Riviera Theatre
313 E. 3rd Street,
Muscatine,
IA
52761
313 E. 3rd Street,
Muscatine,
IA
52761
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Became the Bosten Cinema on February 3rd, 1971 and the Riviera on May 13th, 1983 and closed in 1990. 1971 and 1983 ads posted.
October 31st, 1931 grand opening ad posted.
The theater description needs correction. This house was opened by Ludy Bosten as the Uptown Theatre on November 4, 1931. The January 7, 1971, issue of the Muscatine Journal said that the Uptown would be renamed Bosten Cinema within two weeks, and that the house was to be extensively remodeled. I haven’t found when it was renamed the Riviera, but it was still called the Bosten Cinema at least as late as November, 1977.
This house was last known as the Riviera Theatre. Compare the photo of the Uptown above with these photos of the Riviera at the time of its demolition. Same building, same marquee, different name.
Our page for the Riviera Theatre might or might not be a duplication. Its description says that it was once the Majestic Theatre, and reopened as the Riviera in 1929. If that’s the case, then it must have closed soon after being renamed, if it ever existed. I haven’t found the name Riviera Theatre mentioned in any Muscatine newspaper items until after the Uptown had been renamed Riviera.
A comment on this forum page at Topix says that this house was the Uptown from the 1930s until the late 1960s or early 1970s, then became the Bosten Cinema until finally being renamed the Riviera.
This web page cites items from a 1940 issue of the Muscatine Journal & Neww-Tribune, and the part about the Uptown Theatre says that it opened on November 4, 1931. !940 being closer to the event than the 1962 Boxoffice article I cited in my earlier comment, I’d say that 1931 is probably the correct opening year.
The Uptown Theatre was domolished in the mid to late 80,s to make room for the new city parking lot across from city hall.
A biographical sketch of the original owner of the Uptown, Ludy Bosten, appeared in the April 9, 1962, issue of Boxoffice Magazine, on the occasion of his fiftieth anniversary in the theater business.
The Uptown opened in 1929, and was located in a former National Guard armory. An 11-inch concrete floor had to be ripped out in order to convert the building into a theater.
Bosten opened his first theater in Muscatine, a nickelodeon called the Princess, in 1912. Later, the Princess was known as the Gayety. A few years later he opened the A-Muse-U Theatre, and at one time operated the Family Theatre in partnership with Carl Laemmle Jr., who would later found Universal Pictures.
Other Muscatine theaters operated by Bosten included the Grand and the Palace, which had closed two years before the article was published. In 1962, he was still operating the Uptown Theatre and the Hilltop Drive-In in Muscatine, and the Wapello Theatre in Wapello, Iowa.
Click on the blue links below this shot and you’ll find a whole bunch more of this house (and others in the area). The stage in this place got used a lot. Nice shots.