Urban spelunking: Racine’s Majestic / Uptown Theater By Bobby Tanzilo - Feb 23, 2021
While all eyes in Racine are on the future of the 1928 Capitol/Park Theater, which is currently hanging precariously in the balance, a few folks are focused on the future of the old Majestic/Uptown Theater, also built in 1928, 16 blocks further east on Washington Avenue.
One of them, of course, is the current owner, Tom Paschen, who purchased the 10,400-square-foot Gothic theater in December 2019.
Paschen, who in his own words, “owns more than a handful of properties but fewer than a dozen” – including one a block east where his wife runs a doggie day care and grooming business – has been working to clean out the long-vacant theater and plans to convert it into a Viking-themed food hall with apartments above.
Pointing to a number of thriving recent business additions to the neighborhood, Paschen – who has a workshop in a building adjacent to the theater – is bullish on Uptown, about a mile south of downtown, and says that it suffers from a poor public image.
“The perception is that it’s not as nice as downtown, that it’s not as safe as other places,” he says, “but when I say perception problem, I mean just literally that. It’s actually fine. Uptown is nice, it’s safe. We don’t have big problems here.”
The theater is located at a bend in Washington Avenue that is lined for a number of blocks with vintage retail building stock that seems like prime territory for a renaissance. Squint a little and you can see it lined with restaurants, shops, galleries and brewpubs.
And, a revitalization of the Uptown Theater – if all goes according to Paschen’s plan – could provide just the spark the area needs.
The history of the Majestic / Uptown
Designed by Racine architect Wade B. Denham, the theater was built as the Majestic by German immigrant brewer and real estate investor Ernst C. Klinkert, whose name can also be seen on an adjacent part of the building that has always housed retail space and apartments above.
Along with the Capitol/Park and the Granada, the Uptown is one of three survivors of four movie palaces that opened in Racine in 1928, a golden age of theater building that came crashing down with the stock market in 1929.
The Venetian was demolished in 1977.
As was common, the 1,292-seat theater was built to accommodate both live performances provided by traveling vaudevillians and the screening of moving pictures.
The Majestic – operated by “veteran amusement man” Frank Wolcott – opened on May 2, 1928, showing “Dress Parade,” a Cecil B. DeMille co-production with William Boyd and Bessie Love, as well as an Our Gang comedy and “other features.”
“When the doors of the new Majestic in ‘Uptown—the Heart of Racine’ swing open tomorrow afternoon,” wrote the Racine Journal News on May 1, “there will be revealed one of the most beautiful of sights. Artists and artisans have for weeks worked on this most gorgeous place of amusement.
“Unqualified charm of design embellished by exquisite decorative treatment which accentuates its architectural features elevates the new Majestic from the ordinary theaters. Done in pure Gothic style with daring employment of detail … the treatment of the entrance is unusually fine. Three columns carrying Gothic arches give access to the permanent open vestibule. There is a deep ceiling in gold and bronze, curved down in an interesting way to rest upon a beading of grotesque Gothic heads. The 82-foot-long lobby is in English Gothic overspread with a delicately-hued blue ceiling into which a series of arches have been groined.”
The newspaper continued on in this effusive manner, detailing the art work, the “Granitex” pulverized granite lobby trim created by Milwaukee’s Christoffel Art Stone Co.; the large Marr and Colton 10-stop, three-manual organ built in Wausau; the 150 tons of cast stone on the exterior; and even the ticket booth – now gone – which was described as “An exquisite bit of craftsmanship is portrayed by the mahogany and marble ticket booth which commands the entrance to the Majestic, a gem of creative workmanship. possessing a quiet elegance.”
Sometime around the 1940s, according to the Wisconsin Historical Society, the facade of the theater was altered, with the theater portion covered in red brick, making it appear to be a separate building than the two retail and apartment buildings that flank it. They are, in fact, all the same structure, which you can see more easily in a pre-alteration photo.
Interestingly, once inside, the theater appears to have been snuck in between its neighbors, oozing through them and and exploding out the back into the big auditorium space.
From the street it would appear the theater frontage is far too narrow to fit such a large venue, but you enter through a long, narrow passage into the lobby, which sits behind the western part of the building, while the larger eastern section continues further back, sharing a wall with the theater. Then, the large auditorium opens up mostly behind the other wings, with a basement and sub-basement that have garage doors leading in from the alley, called Maiden Lane.
The Uptown had a relatively short run as a live performance venue and cinema, however, and 31 years after opening, it closed for good. While the retail spaces and apartments remained in use, the theater has moldered for considerably longer than it ever hosted audiences.
The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.
Area tavern owners Peg and Lou Larson bought the building around 1998 and used it to store items related to their bars – Peg & Lou’s Bar & Grill and the Brass Monkey – as well as their collections of antiques, furniture and other objects. They continued to rent out the eight apartments upstairs and to lease the two storefronts, but, says Paschen, when Lou passed away, Peg decided to sell.
“Peg is a really nice lady,” says Paschen. “She doesn’t want to be a landlord.”
Paschen says the Larsons had hoped to gather financing to rehab the theater, but nothing came of that effort.
“It quite literally was just storage for them,” Paschen says. “In the main hallway, there was a path about body-width wide all the way down. It was full to the brim with building materials, doors, windows, furniture … you name it, just all packed in here.”
Even though Paschen says the folks at the city dump know him by name now, since he’s been running load after load of junk out there from the building, he says he’s still nowhere near done with that task, and it’s plain to see he’s right.
There are multiple cars abandoned in the basements, plus stuff literally everywhere. And the place is open to the elements, and has been for decades. When we entered, the part of the stage that hadn’t caved into the backstage area below was covered in snow. The aisle into the auditorium from the lobby was a sheet of ice. The seats were already gone, save for a few here and there, when Paschen arrived on the scene, and a lot of plaster and decorative elements inside the extremely ornamental auditorium had already crashed to the floor. Vandals have left their marks and their destruction scattered around the building, too.
Looking up at the stunning mural above the proscenium – “a very Greek tragedy with the severed head and everything,” Paschen observes, “and from the best I can tell, if you look at the globe up there, the center point of the globe looks to be about where Racine is” – and all of the decoration that either remains in situ or in pieces on the ground, this was a glorious movie palace.
But it’s also obvious that there’s little hope of it ever being that again.
“If you look at it you can see what it was,” echoes Paschen. “With imagination and probably $20 million, it could be that again.”
But considering Racine hasn’t had an operating movie theater since 2009, there’s no way any theater could recoup that kind of investment anymore.
“My plan is to convert this into a food hall and apartments,” he says as we stand on the stage, gazing out into the darkness as vaudevillians once did (though they were blinded by the footlights, which now run in an unlit row along the front of the stage). “You’ll enter from either the street or the parking lot. You’ll have a lobby which will go up to the apartments and given the height, I can get anywhere between two and three levels of apartments. It’s all going to come down to talking with the engineers when I get around to it.
“This (main) level will be a food hall. A handful of restaurants, a big communal dining area, exit onto the parking lot. Everybody can have something different (to eat); it’ll be a nice experience.”
The basement and sub-basement already have vehicle access and are perfect for providing underground parking for tenants and perhaps customers. He’s also eyeing a shared commercial kitchen down there that could be rented to food trucks, which could enter the basement spaces for loading, storage, etc.
Paschen says that even if the interior has decayed in the 60-plus years since the theater ceased operation, the bones of the building are solid. “It’s all this internal structure that sort of crumbles,” he says. “And that’s what would all go away. As beautiful as it was it just can’t be saved.”
But, he says, he will work with architectural salvage experts who can help determine which bits of original decoration and other elements can be saved and reused in the project. “I want to keep it the soul of the building,” he says.
Gazing around at everything that still needs to happen, Paschen estimates the project will take 3-5 years to complete. “I have to get all of this down to, ‘what do I have, what needs to get out of here and what will I keep’,” he says. “Then I can go into the first phase, which is building the skeleton (for the upper floors).”
It’s on that skeleton that he hopes to hang not only the “soul of the building,” but its future, too.
How a Single-Screen Theater on a Remote North Carolina Island Keeps Movie Magic Alive
Classic films, clever owners, and a leg up from Andy Griffith have kept the lights on at Manteo’s Pioneer Theater for 108 years
By Andrea Cooper
March 11, 2026
The Pioneer Theater in Manteo, North Carolina.
