Hippodrome Theater
314 S. Main Street,
Los Angeles,
CA
90013
314 S. Main Street,
Los Angeles,
CA
90013
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The Rex is listed as the Lux on CT.
It’s strange that I can’t find anything about a Rex on Main street other than the directory listing you found. However, I found some stuff about a Rex Theater at 3rd & Figueroa. It’s on the Estella page. I don’t know if there is a page for it on here already.
Motion Picture. It’s part of the index, MAR-MOT, and so on.
What is MOT?
Here is the lineup in 1914:
http://tinyurl.com/2sq8cq
http://tinyurl.com/3bryok
I know that the Panorama Building & Panorama Skating Rink was on the same spot and has almost the exact same footprint. If the Rex was there it must have been pretty large unless it took up one of the spaces in front of the Hippodrome. Since the Hippodrome was in the exact center of the whole block going all four directions, there would have been room to have a theater in front of it. The addresses could have been moved around.
In the 1914 city directory, the Rex was listed at 324 S. Main. I have an idea that the Rex was demolished when the Hippodrome was built. The Regal is listed across the street at 323 S. Main. I think we have that under another name.
They were tearing up a big section of the parking lot today, closer to Los Angeles street. Stay tuned.
Earthquake on 2/20/48, according to the LA Times:
When a frightened group ran out of a theater at 322 S. Main St, Mrs. Rosa Canada, 65, was swept from her feet in the aisle and suffered a broken ankle. She was treated at Georgia Street Receiving Hospital.
The theater was demolished in 1952 to make way for the parking lot, as Joe stated above.
This is from the LA Times, 11/1/84:
After 33 Years, the Main Street Gym Is Being Turned Into a Parking Lot
It Was Here That Dreams Came True
The Main Street Gym has been at its present address since 1951, ever since the original across the street burned down. Not much has changed. The ring floors, lately more electrician’s tape than canvas, have to be original issue.
Here are some additional capsules from the LA Times:
8/31/13 – HIPPODROME TO OPEN TODAY.
BIGGEST VAUDEVILLE AND CIRCUS SHOWS ON COAST
Handsome New Playhouse on Main Street Between Third and Fourth Seats 3000 People—Every Seat in House Ten Cents—First Performance at One.
With a show as mammoth as is the theater itself, the Hippodrome, located on Main street, between Third and Fourth, and the largest theater on the Pacific Coast, will throw open its doors at 12:30 this afternoon.
9/1/13 – FIFTEEN THOUSAND SEE OPENING OF HIPPODROME.
Biggest Playhouse in Los Angeles Launched on New Enterprise With Overwhelming Support—Splendid Bill Makes Big Hit—Mason Begins New Season Today With “Quo Vadis” Pictures.
10/4/15 – ROW OVER TICKETS IS CAUSE OF SMALL RIOT
Six hundred excited persons, an ambulance, two automobiles and
a patrol wagon full of policemen early last night near the lobby of the Hippodrome Theater at No. 320 South Main street, kept that vicinity in an uproar for half an hour following a riot call sent to Central Police Station by Special Officer Sturgess.
6/28/25 – HIPPODROME INSTALLING NEW ORGAN
Special Dedicatory Service to Mark Completion of Work on Huge Instrument
The Hippodrome Theater in Main street, can be classified as one of the last of the larger downtown theaters in Los Angeles to install a pipe organ, to be used in connection with its presentation of feature pictures. After operating all these years with a large orchestra.
Here is a blurb from the LA Times dated 7/8/13:
BIG VAUDEVILLE MAGNATES HERE.
ACKERMAN AND HARRIS COME TO PERFECT GIGANTIC PLANS
Blanche Bates and Katherine Osterman Take in the “Movies.” Morosco Engages Well-known Savage Star for Appearance at Morosco Theater.
Lester Fountain, who is to be the manager of the new Hippodrome, which will likely open the first of September, gave me a bit of information yesterday which is of vast importance.
