La Vogue Theatre

LouRugani on February 27, 2024 at 9:40 pm

The Vogue Theatre’s grand opening was heralded with a full-page ad in in the Kenosha Evening News on September 15, 1923. Strangely, several days after the gala there were no more ads for the Vogue. As days passed, Vogue ads finally reappeared the following weekend. Either the theatre closed down briefly after its grand opening due to some problem or, more likely, the inexperienced management following the excitement surrounding the premiere forgot to order ads in advance. The name of the lady who was opening night organist on the Vogue’s new Moller instrument has also been lost, but a week later, Dr. E. M. Hyland Slatre-Wilson, a colorful, many-faceted Kenoshan who then operated many clinics and classes in music, science and art within the new Orpheum Building, took command of the Vogue Theatre organ to accompany the films and provide solo interludes. Thus began the Vogue’s 28-year career as a central-city neighborhood theatre. After a time, some vaudeville acts were booked, but this never was a major part of the bill at the Vogue, and was all but discontinued by the late 1930’s. The stage was rather shallow - about sixteen feet deep by about twenty-five feet across - but it was adequate for the acts that did play there - mostly jugglers, comics, acrobats and small musical groups. Walter Schlager ran the Vogue for two years, then leased it to the new and shortlived United Theatres chain, which took over the Butterfly Theatre and the Lincoln Theatre as well. The general manager for United was Al Meis of 5930 Fifth Avenue, long experienced in managing the downtown Virginian Theatre. Walter and Rose Schlager went back to operating soft-drink taverns (this was during Prohibitlon) at 2024 56th Street and elsewhere, also living on the premises. But United Theatres didn’t last long, and by 1930 Walter was back in charge of the Vogue Theatre. - Enter Francis B. “Butch” Schlax, who had a love for show business as a young man. Beginning as an usher at the Orpheum and Majestic Theatres, he worked up a partnership with George Fischer of the Hotel Fischer at 508-12 56th Street just east of the Rhode Opera House. Together, Schlax and Fischer leased the Vogue Theatre in 1934. Schlax therefore began a long career in theatre management, eventually operating nearly every theatre in Kenosha, including the inevitable local outdoors, the Mid-City and Keno. - Early movie film stock was of nitrate and very flammable. Projectionist Kenneth Hahn told of an incident involving Louis Goodare, who was operating the Vogue’s twin Simplex projectors one night when the film caught fire. Ever the alert operator, Goodare somehow snatched the flaring reel and pitched it from a front window just in time, where it landed, blazing, atop the Vogue’s marquee. Goodare’s trousers were burned, so he later billed the Milwaukee theatre chain for this. Hahn sald the chain denied the claim. “He saved their theatre, and they wouldn’t replace his burned pants.” (Hahn did verify a good working relationship with “Butch” Schlax, however.) In the Twenties, theatres could do well on box-office receipts alone, but the studios kept taking ever-larger percentages, so all theatres had to rely on popcorn, candy and soft drink vending beginning in the Depression years, and employees were told often to promote the concessions. - Francis B. Schlax, who lived at 6410 Fifth Avenue, is probably the Vogue’s best-remembered manager, and many a youngster without the price of admission was allowed in free as long as there was an empty seat to be had" (and they might have had to sweep up a bit, too), recalled his brother Leslie. But a vicious accident on Highway 38 while returning from a film-booking meeting in Milwaukee cost Francis the sight in one eye, and during the two-month hospital stay that resulted, Leslie and their family members pitched in to run the Vogue. So did Dominick Gallo, later of Gallo Food Products just east of the theatre. Gallo, “houseman” at the Vogue for years, walked to work around the corner from his home at 5129 18th Avenue. (in a way, he stayed in show business; purveying the famed Gallo Hot Tamales to Kenosha’s two outdoors for decades.) A lot of Kenoshans found employment through the years at the Vogue. Some of the better-remembered projectionists included Kenneth Hahn of 7921 19th Avenue, Fred Sherry of 1419 62nd Street, Ray Bacon of 2410 61st Street, Louis Goodare of 5921 6th Avenue, Richard Schnell of 6037 Fifth Avenue, and Percy Garton, 1108 56th Street. Projectionists were every theatre’s unsung heroes, those invisible souls high up in their booths for which audiences gave nary a thought … except if the film should break or the arc lamp fail. Then the unseen projectionist would be roundly cursed with a hail of insults and foot stomping until the picture would resume. Sometimes he would be pressed into part-time security duty as well, patrolling the balcony for rowdy or over-amorous patrons. But watching for a flash fire was a potentially-deadly aspect of the job. Eventually the Vogue was leased by the Standard Theatres chain of Milwaukee that also operated the Hollywood, Lincoln, the Cameo (620 56th Street) and the big Kenosha and Gateway (now Rhode Opera House) and the two outdoors. Schlax was promoted to Standard’s citywide manager. Francis' son Robert Schlax recalled accompanying his father each Thursday night during the war years to the Vogue and other local theatres and watching brief scenes of the current features as his Dad tallied receipts in the varied offices with managers. At some time during this period, the Vogue’s two-rank Moller pipe organ was sold and moved. It had fallen silent since the onset of sound films and wasn’t being used. Fred Hermes of the Dairyland Theatre Organ Society had some data on the Vogue’s organ, but didn’t know where it went. “Probably to some church,” he guessed. Through the decades, the Vogue was a comfortable if unspectacular addition to the city’s entertainment scene. Many of its patrons were blue-collar families, and often these were newly-arrived Italian immigrants, especially early on. Occasionally foreign films would grace the Vogue’s screen, which usually drew crowds and gave the Vogue its local nickname: the Garlic Opera House. Robert Schlax recalled Vogue employees sharing a good relationship with his father, gifting him tomatoes from their gardens and homemade wine for the boss. To many, the Vogue was a gathering place for a few hours, second only in importance to their churches. In this manner, the Vogue Theatre lived out its career of almost three decades “free trom vicissitudes,” as a 1936 Centennial Edition article in the Kenosha News put it. The vicissitudes would come rather suddenly, when they finally came. But that was not to happen for another decade and a half.

