POPLAR BLUFF, Me., June 2.-I. W. Rodgers of this city has secured control of practically the entire moving picture business in Cairo, Ill., adding three theaters to the string of theaters in Missouri that he now owns. The deal at the neighboring city was consummated with H. B. McFarland, owner of the Tokio Theater at Morehouse. It includes the outright purchase of the Gem Theater, Cairo’s largest moving picture and vaudeville house. Leases standing were secured on the Cairo Opera House, the largest and best legitimate stage house between Memphis and St. Louis, and the Kimmel Theater, the handsomest theater in Southern Illinois. The string of theaters that Mr. Rodgers owns controlling Interest in are the Criterion, at Poplar Bluff; the Cairo Opera House, the Gem Theater, Cairo; the Kimmel Theater, Cairo: the Fraternal, Poplar Bluff; the New Grand, Hope, Ark.; the Dixie and the Liberty, Caruthersville, Mo., and an interest from the co-partnership in Mr. McFarland’s theater in Morehouse, the Tokio. Rodgers is indeed a pioneer in the picture game. He is one of the first three men in the United States who introduced moving pictures 24 years ago.
POPLAR BLUFF, Me., June 2.-I. W. Rodgers of this city has secured control of practically the entire moving picture business in Cairo, Ill., adding three theaters to the string of theaters in Missouri that he now owns. The deal at the neighboring city was consummated with H. B. McFarland, owner of the Tokio Theater at Morehouse. It includes the outright purchase of the Gem Theater, Cairo’s largest moving picture and vaudeville house. Leases standing were secured on the Cairo Opera House, the largest and best legitimate stage house between Memphis and St. Louis, and the Kimmel Theater, the handsomest theater in Southern Illinois. The string of theaters that Mr. Rodgers owns controlling Interest in are the Criterion, at Poplar Bluff; the Cairo Opera House, the Gem Theater, Cairo; the Kimmel Theater, Cairo: the Fraternal, Poplar Bluff; the New Grand, Hope, Ark.; the Dixie and the Liberty, Caruthersville, Mo., and an interest from the co-partnership in Mr. McFarland’s theater in Morehouse, the Tokio. Rodgers is indeed a pioneer in the picture game. He is one of the first three men in the United States who introduced moving pictures 24 years ago.
They’re Takin' ‘Em Off Again At Chicago’s Star And Garter. (Memphis Commercial Appeal, Sept. 7, 1947)
Cradle Of ‘Burleycue’ Reverts To Type After 10 Dull Years Of Movies
Burlesque is back at the Star and Garter. After 10 years of comparative obscurity as just another Chicago movie theater, the nation’s most famous old burlesque house is again featuring the bump and the grind, four-shows-a-day, with selected shorts (on the screen only, of course).
But Burlesque has changed since the home of the strip tease and the birthplace of a number of today’s screen stars darkened its stage and went over to pictures during the depth of the
depression. The girls have to wear clothes even if the audience doesn’t notice that fact because of the skimpiness of the net panties and bras insisted on by the censors. Also, a grind isn’t a grind any more at the Star and Garter. Now it has to be speeded up so that only the practiced eye in the bald-headed row can catch it.
For Mickey Hattie, confused at being out of her act, failed to follow the standard procedure of “posing” and instead of disrobing bit by bit off-stage, started dropping garments hither and yon right out where everyone could see.
The audience applauded with such enthusiasm that thereafter posing was out and stripping was in at the Star and Garter, and within a few years there wasn’t a pose to be found at any burlesque house in the country.
But the audience loves it and, according to Warren B. Irons, S. and G. manager and the Western half of the old Columbia “wheel” of burlesque houses, the family trade is coming to the theater just as it did 25 years ago. Irons is famed in the best burlesque circles as the father of the “strip tease”. Its mother was Hattie Noel, who after giving birth to the strip, went on to Hollywood with more clothes and poundage and achieved modest screen fame as “Aunt Hattie,” playing Aunt Jemima character parts.
It was during that period that a young Hattie Carter was working in the chorus and Joe Yule, her husband, was hardly wowing the cash customers as a comic. Backstage, a fellow performer, Sid Gold, a song-and-dance man, was teaching their small son to imitate his act. The small son later made Gold’s lessons at the Star and Garter to pay off - he now is known as Mickey Rooney.
It may have been then or later that Joan Crawford and Ethel Shutta worked in the 24-girl chorus at the Star and Garter. Irons, mindful that the ages press agents give for movie actresses and night club singers are not always correct, tactfully does not remember the exact years Crawford and Shutta worked for him. But from the time the theater opened in 1908 until it temporarily deserted burlesque in the ‘30s, all the big names of vaudeville played there - Fannie Brice, the Four Cohans, Harry Lauder, Abbott and Costello, Phil Silvers, Weber and Fields, Joe E. Brown and a great many others.
Irons well remembers the night the strip tease was born. Until that night, during the first World War, counterpart of the modern “stripper” confined herself to “posing”, usually ending up at the most torrid part of the “after-piece” standing nude in a cold frame.
For laughs - or for kicks, as they say nowadays - Irons suggested to Hattie, a bouncing brown woman who did a song-and-dance act in the “Olio” (the middle, or vaudeville part of old-time burlesque) that she try her hand at “posing”.
An amateur fighter named Barney Ross also used to prance around the Star and Garter stage.
Now the top performer, when not grinding and bumping way around the 14-city circuit, is Louise Lamarr, a tiny blonde who describes herself as “the fastest thing on heels.” She and her feathers are considered the top draws in first-class burlesque today.
But Irons says that patrons of the theater can look for still bigger things in the way of burlesque. Now that the Star and Garter is back on the circuit, Burlesque managers are planning to revive vaudeville, bigger and better than ever, and show the youngsters what daddy used to rave about, down at the Palace. (September 8, 1946)
Additional Information:This office building was originally constructed as a warehouse in 1911. Its side walls are built of rock-faced concrete block. At an unknown date prior to 1927, the building was converted to a movie theater. In 1936, the front façade was remodeled to include the recessed entryway and second story with an Art Deco-style panel of ridged masonry. At an unknown date, the simulated masonry was added to the front façade. All the masonry is painted in the building, and the existing windows in the storefront are all modern replacements. (WI State Historical Society)
MILWAUKEE (U.P.) A bomb dropped in the entrance to the Grace theater here early today shattered windows in nearby buildings, rolled several persons from their beds in an adjoining apartment and shook the entire neighborhood with its explosion.
The bombing is another chapter in the theater labor war here, police declared after learning that R. S. Haynes and Adolph Oresiec, Grace operators, had recently been asked to join the union but refused on grounds that they would lose their jobs.
The theater suffered least from the bombing, while windows in all nearby buildings were broken.
The theatres are across the street from Parkview Regional Medical Center and its Mirro Center, and
Parkview Health bought the property last July for $4.2 million. No plans were announced for its reuse.
Though Parkview Health is non-profit, the commercially-zoned land will be taxed as long as it continues in mostly-business usage. County tax data shows that when the theatres were operating, the property paid $416,520 in property taxes. This year, the taxes were $111,222.28.
Star & Garter Theater - 815 West Madison Street
Built 1907; demolished 1972
Architects: Dodge & Morrison
The Star & Garter Theater, one of Chicago’s largest and best-known burlesque theaters, opened in February 1908 and was located at 815 West Madison Street. Designed and decorated in the style of the city’s leading dramatic theaters, the Star & Garter aimed to legitimize burlesque as a form of elite entertainment. During its more than fifty years in operation, the theater showcased the talents of many of the nation’s best-known burlesque troupes and vaudeville comedians. Its presence near the intersection of Madison and Halsted Streets helped establish the Near West Side as one of Chicago’s leading outlying amusement centers.
The Star & Garter was owned and operated by the Hyde & Behman burlesque theater circuit. Hoping to set their new theater apart from the city’s smaller and less highly regarded burlesque houses, Hyde and Behman spared few expenses in the design and construction of the Star & Garter. Most accounts put the theater’s cost at between $450,000 and $500,000, or roughly $11 million in 2009 dollars. It was designed by the New York architectural firm of Dodge & Morrison and had a seating capacity of 1,960. When the theater opened in 1908, most observers considered it to be one of the best-designed and lavishly decorated theaters in the city. The entrance lobby measured 30 feet by 46 feet and featured marble-clad walls and dark-red tile floors. Wide aisles and bronzed stairways led patrons to their leather-upholstered seats on one of three levels. Aside from the main floor, the mezzanine boxes, and the balcony, there were six boxes on either side of the stage. The seats were upholstered in buff leather. Crimson-red draperies decorated the stage and proscenium boxes. Other features included a men’s smoking room, a ladies' parlor, a basement rathskeller, and carved marble drinking fountains in the inner lobby. The entire building was designed to be fireproof, with an automatic sprinkler system and a 18,000-gallon emergency supply of water stored in a rooftop tank. The theater was, according to Variety, “a marvel in beauty and architecture.”
The formal opening of the Star & Garter took place on Sunday afternoon, 9 February 1908. Admission prices ranged from 15 cents for the balcony to 75 cents for box seats. Charles Robinson and his burletta-performing “Night Owls” were the opening attraction, along with an assortment of vaudeville acts. Many other all-female dancing troupes performed at the theater in the months and years that followed. During the theater’s first year in business, groups like Fred Irwin’s “New Majestics,” the “Transatlantic Burlesquers,” “The Mardi Gras Beauties,” and “The Jersey Lillies” all made appearances at the theater. Among the best-known performers to step onto the Star & Garter stage were Jack Conway, Lester Allen, Don Barclay, Ethel Shutta, Watson and Cohan, Bobby Barry, Tommy “Bozo” Snyder, and Dave Marion, also known as Snuffy the Cabman.
During the theater’s early years, Hyde & Behman sought to differentiate the Star & Garter from other burlesque houses by carefully regulating the content of each act that performed there. House managers reviewed each performer’s act prior to showtime and ordered them to eliminate anything deemed too risque. “It seems that there are two brands of burlesque,” one commentator explained, “censored and uncensored.” At the Star & Garter, “Each traveling company is warned before beginning an engagement which kind will be tolerated. If the character of the theater demands a censored variety, a reasonably clean and inoffensive musical farce results. If the ‘lid’ is lifted the comedians and their women assistants are permitted to go as far as the police will permit.” As a result, the style of burlesque presented at the Star & Garter during the 1910s was decidedly less provocative and sexually suggestive than that offered by some of Chicago’s less refined burlesque houses, such as the Trocadero and Folly Theaters on South State Street. Indeed, many of the theater’s burlesque shows were more reminiscent of nineteenth-century minstrel or burlesque shows insofar as they combined leggy dance numbers with comedy routines and other vaudeville acts that skewered the “legitimate” theater and lampooned contemporary social taboos.
One reason Hyde & Behman had for placing restrictions on performers was to avoid gaining a reputation as a “down-and-dirty” burlesque house patronized by men only. With nearly 2,000 seats to fill, the theater’s managers could not rely solely on male customers to ensure profitability. Accordingly, they made a sustained and concerted effort to convice Chicago women that visiting the Star & Garter was not only safe and respectable, but also enjoyable. A 1919 advertisement, for instance, reminded potential customers that “Every Day [Was] Ladies Day” at the Star & Garter, while another one from 1921 pointed out that “10,000 Women Attend Our Shows Weekly.” Women also received a discount on their the price of admission for all performances. Additionally, several of the theater’s rules of conduct and operational policies were designed with women in mind. For example, smoking was prohibited on the main floor of the auditorium. Also, candy barkers and souvenir vendors were not permitted to sell their goods inside the theater, as was customary at other burlesque houses.
