Comments from sunset_lines

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sunset_lines
sunset_lines commented about Tower Theatre on Nov 4, 2015 at 8:59 pm

When the Tower was being demolished, the contractor advertised artifacts for sale in the Sunday Tribune. A friend and I took the Jackson Park “L” there and bought a number of things, including two sizable plaster female figures from high in the auditorium, missing their feet since the feet would not have been visible from the floor. No way could they have been transported on the “L”; we starving art students took a cab back home at considerable expense. The statues came to be known as the “Leprosy Ladies”.

sunset_lines
sunset_lines commented about Regal Theater on Nov 4, 2015 at 8:47 pm

The digits 0 and 1 of the address were reversed. It should be 4701 King Drive, the address of the Harold Washington Center. I think the Regal was the last theater in Chicago to have stage shows. After the Chicago ended live shows, that left only the Regal and Tivoli. My favorite memory of the Regal was a show featuring Dinah Washington. At the end of her set, she brought out her latest male interest, a young man barely legal, if that. The audience just went wild with applause and cheering.

sunset_lines
sunset_lines commented about Grove Theatre on Nov 4, 2015 at 4:50 pm

The Grove Theatre was not in continuous operation until 1976. Of the three theatres in downtown Elgin in the fifties, it was the weakest, and closed in the early fifties. It was something of a dump at that time. It was reopened after the Rialto disaster in 1956. It was the venue where my mother took my sister and me to see “Wizard of Oz”, which inspired nightmares. I have since recovered.