Agnew Theater
2821 S. Agnew Avenue,
Oklahoma City,
OK
73108
2821 S. Agnew Avenue,
Oklahoma City,
OK
73108
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Looks to be an “adult” club at the moment.
On Thursday, March 20, 1947, the list of Barton Theaters added the Agnew with the statement, “Watch this space for announcement of the Grand Opening/Free Parking/Cry Room.”
The Sunday listing of March 23 elaborated: “Free Parking/Friday, March 28, 5 o'clock/Hiram Higsby and the KOMA-CBS Oklahoma Roundup Gang/On the screen, Two Hits— Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire in BLUE SKIES, Roy Rogers with ‘Gabby’ Hayes in ROLL ON TEXAS MOON, with a "Jack Armstrong, All-American Boy” serial chapter."
Opened as announced on Friday, March 28, 1947.
Shut down for good on Monday, April 29, 1957 with Audie Murphy in THE GUNS OF FORT PETTICOAT and the 1939 film THEY MADE ME A CRIMINAL with John Garfield and Claude Rains. [Daily Oklahoman]
Four additional photo’s of Agnew – Day Time View, Night Time View, Lobby & Auditorium in Photo Section.
As a kid, I saw many Saturday Westerns at the Agnew. There was a really great feature, they had a private room located at the back of the auditorium with a glass viewing wall, 10 to 15 seats for parents with crying infants. Todays modern new theaters should consider the same type of room except, for those fools that have to text during a film. That would allow the texters to text up a storm without disturbing those of us that turn our phones off to enjoy the movie. Wishful thinking but, would be nice.
The Agnew belonged to R. Lewis Barton (Barton Theaters) and caught fire inside around +/-1964 or 65. The fire stated in the generator room and gutted the booth with heavy smoke damage throughout the building.
I was in the building and in fact in the booth some days after the fire. I lived next door to the Bartons offices and used to help Harold Combs (Baton son-in-law) deliver candy and popcorn to the theaters. I was just a kid at the time. I had gone to the Agnew with Harold just to look over the damage and to see if there was anything salvagable from the booth. There was absolutely nothing salvagable. After the fire the Bartons renovated the building but it never reopened to my knowledge as a movie theater.
There was a local disc jockey in Oklahoma City, and if I remember correctly it was Danny Kaye, who leased the building and operated a teen club, called The Teen Club (lol) out of it with a local television show saturday mornings, along the lines of American Bandstand. He tried to take it national with syndication… but never quite made it, again to my knowledge.
Here is a recent view of the former Agnew Theatre, now a combination Harley Shop & restaurant,
View link
Both vintage and recent images of the Agnew Theatre can be seen on this great site.
Structure is now a Harley Daivson Motorcycle showroom.
http://www.roadsideoklahoma.com/node/576
Photos of the Agnew and three other Corgan-designed theaters appeared in Boxoffice of December 6, 1947. The other houses featured in the article are the May, Oklahoma City; the Boomer, Norman; and the Plains, Roswell, New Mexico.
Yikes! From the looks of that photo, the Agnew it looks like it used to be a Hooters!!!!!!
Agnew Theatre 1946 exterior, lobby, and auditorium views can be seen on below site. Type in word “agnew”, then search…
View link
A couple of those 1950 interior shots labelled Agnew are actually those of the Gaiety Theatre, but it isn’t hard to figure out which picture goes with what theatre.
Link to an air photo of the Agnew.
http://tinyurl.com/2umevf
Here is a 1948 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/2d6l4a
Wish somebody would post recent pictures of the brick & glass block Agnew Bldg.
Based on intro the status should be changed to closed.
Architect Tack Corgan designed the 1000 seat Agnew Theatre.