It is not entirely clear how successful Hyde & Behman were at attracting women to the Star & Garter. No reliable numbers exist, but the anecdotal evidence appears to confirm that women made up a far greater proportion of audiences at the Star & Garter than at the city’s other burlesque theaters, even if they were still outnumbered by the men. For example, a reporter for Variety wrote the following shortly after the theater’s debut: “During the two weeks the house has been open the increase in women patronage has been marked, and the audience from pit to dome are not of the customary burlesque kind. If the high standard of refinement is maintained and the attractions kept up to the inauguration level the theatre will enjoy an enviable reputation and large business all season.” A few weeks later, a second report noted, “Since the house opened the women attendance has steadily increased. At a matinee one day last week there were 280 women in the audience, the largest aggregation of femininity in the history of Chicago burlesque.” Regardless of the exact numbers, the Star & Garter did enjoy a slightly better reputation than many of the city’s other burlesque theaters. Indeed, in the eyes of many Chicagoans of the time, the mere presence of women conveyed a certain degree of moral respectability upon an establishment, owing to traditional assumptions about the supposedly innate virtuousness of women. Hyde & Behman played upon and to some extent succeeded in using these gendered notions of human behavior to boost attendance, increase profits, and maximize the return on their investment.
With the advent of the less sexually restrictive era of the flapper in the 1920s, the Star & Garter’s more conservative brand of burlesque began to lose its appeal. By 1922, Hyde & Behman discontinued burlesque shows at the theater. They were replaced by amateur boxing bouts and “professional” wrestling matches that pitted members of different ethnic groups against one another in overtly nationalistic athletic confrontations. During one wrestling match at the theater in April 1923, for example, Italian heavyweight champion Renato Gardini squared off against Greek wrestler Demetrius Tofalos. Other matches featured Irish, Turkish, Czech, Lithuanian, French-Canadian, Polish, and Jewish wrestlers and boxers, including many drawn from Chicago’s own neighborhoods. Between November 1922 and April 1926, dozens of wresting and boxing matches were held at the Star & Garter. Fans from across the west side crowded into the theater to cheer on their compatriots and jeer those boxers and wrestlers who were of different ethnic background than their own.
Burlesque shows returned to the Star & Garter in late 1927, usually in conjunction with a feature motion picture. The burlesque shows of the late 1920s and 1930s, while still far more ostentatious and skillfully produced than those at Chicago’s smaller and less pricey burlesque houses, were nonetheless more sexually suggestive than those presented at the theater prior to 1922. Each show was built around one particularly charismatic performer and her supporting cast of female dancers. Mary Sunde was the theater’s headliner for much of 1934. Promotional materials for Sunde, who was born in Norway but raised in Wisconsin, depicted her as the perfect combination—at least in the eyes of men inclined to attend burlesque shows—of exotic beauty and down-home wholesomeness. Her flowing blonde hair and youthful figure made her “the last word in feminine pulchritude,” and yet she was nonetheless “a demure lassie, who lives to sew, cook, and keep house.” Such testaments helped build up a dreamgirl image around the women who performed at the Star & Garter, reassuring male patrons that the women who performed at the theater, despite their status as women with a career of their own and a strong awareness of their own sexuality, were in actuality no threat to their power and authority as men. “In short,” read one tribute to Sunde, she “is sister under the skin to the typical American home girl.” Other headliners of the 1930s included Ada Leonard, who first appeared at the theater in September 1934, and Maxine De Shon, who arrived one year later.
In late 1935, the Star & Garter went dark and remained closed until September 1946, when Hyde & Behman sold the theater to two investors, Harold L. Clamage of Saint Louis and Harold W. Buchberger of Chicago, for the sum of $110,000. The new owners installed air-conditioning in the theater, touched up its appearance, and reopened the theater. During late 1946, it operated briefly as a combination burlesque and movie house, but quickly shifted to an all-movie policy, which remained in place until September 1971, when the adjacent Mid-City National Bank purchased the property to make way for a parking lot. Demolition of the theater took place during the months of February and March 1972. (from Jazz Age Chicago)
Star and Garter: A Tale of 2 Madison St. Derelicts
A toothless tee-hee cackle gurgles, fumes up from long-gone lungs thru a gnarled throat, holding up a 69-year-old bad night, bad booze body tilting at a 20-degree list. The body is wrapped in one of those nameless oversized overcoats with three buttons in the front like Ray Milland wore in “Lost Weekend,” with the huge pockets where the necks of pints of gin hang out. Head-bobbing fits and gurgle “tee-hee, tee-hee… damn! I’d nevera thought this one’d be ripped from the earth.”
Charlie-from-617-West-Monroe-Street’s breath is blazing like a whole battalion on General Patton’s tanks, withering people and other things with the lingering bouquet of the pint of gin he had in the morning instead of orange juice.
Fifty years … fifty years of Skid Row it took to gut out this one old man watching other men gut out a building just as old and tired as he is.
Boom. A big iron ball cracks into the side of the building - a man-made fist ripping thru the old Star and Garter Theater at 315 W. Madison St. Bricks and dusty cement and pipes and steel tubes and iron mesh and glass pour out.
“They had the good ones here,” says Charlie. “All them beautiful girls teasin-too-bee and twirlin', all their bodies bunched up in those little teeny costumes. And the big feathers and the band goin' bum-bump-a-bump and we’d be yellin' take it off - c'mon girlle, take it off! They had one once from Kansas City - I forget what they called her - but you shoulda seen her, Sonny. What she did …”
The tilting body begins to tee-hee and fizz and gurgle itself into hacks and spits until stringy yellow-gray hair falls in front of eyes that sparkle from the memory of it all.
Bump and grind, shuffle and shake, the Star and Garter is coming down, a 64-year-old theater, former home of burlesque-turned-former-movie house running films you missed on the late-late show. The Christmas gift calendar hanging in the boarded-up box office is ripped off to September, 1971.
As the senior vice president of Mid-City National Bank, which is next to the Garter and which bought the property in September, 1971, says, “We have to watch what goes on in this neighborhood now. So when the owners - there were five, but unfortunately three have met their demise and the other two don’t want it known who they are because of political reasons, you know - so when they decided to sell - they were losing money - we grabbed it.”
Charlie quiets his body with a shot of gin. “And now, sonny, I can tell you what a place this was. It was raided by the police once - let’s see, well, I can’t remember exactly when. Well, the mayor’s name was Kelly then … anyway, yessir, tee hee, the police raided it on account of the way the girls were dancing and carrying on. Then they started the movies. And the girls were gone forever. Seen it happen to other places around here, the Columbia, the Haymarket.”
The workman inside is alone with his sledge hammer. Hall the seats are gone and he’s got it down now, down pat: two blows and the cushion comes off. Then with his right hand he pushes the wooden back of the seat - crack - to the floor. Ought to take 40 days to bring her down, says George Hedge, the Nardi Wrecking Co. crew foreman.
“‘Come and get it… come and get it’, they used to call from the door,” cackles Charlie.
It was a “midnight shambles” in that old theater, even on Sundays - that’s what Mayor Kelly used to say when he had the Des Plaines Avenue police raid the place.
“The actors told lewd jokes, police raided the place, the chorus girls wore little or nothing, while the patrons drank freely and applauded for more impropriety,” said the police, reported The Tribune on Dec. 24, 1934.
The Hyde and Behman Amusement Co. and the Richard Hyde estate of New York City sold the Star to Harold Clamage of St. Louis and Harold Huchberger of Chicago in May, 1946 for $110,000. The two renovated-$15,000-worth and ran the movies….and the girls were gone.
“Tee-hee, it was a dime for the movie and a nickel for the pop-soda. And you know what we’d do? We’d mix the gin with the pop-soda to make the gin stretch and we’d watch them movies all day from early in the morning.”
“We’d meet right over there, sonny - c'mon, lemme show you, c'mon right over here, here, in front, and we’d all go in together. I think they’re all the rest dead now. Dead.”
Fizz and gurgle. Tee-hee, shuffle and shake, another pint and the Star and Garter is coming down in 40 days. “Oh, hell, sonny, it ain’t no big deal…… but, well, the old damn place kept you warm to sleep when the money ran out.”
The ORPHEUM’s owners since 2013 Gus and Mary Paras did this $200,000 historic replication of its original six-story 63-foot 1926 vertical sign designed by Rapp and Rapp. The steel face was replaced with an aluminum replica using energy-efficient lights in the original configuration. At some point in mid-century, the word “NEW” was removed from the top, and then it was “dumbed down” to a basic rectangle. The Paras family had already done restoration on the facade, marquee, ticket booth, roof, plaster, downstairs lavatories and dressing rooms, and said the community excitement was encouraging. The ORPHEUM was awarded a $20, city facade restoration matching grant. New front doors, resembling those that first swung open in 1927, are in place, as are veiny black granite panels, replacing blond brick on the facade when it was “remuddled” in the 1960s. Architect Arlan Kay oversaw the changes undoing the alterations at midcentury in the name of “modernization” including the destruction to the vertical sign which became scarred with rust and which stayed in place because a city ordinance banned hanging a replacement over the sidewalk. City leaders modified it.
Exhibitor Jordan Stancil, who operates three historic theatres in Michigan - the Sanctuary in Alpena, the Big Rapids in Big Rapids and the Rialto in Grayling, the latter that his family has owned since 1915 - has leased the closed 1912 New 400 Theatre, a victim of the pandemic, and plans to restore its 65-year name to The 400 Theatre, with its reopening date to be announced. Stancil expects to program the 400 with new domestic and foreign product and live events with updated projection capabilities.
Little Theatre Indicates Interest in Purchase Of Vogue Theatre Site
Kenosha Little Theatre members voted three to one last evening in favor of picking up an option leading toward purchase of the Vogue Theater building.
Final decision rests with the organisation’s Board of Directors, which will meet next week to consider the arguments pro and con heard at meetings last evening and last week in the School Administration building.
The 30-year old building has been offered to Little Theatre by David M. Korf, owner, for $15,000 with no down payment, A report made by Lawrence Monberg, architect, and Frank Zoubek, contractor, states that the property is in good condition though it needs cleaning and decorating.
Little Theatre, which has assets of slightly under $5,000, intends to hold this sum in reserve as a contingency fund and conduct a drive for funds to purchase and remodel its new home, should the board decide to attempt the project.
Outcome of the fund-raising campaign would determine whether or not the organiation to would be able to buy its first quarters.
A total of $25,000 would be needed to pay for the building and to remodel it at a cost of $10,000.
The board is to investigate further the possibility of loss of building frontage through the routing of State Hy. 158 on 52nd St. The theater is at 1820 52nd St.
Korf made one stipulation in offering the building for sale: That Little Theatre give the proceeds of one performance of one show per year to a fund for the benefit of handicapped children.