In the historic photo, a local actor stands on a ladder outside the Pioneer Theater in Manteo, North Carolina. He smiles and waves at the camera. His other hand rests on the marquee boasting his name: ANDY GRIFFITH. The burgeoning star was there to promote the East Coast premiere of his 1957 film debut, A Face in the Crowd.
Visitors can see the ladder in the theater’s lobby today, an artifact of the self-proclaimed “oldest independent, family-owned theater in the country.” The Outer Banks landmark on Roanoke Island, first built in 1918, has survived the advent of “talking pictures,” fires, world wars, and a pandemic. “We raised a lot of generations,” says former owner Buddy Creef, whose great-grandfather founded the theater. “As my dad always said, we were the cheapest two-hour babysitter in town.”
The story goes that Buddy’s great-grandfather, boat builder George Washington Creef Jr., stopped by a nickelodeon theater on a trip up north and saw a couple of short films. He came home with projector equipment and began showing movies to friends at the boat shop. As word spread, he thought, “I can probably start charging people.”
By the 1930s, “talkies,” or movies with sound, were growing in popularity. Herbert Creef Sr., Buddy’s grandfather, knew the theater didn’t have space for the modern technology it needed, so he constructed a new Pioneer Theater downtown. What some might view as a risky business decision, given the greater economic tumult, Buddy sees as a masterstroke. “The movie industry was one of the few that thrived during the Depression and through World War II,” he says.
It didn’t hurt that the theater was the first place in Manteo with air conditioning, according to Michael Basnight, who co-owns the Pioneer today with his sister, Jamie Hatchell. (In the late 1940s, air conditioning replaced “swamp coolers,” which chilled air through evaporated water.) The building expanded its utility and appeal in the 1950s by adding a stage for beauty pageants, historic plays, and sock hops.
Manteo’s children spent their weekends at the community mainstay through the 1960s and 1970s under the watchful eye of Buddy Creef’s dad. “Everybody knew H.A. Creef,” Hatchell remembers. “The parents knew the kids were safe. He was not going to let them leave.”
Showing flicks like Jaws and Star Wars, the Pioneer provided date night for most of Manteo’s teens. “They would come here to get away from their parents,” Buddy recalls. With his own father on site nearly every night and his mom there often, being at the Pioneer for Buddy “was like having a couple of friends over and hanging out in the living room with my parents.” He found other places for dates.
Along with many downtown buildings, the theater got an English Tudor makeover in the early 1970s when the town attempted to entice Queen Elizabeth to Manteo for a celebration of the first colony. Liz didn’t show, but she sent her people. A fire later that decade—one of several to threaten the theater over the years—burned the neighboring hardware store. The Creef family mopped the water in the theater, aired out the smoke, and opened the Pioneer that night.
Covid-19 could have been the Pioneer’s undoing. When the town allowed takeout restaurant sales, Buddy Creef saw his chance. He offered drive-up concessions of candy, soda, and popcorn from the 1950s popcorn machine outside the theater. The first night, Manteo’s town manager, county health inspector, and chief of police arrived together. Buddy began explaining why he thought the sales were allowed. “We’re here to get popcorn,” they said.
Basnight and Hatchell bought the theater in 2023, restored the original blond brick, and revamped its offerings. Studios require first-run movies to be shown for weeks, a formula that doesn’t suit Pioneer’s single screen. “Everybody here will have seen it in a weekend,” Hatchell explains. Instead, the theater screens classic and popular films from the past. (Recent showings include An American in Paris, Scarface, and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.) It also hosts concerts with Grammy-winning musicians and special events like an OBX Got Talent competition and a 1929-style speakeasy for Valentine’s Day.
One experience is reserved for the Pioneer’s performers. They’re invited to get their photo taken on the ladder outside the theater as they point to their name on the marquee.
‘Blackboard Jungle’ Breaks Out ‘For Real’
(7/26/55)
- The make-believe of a Hollywood movie turned into cold realism last night in a Chicago theater.
Five squad cars were sent to the Southtown Theater to help quell a teenage battle which broke out during the showing of “Blackboard Jungle,” a movie about juvenile violence.
An 18-year-old usher, Allen Lucas, was taken to St. Bernard’s Hospital with a possible concussion.
Police held five of the youths who participated in the fight. Arrested were 17-year-olds Arthur Ross, Eddie Chaffin, Ernest McCollough, and Lee Cosby of Dixmoor.
“Captain Video and His Video Rangers” aired live on The DuMont Television Network from the Ambassador Theatre on Saturday mornings as “The Secret files of Captain Video”.
Feb 01, 1961: ROSSEN TAKES OVER ASHLAND AVE. THEATER
John A. Rossen, chairman of the Chicago chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba committee, is president of a corporation operating the American theater at 8 N. Ashland, it was disclosed this week.
Rossen is the former Communist party organizer who once operated the Cinema Annex theater near Kedzie and Madison, which specialized in the showing of Russian films, many criticized as being Red propaganda.
Rossen, who was a columnist for the Daily Worker, Russian propaganda newspaper, also publishes the Maverick, regarded as a pro-Communist newspaper.
Rossen is listed as president of Empresas Latinas Inc., chartered April 12, 1960, to show Latin and Spanish films at the American theater. Julio Partillo is secretary-treasurer and Fred Rodrigues is manager. Both were associated with Rossen at the Senate theater after he left the Cinema Annex.
(Aug. 02, 1936)
USE GLASS BRICK IN REMODELING KARLOV THEATER
First use of glass brick in Chicago theater architecture will be at the Karlov theater, 4048 Armitage avenue, according to Sobel & Drielsma, architects, whose plans are being used in a modernization program. According to Charles and Henry Stern, operators of the Karlov, as well as the Cinema and Austin theaters, approximately $25,000 will be spent in remodeling the former house.
Additional space has been leased adjoining the theater for use as rest rooms and lounge. A new façade of modern materials is being built and new indirect lighting, new decora-tions, and a new ventilating system are contemplated. The Karlov seats 900.
The new $35,000 Milltown Theatre opened on August 18, 1946 by Marine Corps veteran Tony Paulson, who was currently operating a theatre in nearby Amery.
Where weeds now lace the broken ground
And traffic hums a hollow sound,
There stood a place with a glowing face —
A neighborhood theatre, warm with grace.
Its marquee once in amber shone,
With hand-set letters proudly shown,
Announcing dreams for all to see:
Laughter, tears, and cartoon sprees.
Saturdays, kids, with nickels tight,
Watched their heroes sing and fight -
As couples slipped into the dark
Where whispered hopes would softly spark.
The lobby smelled of buttered corn,
Of rain-damp coats on evenings worn,
And laughter rose as reels would spin,
As strangers met and felt like kin.
The usher’s beam, a guiding star, Led latecomers from near and far, While flickering frames danced black and white Across a screen that ruled the night.
Now silence sits where stories played,
No ticket torn, no debts unpaid,
Just wind that sighs through vacant space
Where time has left a gentle trace.
But if you stand there just past dusk,
When daylight fades to shadows hushed,
You might still hear, across the air,
A ghost of laughter lingering there.
BOX OFFICE, April 15, 1950: “Rollin K. Stonebrook, operator of the North Center theater in Chicago, has come up with a solution to the problem which guarantees to keep everybody happy.
He has reserved 200 seats in his theater for that 10 per cent of the audience who haven’t experienced the thrills of really enjoying the refreshment.
The remaining 90 per cent of the audience who are confirmed popcorn chewers have their selection of seats in all other parts of the house.”
The City has just approved all the requirements to begin work, set to begin next month and be completed by the end of 2027. A $25 million U.S. Housing and Urban Development Section 108 Loan was applied for on behalf of developer Baum Revision, to be repaid by the developer over a 20-year period. The project is estimated to cost $88 million and will include 16 residential units and space for arts groups and nonprofits.