LouRugani on October 31, 2023 at 12:45 am

(Beginning a four-chapter feature article I wrote for the Midweek Bulletin starting November 15, 1988.)

Even today, passersby along busy 52nd Street might imagine, if they squint a bit, the old Vogue Theatre alive again, with several hundred excited kids in line for a 1940s Saturday-afternoon double-feature Western show, each clutching his or her ten-cent admission; and a harried staff struggling to keep up with the crush.

This fall marks the 100th year since the Vogue Theatre opened its doors on September 15, 1923. For the next 28 years, the Vogue was mainly an unpretentious neighborhood movie theatre, and it never attempted to outdo the bigger, grander movie palaces downtown. It fulfilled its modest role in Kenosha’s entertainment scene…until a sudden change in national trends sealed not only the Vogue’s fate but that of thousands of similar neighborhood movie houses across America.

In 1923, postwar America was basking in prosperity; President Calvin (“Silent Cal”) Coolidge took office, and Hollywood was in its lusty adolescence. Just ten years earlier, most movies were brief little novelties shown in “nickelodeons,” converted storefronts with blackened windows and rows of benches seating perhaps 75 people, with a sheet for a screen. (One of the first of these, the Electric Theatre, was operated by Adolph Alfieri on north Seventh Avenue east of Union Park.) But in the early 20s the movies were eager for respectability, so real movie theatres were being built everywhere by recently-formed chains or by single entrepeneurs eager to cash in on America’s growing love for the ever-improving medium of film.

Water Schager ran several theatres in Kenosha with his wife Rose. But Prohibition was on, and those who once sold or made liquor and beer were looking to invest in other ventures. As an example, Racine’s Klinkert Brewery had just built the BUTTERFLY (later, HOLLYWOOD) Theatre at 4902 Seventh Avenue.

In 1923, Kenosha’s operating film theaters included the Z Rhode Opera House, the new ORPHEUM, the BUTTERFLY, the BURKE (later CAMEO), the MAJESTIC, the LINCOLN, the STRAND (later NORGE), and the COLUMBIA. (The Kenosha, Gateway and Roosevelt Theatres were still four years in the future.) But in a time when people were much less mobile and by far more apt to function mostly within their home neighborhoods, Kenosha’s central city had no movie house of its own.