On Thursday, August 1, 2025 the Milwaukee Common Council approved the sale of the 7,200 square-foot Villa Theatre to Thomas Matthews' Lincoln Creek Development, LLC for $10,125 as-is, including the adjacent 1929 3,612-square-foot multi-story building at 3614-16 W. Villard Ave. and a 24-space parking lot at 5221 N. 36th St. that the city had owned since 1948.
Lincoln plans to re-open the theatre for live performances and to lease the adjacent spaces for which there’s already interest. Kelly Construction is to do the estimated $4 million renovations including marquee work, landscaping, accessibility, and improved parking. Lincoln will have two years to secure a Certificate of Occupancy after closing.
The 840-seat Spanish Colonial theatre opened in 1926 as the Ritz by Michael Brumm, who was already operating the nearby Princess Theatre in 1912 with his son Arnold, who later took over the Ritz. The City of Milwaukee annexed the area in 1929. By the 1940s, the Ritz was a Fox Wisconsin theatre; Marcus Theatres bought the Ritz in 1959, renamed it the Villa in 1962, and closed it in 1986. Tanya and Herman Lewis bought it and operated it as a second-run theatre, then a first-run theatre, and then a community theatre and neighborhood center over nine years.
From original 1930s programs shared by the HPHSociety:
“Shortly after the opening, owners William and Bertha Pearl executed a 15 year lease for both the Alycon and Pearl for 35,000$/year to the Highland Park Theater Co, according to the Chicago Tribune (Nov. 3, 1925), citing lawyers for both parties. The 1925 theater installed a “3/13” Barton Organ. (Junchen, David L. Encyclopedia of the American Theatre Organ. Pasadena, Calif: Showcase Publications, 1985.) In January 1928, a “bandit” robbed the safe and fled with $2100, 3 days income. The thief covered the assistant manager, Saul Greenberg, with a blanket before locking him in the washroom. (Chicago Daily Tribune) The Bulletin of the Chicago Medical Society V33 cites the Alycon for installing systems so the “hearing impaired” could listen to “Talkies.”
In 1940, Pearl installed additional RCA sound equipment in the (now) 1150 seat theater.“
The Department of Planning and Development plans to apply for a 20-year $25.25 million Section 108 loan from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development for Congress Theatre “revitalization” and related housing in the $88 million project. If granted, the next step is the city council. Ald. Daniel La Spata (1st) says this could be the last piece for the project to get off the ground and that approval could mean that actual construction on the Congress Theatre could begin in Spring, 2026 (its centennial) and be finished by the end of 2027. AEG Presents would manage the theatre for no less than 10 years, and Woodhouse Tinucci Architects' renderings show a restored marquee and a “modernized interior”.
Aug 03, 2001, Chicago Tribune- Duplicate organ sold to theater
The Genesee Theatre Restoration Project has bought a duplicate of the theater’s original Barton organ to be used in the restoration of the 1927 movie palace in downtown Waukegan.
The organ was originally installed in the former Tower Theater in Milwaukee and has been owned by a Downstate Aledo couple since it was removed, said James Neal, executive director of the restoration project.
The couple, now in their 90s, had the large multitiered organ installed in their house so it could be played.
They sold it to the Waukegan group for $35,000, said to be less than its value, because they wanted it in a theater where they feel it belongs, Neal said.
“This is the culmination of a dream for them.” Neal said. “This is part of their legacy.”
The organ is the same model as the Genesee’s original Barton organ, installed in 1927 before the theater opened.
Restorers discovered earlier this year that many of the organ’s internal parts had suffered irreversible water damage, sparking the search for a replacement.
The old organ’s working parts may be sold to other organizations doing restoration projects, offsetting some of the cost of buying the replacement, Neal said.
The $15.5 million Genesee Theatre restoration is envisioned as the centerpiece of plans to revitalize downtown Waukegan.
Aug 03, 2001, Chicago Tribune- Duplicate organ sold to theater
The Genesee Theatre Restoration Project has bought a duplicate of the theater’s original Barton organ to be used in the restoration of the 1927 movie palace in downtown Waukegan.
The organ was originally installed in the former Tower Theater in Milwaukee and has been owned by a Downstate Aledo couple since it was removed, said James Neal, executive director of the restoration project.
The couple, now in their 90s, had the large multitiered organ installed in their house so it could be played.
They sold it to the Waukegan group for $35,000, said to be less than its value, because they wanted it in a theater where they feel it belongs, Neal said.
“This is the culmination of a dream for them.” Neal said. “This is part of their legacy.”
The organ is the same model as the Genesee’s original Barton organ, installed in 1927 before the theater opened.
Restorers discovered earlier this year that many of the organ’s internal parts had suffered irreversible water damage, sparking the search for a replacement.
The old organ’s working parts may be sold to other organizations doing restoration projects, offsetting some of the cost of buying the replacement, Neal said.
The $15.5 million Genesee Theatre restoration is envisioned as the centerpiece of plans to revitalize downtown Waukegan.
La Crosse landmark meant a lot to longtime residents (By Doug Connell of the Tribune staff)
On Dec. 28, 1952, La Crosse lost a popular entertainment spot when fire destroyed the Wisconsin The ater in a “spectacular blaze” that attracted hundreds of onlookers to the downtown scene.
The Wisconsin Theater was housed in a three-story brick building at 514-520 Main St. on the bend in Main Street between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Street.
“I have many fond memories of the Wisconsin Theater,” remarked Joseph Noelke, 64, of La Crosse, “as I went to many movies there during the mid-1940s when I was a young boy. The interior of the Wisconsin wasn’t as fancy as the Rivoli Theater on Fourth Street, but it still was a nice place to take in a movie. I was always impressed by the Wisconsin’s large overhanging marquee. Almost every Saturday as a youngster I would go to the Wisconsin with my brothers, cousins and friends to take in the matinee. That bit of fun would eat up most of my 25-cents weekly allowance, as movie admission was 12 cents and the bus fare to and from downtown was a nickel each way. We always sat in the balcony, in the very last row if possible. Before the main attraction, there would be newsreels about national and world events. Also, there would be commercials for local businesses, and I remember seeing my first Ross of La Crosse furniture commercial there.”
The Wisconsin Theater was housed in a three-story brick building at 514-520 Main St. on the bend in Main Street between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Street.
Fall From Sign Kills Painter (Kenosha Evening News - May 5, 1949)
George B. Jensen 41, 3827 7th Ave., local paint contractor, was killed shortly before 1 o'clock this afternoon when he fell from a sign which he was painting at the Main Street Theater located on the corner of Main and State Sts. in Racine.
Jensen was painting on the vertical sign, 50 feet above the street level, when the swing stage anchorage slipped and plunged the Kenoshan to pavement.
Witnesses said he struck his head on the marquee sign in the fall, and he was pronounced dead immediately by Racine County Coroner Bernard Evenson.
Everett Cayo, 7402 40th Ave:, who was painting on the opposite side of the vertical sign, was uninjured.
The 1911 Crystal (later Lakes) Theatre of Antioch dates was owned by Fred Remer and was sold to Percy Chinn the following year. By 1946 it was renamed the Lakes Theatre. (In 1958, the Lakes Theatre company proposed building a 400-car outdoor theatre on the northwest corner of Route 59 and Grass Lake Road. Strong opposition ended the plan.)
In 1964, the local Palette, Masque and Lyre amateur players began presenting productions at the Lakes Theatre, and in January, 1984 they were able to purchase the theatre. Much of the interior ornament was lost thereafter but the three oval facade windows that had been bricked over were restored after a bequest left by Dolly Spiering. In 2015, the players were able to purchase an adjoining commercial building as a concessions venue.
Editorial: Antioch Theatre rebirth more than a victory for nostalgia (April 04, 2016 - Daily Herald)
In our bigger-is-better world, small businesses often take a beating.
That’s particularly true of one-screen movie theaters that were once staples of community downtowns. Mostly they have disappeared from today’s suburbs, as owners found it difficult to compete with giant multiplexes that offer many more movie choices and a glitzier experience complete with reclining chairs and a nice merlot.
And, that’s what makes the renovation of the old Antioch Theatre, and the community effort that supported the project, so noteworthy and an experience worth saluting.
Sure, it’s a victory for nostalgia, joining the Liberty Theatre in Libertyville and the Catlow in Barrington as another old movie house rebirth.
But the public-private partnership that spurred the project’s success also shows early signs of being a catalyst for other downtown Antioch improvements. The approach could make it a project worth watching by others looking for ways to boost their downtown improvement efforts.
Tim Downey launched the $750,000 plan to rehab the theater building, where deteriorating conditions, slumping attendance and outdated equipment had put it on the endangered list. It was built in 1919 as the Majestic Theatre, a live performance house, and it was converted to the Antioch Theatre five years later. It was never a grand movie house, but it had been a downtown fixture for generations of residents.
Downey invested $300,000 of his own money, found four core sponsors to contribute $150,000, and sold engraved sidewalk stars. With what they said was a “degree of reluctance,” village board members agreed to provide a $200,000 loan, supported by a village-backed 75-cents per-ticket tax. In a town with a tight budget, like many of its neighbors, and concerns about offering overly generous tax incentives, it was no small gesture.
However, the roll of the dice for all involved seems to be paying off.
The updated version with new seats, restrooms, carpeting, facade, marquee, digital technology and more attracted some 40,000 moviegoers in the first year since the reopening, Downey said. That generated enough money for him to make monthly payments - he’s repaid nearly $30,000 - on the 10-year village note.
Village officials and downtown supporters alike said the Antioch Theatre project has been good for the downtown. It has sparked renovations at some other downtown businesses, boosted foot traffic that is aiding other nearby businesses by bringing people to the area and it is helping renew interest in a downtown development initiative. It is once again a vital part of the village’s historic downtown district, they say.
“It’s fun to report my confidence in the community and the community’s confidence in me has paid off,” Downey told the Daily Herald’s Mick Zawislak.
What the born-again Antioch Theatre shows is that one little project with a motivated developer, a local government willing to take a chance and a supportive community can help spark big things.
(Chicago Tribune, March 12, 1917) Church Women Reveal Suggestive Acts After Peaceful “Raids” on Theaters
BY THE REV. W. B. NORTON.
SCANTILY dressed women, lewd jokes, the American flag disgraced, the Christian religion flouted, drinking, gambling, murder paraded, crowds of men and boys in the audience, many of the boys in knickerbockers.
These are some of the things which shocked the women of the Woman’s Church federation who made a round of a dozen or more of the theaters of Chicago Saturday evening.
Mrs. J. G. Boor, chairman of the morals committee of the Woman’s Church federation, was in charge. She was assisted by fourteen women and up several men, some of whom accompanied the women, while others went to ag the theaters where men only are admitted.
Mrs. H. T. Leslie, 6844 Lafayette avenue, was one of the women who visited the Gayety theater, 531 South State street.
“The performance was vulgar and degrading,” she said. We teach our children to honor the American flag. Here they disgraced it. Girls came on the stage in tights with shoulders and arms entirely bare, draped about the waist in the red, white and blue. They formed a pyramid and the one who came the nearest being nud formed the center of the pyramíd. In this attitude they sang a song entitled “My Country.” not our national anthem, while a flag was lowered from the ceiling.
Sample of “Humor.”