(Excerpted from the CHICAGO READER, March 30, 2007, Section One, P.4 “A Hundred Furnished Rooms, an architectural history of Uptown” by Lynn Becker) - The challenges facing historic Uptown may best be represented, however, in its great namesake monument, the Uptown Theatre, dating from 1925. Constructed at a cost of $4 million in a deliriously eclectic style that a contemporary reporter called “Spanish Mexican Renaissance,” it covers 46,000 square feet (most of a city block), stands eight stories high, and seats 4,300. By the end of its first decade, nearly 20 million people had passed through the 213-foot-long lobby, which is terminated by a curving double stair and lined with twin colonnades rising to a 92-foot-high ceiling. As detailed in The Chicago Movie Palaces of Balaban and Katz by David Balaban, namesake grand-son of the Uptown’s manager, the theater occupied a rare moment of shared democracy, where anyone with a quarter or 50 cents could spend a couple hours steeped in the sort of luxury usually reserved for the ultrarich, attended to by a small army arrayed in at least eight different styles of uniforms, designating every station from floor manager to page boy to footman. So as not to disturb the patrons, ushers had to master a complex set of hand signals to manage the huge crowds.
By the 1960s, of course, we had begun opting for a no-frills, self-service, lowest-price world. Blitzed by free TV, the great movie palaces crashed into dust. The Uptown held on, finally closing for good in 1981. The heat was turned off soon after, and in the dead of winter the water pipes froze and burst, causing massive damage. It’s gone downhill ever since. The theater has passed through multiple owners, including convicted slumlord Lou Wolf, who once owned the Goldblatt’s block, and is currently in receivership. Recently the city picked up the tab for $500,000 in emergency repairs, removing some large, unstable chunks of terra-cotta before they simply fell to the street. Despite the ongoing efforts of activists committed to saving this official Chicago landmark, the Uptown remains boarded up and forlorn. Just before the February election, the 48th Ward alderman Mary Ann Smith told Windy City Times that a “premier developer” had signed a contract to restore the theater but declined to divulge the company’s name.
(May 27, 1955) El Paso Children Escape Unhurt In Theater Fire
Three hundred and fifty grade school children were led to safety at 11:30 a. m. Thursday when fire broke out in the projection booth of the El Paso Theater. The children were attending a free show at the theater as part of their end of the school year activities.
Speedy Exit
Don Rist, co-manager of the theater, saw smoke coming from the projector and sped downstairs to warn H. B. Tate, superintendent of schools.
Edward Heiken, principal of the Jefferson Park School in El Paso, gave orders for the 12 teachers
present to lead their pupils out. Most of the youngsters were on the sidewalk before they knew what had happened. The El Paso Fire Department quickly extinguished the blaze.
Projector Damaged
Bill Fever, who was operating the projector, said the film broke and snapped against a carbon arc.
One reel of the film was destroyed and the lens and the projector were damaged. In addition to the El Paso pupils, classes were present from the Secor and Spring Hill schools. A show for another group of children, scheduled for Thursday afternoon, has been cancelled.
Flashback - Seeing the great potential at the Orpheum
The Orpheum Theatre has stood at the heart of downtown Kenosha for more than a century. In 1922, Kenosha would gain a true “movie palace” that reflected both civic ambition and cultural pride. That ambition was largely driven by brothers Edward and Fred Dayton, prominent local businessmen. After Edward returned from World War I, he believed Kenosha needed major institutions - a luxury hotel and a world-class theater - to compete with Milwaukee and Chicago.
Though their hotel plans initially stalled, the Daytons re-entered the theater business and, with partners, built the Orpheum Theatre at a cost of $400.000. It opened on March 14, 1922, dazzling audiences with a lavish French Renaissance interior that contrasted sharply with its modest exterior; gold accents, velvet drapes, silk wallpaper, and a $20,000 Barton organ made the Orpheum Kenosha’s first true movie palace.
From the start, the Orpheum positioned itself as both a cultural and moral force. Management promised family-friendly programming and emphasized modern ventilation systems in the wake of the recent Spanish Flu pandemic. The opening night featured the U.S.. debut of “Smiling Through”, and the theater soon hosted silent films, vaudeville, roadshows, and later sound pictures.
By 1924, the Orpheum building was described as “a veritable city in itself, housing shops, offices, studios, and services alongside the theater.” Ownership and management shifted repeatedly over the decades. Fox Theaters briefly renamed it the Lake Theatre, but the Orpheum name returned in 1933 with a lavish gala complete with celebrity impersonators.
A flashback to the glory days of the Orpheum Theater Is teased in the 1999 film “The Great Ride”
Through the 1940s and 1950s, the Orpheum adapted to changing tastes, hosting talent competitions, special promotions, celebrity appearances, and community events even as television began drawing audiences away. Creative gimmicks, from free kitchen utensils to midnight “Voodoo Parties,” were used to keep seats filled.
By the 1960s, downtown Kenosha faced broader challenges. Traffic changes, youth culture, and suburban shopping centers threatened traditional businesses. Longtime manager Wallace Konrad became a vocal advocate for downtown vitality before retiring in 1967.
Despite successful runs like “The Sound of Music”, the theater increasingly struggled. Crime incidents, aging infrastructure, and shifts toward adult programming marked the late 1960s and early 1970s. By 1975, after United Artists stepped away and owner Bernie Chulew purchased the building, the Orpheum closed as a movie theater.
New owners continued to see potential in the Orpheum. Developers rehabilitated store fronts and offices, while community figures kept its spirit alive through art shows and events. In 1988, a brief but legendary rebirth as a concert venue brought punk. metal, and alternative acts including the Smashing Pumpkins to its stage, cementing the Orpheum’s place in local music lore.
The building endured years of uncertainty and narrowly escaped demolition in the early 1990s thanks to preservationists like Lou Rugani and Merike Phillips. Declared a local landmark in 1993, the Orpheum was renovated and triumphantly reopened in 1996 as a budget cinema, though that revival was short-lived, ending in closure by 2000.
Though the theater remains dark today, its story mirrors Kenosha Itself: cycles of ambition, decline, reinvention, and enduring hope that the grand old theater will once again shine.
(Go Downtown Kenosha Magazine; Spring, 2026)
The Badger Theater building, closed, with its equipment, by 421 Main St., has been sold to Warner Bros. theaters for $50, the Bloch Furniture Co. No sale price was announced. The theater chain bought the property from the Badger Improvement Co. after operating the movie house under lease for 14 years.
For nearly a half century the building has presented offerings of the vaudeville circuit and, more recently, the movies. A landmark in Racine’s amusement history, it is one of the oldest theaters in the city.
Theater Adjoins Blochs
The building adjoins the furniture store property. Max Grust, general manager of the furniture store said there were no immediate plans to use the building as part of the store, but that the auditorium space which fronts on Lake Ave. would probably be converted into a warehouse. A 10 foot wide frontage on Main St. was the entrance and lobby of the theater.
In 1947 the building was purchased, with its equipment, for $50,000 to $55,000, according to revenue stamps attached to the deed.
Closed Since June
Originally known as the Bijou, the theater was among the first downtown vaudeville houses in Racine. It was later renamed the State and then the Badger. For many years it was operated as a movie house by the late Owen McKivett. At one time it was owned by the Fox Midwesco Theater interests.
Warner Bros. Theaters closed the building last June. It was never reopened. It is the second downtown theater to be closed, and the first which will be converted to other uses.
Announcement was made Friday of the sale of the Sheridan theatre, Seventeenth street and Sheridan road, North Chicago, to Nathan and Sylvan Slepyan of Waukegan. cash consideration was $7,500.
John Dromey, former owner of the theater, who is in charge of all bookings for Publix theater houses in Illinois and Indiana, will now devote all of his time to this branch of work. Dromey managed the North Chicago playhouse for the past several years, but his connection with the Publix company necessitated full time participation in arranging bookings for the theaters in the two states.
Sylvan Slepyan, who will manage the Sheridan theater, has been connected with the Barden department store in Kenosha for the past year and a half. Nathan Slepyan who is manager of the La Villa theater in Libertyville will continue to act in that capacity. Both boys have been residents of Waukegan for the past 10 years. (January 17, 1930)
Stanley Przlomski is the man everybody boos when the picture at the movie theater turns into a shirring blur right at the time the killer is crawling through the bedroom window with a knife towards the sleeping heroine.
Przlomski, 78, 6211 40th Ave., is a movie projectionist and he’s been at it at the Lake Theater in downtown Kenosha since 1963, and, before that, at the old Kenosha Theater next to the Dayton Hotel from 1927.
“The old Kenosha Theater is brick warehouse now,” he said. “I was the only man who was there at its opening performance in 1927 and its closing show in 1963.”
