Capitol Theatre
212 Peachtree Street,
Atlanta,
GA
30303
212 Peachtree Street,
Atlanta,
GA
30303
3 people
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Additional Info
Previously operated by: Loew's Inc., RKO, Universal Chain Theatrical Enterprises Inc.
Firms: Starrett & Von Vleck
Styles: Adam
Previous Names: Loew's Capitol Theatre
Nearby Theaters
The Capitol Theatre was located in the 200 block of Peachtree Street adjacent to the Roxy Theatre. Their marquees were located so close to each other that one end of each butted together.
The Capitol Theatre was opened June 27, 1927 and was built and operated by Universal Pictures. It was taken over by Loew’s Inc. and renamed Loew’s Capitol Theatre on September 3, 1928. It was taken over by RKO in 1932. It was closed in 1948 or 1949 and was gutted to be transformed into a department store.
Contributed by
Chuck
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Recent comments (view all 15 comments)
The fire at the Winecoff Hotel was one of Atlanta’s great tragedies. If memory serves, it occurred in 1946. The Winecoff Hotel was built circa 1913 and it did not have a sprinkler system or a fire escape (at that time). The fire swept through much of the building, trapping people on the upper floors. Regrettably, I do not recall the number of people who lost their lives. It was a positively dreadful event.
The thought of another fire in the Capitol Theatre the following year must have been genuinely frightening at the time. It’s no wonder that the Atlanta Fire Department took it very seriously.
Thanks, Lost Memory, for this bit of Atlanta history.
Thanks again, Lost Memory! The next time I’m in Atlanta I hope to look up this tragic event in the newspaper files at the Atlanta Public Library.
The fire at the Capitol Theatre must have been especially frightening coming only about a month after the fire at the Winecoff Hotel. That disasterous event left a long shadow on the city of Atlanta.
Over the past year I have been doing a series of articles on Atlanta'a movie theatre’s that had pipe organs. These were published in the Atlanta Chapter ATOS newsletter. The Capitol is perhaps one of the least known of the larger movie palaces in Atlanta and hopefully I have included photographs of the interior and exterior along with information about the organ.
The article is on the chapter website for a limited time (one year)
and is in the April 2007 newsleter. Just go to the website and find that month in the newsletter section Hope you enjoy
John – Thank you for your excellent article on The Capitol Theatre on the Atlanta Chapter ATOS newsletter website! Since you cited the first run of of the 1931 FRANKENSTEIN, I thought I would elaborate on my previous comment about it. My dad told me on several occasions about seeing FRANKENSTEIN at a midnight sneak preview before the regular run. The audience had no idea of what film they would be seeing. The theater did brisk business on these sneak previews. My dad was a teenager at that time and he was thoroughly movie crazy, a trait that I inherited as much by nature as by nurture. I wish you could have seen his face light up when he told me about the impact that FRANKENSTEIN had on that unsuspecting audience! He said the “creation” scene was literally electrifying (you’ll excuse the bad pun). The audience hadn’t seen anything quite like it before. He told me that people literally screamed and women ran out of the theatre! The end result was that the audience loved it! It was obvious that Universal had a major hit on its hands.
My dad obviously liked the Capital Theatre. Somehow I had the feeling that I would have liked going to the Capitol Theatre, too!
In 1944, when I judge that the Capitol had already seen its best days, we in the school boy patrol had Saturday meetings there, following which we got to see currently popular “B” movies, such as “Pistol Packin' Mama”, and “ "Cat People.”
Man from the photos the Capitol and Roxy marquees were close.
The Capitol had “accommodations for colored people on Ellis Street”. According to a 1928 ad.
The Capitol first opened on June 27th, 1927, as part of the Universal Theatre Circuit. Releases of the parent Universal Pictures received priority. All stage bookings were made through the Pantages vaudeville agency.
In its first year of operation, Universal lost a bundle on the Capitol and sold the operating lease to Loew’s, which re-opened the theatre as Loew’s Capitol on September 3rd, 1928. This provided the Capitol with a higher quality of stage bookings, some of which were revues originating at the Capitol Theatre in NYC. In Atlanta, Loew’s continued to operate the Grand Theatre, but dropped vaudeville for a mix of new movies and classic revivals. Loew’s operated the Capitol for nearly two years, leaving in August, 1930 to manage the floundering Fox Theatre (but without the Loew’s name attached). Universal then briefly ran the Capitol before making a five-year deal with RKO Theatres with a movies-only policy.
While in undergraduate school at Georgia State, I would look up some of the theaters in Atlanta. The ads I saw for the Capitol told what was on the screen and on the stage. It wad interesting that Atlanta had a theater like Radio City Music Hall.