“One of the comedians said: ‘It doesn’t make any difference what a woman has on or whether she has anything on. O yes it does,’ another said. When Gen. Grant surrendered to Lee he only had on a ragged union suit. Our girls have more on than that.”
“One man told a girl he would strip her to the skin. He first made her take off her hat, then her dress, then her petticoat. She had on tights, but the suggestiveness of the act was plain to see.”
Mrs. L. E. Koontz, 653 North Lockwood avenue, was one of three who visited the Star and Garter theater, 815 West Madison street.
“We sat in the gallery,” she said, “and noted that the audience was chiefly made up of young men, some of them nice young, manly looking fellows, others were of the depraved kind. My heart ached for them because I realized their legitimate desires for amusement. The air was thick with tobacco smoke. The jokes were of the coarsest character and evidently intended to inflame the imagination. One comedian told how some one threw a brick through the window and struck the leg of the girl he was sitting with and broke three of his fingers, plainly implying his hand was in contact with the girl’s leg.
Some More “Comedy.”
“In a scene one girl and two men became intoxicated, the girl being dragged off the stage in a beastly state. The men spilled the liquor on the table, dipped their hands in it, and slapped each other. Finally they kicked over the table and spilled the rest of the liquor on the floor.
“The girls were called the Jolly Widows and were dressed in tights.”
Mrs. F. M. Reynolds of Austin confirmed the report of Mrs. Koontz.
“The performance is to be condemned from start to finish,” she said. “There was not one redeeming feature. There was a lewd poem recited about looking at women, in which the name of Christ was mentioned. The drinking scene and the pajama dance were disgusting.” Mrs. R. L. Moffett, 4618 North Racine avenue, visited the Casino at 403 North State street.
“Suggestive jokes and Hula Hula dancing such as I heard and saw ought not to be tolerated,” she said. The Hula Hula dancers were bare legged and their bodies were draped only in a shawl.
Better Features Applauded.
“Were there any more like you in the family?” one coarse joker asked another. “No, when father died mother lost the pattern.”
“I believe the audience would enjoy a higher grade of entertainment, because a moving picture of a war scene and the performance of a player on an accordion, which were good, received the loudest applause.”
Mrs. Boor found conditions at the National, 610 South State street, she said, disgusting in the extreme.
“A young woman described a dance in a most suggestive way. ‘What did you have on?’ her male companion asked. ‘I had on a string of beads, then a little space and another string.’ ‘You ought to leave off the two last strings,’ he replied. ‘Did you dance the seven veils dance?’ she was asked. ‘If you did you left off six and a half of the veils,’ he said.”
“Forty per cent of the audience was under 21 years, many of them young boys.”
“The theaters are not as obscene as they were. They have been improved 75 per cent over the theaters of a few years ago, but they are still demoralizing, corrupting, and a disgrace to a Christian civilization.”
the most objectionable of all,“ said Mrs. E. Pretty.
“The girls were dressed so they appeared perfectly nude. They came on the stage protecting themselves with parasols. They moved the parasols from side to side so as to expose themselves for a moment to full view. Then they sang, ‘To see a little more you must meet us at the door.’ Could there be any plainer solicitation to evil than that?”
Mrs. A. C. O'Neal, 2512 West Sixty-sixth street, expressed in the strongest terms indignation of what she saw at the Haymarket theater, 722 West Madison street.
“If there is anything worse than I saw at the Haymarket, I hope I may never see it,” she said. “There was awful profanity, and from beginning to end vile love making and sexual suggestion. The twenty girls dressed in tights ran out on the run board into the center of the audience, and stooping over to the men sang songs of invitation and suggestion. I saw only two other women in the audience besides the four women in our party.”
Many Theaters Visited.
Among the theaters visited were: the South side, Gayety, National, Gem, and Stella; north side, Casino, Hippodrome; west side, Haymarket and Star and Garter.
“To describe the chorus girls of any theater as shapely, scantily clothed, alluring to men, will displease no owner or manager,” said Mrs. Boor.
“To picture the horror or even wrath of good women at witnessing the members of their sex on exhibition like well groomed prize winners at the international stock exhibit will merely cause a smile of ill concealed approval by those interested in the box office.
“But to pass a law giving authority to close such theaters under an injunction and abatement act, by which managers and owners are held responsible for the character of the performance, will raise a storm of protest because such a law will close the show.”
Need for New Law.
“But this is what led us women to brave the disgraceful and distasteful houses of entertainment which we believe are destructive of the young life of our city. We want our legislature to know that there is a crying need for the passage of the law offering relief from the menace of the immoral show such as is provided by the senate bill 130, introduced by Senator J. J. Barbour, and a similar one introduced by Representative Allen J. Carter, which make the owners and managers liable for whatever is exhibited in the theaters they control.”
(Chicago Tribune, March 12, 1917) Church Women Reveal Suggestive Acts After Peaceful “Raids” on Theaters
BY THE REV. W. B. NORTON.
SCANTILY dressed women, lewd jokes, the American flag disgraced, the Christian religion flouted, drinking, gambling, murder paraded, crowds of men and boys in the audience, many of the boys in knickerbockers.
These are some of the things which shocked the women of the Woman’s Church federation who made a round of a dozen or more of the theaters of Chicago Saturday evening.
Mrs. J. G. Boor, chairman of the morals committee of the Woman’s Church federation, was in charge. She was assisted by fourteen women and up several men, some of whom accompanied the women, while others went to ag the theaters where men only are admitted.
Mrs. H. T. Leslie, 6844 Lafayette avenue, was one of the women who visited the Gayety theater, 531 South State street.
“The performance was vulgar and degrading,” she said. We teach our children to honor the American flag. Here they disgraced it. Girls came on the stage in tights with shoulders and arms entirely bare, draped about the waist in the red, white and blue. They formed a pyramid and the one who came the nearest being nud formed the center of the pyramíd. In this attitude they sang a song entitled “My Country.” not our national anthem, while a flag was lowered from the ceiling.
Sample of “Humor.”
“One of the comedians said: ‘It doesn’t make any difference what a woman has on or whether she has anything on. O yes it does,’ another said. When Gen. Grant surrendered to Lee he only had on a ragged union suit. Our girls have more on than that.”
“One man told a girl he would strip her to the skin. He first made her take off her hat, then her dress, then her petticoat. She had on tights, but the suggestiveness of the act was plain to see.”
Mrs. L. E. Koontz, 653 North Lockwood avenue, was one of three who visited the Star and Garter theater, 815 West Madison street.
“We sat in the gallery,” she said, “and noted that the audience was chiefly made up of young men, some of them nice young, manly looking fellows, others were of the depraved kind. My heart ached for them because I realized their legitimate desires for amusement. The air was thick with tobacco smoke. The jokes were of the coarsest character and evidently intended to inflame the imagination. One comedian told how some one threw a brick through the window and struck the leg of the girl he was sitting with and broke three of his fingers, plainly implying his hand was in contact with the girl’s leg.
Some More “Comedy.”
“In a scene one girl and two men became intoxicated, the girl being dragged off the stage in a beastly state. The men spilled the liquor on the table, dipped their hands in it, and slapped each other. Finally they kicked over the table and spilled the rest of the liquor on the floor.
“The girls were called the Jolly Widows and were dressed in tights.”
Mrs. F. M. Reynolds of Austin confirmed the report of Mrs. Koontz.
“The performance is to be condemned from start to finish,” she said. “There was not one redeeming feature. There was a lewd poem recited about looking at women, in which the name of Christ was mentioned. The drinking scene and the pajama dance were disgusting.” Mrs. R. L. Moffett, 4618 North Racine avenue, visited the Casino at 403 North State street.
“Suggestive jokes and Hula Hula dancing such as I heard and saw ought not to be tolerated,” she said. The Hula Hula dancers were bare legged and their bodies were draped only in a shawl.
Better Features Applauded.
“Were there any more like you in the family?” one coarse joker asked another. “No, when father died mother lost the pattern.”
“I believe the audience would enjoy a higher grade of entertainment, because a moving picture of a war scene and the performance of a player on an accordion, which were good, received the loudest applause.”
Mrs. Boor found conditions at the National, 610 South State street, she said, disgusting in the extreme.
“A young woman described a dance in a most suggestive way. ‘What did you have on?’ her male companion asked. ‘I had on a string of beads, then a little space and another string.’ ‘You ought to leave off the two last strings,’ he replied. ‘Did you dance the seven veils dance?’ she was asked. ‘If you did you left off six and a half of the veils,’ he said.”
“Forty per cent of the audience was under 21 years, many of them young boys.”
“The theaters are not as obscene as they were. They have been improved 75 per cent over the theaters of a few years ago, but they are still demoralizing, corrupting, and a disgrace to a Christian civilization.”
the most objectionable of all,“ said Mrs. E. Pretty.
“The girls were dressed so they appeared perfectly nude. They came on the stage protecting themselves with parasols. They moved the parasols from side to side so as to expose themselves for a moment to full view. Then they sang, ‘To see a little more you must meet us at the door.’ Could there be any plainer solicitation to evil than that?”
Mrs. A. C. O'Neal, 2512 West Sixty-sixth street, expressed in the strongest terms indignation of what she saw at the Haymarket theater, 722 West Madison street.
“If there is anything worse than I saw at the Haymarket, I hope I may never see it,” she said. “There was awful profanity, and from beginning to end vile love making and sexual suggestion. The twenty girls dressed in tights ran out on the run board into the center of the audience, and stooping over to the men sang songs of invitation and suggestion. I saw only two other women in the audience besides the four women in our party.”
Many Theaters Visited.
Among the theaters visited were: the South side, Gayety, National, Gem, and Stella; north side, Casino, Hippodrome; west side, Haymarket and Star and Garter.
“To describe the chorus girls of any theater as shapely, scantily clothed, alluring to men, will displease no owner or manager,” said Mrs. Boor.
“To picture the horror or even wrath of good women at witnessing the members of their sex on exhibition like well groomed prize winners at the international stock exhibit will merely cause a smile of ill concealed approval by those interested in the box office.
“But to pass a law giving authority to close such theaters under an injunction and abatement act, by which managers and owners are held responsible for the character of the performance, will raise a storm of protest because such a law will close the show.”
Need for New Law.
“But this is what led us women to brave the disgraceful and distasteful houses of entertainment which we believe are destructive of the young life of our city. We want our legislature to know that there is a crying need for the passage of the law offering relief from the menace of the immoral show such as is provided by the senate bill 130, introduced by Senator J. J. Barbour, and a similar one introduced by Representative Allen J. Carter, which make the owners and managers liable for whatever is exhibited in the theaters they control.”
May 26, 1946 - Star and Garter Theater Sold for $110,000 Cash
The Star & Garter theater building. 815 W. Madison st., was sold by the Hyde & Behman Amusement company and the Richard Hyde estate of New York City, to Harold L. Clamage, of St. Louis, and Harold W. Huchberger, of Chicago, for $110,000 cash, thru Thomas H. Fitzgerald. The building will be air conditioned and modernized at an estimated cost of $35,000 and operated with pictures and stage shows, it was said.
Jun 03, 1921: BUYS THREE THEATERS.
Poplar Bluff Man Adds Cairo Playhouses to String.
