Corcoran Theatre
1215 Whitley Avenue,
Corcoran,
CA
93212
1215 Whitley Avenue,
Corcoran,
CA
93212
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I’ve just added a new photo of the neon marquee from a 1939 home movie.
1215 Whitley Avenue is now the home of the Discount Variety Store, but the facade still shows a bit of Art Deco detailing that must survive from the time the building housed the Corcoran Theatre.
Boxoffice of January 6, 1951, noted that both the Corcoran and Lake Theatres in Corcoran were owned by Robert Lippert.
I just did a Google street view and the block is a parking lot!
Could it be true?
Here are some 1982 photos:
http://tinyurl.com/oe4kyh
http://tinyurl.com/qrhnkv
This furniture store is listed at 1209 Whitley, but if you look at the photo on Google it is the same building as seen in Ken Roe’s photo of 6/29/05.
http://tinyurl.com/7uawb6
At one time, there were three theatre operating in Corcoran: The Harvester (silent era), the Lake, and the Corcoran.
Some years ago, my late friend and theatre nut, Ron Musselman and I gained entrance into the remains of the Harvester Theatre. The building was a wreck. The rood had been leaking for years and a year or two after we were in there, the roof collapsed and the building was demolished. We were investigating the rumor that the theatre might have had some sort of theatre organ at one time. More than likely, the theatre either had a player piano or photoplayer.
The Harvester was in a building owned by the Masonic Lodge. The Masons took care of their part of the building, but not the theatre.
The former Harvester Theatre lobby acted as the entrance to the Masonic Lodge upstairs.
The Harvester had been converted to a bowling alley at some point.
We took gobs of photos, figuring this was the one and only time we would ever be allowed in the building.
The original, painted, silent picture sheet was still on the rear wall of the stage. The footlights were all still in-place. A large blue and gold keystone centered the top of the square proscenium arch. Small, flat, arched screens were on the stage right and left of the proscenium opening. Shreds of the drapes were even still there.
It is possible a small Wicks or Morton organ might have been in the Harvester, but there was not any evidence of places where windlines would have been run, thus our supposition that the theatre contained
a player piano or photoplayer. Ron Musselman’s father grew up in Corcoran and remembered the Harvester Theatre as a kid and attending silent films in the theatre. He recalled hearing a piano accompanying the silent films, but was not sure about a pipe organ. He might have had the pipe organ confused with the organ then in the Hanford Theatre in nearby Hanford, CA.
The only theatre I have records of in Pixley is the appropriately named Pix Theatre on Front and D Streets (seats 474). Listed in F.D.Y.’s for 1950 and 1952 that I have. Nothing at all for Pixley in my 1941/43 editions. It could have been re-named Corcoran in its later years?
Looking on CinemaTour.com, they show the same (with a small photo) listed as closed and with a sign on front Billar Azteca which could be a bar or retail or storage use?
The Corcoran Theater is listed in Film Daily Yearbook 1941 edition with 675 seats.
Here is a fairly recent? picture of the shuttered building: http://www.cinematour.com/tour.php?db=us&id=1934