Schlager selected some long-vacant property at 1820 52nd Street and had well-known Kenosha architect Charles Augustine design a state-of-the-art theatre for the site. (Augustine lived then with his wife Lillian at 7428 22nd Avenue; his designs include the Terrace Court Apartments, the West Branch Library, the old Barden Store and the Roosevelt Theatre.) Then Schlager signed on long-time contractor George Lindemann of 4724 Fifth Avenue to build his new Vogue Theatre. Work continued throughout the summer of 1923 as passing motorists and passengers on the Grand Avenue line of the Kenosha Electric Railway monitored the theatre’s progress. The final touch was the installation of the vertical sign, traditional on theatres then, which spelled out VOGUE in white bulbs with a twinkling border; the sign was visible for over ten blocks in either direction. That was the clue the Vogue Theatre was ready, and in early September small teaser ads appeared in the papers - not that anyone needed teasing, of course. A full page ad appeared on opening night, Saturday, September 15, 1923 in which manager Clarence Eschenberg welcomed present and future patrons, concluding with “This is your theatre.” The Vogue’s doors opened at six p.m.; adult tickets were 25 cents and children paid a dime.

LouRugani on January 28, 2022 at 7:41 pm

(Thursday, March 25, 1926) - First Day of Broadcasting Is a Success City Manager Dedicates Radio Station WHBL to Service of Community

Kenosha is at last being given an opportunity to broadcast to the world what it is and what its people are like. As “the Better City”, Kenosha is being brought to the fore by its city officials, its civic leaders and by its entertainers until the entire middle west will learn what it means to be in a happy peace-loving law-abiding community.

Dedicated to “the service and enlightenment of the community:, Station WHBL, the Kenosha Evening News-Vogue theater was formally presented to the atmosphere in Kenosha on Wednesday, and the results of the first day’s program are still being counted in the scores of congratulatory messages that are coming in to the station.

City Manager Opens Station

The formal dedication was performed by C. M. Osborn, city manager who, in his official capacity, invited the city of Kenosha to share in the opportunity presented by giving out into the air the pride which the city holds in its own community. The variety of the opening program Wednesday afternoon and evening and the quality of the entertainment offered by the Kenosha artists and the members of the studio staff was on a par with that offered by broadcasting stations everywhere and as the station continues on its stay in Kenosha it will offer more distinctive features and more unique departures from the ordinary radio programs.

Strikes a Popular Chord

The opportunity presented to local people to broadcast local talent such as that which is being done on the programs presented by the music departments of the city schools, the professional music schools, and those who have had long training in the musical arts is a unique one in Kenosha, and there have been many thus far who have shown that they are quick to take advantage of this opportunity. One of the features of Station WHBL during the eight days which it will broadcast from the stage of the Vogue theater will be that which will present officially the educational and physical side of the city life. Men who are leaders in the various walks of life in Kenosha will be presented, such as was started on Wednesday when City Manager Osborn, J. M. Albers, secretary of the city plan commission, and Guy F. Loomis, superintendent of schools addressed the radio audience on the city manager plan of government and Kenosha’s school system respectively.

Learn of Your Own City

To many Kenoshans, facts disclosed in these radio addresses will be new and most interesting and the entire programs thus broadcast will be of benefit to all who listen in. There is place on each of the programs for something of interest to all who listen in from the youngest kiddies to the oldest grown-ups. Throughout all of the broadcasting there is the opportunity given to Kenosha to see how the work is actually done. The station apparatus is the last word in radio engineering and the entire broadcasting studio is located on the stage of the Vogue theater. The wave length of the station is 2157 meters which places it on the dials between “WOK and WSBS in Chicago. It is powerful enough to be heard comfortably within a range of 700 miles and the station now operating in Kenosha has been heard from as far west as Denver and as far east as Pittsburgh with its southern extremity for reception reaching to the gulf coast.

All Talent On Stage

The entire public is invited to watch and take part in the broadcasting of the Kenosha programs from WHBL. Its three schedules during the day are from noon until one o’clock, from 5:30 to 6:30 o’clock, and from ll:OO o’clock until midnight. The early afternoon program is broadcast directly from the stage and the public is invited to find seats in the audience to look on. A special invitation is extended by the management of the Vogue theater to those Kenoshans who desire to see the regular performance of the theater program during the evening performances and who then wish to go to their homes and tune in to hear the same programs broadcast into their own receiving sets. Because of the limited assignment of broadcasting hours by the federal government no broadcasting can be done between 6:30 o’clock and 11:00 o’clock in the evening. And in another column on this page is explained the details which make it possible for anyone to take an actual part in the broadcasting — to appear before the microphone. This offer will be withdrawn as soon as the programs are made up sufficiently in advance to cover the entire stay of the station in Kenosha and it is urged that those who desire to broadcast fill in the coupon at once.

davidcoppock on November 8, 2020 at 2:58 am

Also opened with Pathe news, and a Our Gang comedy(“Aesops Fables”).