But Przlomski’s been around a movie projector longer than since 1927. He got his start in 1907 at his birthplace town of Menominee, Mich, with a 1,000-foot reel that unwound into a large metal drum below the projector.
Recalls Nickel Shows
In his youthful heyday it cost a nickel to see the 10-minute, thousand-foot reel. “That’s why they called it a nickel show,” he said.
Przylomski says there’s a lot of junk filling up the eyeballs today. He feels he’s a good judge of pictures because he’s seen a lot of junk in his day. In former days it may have been a sentimental epic with Mickey Rooney gushing over the girls. Today Przlomski says hunks of flesh do most of the contributing to the junkpile.
He won’t have to sit up in his booth looking at anything he doesn’t like anymore. Last Saturday was his last day in the booth. From now on he’ll be down with the paying customers. Maybe he’ll be there, too, when the blur wakes everybody up and the stomping begins.
Przlomski says there’s more to running a reel machine than just keeping the picture in focus.
“We keep an eye on the screen to be sure it’s in focus but we’ve got a lot of other duties to perform, too. We’ve got so many that hardly ever can we keep up with the story line,” he said. Some people pay $1.50 to sit in a soft seat and still can’t follow it. “The public thinks we just sit up there and read newspapers, I suppose,” he said.
Not A Soft Job
Even when he got his start, there was a lot more to being a projectionist than just sitting back, chewing popcorn and watching the neckers in the balcony.
In the early days when the 1,000-foot reel all uncoiled in the metal drum, Przlomski had to entertain the nickel customers while he rewound the first reel and prepared to run a second 1,000-foot segment. They really got their money’s worth in those days. He entertained them with illustrated songs on a stereopticon slide.
In a few years some genius came up with the automatic windup which meant Przlomski wouldn’t have to dig in his tub and rewind by hand the unravelled mess. “I thought the takeup would be the last word in projection,” he recalled.
The last word in film fare in that exciting era was the travelogue and the western. Prior to the 1920s the two reelers appeared. With the two-reeler, a story could be told because now there was 5,000 feet of film for a director to play with.
Remembers Bronco Bill
One of Przlomski’s two-reeler favorites was Bronco Billy Anderson. “Believe me that was a long time ago,” he said. D. W. Griffiths, with his “Birth of A Nation” classic, came along with the live orchestra, adding maturity and dimension to films. Sound in those days was provided by an orchestra in a pit and a half dozen sound men behind the transparent screen. When Bronco Billy was about to shoot on screen, a man would stand behind the screen and pull the trigger on a gun loaded with blanks. The shot would come at the same time Bronco Billy was picking the crook off his horse. It was a scenic trick. too. When the blank was fired there was a flash and it looked just like Bronco Billy’s pistol was spitting fire.
In 1919, after his World War I military service, Stan was in Kenosha looking for a job. Theater owners said they had none and back he went to Menominee. The day after he got home he got a call to get back to Kenosha. In 1927 he moved to the Kenosha Theater where he spent his best days. “We had vaudeville and film, an hour of vaudeville and an hour or an hour and half of film. There were five shows a day Saturdays, Sundays and holidays. The rest of the week there were only three, a matinee and two at night. You could sit there all day for a buck if you wanted. We had all the outstanding acts in vaudeville at the time. When I wasn’t running a film I would run the spotlight for the acts.”
Two men ran the spotlights and two the projectors. “We had two on the machines in the booth, more for safety’s sake than anything else. It was highly inflammable nitrate film and if it went, it would go up like gunpowder. When acetate tape came in one man could run the show. Acetate came in the 1950s.
Old Time Favorites
The best Przlomski saw on nitrate were John Barrymore, Charlie Chaplin, Francis X. Bushman and Beverly Bayne. If they weren’t his favorites, he still remembers Tom Mix, Hoot Gibson, William S. Hart and Blanche Sweet.
One of his favorite films was “Neptune’s Daughter” with Annette Kelleman, and a memorable series was “Million Dollar Mystery.” In the light of today’s talent, “Neptune’s Daughter” and the “Million Dollar Mystery” have a good chance at a comeback.
Przlomski says there’s a future for films but says it’s not in the bedroom. Anyway, he’s not too concerned about movies' future. He’s got his own retirement future to consider.
Some of that future is going to have Przlomski sitting in his chair late at night in front of his TV set. “Like everybody else, I’ll watch the old ones myself. It’ll be fun. I’ll get to pick out the characters I put on the screen.”
The City Council’s Finance Committee has again agreed to support a $25.2 million HUD federal loan backed by community development block grants.
Jeff Cohen, Deputy Planning and Development Commissioner said the developers couldn’t get a conventional loan because of the “risk perception” that COVID created for live entertainment venues. Also, AEG Presents, the entertainment partner, was “unfortunately being considered as a startup because it is a new entity operating in the city” even though its parent company has “been around for a long time and is the second-largest entertainment group right behind LiveNation and Ticketmaster,” Cohen said, but added “It’s worth the risk because we have high confidence in both the development team and the underlying operator to be able to perform their obligations. If we didn’t believe the commercial tenant AEG had sufficient capital or wasn’t able to perform, even if their venue doesn’t, we wouldn’t necessarily consider this,” he told the Sun-Times, and urged movement soon. “Since it’s been sitting vacant and unused, it will continue to deteriorate if we can’t move forward… This is another attempt to help move this project forward to avoid any negative outcomes in the future,” he said. Ald. Daniel La Spata (1st) said “We are at the last opportunity to make this happen."
New $45,000 Northern Lakes Building Now Completed (April 9, 1927)
(Special to the Telegram.)
The new Northern Lakes building at Phelps, in which is located the Northern Lakes theater, is completed at a cost of approximately $45,000. Few towns in Wisconsin the size of Phelps can boast of such a splendid structure. The theater has a seating capacity of 350 and was almost entirely furnished through the courtesy of Balaban & Katz Theater corporation of Chicago. The building also houses the postoffice, which has been newly equipped.
(January 5, 1959) Modern Super Foodland Replacing Theater At Edgerton Next Monday
The curtain is down for the last time for Edgerton’s Charve Theatre, of which the town was very proud and went to almost limitless ends to keep in operation, but in its place is a brand new Super Foodland. It opens Monday, June 22, under the management of Bob Meyer, an Edgerton man who is realizing his dream of more than a year of giving his home town a place just as bright a spot in food as the theatre was in entertainment.
Conversion to a food market has been complete. The inclined floor and stage have been torn away and 77 loads of fill dirt, with equal gravel, were dumped to make a level floor of more than 3,000 square feet of spotless tile. The air conditioning now comes from wall ducts instead of the ceiling to keep the direct drafts away from the fresh vegetables and foods.
Two hundred feet of tubular lights inside and the neon lights in the marquee make it a bright spot in an already modernly lighted small town. On the big marquee in front will be posted the latest in foods instead of motion pictures. In the lobby is the nickel riding prancing horse for the kids. There will be a popcorn machine like in the theatre. The windows that had the colorful posters of shows to come will show the latest foods to satisfy the gourmet appetite. The only pictures now will be the large murals of farm scenes on the walls, as Edgerton is in the heart of a rich farm country.
Modern pastel colors of ivory, white and blue with 90 feet of gondola counters, large wall shelves and large freezer counters for service, self service meats, dairy goods, vegetables, frozen foods, and what not will tempt the house wives to fill those big bags at the checking counter. The large parking area, north of the theatre, will not come amiss. Hours will be from 9 to 9 on week days only. Five full time attendants will be of in spotless uniforms. The rest rooms are all repainted and brightened.
The Charve Theatre was opened in 1945 with a grand premiere of flood lights, band music and festivities that filled the house twice on a cold evening, with the temperature at zero. It was the latest in theatre design with push back seats, interior neon lighting, modern projection room and screen. In spite of the townspeople’s efforts in the last years, even to buying tickets for a year in advance, it could not combat T.V. and the slow death of the small town movie houses. Edgerton folks feel that they are again winning a battle of replacing a darkened theatre with a bright new super market.
Urban spelunking: Racine’s Majestic / Uptown Theater By Bobby Tanzilo - Feb 23, 2021
While all eyes in Racine are on the future of the 1928 Capitol/Park Theater, which is currently hanging precariously in the balance, a few folks are focused on the future of the old Majestic/Uptown Theater, also built in 1928, 16 blocks further east on Washington Avenue. One of them, of course, is the current owner, Tom Paschen, who purchased the 10,400-square-foot Gothic theater in December 2019.
