Home Theater

MagicLantern on July 14, 2007 at 12:33 pm

There was a Mark Home Theatre operating in 1925 – might this be the same theatre?

Joe Vogel on February 9, 2009 at 4:06 am

Here’s an interesting puzzle: The 1915 L.A. City Directory lists a movie house called the Gay Theatre at 3945 S. Western. The L.A. County Assessor says that the building at the current address 3941 S. Western was built in 1914. The next lot south has the address 3947 S. Western (and has a building erected in 1930), so 3945 must currently be the address of one of three storefronts in the surviving 1914 building.

So the question is, was the Home Theatre an entirely different theatre, adjacent to or very near the Gay Theatre, or was it a later name for the Gay Theatre itself? The address might have just shifted around a bit over the years. And if they were the same theater, and the address has shifted more than once, is the existing 1914 building the former location of this theater, or was the theater in a building on the lot to the south, currently numbered 3947, or maybe on the now-vacant corner lot which currently has a Leighton Avenue address?

In any case, I can’t find a theater under any name on the west side of the 3900 block of Western Avenue in the 1929 City Directory (and I don’t have access to any directories between 1915 and 1929.) However, the Western Theatre across the street at 3930 is listed in 1929.

It’s possible that the Gay Theatre was built in 1914, and then closed after the Home Theatre was built down the block, and then the Home closed when the larger Western Theatre was built across the street. The Rivoli Theatre, opened in 1921, was only a few blocks south, too, so that would have been a lot of screens for that short stretch of street.

But the Gay and the Home have been gone so long that the odds of finding out if they were the same place or not are probably slim. City Directory listings for either theater in years between 1915 and 1929 would certainly be of use to discover if there were any address changes during that time, though. I hope the library gets a few of them online soon.

Joe Vogel on June 18, 2011 at 2:40 am

The Home Theatre is listed at 3945 S. Western in the 1923 Los Angeles City Directory. In the 1926 directory, it’s at 3943 S. Western. No theater is listed for this side of this block of Western Avenue in the 1927 directory, but the new Western Theatre across the street is listed.

I’m sure the Home Theatre was in the building still standing at 3943-3945 S. Western Avenue. As the structure was built in 1914 and the Gay Theatre was listed at 3945 S. Western in 1915, the theater was probably the first occupant. The name was changed to Home Theatre by 1923, and it probably closed in 1926 or early 1927.