffice announced that the Skyvue Drive-In at Savannah would close November 10, and the Savannah Theatre would open on November 11. Savannah was one of a number of towns in the region where drive-ins operated during the summer and the business would be moved over to hardtops for the colder seasons.
After being closed in June, 1972, the refurbished Norwalk Theatre reopened as the Norwalk Cinema on November 1 that year. The independent operator who reopened the house was Leonard Jefferson, and the opening feature was “Fiddler On the Roof” according to Boxoffice Magazine of November 27.
The August 3, 1935, issue of Boxoffice mentions a Forum Theatre in Norwalk, taken over that year by Schine after having been built the previous year. It’s not listed here yet.