Paschen, who in his own words, “owns more than a handful of properties but fewer than a dozen” – including one a block east where his wife runs a doggie day care and grooming business – has been working to clean out the long-vacant theater and plans to convert it into a Viking-themed food hall with apartments above.
Pointing to a number of thriving recent business additions to the neighborhood, Paschen – who has a workshop in a building adjacent to the theater – is bullish on Uptown, about a mile south of downtown, and says that it suffers from a poor public image.
“The perception is that it’s not as nice as downtown, that it’s not as safe as other places,” he says, “but when I say perception problem, I mean just literally that. It’s actually fine. Uptown is nice, it’s safe. We don’t have big problems here.”
The theater is located at a bend in Washington Avenue that is lined for a number of blocks with vintage retail building stock that seems like prime territory for a renaissance. Squint a little and you can see it lined with restaurants, shops, galleries and brewpubs.
And, a revitalization of the Uptown Theater – if all goes according to Paschen’s plan – could provide just the spark the area needs.
The history of the Majestic / Uptown
Designed by Racine architect Wade B. Denham, the theater was built as the Majestic by German immigrant brewer and real estate investor Ernst C. Klinkert, whose name can also be seen on an adjacent part of the building that has always housed retail space and apartments above.
Along with the Capitol/Park and the Granada, the Uptown is one of three survivors of four movie palaces that opened in Racine in 1928, a golden age of theater building that came crashing down with the stock market in 1929. The Venetian was demolished in 1977.
As was common, the 1,292-seat theater was built to accommodate both live performances provided by traveling vaudevillians and the screening of moving pictures.
The Majestic – operated by “veteran amusement man” Frank Wolcott – opened on May 2, 1928, showing “Dress Parade,” a Cecil B. DeMille co-production with William Boyd and Bessie Love, as well as an Our Gang comedy and “other features.”
“When the doors of the new Majestic in ‘Uptown—the Heart of Racine’ swing open tomorrow afternoon,” wrote the Racine Journal News on May 1, “there will be revealed one of the most beautiful of sights. Artists and artisans have for weeks worked on this most gorgeous place of amusement.
“Unqualified charm of design embellished by exquisite decorative treatment which accentuates its architectural features elevates the new Majestic from the ordinary theaters. Done in pure Gothic style with daring employment of detail … the treatment of the entrance is unusually fine. Three columns carrying Gothic arches give access to the permanent open vestibule. There is a deep ceiling in gold and bronze, curved down in an interesting way to rest upon a beading of grotesque Gothic heads. The 82-foot-long lobby is in English Gothic overspread with a delicately-hued blue ceiling into which a series of arches have been groined.”
The newspaper continued on in this effusive manner, detailing the art work, the “Granitex” pulverized granite lobby trim created by Milwaukee’s Christoffel Art Stone Co.; the large Marr and Colton 10-stop, three-manual organ built in Wausau; the 150 tons of cast stone on the exterior; and even the ticket booth – now gone – which was described as “An exquisite bit of craftsmanship is portrayed by the mahogany and marble ticket booth which commands the entrance to the Majestic, a gem of creative workmanship. possessing a quiet elegance.”
Sometime around the 1940s, according to the Wisconsin Historical Society, the facade of the theater was altered, with the theater portion covered in red brick, making it appear to be a separate building than the two retail and apartment buildings that flank it. They are, in fact, all the same structure, which you can see more easily in a pre-alteration photo.
Interestingly, once inside, the theater appears to have been snuck in between its neighbors, oozing through them and and exploding out the back into the big auditorium space.
From the street it would appear the theater frontage is far too narrow to fit such a large venue, but you enter through a long, narrow passage into the lobby, which sits behind the western part of the building, while the larger eastern section continues further back, sharing a wall with the theater. Then, the large auditorium opens up mostly behind the other wings, with a basement and sub-basement that have garage doors leading in from the alley, called Maiden Lane.
The Uptown had a relatively short run as a live performance venue and cinema, however, and 31 years after opening, it closed for good. While the retail spaces and apartments remained in use, the theater has moldered for considerably longer than it ever hosted audiences.
The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.
Area tavern owners Peg and Lou Larson bought the building around 1998 and used it to store items related to their bars – Peg & Lou’s Bar & Grill and the Brass Monkey – as well as their collections of antiques, furniture and other objects. They continued to rent out the eight apartments upstairs and to lease the two storefronts, but, says Paschen, when Lou passed away, Peg decided to sell.
“Peg is a really nice lady,” says Paschen. “She doesn’t want to be a landlord.”
Paschen says the Larsons had hoped to gather financing to rehab the theater, but nothing came of that effort.
“It quite literally was just storage for them,” Paschen says. “In the main hallway, there was a path about body-width wide all the way down. It was full to the brim with building materials, doors, windows, furniture … you name it, just all packed in here.”
Even though Paschen says the folks at the city dump know him by name now, since he’s been running load after load of junk out there from the building, he says he’s still nowhere near done with that task, and it’s plain to see he’s right.
There are multiple cars abandoned in the basements, plus stuff literally everywhere. And the place is open to the elements, and has been for decades. When we entered, the part of the stage that hadn’t caved into the backstage area below was covered in snow. The aisle into the auditorium from the lobby was a sheet of ice. The seats were already gone, save for a few here and there, when Paschen arrived on the scene, and a lot of plaster and decorative elements inside the extremely ornamental auditorium had already crashed to the floor. Vandals have left their marks and their destruction scattered around the building, too.
Looking up at the stunning mural above the proscenium – “a very Greek tragedy with the severed head and everything,” Paschen observes, “and from the best I can tell, if you look at the globe up there, the center point of the globe looks to be about where Racine is” – and all of the decoration that either remains in situ or in pieces on the ground, this was a glorious movie palace.
But it’s also obvious that there’s little hope of it ever being that again.
“If you look at it you can see what it was,” echoes Paschen. “With imagination and probably $20 million, it could be that again.”
But considering Racine hasn’t had an operating movie theater since 2009, there’s no way any theater could recoup that kind of investment anymore.
“My plan is to convert this into a food hall and apartments,” he says as we stand on the stage, gazing out into the darkness as vaudevillians once did (though they were blinded by the footlights, which now run in an unlit row along the front of the stage). “You’ll enter from either the street or the parking lot. You’ll have a lobby which will go up to the apartments and given the height, I can get anywhere between two and three levels of apartments. It’s all going to come down to talking with the engineers when I get around to it.
“This (main) level will be a food hall. A handful of restaurants, a big communal dining area, exit onto the parking lot. Everybody can have something different (to eat); it’ll be a nice experience.”
The basement and sub-basement already have vehicle access and are perfect for providing underground parking for tenants and perhaps customers. He’s also eyeing a shared commercial kitchen down there that could be rented to food trucks, which could enter the basement spaces for loading, storage, etc.
Paschen says that even if the interior has decayed in the 60-plus years since the theater ceased operation, the bones of the building are solid. “It’s all this internal structure that sort of crumbles,” he says. “And that’s what would all go away. As beautiful as it was it just can’t be saved.”
But, he says, he will work with architectural salvage experts who can help determine which bits of original decoration and other elements can be saved and reused in the project. “I want to keep it the soul of the building,” he says.
Gazing around at everything that still needs to happen, Paschen estimates the project will take 3-5 years to complete. “I have to get all of this down to, ‘what do I have, what needs to get out of here and what will I keep’,” he says. “Then I can go into the first phase, which is building the skeleton (for the upper floors).”
It’s on that skeleton that he hopes to hang not only the “soul of the building,” but its future, too.
How a Single-Screen Theater on a Remote North Carolina Island Keeps Movie Magic Alive
Classic films, clever owners, and a leg up from Andy Griffith have kept the lights on at Manteo’s Pioneer Theater for 108 years
By Andrea Cooper
March 11, 2026
The Pioneer Theater in Manteo, North Carolina.
In the historic photo, a local actor stands on a ladder outside the Pioneer Theater in Manteo, North Carolina. He smiles and waves at the camera. His other hand rests on the marquee boasting his name: ANDY GRIFFITH. The burgeoning star was there to promote the East Coast premiere of his 1957 film debut, A Face in the Crowd.