POPLAR BLUFF, Me., June 2.-I. W. Rodgers of this city has secured control of practically the entire moving picture business in Cairo, Ill., adding three theaters to the string of theaters in Missouri that he now owns. The deal at the neighboring city was consummated with H. B. McFarland, owner of the Tokio Theater at Morehouse. It includes the outright purchase of the Gem Theater, Cairo’s largest moving picture and vaudeville house. Leases standing were secured on the Cairo Opera House, the largest and best legitimate stage house between Memphis and St. Louis, and the Kimmel Theater, the handsomest theater in Southern Illinois. The string of theaters that Mr. Rodgers owns controlling Interest in are the Criterion, at Poplar Bluff; the Cairo Opera House, the Gem Theater, Cairo; the Kimmel Theater, Cairo: the Fraternal, Poplar Bluff; the New Grand, Hope, Ark.; the Dixie and the Liberty, Caruthersville, Mo., and an interest from the co-partnership in Mr. McFarland’s theater in Morehouse, the Tokio. Rodgers is indeed a pioneer in the picture game. He is one of the first three men in the United States who introduced moving pictures 24 years ago.
Jun 03, 1921: BUYS THREE THEATERS.
Poplar Bluff Man Adds Cairo Playhouses to String.
POPLAR BLUFF, Me., June 2.-I. W. Rodgers of this city has secured control of practically the entire moving picture business in Cairo, Ill., adding three theaters to the string of theaters in Missouri that he now owns. The deal at the neighboring city was consummated with H. B. McFarland, owner of the Tokio Theater at Morehouse. It includes the outright purchase of the Gem Theater, Cairo’s largest moving picture and vaudeville house. Leases standing were secured on the Cairo Opera House, the largest and best legitimate stage house between Memphis and St. Louis, and the Kimmel Theater, the handsomest theater in Southern Illinois. The string of theaters that Mr. Rodgers owns controlling Interest in are the Criterion, at Poplar Bluff; the Cairo Opera House, the Gem Theater, Cairo; the Kimmel Theater, Cairo: the Fraternal, Poplar Bluff; the New Grand, Hope, Ark.; the Dixie and the Liberty, Caruthersville, Mo., and an interest from the co-partnership in Mr. McFarland’s theater in Morehouse, the Tokio. Rodgers is indeed a pioneer in the picture game. He is one of the first three men in the United States who introduced moving pictures 24 years ago.
They’re Takin' ‘Em Off Again At Chicago’s Star And Garter. (Memphis Commercial Appeal, Sept. 7, 1947)
Cradle Of ‘Burleycue’ Reverts To Type After 10 Dull Years Of Movies
Burlesque is back at the Star and Garter. After 10 years of comparative obscurity as just another Chicago movie theater, the nation’s most famous old burlesque house is again featuring the bump and the grind, four-shows-a-day, with selected shorts (on the screen only, of course).
But Burlesque has changed since the home of the strip tease and the birthplace of a number of today’s screen stars darkened its stage and went over to pictures during the depth of the depression. The girls have to wear clothes even if the audience doesn’t notice that fact because of the skimpiness of the net panties and bras insisted on by the censors. Also, a grind isn’t a grind any more at the Star and Garter. Now it has to be speeded up so that only the practiced eye in the bald-headed row can catch it.
For Mickey Hattie, confused at being out of her act, failed to follow the standard procedure of “posing” and instead of disrobing bit by bit off-stage, started dropping garments hither and yon right out where everyone could see.
The audience applauded with such enthusiasm that thereafter posing was out and stripping was in at the Star and Garter, and within a few years there wasn’t a pose to be found at any burlesque house in the country.
But the audience loves it and, according to Warren B. Irons, S. and G. manager and the Western half of the old Columbia “wheel” of burlesque houses, the family trade is coming to the theater just as it did 25 years ago. Irons is famed in the best burlesque circles as the father of the “strip tease”. Its mother was Hattie Noel, who after giving birth to the strip, went on to Hollywood with more clothes and poundage and achieved modest screen fame as “Aunt Hattie,” playing Aunt Jemima character parts.
It was during that period that a young Hattie Carter was working in the chorus and Joe Yule, her husband, was hardly wowing the cash customers as a comic. Backstage, a fellow performer, Sid Gold, a song-and-dance man, was teaching their small son to imitate his act. The small son later made Gold’s lessons at the Star and Garter to pay off - he now is known as Mickey Rooney.
It may have been then or later that Joan Crawford and Ethel Shutta worked in the 24-girl chorus at the Star and Garter. Irons, mindful that the ages press agents give for movie actresses and night club singers are not always correct, tactfully does not remember the exact years Crawford and Shutta worked for him. But from the time the theater opened in 1908 until it temporarily deserted burlesque in the ‘30s, all the big names of vaudeville played there - Fannie Brice, the Four Cohans, Harry Lauder, Abbott and Costello, Phil Silvers, Weber and Fields, Joe E. Brown and a great many others.
Irons well remembers the night the strip tease was born. Until that night, during the first World War, counterpart of the modern “stripper” confined herself to “posing”, usually ending up at the most torrid part of the “after-piece” standing nude in a cold frame.
For laughs - or for kicks, as they say nowadays - Irons suggested to Hattie, a bouncing brown woman who did a song-and-dance act in the “Olio” (the middle, or vaudeville part of old-time burlesque) that she try her hand at “posing”.
An amateur fighter named Barney Ross also used to prance around the Star and Garter stage.
Now the top performer, when not grinding and bumping way around the 14-city circuit, is Louise Lamarr, a tiny blonde who describes herself as “the fastest thing on heels.” She and her feathers are considered the top draws in first-class burlesque today.
But Irons says that patrons of the theater can look for still bigger things in the way of burlesque. Now that the Star and Garter is back on the circuit, Burlesque managers are planning to revive vaudeville, bigger and better than ever, and show the youngsters what daddy used to rave about, down at the Palace. (September 8, 1946)
Additional Information:This office building was originally constructed as a warehouse in 1911. Its side walls are built of rock-faced concrete block. At an unknown date prior to 1927, the building was converted to a movie theater. In 1936, the front façade was remodeled to include the recessed entryway and second story with an Art Deco-style panel of ridged masonry. At an unknown date, the simulated masonry was added to the front façade. All the masonry is painted in the building, and the existing windows in the storefront are all modern replacements. (WI State Historical Society)
Jul 16, 1930, page 10 - Wisconsin State Journal:
Milwaukee Theater Bombed in Labor War
MILWAUKEE (U.P.) A bomb dropped in the entrance to the Grace theater here early today shattered windows in nearby buildings, rolled several persons from their beds in an adjoining apartment and shook the entire neighborhood with its explosion.
The bombing is another chapter in the theater labor war here, police declared after learning that R. S. Haynes and Adolph Oresiec, Grace operators, had recently been asked to join the union but refused on grounds that they would lose their jobs.
The theater suffered least from the bombing, while windows in all nearby buildings were broken.
The theatres are across the street from Parkview Regional Medical Center and its Mirro Center, and Parkview Health bought the property last July for $4.2 million. No plans were announced for its reuse.
Though Parkview Health is non-profit, the commercially-zoned land will be taxed as long as it continues in mostly-business usage. County tax data shows that when the theatres were operating, the property paid $416,520 in property taxes. This year, the taxes were $111,222.28.
Star & Garter Theater - 815 West Madison Street Built 1907; demolished 1972 Architects: Dodge & Morrison
The Star & Garter Theater, one of Chicago’s largest and best-known burlesque theaters, opened in February 1908 and was located at 815 West Madison Street. Designed and decorated in the style of the city’s leading dramatic theaters, the Star & Garter aimed to legitimize burlesque as a form of elite entertainment. During its more than fifty years in operation, the theater showcased the talents of many of the nation’s best-known burlesque troupes and vaudeville comedians. Its presence near the intersection of Madison and Halsted Streets helped establish the Near West Side as one of Chicago’s leading outlying amusement centers.
The Star & Garter was owned and operated by the Hyde & Behman burlesque theater circuit. Hoping to set their new theater apart from the city’s smaller and less highly regarded burlesque houses, Hyde and Behman spared few expenses in the design and construction of the Star & Garter. Most accounts put the theater’s cost at between $450,000 and $500,000, or roughly $11 million in 2009 dollars. It was designed by the New York architectural firm of Dodge & Morrison and had a seating capacity of 1,960. When the theater opened in 1908, most observers considered it to be one of the best-designed and lavishly decorated theaters in the city. The entrance lobby measured 30 feet by 46 feet and featured marble-clad walls and dark-red tile floors. Wide aisles and bronzed stairways led patrons to their leather-upholstered seats on one of three levels. Aside from the main floor, the mezzanine boxes, and the balcony, there were six boxes on either side of the stage. The seats were upholstered in buff leather. Crimson-red draperies decorated the stage and proscenium boxes. Other features included a men’s smoking room, a ladies' parlor, a basement rathskeller, and carved marble drinking fountains in the inner lobby. The entire building was designed to be fireproof, with an automatic sprinkler system and a 18,000-gallon emergency supply of water stored in a rooftop tank. The theater was, according to Variety, “a marvel in beauty and architecture.”
The formal opening of the Star & Garter took place on Sunday afternoon, 9 February 1908. Admission prices ranged from 15 cents for the balcony to 75 cents for box seats. Charles Robinson and his burletta-performing “Night Owls” were the opening attraction, along with an assortment of vaudeville acts. Many other all-female dancing troupes performed at the theater in the months and years that followed. During the theater’s first year in business, groups like Fred Irwin’s “New Majestics,” the “Transatlantic Burlesquers,” “The Mardi Gras Beauties,” and “The Jersey Lillies” all made appearances at the theater. Among the best-known performers to step onto the Star & Garter stage were Jack Conway, Lester Allen, Don Barclay, Ethel Shutta, Watson and Cohan, Bobby Barry, Tommy “Bozo” Snyder, and Dave Marion, also known as Snuffy the Cabman.
During the theater’s early years, Hyde & Behman sought to differentiate the Star & Garter from other burlesque houses by carefully regulating the content of each act that performed there. House managers reviewed each performer’s act prior to showtime and ordered them to eliminate anything deemed too risque. “It seems that there are two brands of burlesque,” one commentator explained, “censored and uncensored.” At the Star & Garter, “Each traveling company is warned before beginning an engagement which kind will be tolerated. If the character of the theater demands a censored variety, a reasonably clean and inoffensive musical farce results. If the ‘lid’ is lifted the comedians and their women assistants are permitted to go as far as the police will permit.” As a result, the style of burlesque presented at the Star & Garter during the 1910s was decidedly less provocative and sexually suggestive than that offered by some of Chicago’s less refined burlesque houses, such as the Trocadero and Folly Theaters on South State Street. Indeed, many of the theater’s burlesque shows were more reminiscent of nineteenth-century minstrel or burlesque shows insofar as they combined leggy dance numbers with comedy routines and other vaudeville acts that skewered the “legitimate” theater and lampooned contemporary social taboos.