That clears up some confusion Joe. I just wondered if the Main Street Gym was a different structure on the same spot or if converted the same building into a gym.
Let me know when you get your card ken mc….it’s really easy and just involves a loophole workaround to access. You’re only supposed to be able to get onto the database if you’re in the central library downtown.
I don’t have a library card, but I will get one if I can use the archives for free. $150 for 200 articles is no bargain. I will get back to you once I get the card. Thanks for the tip.
The Hippodrome was essentially two buildings, as is the case with many theatres. The commercial building in front,which also contained the theatre lobby, was the part that wasn’t demolished until 1984. The auditorium structure was demolished much earlier, and was replaced by an open parking lot. After the Westminster was razed there was a clear view from both Main and 4th Streets to the location where the Hippodrome’s auditorium had stood .
What happened to the Hippodrome is essentially the same thing that happened to the Garfield Theatre in Alhambra, except that the Garfield’s foyer and lobby were enclosed for retail space, not left open as a driveway. But in both cases, the auditoriums were torn down and the surrounding commercial buildings were left standing.
You can see aerial views of the Garfield before and after its auditorium’s demolition at Microsoft’s TerraServer. The 2004 Urban Areas photo shows the surviving retail building and the parking lot, and the 1994 aerial photo shows when the theatre was still there. Unfortunately the Hippodrome was entirely demolished long before either of the aerial photos of its site available at TerraServer were made.
The Hippodrome was essentially two buildings, as is the case with many theatres. The commercial building in front,which also contained the theatre lobby, was the part that wasn’t demolished until 1984. The auditorium structure was demolished much earlier, and was replaced by an open parking lot. After the Westminster was razed there was a clear view from both Main and 4th Streets to the location where the Hippodrome’s auditorium had stood .
What happened to the Hippodrome is essentially the same thing that happened to the Garfield Theatre in Alhambra, except that the Garfield’s foyer and lobby were enclosed for retail space, not left open as a driveway. But in both cases, the auditoriums were torn down and the surrounding commercial buildings were left standing.
You can see aerial views of the Garfield before and after its auditorium’s demolition at Microsoft’s TerraServer. The 2004 Urban Areas photo shows the surviving retail building and the parking lot, and the 1994 aerial photo shows when the theatre was still there. Unfortunately the Hippodrome was entirely demolished long before either of the aerial photos of its site available at TerraServer were made.
Ken mc….do you have a library card for Los Angeles? If so, I can tell you how to access the LA Times archives for free from any computer with a connection. You don’t have to pay for anything. Let me know if you’re interested.
Technically, I guess. The theater was converted into a parking garage. The building stood until 1984, however. That’s why I was thinking about a different place as the headline implies demolition. I would pay the $3.95 for the rest of the article if I wasn’t so cheap.
Ken: I think the Main Street Hippodrome was the only theatre in Los Angeles ever to use that name, so the article probably is about this theatre. The date for demolition does seem about right,and it did make way for a parking lot.
This is from an LA Times story on 10/27/52. I didn’t buy the rest of the article. It may not refer to the theater on Main Street:
The last wall of the Hippodrome Theater, onetime vaudeville house of Los Angeles, crumbled to earth yesterday in a cloud of powdery concrete to make way for a new parking lot.
I was wondering where they filmed the ferry boat scenes….the movie seems too low budget to have gone to San Francisco to film on location.
The movie was filmed on Main Street, at the ferry dock in San Pedro and at a sugar factory in Orange County. I visited the Merchant Marine museum at the dock a few years ago, so it was interesting to see the space when it was a functioning ferry port.
I wish there was an aerial photo I could find of this place since, from looking at that overlay map, it stood right in the middle of the block. The long hallway entrance is the only thing I’ve seen in photos. I imagine that movie was filmed in the real basement because its a pretty low budget movie and if they were already using the location it would make sense.