Visitors can see the ladder in the theater’s lobby today, an artifact of the self-proclaimed “oldest independent, family-owned theater in the country.” The Outer Banks landmark on Roanoke Island, first built in 1918, has survived the advent of “talking pictures,” fires, world wars, and a pandemic. “We raised a lot of generations,” says former owner Buddy Creef, whose great-grandfather founded the theater. “As my dad always said, we were the cheapest two-hour babysitter in town.”
The story goes that Buddy’s great-grandfather, boat builder George Washington Creef Jr., stopped by a nickelodeon theater on a trip up north and saw a couple of short films. He came home with projector equipment and began showing movies to friends at the boat shop. As word spread, he thought, “I can probably start charging people.”
By the 1930s, “talkies,” or movies with sound, were growing in popularity. Herbert Creef Sr., Buddy’s grandfather, knew the theater didn’t have space for the modern technology it needed, so he constructed a new Pioneer Theater downtown. What some might view as a risky business decision, given the greater economic tumult, Buddy sees as a masterstroke. “The movie industry was one of the few that thrived during the Depression and through World War II,” he says.
It didn’t hurt that the theater was the first place in Manteo with air conditioning, according to Michael Basnight, who co-owns the Pioneer today with his sister, Jamie Hatchell. (In the late 1940s, air conditioning replaced “swamp coolers,” which chilled air through evaporated water.) The building expanded its utility and appeal in the 1950s by adding a stage for beauty pageants, historic plays, and sock hops.
Manteo’s children spent their weekends at the community mainstay through the 1960s and 1970s under the watchful eye of Buddy Creef’s dad. “Everybody knew H.A. Creef,” Hatchell remembers. “The parents knew the kids were safe. He was not going to let them leave.”
Showing flicks like Jaws and Star Wars, the Pioneer provided date night for most of Manteo’s teens. “They would come here to get away from their parents,” Buddy recalls. With his own father on site nearly every night and his mom there often, being at the Pioneer for Buddy “was like having a couple of friends over and hanging out in the living room with my parents.” He found other places for dates.
Along with many downtown buildings, the theater got an English Tudor makeover in the early 1970s when the town attempted to entice Queen Elizabeth to Manteo for a celebration of the first colony. Liz didn’t show, but she sent her people. A fire later that decade—one of several to threaten the theater over the years—burned the neighboring hardware store. The Creef family mopped the water in the theater, aired out the smoke, and opened the Pioneer that night.
Covid-19 could have been the Pioneer’s undoing. When the town allowed takeout restaurant sales, Buddy Creef saw his chance. He offered drive-up concessions of candy, soda, and popcorn from the 1950s popcorn machine outside the theater. The first night, Manteo’s town manager, county health inspector, and chief of police arrived together. Buddy began explaining why he thought the sales were allowed. “We’re here to get popcorn,” they said.
Basnight and Hatchell bought the theater in 2023, restored the original blond brick, and revamped its offerings. Studios require first-run movies to be shown for weeks, a formula that doesn’t suit Pioneer’s single screen. “Everybody here will have seen it in a weekend,” Hatchell explains. Instead, the theater screens classic and popular films from the past. (Recent showings include An American in Paris, Scarface, and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.) It also hosts concerts with Grammy-winning musicians and special events like an OBX Got Talent competition and a 1929-style speakeasy for Valentine’s Day.
One experience is reserved for the Pioneer’s performers. They’re invited to get their photo taken on the ladder outside the theater as they point to their name on the marquee.
‘Blackboard Jungle’ Breaks Out ‘For Real’ (7/26/55) - The make-believe of a Hollywood movie turned into cold realism last night in a Chicago theater.
Five squad cars were sent to the Southtown Theater to help quell a teenage battle which broke out during the showing of “Blackboard Jungle,” a movie about juvenile violence.
An 18-year-old usher, Allen Lucas, was taken to St. Bernard’s Hospital with a possible concussion.
Police held five of the youths who participated in the fight. Arrested were 17-year-olds Arthur Ross, Eddie Chaffin, Ernest McCollough, and Lee Cosby of Dixmoor.
A fifth boy held was 15 years old.
“Captain Video and His Video Rangers” aired live on The DuMont Television Network from the Ambassador Theatre on Saturday mornings as “The Secret files of Captain Video”.
August 16, 1935.
Feb 01, 1961:
ROSSEN TAKES OVER ASHLAND AVE. THEATER
John A. Rossen, chairman of the Chicago chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba committee, is president of a corporation operating the American theater at 8 N. Ashland, it was disclosed this week.
Rossen is the former Communist party organizer who once operated the Cinema Annex theater near Kedzie and Madison, which specialized in the showing of Russian films, many criticized as being Red propaganda.
Rossen, who was a columnist for the Daily Worker, Russian propaganda newspaper, also publishes the Maverick, regarded as a pro-Communist newspaper.
Rossen is listed as president of Empresas Latinas Inc., chartered April 12, 1960, to show Latin and Spanish films at the American theater. Julio Partillo is secretary-treasurer and Fred Rodrigues is manager. Both were associated with Rossen at the Senate theater after he left the Cinema Annex.
X
(Aug. 02, 1936) USE GLASS BRICK IN REMODELING KARLOV THEATER
First use of glass brick in Chicago theater architecture will be at the Karlov theater, 4048 Armitage avenue, according to Sobel & Drielsma, architects, whose plans are being used in a modernization program. According to Charles and Henry Stern, operators of the Karlov, as well as the Cinema and Austin theaters, approximately $25,000 will be spent in remodeling the former house.
Additional space has been leased adjoining the theater for use as rest rooms and lounge. A new façade of modern materials is being built and new indirect lighting, new decora-tions, and a new ventilating system are contemplated. The Karlov seats 900.
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The new $35,000 Milltown Theatre opened on August 18, 1946 by Marine Corps veteran Tony Paulson, who was currently operating a theatre in nearby Amery.
Where weeds now lace the broken ground And traffic hums a hollow sound, There stood a place with a glowing face — A neighborhood theatre, warm with grace.
Its marquee once in amber shone, With hand-set letters proudly shown, Announcing dreams for all to see: Laughter, tears, and cartoon sprees.
Saturdays, kids, with nickels tight, Watched their heroes sing and fight - As couples slipped into the dark Where whispered hopes would softly spark.
The lobby smelled of buttered corn, Of rain-damp coats on evenings worn, And laughter rose as reels would spin, As strangers met and felt like kin.
The usher’s beam, a guiding star,
Led latecomers from near and far,
While flickering frames danced black and white
Across a screen that ruled the night.
Now silence sits where stories played, No ticket torn, no debts unpaid, Just wind that sighs through vacant space Where time has left a gentle trace.
But if you stand there just past dusk, When daylight fades to shadows hushed, You might still hear, across the air, A ghost of laughter lingering there.
Tab Hunter
Gwen Verdon
Damn Yankees
and Western Hit
Tab Hunter
Gwen Verdon
Damn Yankees
and Western Hit
BOX OFFICE, April 15, 1950: “Rollin K. Stonebrook, operator of the North Center theater in Chicago, has come up with a solution to the problem which guarantees to keep everybody happy. He has reserved 200 seats in his theater for that 10 per cent of the audience who haven’t experienced the thrills of really enjoying the refreshment. The remaining 90 per cent of the audience who are confirmed popcorn chewers have their selection of seats in all other parts of the house.”
The City has just approved all the requirements to begin work, set to begin next month and be completed by the end of 2027. A $25 million U.S. Housing and Urban Development Section 108 Loan was applied for on behalf of developer Baum Revision, to be repaid by the developer over a 20-year period. The project is estimated to cost $88 million and will include 16 residential units and space for arts groups and nonprofits.
(Excerpted from the CHICAGO READER, March 30, 2007, Section One, P.4 “A Hundred Furnished Rooms, an architectural history of Uptown” by Lynn Becker) - The challenges facing historic Uptown may best be represented, however, in its great namesake monument, the Uptown Theatre, dating from 1925. Constructed at a cost of $4 million in a deliriously eclectic style that a contemporary reporter called “Spanish Mexican Renaissance,” it covers 46,000 square feet (most of a city block), stands eight stories high, and seats 4,300. By the end of its first decade, nearly 20 million people had passed through the 213-foot-long lobby, which is terminated by a curving double stair and lined with twin colonnades rising to a 92-foot-high ceiling. As detailed in The Chicago Movie Palaces of Balaban and Katz by David Balaban, namesake grand-son of the Uptown’s manager, the theater occupied a rare moment of shared democracy, where anyone with a quarter or 50 cents could spend a couple hours steeped in the sort of luxury usually reserved for the ultrarich, attended to by a small army arrayed in at least eight different styles of uniforms, designating every station from floor manager to page boy to footman. So as not to disturb the patrons, ushers had to master a complex set of hand signals to manage the huge crowds.
