Brighton Theatre

Thanks Broan! I can never have enough interior pics of the Brighton! My all time favorite theater. I’d kill for pics of the lobby and balcony. Very hard to find!

Closed Thursday September 26, 1991 showing “101 Dalmatians” plus “V.I. Warshawski”.

Mr. VintageBobVintageBob unfortunately I do not, but I had. I can tell you I had of the candy stand, entry exit and box office. The ticket collection stand where one of us would collect and tear the ticket handing half back to the customer. I had a shot of my friend Chuck who was or wished he was a Bruce Lee. He was showing me a move and he ended up putting his elbow through the top of the glass top of the candy counter. Believe me I had a bunch of the entire place but a flood in Hammond Ind in 2006 flooded our by-level. Changing the bulbs on the interior vertical strips of the theater was hell. The ladder was narrow, it was loose and wobbled, you packed your pockets with bulbs and went up hoping you come down the same way….by ladder.

We still had to shovel coal into a hopper which feed the furnace. Then every Monday a man would come and shovel the ashes into a 55 gallon drum and carry it up the stairs.

I could ramble on but hey it was a good place to work at 1.95 an hour. The operators union controlled that. After I grad from HS, I got a raise to 2.11……White Castle here I come. John

Hi everyone, I can tell you I was an Usher and then assistant Manager. I repaired those great looking leather seats, used to sell tickets collect tickets, janitor the house, change the sign outside in the freezing cold. There from 74-77. Name the names I can tell you. Any questions email me at . Thanks for all the pics …..brings back memories.

Brighton Theater is also known for the last place the Grimes sisters were last seen alive before their murder. The movie playing at the time was Love Me Tender, a Elvis Presley movie. This happened in 1956 and the crime was never solved. This horrible event has always stuck with the theater. Today, now that the theater is closed, this event has been long forgotten.

The last movie I saw here was Remo Williams in 1985. I don’t know if this cultural “shift” happened before then, but I can tell you that the Brighton was a dingy dump.

Here is a 1956 photo of the Brighton

First off I am so glad I found this site!!! I have enjoyed reading all and I mean all the post about several of the theaters that I have looked up.
As far as the Brighton theater goes I had the opportunity to provide lighting equipment and work an underground rave party there back in late early 1998. When we did our site survey for the place once in we were created by two large dogs that were there for security reasons the caretaker put them on leashes and the hounds of hell were calm and friendly from that point on. I was pretty amazed by the place, it wasn’t what I expected at all. The main floor of the auditorium had all the seats removed, and the caretaker couldn’t tell me what had happened to them. The stage area itself was in so so shape the floor had some soft spots and an access latter that would lead to above the ceiling and grid of the stage didn’t look that safe, that caretaker said it was and said that it would be a problem to cut holes into the ceiling to allow for hang points to fly our equipment. All the wall sconce lighting was still intact and I would say 70% functioning we were all armed with flashlights because we just knew that lighting in old places like this that had been inactive never good lighting. From what I remember the walls and ceiling wasn’t in too bad of shape the water damage wasn’t that bad. The balcony had all the of the seats in it, don’t know if they were original as looked to be of a style you would see in a old Doctors office waiting room… wooden and kind of art deco looking. The projection booth was intact and still had a projector in it; sorry don’t know what kind it was I wasn’t into that type of thing back then my partner did offer to buy it and the caretaker responded with something along the lines of ‘If you want to move it I am sure the owner of the place would let you take it or you can take it right now if you want.”. The overall condition of the booth was to be honest trashed I think the caretaker was living there along with the demons of his life he didn’t want us in there for any length of time. The lobby area from what I remember was rundown and dirty but you could still see a lot of the detail. I seem to remember a nice white (at one time pristine) marble floor and brass railings that lead to the restroom lounge area.
About a week or so later was the rave party, we loaded in through a house left door near the stage, so that would be like the south east corner of the auditorium. We set most of our equipment on our own stands and what not with the exception of brackets that we made to hang of the balcony that were designed and fabricated to allow for only a small anchor bolt to the balcony wall… I hate to say that when we had the opportunity to fabricate and temporary install some type of support we did but I can tell you that the anchor bolt wasn’t more that ½” X 1.5”. When I arrived later that night to “work” the show I was amazed at the crowd this rave pulled in. The place was packed and happing, I asked my partner how come he was going so heavy on the fog machine that night and he replied with “cant you feel it, its water vapor from all the kids dancing and sweating.” I did snap some 35 mm photos but once developed I was kind of upset because the vapor in the air just made the pictures look like some foggy night on the lakefront.
We did one more rave at the Brighton later in the summer, with the establishment of city cracking down on this type of party, for good and bad reasons no more raves were put on here. I am sure that the CPD knew something was going on when there was 500-600 + kids leaving the area @ 6am on a Sunday morning.
I know the area pretty well my old man had a shop a few miles to the east on 35th street so from time to time I would cruise down Archer and see the for sale sign up and think how awesome it would be to own this place and make it a venue for live legitimate taxable entertainment.
Some might say that this is a true hood, but there are still a number of good families in the area that work hard for their money and might have supported a place like this if it was ran by someone with the passion for good live entertainment.
Some might hate to see these place turned into live venues catering to the full scope of music… but it keeps them from the same fate as the Brighton.
In the words of my old man “More condos, where are all these peoples coming from and where are they getting the money from!!!”
Just wanted to share my stories of this place

Anyone who wants a piece of the facade, just email me at the address listed in my profile and I’ll send it out. All I ask is a couple of bucks to cover shipping, I don’t want to make money off it. Just sharing the love. :–)

Vintage Bob: really interested in getting a couple pieces of that facade from you if possible… As I’m sure is the case with a lot of people on here, the Brighton was an integral part of my childhood… definitely miss that place a lot. Really takes me back to a simpler, happier time!

Vintage Bob: Thanks for the information, sad though it is. That’s what I feared would the situation. I’ve not lived in Chicago for many years.

Dear sias88, The enthusiasm of youth can prevail ant day over the acceptance of things the way they are by the older generation. I would be delighted if you would prove me wrong about resurrecting a new Brighton Theater and improve the Brighton Park neighborhood in the process. If I were in your place, I would line up a bunch of like-minded young people and get going on this project. It sounds like you already have substantial community support. I would bet that the Mayor’s office would like to see a lot of neighborhood revitalization in Chicago. They might help you.

I grew up on the southwest side of Chicago in the Gage Park neighborhhood in the 1940s and early 1950s. It was the greatest place for this kid to have grown up. I thought then that we were poor because our family of 5 lived in a 1 bdrm apartment and my Dad did not own a car. However, we did not need a car because we could walk to virtually anywhere we wanted to go. On Saturday afternoons I walked to the Acadia Theater. My grandfather spent his life working at the Crane Co. on Kedzie Ave. When I went to Loyola in 1959 I met my college sweetheart of four years. She lived in Brighton Park and we used to go to the Brighton from time to time. You can make the good things from those early day return if you work at it.

Dear sias88, What killed so many movie theaters was the rise of home televisions in the mid 1950s. Theaters like the Brighton and thousands more on the Cinema Treasures website closed over the following 25 or so years . Around 1980 the film business began to bounce back but not in a way particularly valued by folks who frequent this website. Multi-screen theaters showing films devoted to violence, action, and computer-drawn special effects became common. Movies about interesting and significant human experience, which were so common before the mid 1950s, have pretty much disappeared, along with my college sweetheart. There is no possible way of rebuilding the Brighton.