One reason Hyde & Behman had for placing restrictions on performers was to avoid gaining a reputation as a “down-and-dirty” burlesque house patronized by men only. With nearly 2,000 seats to fill, the theater’s managers could not rely solely on male customers to ensure profitability. Accordingly, they made a sustained and concerted effort to convice Chicago women that visiting the Star & Garter was not only safe and respectable, but also enjoyable. A 1919 advertisement, for instance, reminded potential customers that “Every Day [Was] Ladies Day” at the Star & Garter, while another one from 1921 pointed out that “10,000 Women Attend Our Shows Weekly.” Women also received a discount on their the price of admission for all performances. Additionally, several of the theater’s rules of conduct and operational policies were designed with women in mind. For example, smoking was prohibited on the main floor of the auditorium. Also, candy barkers and souvenir vendors were not permitted to sell their goods inside the theater, as was customary at other burlesque houses.
It is not entirely clear how successful Hyde & Behman were at attracting women to the Star & Garter. No reliable numbers exist, but the anecdotal evidence appears to confirm that women made up a far greater proportion of audiences at the Star & Garter than at the city’s other burlesque theaters, even if they were still outnumbered by the men. For example, a reporter for Variety wrote the following shortly after the theater’s debut: “During the two weeks the house has been open the increase in women patronage has been marked, and the audience from pit to dome are not of the customary burlesque kind. If the high standard of refinement is maintained and the attractions kept up to the inauguration level the theatre will enjoy an enviable reputation and large business all season.” A few weeks later, a second report noted, “Since the house opened the women attendance has steadily increased. At a matinee one day last week there were 280 women in the audience, the largest aggregation of femininity in the history of Chicago burlesque.” Regardless of the exact numbers, the Star & Garter did enjoy a slightly better reputation than many of the city’s other burlesque theaters. Indeed, in the eyes of many Chicagoans of the time, the mere presence of women conveyed a certain degree of moral respectability upon an establishment, owing to traditional assumptions about the supposedly innate virtuousness of women. Hyde & Behman played upon and to some extent succeeded in using these gendered notions of human behavior to boost attendance, increase profits, and maximize the return on their investment.
With the advent of the less sexually restrictive era of the flapper in the 1920s, the Star & Garter’s more conservative brand of burlesque began to lose its appeal. By 1922, Hyde & Behman discontinued burlesque shows at the theater. They were replaced by amateur boxing bouts and “professional” wrestling matches that pitted members of different ethnic groups against one another in overtly nationalistic athletic confrontations. During one wrestling match at the theater in April 1923, for example, Italian heavyweight champion Renato Gardini squared off against Greek wrestler Demetrius Tofalos. Other matches featured Irish, Turkish, Czech, Lithuanian, French-Canadian, Polish, and Jewish wrestlers and boxers, including many drawn from Chicago’s own neighborhoods. Between November 1922 and April 1926, dozens of wresting and boxing matches were held at the Star & Garter. Fans from across the west side crowded into the theater to cheer on their compatriots and jeer those boxers and wrestlers who were of different ethnic background than their own.
Burlesque shows returned to the Star & Garter in late 1927, usually in conjunction with a feature motion picture. The burlesque shows of the late 1920s and 1930s, while still far more ostentatious and skillfully produced than those at Chicago’s smaller and less pricey burlesque houses, were nonetheless more sexually suggestive than those presented at the theater prior to 1922. Each show was built around one particularly charismatic performer and her supporting cast of female dancers. Mary Sunde was the theater’s headliner for much of 1934. Promotional materials for Sunde, who was born in Norway but raised in Wisconsin, depicted her as the perfect combination—at least in the eyes of men inclined to attend burlesque shows—of exotic beauty and down-home wholesomeness. Her flowing blonde hair and youthful figure made her “the last word in feminine pulchritude,” and yet she was nonetheless “a demure lassie, who lives to sew, cook, and keep house.” Such testaments helped build up a dreamgirl image around the women who performed at the Star & Garter, reassuring male patrons that the women who performed at the theater, despite their status as women with a career of their own and a strong awareness of their own sexuality, were in actuality no threat to their power and authority as men. “In short,” read one tribute to Sunde, she “is sister under the skin to the typical American home girl.” Other headliners of the 1930s included Ada Leonard, who first appeared at the theater in September 1934, and Maxine De Shon, who arrived one year later.
In late 1935, the Star & Garter went dark and remained closed until September 1946, when Hyde & Behman sold the theater to two investors, Harold L. Clamage of Saint Louis and Harold W. Buchberger of Chicago, for the sum of $110,000. The new owners installed air-conditioning in the theater, touched up its appearance, and reopened the theater. During late 1946, it operated briefly as a combination burlesque and movie house, but quickly shifted to an all-movie policy, which remained in place until September 1971, when the adjacent Mid-City National Bank purchased the property to make way for a parking lot. Demolition of the theater took place during the months of February and March 1972. (from Jazz Age Chicago)
Star and Garter: A Tale of 2 Madison St. Derelicts
A toothless tee-hee cackle gurgles, fumes up from long-gone lungs thru a gnarled throat, holding up a 69-year-old bad night, bad booze body tilting at a 20-degree list. The body is wrapped in one of those nameless oversized overcoats with three buttons in the front like Ray Milland wore in “Lost Weekend,” with the huge pockets where the necks of pints of gin hang out. Head-bobbing fits and gurgle “tee-hee, tee-hee… damn! I’d nevera thought this one’d be ripped from the earth.”
Charlie-from-617-West-Monroe-Street’s breath is blazing like a whole battalion on General Patton’s tanks, withering people and other things with the lingering bouquet of the pint of gin he had in the morning instead of orange juice.
Fifty years … fifty years of Skid Row it took to gut out this one old man watching other men gut out a building just as old and tired as he is.
Boom. A big iron ball cracks into the side of the building - a man-made fist ripping thru the old Star and Garter Theater at 315 W. Madison St. Bricks and dusty cement and pipes and steel tubes and iron mesh and glass pour out.
“They had the good ones here,” says Charlie. “All them beautiful girls teasin-too-bee and twirlin', all their bodies bunched up in those little teeny costumes. And the big feathers and the band goin' bum-bump-a-bump and we’d be yellin' take it off - c'mon girlle, take it off! They had one once from Kansas City - I forget what they called her - but you shoulda seen her, Sonny. What she did …”
The tilting body begins to tee-hee and fizz and gurgle itself into hacks and spits until stringy yellow-gray hair falls in front of eyes that sparkle from the memory of it all.
Bump and grind, shuffle and shake, the Star and Garter is coming down, a 64-year-old theater, former home of burlesque-turned-former-movie house running films you missed on the late-late show. The Christmas gift calendar hanging in the boarded-up box office is ripped off to September, 1971.
As the senior vice president of Mid-City National Bank, which is next to the Garter and which bought the property in September, 1971, says, “We have to watch what goes on in this neighborhood now. So when the owners - there were five, but unfortunately three have met their demise and the other two don’t want it known who they are because of political reasons, you know - so when they decided to sell - they were losing money - we grabbed it.”
Charlie quiets his body with a shot of gin. “And now, sonny, I can tell you what a place this was. It was raided by the police once - let’s see, well, I can’t remember exactly when. Well, the mayor’s name was Kelly then … anyway, yessir, tee hee, the police raided it on account of the way the girls were dancing and carrying on. Then they started the movies. And the girls were gone forever. Seen it happen to other places around here, the Columbia, the Haymarket.”
The workman inside is alone with his sledge hammer. Hall the seats are gone and he’s got it down now, down pat: two blows and the cushion comes off. Then with his right hand he pushes the wooden back of the seat - crack - to the floor. Ought to take 40 days to bring her down, says George Hedge, the Nardi Wrecking Co. crew foreman.
“‘Come and get it… come and get it’, they used to call from the door,” cackles Charlie.
It was a “midnight shambles” in that old theater, even on Sundays - that’s what Mayor Kelly used to say when he had the Des Plaines Avenue police raid the place.
“The actors told lewd jokes, police raided the place, the chorus girls wore little or nothing, while the patrons drank freely and applauded for more impropriety,” said the police, reported The Tribune on Dec. 24, 1934.
The Hyde and Behman Amusement Co. and the Richard Hyde estate of New York City sold the Star to Harold Clamage of St. Louis and Harold Huchberger of Chicago in May, 1946 for $110,000. The two renovated-$15,000-worth and ran the movies….and the girls were gone.
“Tee-hee, it was a dime for the movie and a nickel for the pop-soda. And you know what we’d do? We’d mix the gin with the pop-soda to make the gin stretch and we’d watch them movies all day from early in the morning.”
“We’d meet right over there, sonny - c'mon, lemme show you, c'mon right over here, here, in front, and we’d all go in together. I think they’re all the rest dead now. Dead.”
Fizz and gurgle. Tee-hee, shuffle and shake, another pint and the Star and Garter is coming down in 40 days. “Oh, hell, sonny, it ain’t no big deal…… but, well, the old damn place kept you warm to sleep when the money ran out.”
The ORPHEUM’s owners since 2013 Gus and Mary Paras did this $200,000 historic replication of its original six-story 63-foot 1926 vertical sign designed by Rapp and Rapp. The steel face was replaced with an aluminum replica using energy-efficient lights in the original configuration. At some point in mid-century, the word “NEW” was removed from the top, and then it was “dumbed down” to a basic rectangle. The Paras family had already done restoration on the facade, marquee, ticket booth, roof, plaster, downstairs lavatories and dressing rooms, and said the community excitement was encouraging. The ORPHEUM was awarded a $20, city facade restoration matching grant. New front doors, resembling those that first swung open in 1927, are in place, as are veiny black granite panels, replacing blond brick on the facade when it was “remuddled” in the 1960s. Architect Arlan Kay oversaw the changes undoing the alterations at midcentury in the name of “modernization” including the destruction to the vertical sign which became scarred with rust and which stayed in place because a city ordinance banned hanging a replacement over the sidewalk. City leaders modified it.
Exhibitor Jordan Stancil, who operates three historic theatres in Michigan - the Sanctuary in Alpena, the Big Rapids in Big Rapids and the Rialto in Grayling, the latter that his family has owned since 1915 - has leased the closed 1912 New 400 Theatre, a victim of the pandemic, and plans to restore its 65-year name to The 400 Theatre, with its reopening date to be announced. Stancil expects to program the 400 with new domestic and foreign product and live events with updated projection capabilities.
Little Theatre Indicates Interest in Purchase Of Vogue Theatre Site
Kenosha Little Theatre members voted three to one last evening in favor of picking up an option leading toward purchase of the Vogue Theater building.
Final decision rests with the organisation’s Board of Directors, which will meet next week to consider the arguments pro and con heard at meetings last evening and last week in the School Administration building.
The 30-year old building has been offered to Little Theatre by David M. Korf, owner, for $15,000 with no down payment, A report made by Lawrence Monberg, architect, and Frank Zoubek, contractor, states that the property is in good condition though it needs cleaning and decorating.
Little Theatre, which has assets of slightly under $5,000, intends to hold this sum in reserve as a contingency fund and conduct a drive for funds to purchase and remodel its new home, should the board decide to attempt the project.
Outcome of the fund-raising campaign would determine whether or not the organiation to would be able to buy its first quarters.
A total of $25,000 would be needed to pay for the building and to remodel it at a cost of $10,000.
The board is to investigate further the possibility of loss of building frontage through the routing of State Hy. 158 on 52nd St. The theater is at 1820 52nd St.
Korf made one stipulation in offering the building for sale: That Little Theatre give the proceeds of one performance of one show per year to a fund for the benefit of handicapped children.