By the 1960s, of course, we had begun opting for a no-frills, self-service, lowest-price world. Blitzed by free TV, the great movie palaces crashed into dust. The Uptown held on, finally closing for good in 1981. The heat was turned off soon after, and in the dead of winter the water pipes froze and burst, causing massive damage. It’s gone downhill ever since. The theater has passed through multiple owners, including convicted slumlord Lou Wolf, who once owned the Goldblatt’s block, and is currently in receivership. Recently the city picked up the tab for $500,000 in emergency repairs, removing some large, unstable chunks of terra-cotta before they simply fell to the street. Despite the ongoing efforts of activists committed to saving this official Chicago landmark, the Uptown remains boarded up and forlorn. Just before the February election, the 48th Ward alderman Mary Ann Smith told Windy City Times that a “premier developer” had signed a contract to restore the theater but declined to divulge the company’s name.
(May 27, 1955) El Paso Children Escape Unhurt In Theater Fire
Three hundred and fifty grade school children were led to safety at 11:30 a. m. Thursday when fire broke out in the projection booth of the El Paso Theater. The children were attending a free show at the theater as part of their end of the school year activities.
Speedy Exit
Don Rist, co-manager of the theater, saw smoke coming from the projector and sped downstairs to warn H. B. Tate, superintendent of schools. Edward Heiken, principal of the Jefferson Park School in El Paso, gave orders for the 12 teachers present to lead their pupils out. Most of the youngsters were on the sidewalk before they knew what had happened. The El Paso Fire Department quickly extinguished the blaze.
Projector Damaged
Bill Fever, who was operating the projector, said the film broke and snapped against a carbon arc. One reel of the film was destroyed and the lens and the projector were damaged. In addition to the El Paso pupils, classes were present from the Secor and Spring Hill schools. A show for another group of children, scheduled for Thursday afternoon, has been cancelled.
Flashback - Seeing the great potential at the Orpheum
The Orpheum Theatre has stood at the heart of downtown Kenosha for more than a century. In 1922, Kenosha would gain a true “movie palace” that reflected both civic ambition and cultural pride. That ambition was largely driven by brothers Edward and Fred Dayton, prominent local businessmen. After Edward returned from World War I, he believed Kenosha needed major institutions - a luxury hotel and a world-class theater - to compete with Milwaukee and Chicago.
Though their hotel plans initially stalled, the Daytons re-entered the theater business and, with partners, built the Orpheum Theatre at a cost of $400.000. It opened on March 14, 1922, dazzling audiences with a lavish French Renaissance interior that contrasted sharply with its modest exterior; gold accents, velvet drapes, silk wallpaper, and a $20,000 Barton organ made the Orpheum Kenosha’s first true movie palace.
From the start, the Orpheum positioned itself as both a cultural and moral force. Management promised family-friendly programming and emphasized modern ventilation systems in the wake of the recent Spanish Flu pandemic. The opening night featured the U.S.. debut of “Smiling Through”, and the theater soon hosted silent films, vaudeville, roadshows, and later sound pictures.
By 1924, the Orpheum building was described as “a veritable city in itself, housing shops, offices, studios, and services alongside the theater.” Ownership and management shifted repeatedly over the decades. Fox Theaters briefly renamed it the Lake Theatre, but the Orpheum name returned in 1933 with a lavish gala complete with celebrity impersonators.
A flashback to the glory days of the Orpheum Theater Is teased in the 1999 film “The Great Ride”
Through the 1940s and 1950s, the Orpheum adapted to changing tastes, hosting talent competitions, special promotions, celebrity appearances, and community events even as television began drawing audiences away. Creative gimmicks, from free kitchen utensils to midnight “Voodoo Parties,” were used to keep seats filled.
By the 1960s, downtown Kenosha faced broader challenges. Traffic changes, youth culture, and suburban shopping centers threatened traditional businesses. Longtime manager Wallace Konrad became a vocal advocate for downtown vitality before retiring in 1967.
Despite successful runs like “The Sound of Music”, the theater increasingly struggled. Crime incidents, aging infrastructure, and shifts toward adult programming marked the late 1960s and early 1970s. By 1975, after United Artists stepped away and owner Bernie Chulew purchased the building, the Orpheum closed as a movie theater.
New owners continued to see potential in the Orpheum. Developers rehabilitated store fronts and offices, while community figures kept its spirit alive through art shows and events. In 1988, a brief but legendary rebirth as a concert venue brought punk. metal, and alternative acts including the Smashing Pumpkins to its stage, cementing the Orpheum’s place in local music lore.
The building endured years of uncertainty and narrowly escaped demolition in the early 1990s thanks to preservationists like Lou Rugani and Merike Phillips. Declared a local landmark in 1993, the Orpheum was renovated and triumphantly reopened in 1996 as a budget cinema, though that revival was short-lived, ending in closure by 2000.
Though the theater remains dark today, its story mirrors Kenosha Itself: cycles of ambition, decline, reinvention, and enduring hope that the grand old theater will once again shine. (Go Downtown Kenosha Magazine; Spring, 2026)
(RACINE JOURNAL-TIMES, Friday, March 21, 1952)
Bloch Furniture Buys Badger Theater Building
The Badger Theater building, closed, with its equipment, by 421 Main St., has been sold to Warner Bros. theaters for $50, the Bloch Furniture Co. No sale price was announced. The theater chain bought the property from the Badger Improvement Co. after operating the movie house under lease for 14 years.
For nearly a half century the building has presented offerings of the vaudeville circuit and, more recently, the movies. A landmark in Racine’s amusement history, it is one of the oldest theaters in the city.
Theater Adjoins Blochs
The building adjoins the furniture store property. Max Grust, general manager of the furniture store said there were no immediate plans to use the building as part of the store, but that the auditorium space which fronts on Lake Ave. would probably be converted into a warehouse. A 10 foot wide frontage on Main St. was the entrance and lobby of the theater.
In 1947 the building was purchased, with its equipment, for $50,000 to $55,000, according to revenue stamps attached to the deed.
Closed Since June
Originally known as the Bijou, the theater was among the first downtown vaudeville houses in Racine. It was later renamed the State and then the Badger. For many years it was operated as a movie house by the late Owen McKivett. At one time it was owned by the Fox Midwesco Theater interests.
Warner Bros. Theaters closed the building last June. It was never reopened. It is the second downtown theater to be closed, and the first which will be converted to other uses.
SHERIDAN SHOW HOUSE IS SOLD
Announcement was made Friday of the sale of the Sheridan theatre, Seventeenth street and Sheridan road, North Chicago, to Nathan and Sylvan Slepyan of Waukegan. cash consideration was $7,500.
John Dromey, former owner of the theater, who is in charge of all bookings for Publix theater houses in Illinois and Indiana, will now devote all of his time to this branch of work. Dromey managed the North Chicago playhouse for the past several years, but his connection with the Publix company necessitated full time participation in arranging bookings for the theaters in the two states.
Sylvan Slepyan, who will manage the Sheridan theater, has been connected with the Barden department store in Kenosha for the past year and a half. Nathan Slepyan who is manager of the La Villa theater in Libertyville will continue to act in that capacity. Both boys have been residents of Waukegan for the past 10 years. (January 17, 1930)
10 Tuesday, January 2, 1973,
KENOSHA NEWS
Ends movie projectionist career begun in 1907
By JERRY KUYPER Kenosha News Staff Writer
Stanley Przlomski is the man everybody boos when the picture at the movie theater turns into a shirring blur right at the time the killer is crawling through the bedroom window with a knife towards the sleeping heroine.
Przlomski, 78, 6211 40th Ave., is a movie projectionist and he’s been at it at the Lake Theater in downtown Kenosha since 1963, and, before that, at the old Kenosha Theater next to the Dayton Hotel from 1927.
“The old Kenosha Theater is brick warehouse now,” he said. “I was the only man who was there at its opening performance in 1927 and its closing show in 1963.”
