New Glades Theater

Joe Vogel on September 2, 2021 at 12:49 am

Google satellite view shows that this entire block of buildings along Avenue J has now been demolished. An earlier street view from 2007 shows the buildings at the end of the block still standing, and I’m inclined to agree that one of them was the neighboring building we see a sliver of in the vintage photo of the theater.

The photo was taken in January, 1939 by Marion Post Walcott for the Farm Security Administration. Boxoffice of May 29, 1937 had said that the New Glades Theatre had been opened that month by Mrs. Mary Kay Davis. The building looked rather older than that in the 1939 photo, so I suspect it was either an old theater that had been reopened or an old commercial building that had just been converted into a theater.

Boxoffice of May 14, 1949 said that construction had begun at Moore Haven on a new theater to replace one that had been destroyed by a fire. It was to be a quonset structure behind a store building that would contain a foyer providing access to the new auditorium. I don’t think the new theater was at the same location as the old one, though the article didn’t say so.

There is currently a quonset building as described in the article at 134 Avenue J, and it even has a second-floor structure at one end of the quonset that is perfectly positioned to have been a projection booth. In the current Google street view it is occupied by a dance studio, though earlier it was a cabinet maker’s shop. I strongly suspect that this building was the replacement theater built in 1949.

AndyCallahanMajorMajor on January 4, 2011 at 10:24 pm

From what I could gather, this theater burned down in August 1948. An article in the Miami newspaper dated 8/2/49 states that a new theater would open in Moore Haven on August 18, 51 weeks after the Glades Theater burned down.