(July 18, 1957)
On Thursday, August 1, 2025 the Milwaukee Common Council approved the sale of the 7,200 square-foot Villa Theatre to Thomas Matthews' Lincoln Creek Development, LLC for $10,125 as-is, including the adjacent 1929 3,612-square-foot multi-story building at 3614-16 W. Villard Ave. and a 24-space parking lot at 5221 N. 36th St. that the city had owned since 1948. Lincoln plans to re-open the theatre for live performances and to lease the adjacent spaces for which there’s already interest. Kelly Construction is to do the estimated $4 million renovations including marquee work, landscaping, accessibility, and improved parking. Lincoln will have two years to secure a Certificate of Occupancy after closing.
The 840-seat Spanish Colonial theatre opened in 1926 as the Ritz by Michael Brumm, who was already operating the nearby Princess Theatre in 1912 with his son Arnold, who later took over the Ritz. The City of Milwaukee annexed the area in 1929. By the 1940s, the Ritz was a Fox Wisconsin theatre; Marcus Theatres bought the Ritz in 1959, renamed it the Villa in 1962, and closed it in 1986. Tanya and Herman Lewis bought it and operated it as a second-run theatre, then a first-run theatre, and then a community theatre and neighborhood center over nine years.
This may be the best photo of the REX Theatre near the end of its brief career.
From original 1930s programs shared by the HPHSociety:
“Shortly after the opening, owners William and Bertha Pearl executed a 15 year lease for both the Alycon and Pearl for 35,000$/year to the Highland Park Theater Co, according to the Chicago Tribune (Nov. 3, 1925), citing lawyers for both parties. The 1925 theater installed a “3/13” Barton Organ. (Junchen, David L. Encyclopedia of the American Theatre Organ. Pasadena, Calif: Showcase Publications, 1985.) In January 1928, a “bandit” robbed the safe and fled with $2100, 3 days income. The thief covered the assistant manager, Saul Greenberg, with a blanket before locking him in the washroom. (Chicago Daily Tribune) The Bulletin of the Chicago Medical Society V33 cites the Alycon for installing systems so the “hearing impaired” could listen to “Talkies.” In 1940, Pearl installed additional RCA sound equipment in the (now) 1150 seat theater.“
The Department of Planning and Development plans to apply for a 20-year $25.25 million Section 108 loan from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development for Congress Theatre “revitalization” and related housing in the $88 million project. If granted, the next step is the city council. Ald. Daniel La Spata (1st) says this could be the last piece for the project to get off the ground and that approval could mean that actual construction on the Congress Theatre could begin in Spring, 2026 (its centennial) and be finished by the end of 2027. AEG Presents would manage the theatre for no less than 10 years, and Woodhouse Tinucci Architects' renderings show a restored marquee and a “modernized interior”.
Aug 03, 2001, Chicago Tribune- Duplicate organ sold to theater
The Genesee Theatre Restoration Project has bought a duplicate of the theater’s original Barton organ to be used in the restoration of the 1927 movie palace in downtown Waukegan.
The organ was originally installed in the former Tower Theater in Milwaukee and has been owned by a Downstate Aledo couple since it was removed, said James Neal, executive director of the restoration project.
The couple, now in their 90s, had the large multitiered organ installed in their house so it could be played.
They sold it to the Waukegan group for $35,000, said to be less than its value, because they wanted it in a theater where they feel it belongs, Neal said.
“This is the culmination of a dream for them.” Neal said. “This is part of their legacy.”
The organ is the same model as the Genesee’s original Barton organ, installed in 1927 before the theater opened.
Restorers discovered earlier this year that many of the organ’s internal parts had suffered irreversible water damage, sparking the search for a replacement.
The old organ’s working parts may be sold to other organizations doing restoration projects, offsetting some of the cost of buying the replacement, Neal said.
The $15.5 million Genesee Theatre restoration is envisioned as the centerpiece of plans to revitalize downtown Waukegan.
Aug 03, 2001, Chicago Tribune- Duplicate organ sold to theater
The Genesee Theatre Restoration Project has bought a duplicate of the theater’s original Barton organ to be used in the restoration of the 1927 movie palace in downtown Waukegan.
The organ was originally installed in the former Tower Theater in Milwaukee and has been owned by a Downstate Aledo couple since it was removed, said James Neal, executive director of the restoration project.
The couple, now in their 90s, had the large multitiered organ installed in their house so it could be played.
They sold it to the Waukegan group for $35,000, said to be less than its value, because they wanted it in a theater where they feel it belongs, Neal said.
“This is the culmination of a dream for them.” Neal said. “This is part of their legacy.”
The organ is the same model as the Genesee’s original Barton organ, installed in 1927 before the theater opened.
Restorers discovered earlier this year that many of the organ’s internal parts had suffered irreversible water damage, sparking the search for a replacement.
The old organ’s working parts may be sold to other organizations doing restoration projects, offsetting some of the cost of buying the replacement, Neal said.
The $15.5 million Genesee Theatre restoration is envisioned as the centerpiece of plans to revitalize downtown Waukegan.
La Crosse landmark meant a lot to longtime residents (By Doug Connell of the Tribune staff)
On Dec. 28, 1952, La Crosse lost a popular entertainment spot when fire destroyed the Wisconsin The ater in a “spectacular blaze” that attracted hundreds of onlookers to the downtown scene.
The Wisconsin Theater was housed in a three-story brick building at 514-520 Main St. on the bend in Main Street between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Street.
“I have many fond memories of the Wisconsin Theater,” remarked Joseph Noelke, 64, of La Crosse, “as I went to many movies there during the mid-1940s when I was a young boy. The interior of the Wisconsin wasn’t as fancy as the Rivoli Theater on Fourth Street, but it still was a nice place to take in a movie. I was always impressed by the Wisconsin’s large overhanging marquee. Almost every Saturday as a youngster I would go to the Wisconsin with my brothers, cousins and friends to take in the matinee. That bit of fun would eat up most of my 25-cents weekly allowance, as movie admission was 12 cents and the bus fare to and from downtown was a nickel each way. We always sat in the balcony, in the very last row if possible. Before the main attraction, there would be newsreels about national and world events. Also, there would be commercials for local businesses, and I remember seeing my first Ross of La Crosse furniture commercial there.”
The Wisconsin Theater was housed in a three-story brick building at 514-520 Main St. on the bend in Main Street between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Street.
Fall From Sign Kills Painter (Kenosha Evening News - May 5, 1949)
George B. Jensen 41, 3827 7th Ave., local paint contractor, was killed shortly before 1 o'clock this afternoon when he fell from a sign which he was painting at the Main Street Theater located on the corner of Main and State Sts. in Racine.
Jensen was painting on the vertical sign, 50 feet above the street level, when the swing stage anchorage slipped and plunged the Kenoshan to pavement.
Witnesses said he struck his head on the marquee sign in the fall, and he was pronounced dead immediately by Racine County Coroner Bernard Evenson.
Everett Cayo, 7402 40th Ave:, who was painting on the opposite side of the vertical sign, was uninjured.
The Lakes Theatre was still operating in the early 1960s. Military members were offered discounts on admissions.
The 1911 Crystal (later Lakes) Theatre of Antioch dates was owned by Fred Remer and was sold to Percy Chinn the following year. By 1946 it was renamed the Lakes Theatre. (In 1958, the Lakes Theatre company proposed building a 400-car outdoor theatre on the northwest corner of Route 59 and Grass Lake Road. Strong opposition ended the plan.)
In 1964, the local Palette, Masque and Lyre amateur players began presenting productions at the Lakes Theatre, and in January, 1984 they were able to purchase the theatre. Much of the interior ornament was lost thereafter but the three oval facade windows that had been bricked over were restored after a bequest left by Dolly Spiering. In 2015, the players were able to purchase an adjoining commercial building as a concessions venue.
Editorial: Antioch Theatre rebirth more than a victory for nostalgia (April 04, 2016 - Daily Herald) In our bigger-is-better world, small businesses often take a beating.
That’s particularly true of one-screen movie theaters that were once staples of community downtowns. Mostly they have disappeared from today’s suburbs, as owners found it difficult to compete with giant multiplexes that offer many more movie choices and a glitzier experience complete with reclining chairs and a nice merlot.
And, that’s what makes the renovation of the old Antioch Theatre, and the community effort that supported the project, so noteworthy and an experience worth saluting.
Sure, it’s a victory for nostalgia, joining the Liberty Theatre in Libertyville and the Catlow in Barrington as another old movie house rebirth.
But the public-private partnership that spurred the project’s success also shows early signs of being a catalyst for other downtown Antioch improvements. The approach could make it a project worth watching by others looking for ways to boost their downtown improvement efforts.
Tim Downey launched the $750,000 plan to rehab the theater building, where deteriorating conditions, slumping attendance and outdated equipment had put it on the endangered list. It was built in 1919 as the Majestic Theatre, a live performance house, and it was converted to the Antioch Theatre five years later. It was never a grand movie house, but it had been a downtown fixture for generations of residents.
Downey invested $300,000 of his own money, found four core sponsors to contribute $150,000, and sold engraved sidewalk stars. With what they said was a “degree of reluctance,” village board members agreed to provide a $200,000 loan, supported by a village-backed 75-cents per-ticket tax. In a town with a tight budget, like many of its neighbors, and concerns about offering overly generous tax incentives, it was no small gesture.
However, the roll of the dice for all involved seems to be paying off.
The updated version with new seats, restrooms, carpeting, facade, marquee, digital technology and more attracted some 40,000 moviegoers in the first year since the reopening, Downey said. That generated enough money for him to make monthly payments - he’s repaid nearly $30,000 - on the 10-year village note.
Village officials and downtown supporters alike said the Antioch Theatre project has been good for the downtown. It has sparked renovations at some other downtown businesses, boosted foot traffic that is aiding other nearby businesses by bringing people to the area and it is helping renew interest in a downtown development initiative. It is once again a vital part of the village’s historic downtown district, they say.
“It’s fun to report my confidence in the community and the community’s confidence in me has paid off,” Downey told the Daily Herald’s Mick Zawislak.
What the born-again Antioch Theatre shows is that one little project with a motivated developer, a local government willing to take a chance and a supportive community can help spark big things.
(Chicago Tribune, March 12, 1917) Church Women Reveal Suggestive Acts After Peaceful “Raids” on Theaters
BY THE REV. W. B. NORTON.
SCANTILY dressed women, lewd jokes, the American flag disgraced, the Christian religion flouted, drinking, gambling, murder paraded, crowds of men and boys in the audience, many of the boys in knickerbockers.
These are some of the things which shocked the women of the Woman’s Church federation who made a round of a dozen or more of the theaters of Chicago Saturday evening.
Mrs. J. G. Boor, chairman of the morals committee of the Woman’s Church federation, was in charge. She was assisted by fourteen women and up several men, some of whom accompanied the women, while others went to ag the theaters where men only are admitted.
Mrs. H. T. Leslie, 6844 Lafayette avenue, was one of the women who visited the Gayety theater, 531 South State street.
“The performance was vulgar and degrading,” she said. We teach our children to honor the American flag. Here they disgraced it. Girls came on the stage in tights with shoulders and arms entirely bare, draped about the waist in the red, white and blue. They formed a pyramid and the one who came the nearest being nud formed the center of the pyramíd. In this attitude they sang a song entitled “My Country.” not our national anthem, while a flag was lowered from the ceiling.