But Przlomski’s been around a movie projector longer than since 1927. He got his start in 1907 at his birthplace town of Menominee, Mich, with a 1,000-foot reel that unwound into a large metal drum below the projector.
Recalls Nickel Shows
In his youthful heyday it cost a nickel to see the 10-minute, thousand-foot reel. “That’s why they called it a nickel show,” he said.
Przylomski says there’s a lot of junk filling up the eyeballs today. He feels he’s a good judge of pictures because he’s seen a lot of junk in his day. In former days it may have been a sentimental epic with Mickey Rooney gushing over the girls. Today Przlomski says hunks of flesh do most of the contributing to the junkpile.
He won’t have to sit up in his booth looking at anything he doesn’t like anymore. Last Saturday was his last day in the booth. From now on he’ll be down with the paying customers. Maybe he’ll be there, too, when the blur wakes everybody up and the stomping begins.
Przlomski says there’s more to running a reel machine than just keeping the picture in focus.
“We keep an eye on the screen to be sure it’s in focus but we’ve got a lot of other duties to perform, too. We’ve got so many that hardly ever can we keep up with the story line,” he said. Some people pay $1.50 to sit in a soft seat and still can’t follow it. “The public thinks we just sit up there and read newspapers, I suppose,” he said.
Not A Soft Job
Even when he got his start, there was a lot more to being a projectionist than just sitting back, chewing popcorn and watching the neckers in the balcony.
In the early days when the 1,000-foot reel all uncoiled in the metal drum, Przlomski had to entertain the nickel customers while he rewound the first reel and prepared to run a second 1,000-foot segment. They really got their money’s worth in those days. He entertained them with illustrated songs on a stereopticon slide.
In a few years some genius came up with the automatic windup which meant Przlomski wouldn’t have to dig in his tub and rewind by hand the unravelled mess. “I thought the takeup would be the last word in projection,” he recalled.
The last word in film fare in that exciting era was the travelogue and the western. Prior to the 1920s the two reelers appeared. With the two-reeler, a story could be told because now there was 5,000 feet of film for a director to play with.
Remembers Bronco Bill
One of Przlomski’s two-reeler favorites was Bronco Billy Anderson. “Believe me that was a long time ago,” he said. D. W. Griffiths, with his “Birth of A Nation” classic, came along with the live orchestra, adding maturity and dimension to films. Sound in those days was provided by an orchestra in a pit and a half dozen sound men behind the transparent screen. When Bronco Billy was about to shoot on screen, a man would stand behind the screen and pull the trigger on a gun loaded with blanks. The shot would come at the same time Bronco Billy was picking the crook off his horse. It was a scenic trick. too. When the blank was fired there was a flash and it looked just like Bronco Billy’s pistol was spitting fire.
In 1919, after his World War I military service, Stan was in Kenosha looking for a job. Theater owners said they had none and back he went to Menominee. The day after he got home he got a call to get back to Kenosha. In 1927 he moved to the Kenosha Theater where he spent his best days. “We had vaudeville and film, an hour of vaudeville and an hour or an hour and half of film. There were five shows a day Saturdays, Sundays and holidays. The rest of the week there were only three, a matinee and two at night. You could sit there all day for a buck if you wanted. We had all the outstanding acts in vaudeville at the time. When I wasn’t running a film I would run the spotlight for the acts.”
Two men ran the spotlights and two the projectors. “We had two on the machines in the booth, more for safety’s sake than anything else. It was highly inflammable nitrate film and if it went, it would go up like gunpowder. When acetate tape came in one man could run the show. Acetate came in the 1950s.
Old Time Favorites
The best Przlomski saw on nitrate were John Barrymore, Charlie Chaplin, Francis X. Bushman and Beverly Bayne. If they weren’t his favorites, he still remembers Tom Mix, Hoot Gibson, William S. Hart and Blanche Sweet.
One of his favorite films was “Neptune’s Daughter” with Annette Kelleman, and a memorable series was “Million Dollar Mystery.” In the light of today’s talent, “Neptune’s Daughter” and the “Million Dollar Mystery” have a good chance at a comeback.
Przlomski says there’s a future for films but says it’s not in the bedroom. Anyway, he’s not too concerned about movies' future. He’s got his own retirement future to consider.
Some of that future is going to have Przlomski sitting in his chair late at night in front of his TV set. “Like everybody else, I’ll watch the old ones myself. It’ll be fun. I’ll get to pick out the characters I put on the screen.”
The City Council’s Finance Committee has again agreed to support a $25.2 million HUD federal loan backed by community development block grants. Jeff Cohen, Deputy Planning and Development Commissioner said the developers couldn’t get a conventional loan because of the “risk perception” that COVID created for live entertainment venues. Also, AEG Presents, the entertainment partner, was “unfortunately being considered as a startup because it is a new entity operating in the city” even though its parent company has “been around for a long time and is the second-largest entertainment group right behind LiveNation and Ticketmaster,” Cohen said, but added “It’s worth the risk because we have high confidence in both the development team and the underlying operator to be able to perform their obligations. If we didn’t believe the commercial tenant AEG had sufficient capital or wasn’t able to perform, even if their venue doesn’t, we wouldn’t necessarily consider this,” he told the Sun-Times, and urged movement soon. “Since it’s been sitting vacant and unused, it will continue to deteriorate if we can’t move forward… This is another attempt to help move this project forward to avoid any negative outcomes in the future,” he said. Ald. Daniel La Spata (1st) said “We are at the last opportunity to make this happen."
New $45,000 Northern Lakes Building Now Completed (April 9, 1927) (Special to the Telegram.)
The new Northern Lakes building at Phelps, in which is located the Northern Lakes theater, is completed at a cost of approximately $45,000. Few towns in Wisconsin the size of Phelps can boast of such a splendid structure. The theater has a seating capacity of 350 and was almost entirely furnished through the courtesy of Balaban & Katz Theater corporation of Chicago. The building also houses the postoffice, which has been newly equipped.
(January 5, 1959) Modern Super Foodland Replacing Theater At Edgerton Next Monday
The curtain is down for the last time for Edgerton’s Charve Theatre, of which the town was very proud and went to almost limitless ends to keep in operation, but in its place is a brand new Super Foodland. It opens Monday, June 22, under the management of Bob Meyer, an Edgerton man who is realizing his dream of more than a year of giving his home town a place just as bright a spot in food as the theatre was in entertainment.
Conversion to a food market has been complete. The inclined floor and stage have been torn away and 77 loads of fill dirt, with equal gravel, were dumped to make a level floor of more than 3,000 square feet of spotless tile. The air conditioning now comes from wall ducts instead of the ceiling to keep the direct drafts away from the fresh vegetables and foods.
Two hundred feet of tubular lights inside and the neon lights in the marquee make it a bright spot in an already modernly lighted small town. On the big marquee in front will be posted the latest in foods instead of motion pictures. In the lobby is the nickel riding prancing horse for the kids. There will be a popcorn machine like in the theatre. The windows that had the colorful posters of shows to come will show the latest foods to satisfy the gourmet appetite. The only pictures now will be the large murals of farm scenes on the walls, as Edgerton is in the heart of a rich farm country.
Modern pastel colors of ivory, white and blue with 90 feet of gondola counters, large wall shelves and large freezer counters for service, self service meats, dairy goods, vegetables, frozen foods, and what not will tempt the house wives to fill those big bags at the checking counter. The large parking area, north of the theatre, will not come amiss. Hours will be from 9 to 9 on week days only. Five full time attendants will be of in spotless uniforms. The rest rooms are all repainted and brightened.
The Charve Theatre was opened in 1945 with a grand premiere of flood lights, band music and festivities that filled the house twice on a cold evening, with the temperature at zero. It was the latest in theatre design with push back seats, interior neon lighting, modern projection room and screen. In spite of the townspeople’s efforts in the last years, even to buying tickets for a year in advance, it could not combat T.V. and the slow death of the small town movie houses. Edgerton folks feel that they are again winning a battle of replacing a darkened theatre with a bright new super market.
Charve Theatre Closed Monday (March 27, 1958)
Rhys Cook of Edgerton announced Tuesday morning that the Charve theatre had been closed at the end of the regular run Monday night.
Mr. Cook said scant box office receipts and high operating costs forced the closing.