LouisRugani on October 9, 2009 at 6:56 pm

(January 14, 1930)
Arrest Of Man And Youths Solves Burglary Series
Kenosha, Wis.â€"(UP)â€" A series of burglaries, including that of the
Vogue theatre, Jan. 5, were believed solved today after a man and
three youths had been arrested and allegedly confessed to the robberies.
The four are Arthur Metten, 29; John Metten, 20; Christy Marko,
18, and a 14-year-old boy. John Metten was arrested in a stolen car, police said, and confessed to the thefts and admitted that he
and his companions planned to rob another Kenosha theatre, the safe
of which had already been taken out with $500 in it.

Ret. AKC (NAC) CCC Bob Jensen, Manteno, Illinois on February 16, 2008 at 12:18 pm

A Moller Pipe Organ, Opus 3549, a 2 Manual/6 Rank, that cost $3,850.00 was installed in this theater in 1923. What happened to it is unknown. If you know anything about what happened to the organ, please email us!

Gee Dad, it “WAS” a Mollel!"

mag on March 30, 2006 at 11:38 pm

this theater is really cool,and i know fully the very personal and sentimental value it has to its owner.the theater is some what of urban history to alot of people who had the chance to hang out ,play and even had life expanding experiences inside its intriguing walls.it has inspired poety and has a nostalgic feeling for me every time i see it. im happy denise hs obtaned it because i know how hard she has fought to keep it. salu to you ms. diorio sincerely

sdoerr on February 29, 2004 at 8:36 pm

denise be sure to submit us news on the renovation! Also I have changed the name to La Vogue Theatre, since that will be the name once you restore it. Once again thanks for you help.

gabber303 on January 16, 2004 at 12:54 am

it is “the vogue” on the tile work at the top of the building and it says “vogue theatre” on the tile in the front walk, but i’ve always known it as “la vogue”, that’s what my father had on the second sign and put the gymnastics academy and discotech. i grew up with it, it just kinda sticks… kenosha has so many neighborhood theatres still standing. i believe there are 3 or 4 in our downtown alone and that’s basically one on every other block.

sdoerr on January 15, 2004 at 3:11 pm

Thanks for your contributions Denise, we really appreciate it.

sdoerr on January 14, 2004 at 8:08 pm

Also what is the address?

gabber303 on January 14, 2004 at 7:51 pm

well, odd i came across this site one day trying to do research on the vogue, it’s been in my family since about 1977. a quick little history about it: in the begining it had vaudville acts and movies. in 1958 a religious group took it over. in 1960 the original marquee(which was fantastic!)was removed for the widening of 52nd street, that same year, the theatre was loaned out to the shoreliners drum and bugle corps, who then(and i always hate running into someone who was a part of this) had all the children who were in the corps tear out all the seats and leveled off the floor with cement. let’s hear it for child labor… but they did install a kitchen. in 1970 a group of college kids restored the box office, brought in a bunch of folding chairs and started showing 16mm films. there were many thoughts of demolition through it’s life. in about 1977 louis rugani (who has a show on am 920 in kenosha) helped my father attain the building. he had built a loft on the balcony to live in and had it as a gymnastics academy during the day and a disco at nite, special nites for roller disco too. guess that cement floor came in handy for something…my father passed away close to 11 years ago and my brother and i inherited the theatre. unfortunately, my brother passed about 2 years ago and i became the sole owner. my fiance and i live in it now and are renovating it. it needs quite a bit of work, but what house doesn’t? plus, i don’t think i could live anywhere else, it has just the right ceiling space for my inherited olympic size trampoline. if anyone has any information or photos of the vogue theatre in kenosha, please let me know. i would be greatly interested in them. the kenosha historical society isn’t that much help and the people that remember coming here, never can remember what the inside looked like. it’s a bit like the twilight zone. thanks for you time, denise diorio