Sample of “Humor.”
“One of the comedians said: ‘It doesn’t make any difference what a woman has on or whether she has anything on. O yes it does,’ another said. When Gen. Grant surrendered to Lee he only had on a ragged union suit. Our girls have more on than that.”
“One man told a girl he would strip her to the skin. He first made her take off her hat, then her dress, then her petticoat. She had on tights, but the suggestiveness of the act was plain to see.”
Mrs. L. E. Koontz, 653 North Lockwood avenue, was one of three who visited the Star and Garter theater, 815 West Madison street.
“We sat in the gallery,” she said, “and noted that the audience was chiefly made up of young men, some of them nice young, manly looking fellows, others were of the depraved kind. My heart ached for them because I realized their legitimate desires for amusement. The air was thick with tobacco smoke. The jokes were of the coarsest character and evidently intended to inflame the imagination. One comedian told how some one threw a brick through the window and struck the leg of the girl he was sitting with and broke three of his fingers, plainly implying his hand was in contact with the girl’s leg.
Some More “Comedy.”
“In a scene one girl and two men became intoxicated, the girl being dragged off the stage in a beastly state. The men spilled the liquor on the table, dipped their hands in it, and slapped each other. Finally they kicked over the table and spilled the rest of the liquor on the floor.
“The girls were called the Jolly Widows and were dressed in tights.”
Mrs. F. M. Reynolds of Austin confirmed the report of Mrs. Koontz.
“The performance is to be condemned from start to finish,” she said. “There was not one redeeming feature. There was a lewd poem recited about looking at women, in which the name of Christ was mentioned. The drinking scene and the pajama dance were disgusting.” Mrs. R. L. Moffett, 4618 North Racine avenue, visited the Casino at 403 North State street.
“Suggestive jokes and Hula Hula dancing such as I heard and saw ought not to be tolerated,” she said. The Hula Hula dancers were bare legged and their bodies were draped only in a shawl.
Better Features Applauded.
“Were there any more like you in the family?” one coarse joker asked another. “No, when father died mother lost the pattern.”
“I believe the audience would enjoy a higher grade of entertainment, because a moving picture of a war scene and the performance of a player on an accordion, which were good, received the loudest applause.”
Mrs. Boor found conditions at the National, 610 South State street, she said, disgusting in the extreme.
“A young woman described a dance in a most suggestive way. ‘What did you have on?’ her male companion asked. ‘I had on a string of beads, then a little space and another string.’ ‘You ought to leave off the two last strings,’ he replied. ‘Did you dance the seven veils dance?’ she was asked. ‘If you did you left off six and a half of the veils,’ he said.”
“Forty per cent of the audience was under 21 years, many of them young boys.”
“The theaters are not as obscene as they were. They have been improved 75 per cent over the theaters of a few years ago, but they are still demoralizing, corrupting, and a disgrace to a Christian civilization.”
the most objectionable of all,“ said Mrs. E. Pretty.
“The girls were dressed so they appeared perfectly nude. They came on the stage protecting themselves with parasols. They moved the parasols from side to side so as to expose themselves for a moment to full view. Then they sang, ‘To see a little more you must meet us at the door.’ Could there be any plainer solicitation to evil than that?”
Mrs. A. C. O'Neal, 2512 West Sixty-sixth street, expressed in the strongest terms indignation of what she saw at the Haymarket theater, 722 West Madison street.
“If there is anything worse than I saw at the Haymarket, I hope I may never see it,” she said. “There was awful profanity, and from beginning to end vile love making and sexual suggestion. The twenty girls dressed in tights ran out on the run board into the center of the audience, and stooping over to the men sang songs of invitation and suggestion. I saw only two other women in the audience besides the four women in our party.”
Many Theaters Visited.
Among the theaters visited were: the South side, Gayety, National, Gem, and Stella; north side, Casino, Hippodrome; west side, Haymarket and Star and Garter.
“To describe the chorus girls of any theater as shapely, scantily clothed, alluring to men, will displease no owner or manager,” said Mrs. Boor.
“To picture the horror or even wrath of good women at witnessing the members of their sex on exhibition like well groomed prize winners at the international stock exhibit will merely cause a smile of ill concealed approval by those interested in the box office.
“But to pass a law giving authority to close such theaters under an injunction and abatement act, by which managers and owners are held responsible for the character of the performance, will raise a storm of protest because such a law will close the show.”
Need for New Law.
“But this is what led us women to brave the disgraceful and distasteful houses of entertainment which we believe are destructive of the young life of our city. We want our legislature to know that there is a crying need for the passage of the law offering relief from the menace of the immoral show such as is provided by the senate bill 130, introduced by Senator J. J. Barbour, and a similar one introduced by Representative Allen J. Carter, which make the owners and managers liable for whatever is exhibited in the theaters they control.”
(Chicago Tribune, March 12, 1917) Church Women Reveal Suggestive Acts After Peaceful “Raids” on Theaters
BY THE REV. W. B. NORTON.
SCANTILY dressed women, lewd jokes, the American flag disgraced, the Christian religion flouted, drinking, gambling, murder paraded, crowds of men and boys in the audience, many of the boys in knickerbockers.
These are some of the things which shocked the women of the Woman’s Church federation who made a round of a dozen or more of the theaters of Chicago Saturday evening.
Mrs. J. G. Boor, chairman of the morals committee of the Woman’s Church federation, was in charge. She was assisted by fourteen women and up several men, some of whom accompanied the women, while others went to ag the theaters where men only are admitted.
Mrs. H. T. Leslie, 6844 Lafayette avenue, was one of the women who visited the Gayety theater, 531 South State street.
“The performance was vulgar and degrading,” she said. We teach our children to honor the American flag. Here they disgraced it. Girls came on the stage in tights with shoulders and arms entirely bare, draped about the waist in the red, white and blue. They formed a pyramid and the one who came the nearest being nud formed the center of the pyramíd. In this attitude they sang a song entitled “My Country.” not our national anthem, while a flag was lowered from the ceiling.
Sample of “Humor.”
“One of the comedians said: ‘It doesn’t make any difference what a woman has on or whether she has anything on. O yes it does,’ another said. When Gen. Grant surrendered to Lee he only had on a ragged union suit. Our girls have more on than that.”
“One man told a girl he would strip her to the skin. He first made her take off her hat, then her dress, then her petticoat. She had on tights, but the suggestiveness of the act was plain to see.”
Mrs. L. E. Koontz, 653 North Lockwood avenue, was one of three who visited the Star and Garter theater, 815 West Madison street.
“We sat in the gallery,” she said, “and noted that the audience was chiefly made up of young men, some of them nice young, manly looking fellows, others were of the depraved kind. My heart ached for them because I realized their legitimate desires for amusement. The air was thick with tobacco smoke. The jokes were of the coarsest character and evidently intended to inflame the imagination. One comedian told how some one threw a brick through the window and struck the leg of the girl he was sitting with and broke three of his fingers, plainly implying his hand was in contact with the girl’s leg.
Some More “Comedy.”
“In a scene one girl and two men became intoxicated, the girl being dragged off the stage in a beastly state. The men spilled the liquor on the table, dipped their hands in it, and slapped each other. Finally they kicked over the table and spilled the rest of the liquor on the floor.
“The girls were called the Jolly Widows and were dressed in tights.”
Mrs. F. M. Reynolds of Austin confirmed the report of Mrs. Koontz.
“The performance is to be condemned from start to finish,” she said. “There was not one redeeming feature. There was a lewd poem recited about looking at women, in which the name of Christ was mentioned. The drinking scene and the pajama dance were disgusting.” Mrs. R. L. Moffett, 4618 North Racine avenue, visited the Casino at 403 North State street.
“Suggestive jokes and Hula Hula dancing such as I heard and saw ought not to be tolerated,” she said. The Hula Hula dancers were bare legged and their bodies were draped only in a shawl.
Better Features Applauded.
“Were there any more like you in the family?” one coarse joker asked another. “No, when father died mother lost the pattern.”
“I believe the audience would enjoy a higher grade of entertainment, because a moving picture of a war scene and the performance of a player on an accordion, which were good, received the loudest applause.”
Mrs. Boor found conditions at the National, 610 South State street, she said, disgusting in the extreme.
“A young woman described a dance in a most suggestive way. ‘What did you have on?’ her male companion asked. ‘I had on a string of beads, then a little space and another string.’ ‘You ought to leave off the two last strings,’ he replied. ‘Did you dance the seven veils dance?’ she was asked. ‘If you did you left off six and a half of the veils,’ he said.”
“Forty per cent of the audience was under 21 years, many of them young boys.”
“The theaters are not as obscene as they were. They have been improved 75 per cent over the theaters of a few years ago, but they are still demoralizing, corrupting, and a disgrace to a Christian civilization.”
the most objectionable of all,“ said Mrs. E. Pretty.
“The girls were dressed so they appeared perfectly nude. They came on the stage protecting themselves with parasols. They moved the parasols from side to side so as to expose themselves for a moment to full view. Then they sang, ‘To see a little more you must meet us at the door.’ Could there be any plainer solicitation to evil than that?”
Mrs. A. C. O'Neal, 2512 West Sixty-sixth street, expressed in the strongest terms indignation of what she saw at the Haymarket theater, 722 West Madison street.
“If there is anything worse than I saw at the Haymarket, I hope I may never see it,” she said. “There was awful profanity, and from beginning to end vile love making and sexual suggestion. The twenty girls dressed in tights ran out on the run board into the center of the audience, and stooping over to the men sang songs of invitation and suggestion. I saw only two other women in the audience besides the four women in our party.”
Many Theaters Visited.
Among the theaters visited were: the South side, Gayety, National, Gem, and Stella; north side, Casino, Hippodrome; west side, Haymarket and Star and Garter.
“To describe the chorus girls of any theater as shapely, scantily clothed, alluring to men, will displease no owner or manager,” said Mrs. Boor.
“To picture the horror or even wrath of good women at witnessing the members of their sex on exhibition like well groomed prize winners at the international stock exhibit will merely cause a smile of ill concealed approval by those interested in the box office.
“But to pass a law giving authority to close such theaters under an injunction and abatement act, by which managers and owners are held responsible for the character of the performance, will raise a storm of protest because such a law will close the show.”
Need for New Law.
“But this is what led us women to brave the disgraceful and distasteful houses of entertainment which we believe are destructive of the young life of our city. We want our legislature to know that there is a crying need for the passage of the law offering relief from the menace of the immoral show such as is provided by the senate bill 130, introduced by Senator J. J. Barbour, and a similar one introduced by Representative Allen J. Carter, which make the owners and managers liable for whatever is exhibited in the theaters they control.”
May 26, 1946 - Star and Garter Theater Sold for $110,000 Cash
The Star & Garter theater building. 815 W. Madison st., was sold by the Hyde & Behman Amusement company and the Richard Hyde estate of New York City, to Harold L. Clamage, of St. Louis, and Harold W. Huchberger, of Chicago, for $110,000 cash, thru Thomas H. Fitzgerald. The building will be air conditioned and modernized at an estimated cost of $35,000 and operated with pictures and stage shows, it was said.