Bijou Theatre

Boxoffice of October 3, 1960, ran a short article about the plans for demolition of the Bijou for an urban redevelopment project. The theater was then operating as a double feature grind house, and management planned to keep the house open until “…the bulldozers start nudging the walls,” though the contract for the demolition had already been signed. It was the oldest theater then operating in Minneapolis.

The Bijou had never been the city’s leading theater, but prior to its conversion to a movie house had hosted such fare as popular melodramas at popular prices. Big roadshows and prestige dramas appeared at other houses, not the Bijou, where one might attend such events as a wrestling match or a religious revival.

A report prepared for the Minnesota Historical Society says that the theater at 20 N. Washington Avenue opened as the People’s Theater on October 31, 1887. It was renamed the Bijou in 1890, but was destroyed by fire in December of that year. The Bijou was rebuilt, now a bit larger, with plans by the original architect, Harry G. Carter. The building was razed in 1960 (note Louis Rugani’s earlier comment that the house was still operating in August, 1959.)

The Bijou Theatre in Minneapolis is listed as a project in both 1927 and 1931-1933 in the finding aid for the Liebenberg & Kaplan papers at the University of Minnesota. Any extensive alterations must have been confined mostly to the interior, as the facade remained little changed over the years aside from the replacement of the corner towers seen in this early photo with a mansard that was hardly less old fashioned, and the addition of a modern theater marquee.

I passed the Bijou one evening in late August of 1959 and it was open but looking very tired with numerous bulbs out in the marquee.