Covent Theater

This renovated Covent Hotel article has a photo (added to gallery) of what used to be the theatre lobby entrance, and later the driveway to rear parking area that had been the auditorium footprint, is now closed off with windows presumably for retail space. It is interesting that they left the “Hotel Covent men’s residence” ghost sign on the South elevation of the building at the top.

https://blockclubchicago.org/2023/11/17/rehabbed-covent-hotel-opens-bringing-30-affordable-studios-to-lincoln-park/?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=How+The+Blackhawks+Made+A+Veteran+s+Dream+Come+True+%F0%9F%8F%92&utm_campaign=Friday%2C+Nov++17%2C+2023+Morning+List&vgo_ee=0YgyFc5GLJDq5zpt%2BYWBp2FmR%2BDq7wkpdGP52m%2FCES00qWi0UORfkA%3D%3D%3AU1t%2B1MZmolcPSnzN9maaepPoWJ16Hxv1

Circa 1971 Saul Smaizys photo via Flickr. Covent entrance would have been where the Playdium Bowl Parking is on the right. Image will enlarge in link.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/ceebop/24244411495/in/album-72157662523920010/

Reopened as Covent by B & K on December 22nd, 1932 as a discount theatre. Small grand opening ad in the photo section. Listings stopped in 1958.

The Covent Garden first opened on the night of August 5th, 1916. Advertising claimed a construction cost of $500,000, and a seating capacity of 3,000.

These old Chicago hotels have been rapidly going away over the last fifteen years. My guess is the Covent building will soon either be renovated or demolished.

CT wonders never cease. I had no idea that this hotel was ever part of a theater. I was at a giant garage sale in this very rear parking lot in the early `80’s.
You entered through the tunnel/Clark St. entrance under the hotel. You could tell by the design that something odd had been done. Dumpsters lined the tunnel.
There was a guard rail across the back of the lot, that people from the alley and the then Post Office next door stepped over to access the sale. The alley behind was almost like a street. And about as wide as the side street were around there.

I also moved someone into that hotel about 5-6 years ago. The interior was like something out of “Paper Moon” or “The Sting”. There was a stairwell office with a glass partition that the on-duty hotel staff sat in/behind.
The tall hallways were old hardwood with carpet runners up the centers. The rooms all had operational transom windows above each door. The rooms however were all of about 8 feet wide by 10 feet deep, if that. An old metal frame bed & waterfall dresser were included. The window overlooked the rear lot.

The Post Office next door has since closed to the public, but is maintained as a sorting station. Next to that going South is a twice built McDonald’s with drive thru. Next to that is a condo building that replaced the Playdium Bowling Alley. Where my grandfather sanded the lanes in the 60's. It was open into the70’s.

The 1934 remodeling was by Pereira & Pereira

GOSSIP COLUMN ITEM:
Chicago Tribune, Friday, April 11, 1958, s. 2, p. 2, c. 4:
TOWER TICKER by Herb Lyon

“… When B & K closed the Covent the other day the chain dropped to 34 theaters from a one time high of 50. There are only 169 flickeries left in town. But, on the other hand, movie biz is suddenly a-fizz … .”

F.E. Davidson was indeed the architect. The ‘Royal Hipidrome’ name originally proposed alluded to New York’s largest theater, as the Covent was truly massive for its time and especially its location. It must have had an exceedingly small lobby for such a large capacity. Interestingly, the area one block south of the Covent Garden, the southeast corner of Clark and Wrightwood, had an entertainment history: After the Columbian Exposition, the Ferris Wheel was moved there from 1895-1903, operating at a loss (presumably it couldn’t attract nearly enough people to operate at capacity without the surrounding Midway), and in 1904 it was shipped to St. Louis. As for the Covent Garden itself, touted as the $500,000 theater, a Chicago Tribune article chronicles the opening on June 13, 1916, after a cancelled grand opening due to a water tank malfunction on June 8 which caused a full house to be turned away:
“A huge throng of kindly neighborhood folk-between 4,000 and 5,000 perhaps-lent the benision of their prescence last night to the opening performances at Covent Garden, the levithian among uptown playhouses which some hopeful entrepeneur has erected at North Clark street south of Diversey parkway.
They found a theater remarkable for sheer size, considering its uptown location—an incredibly deep affair with one enormous balcony which alone seats more than the ordinary playhouse; a thunderous organ that imitates an orchestra and effects a cheery saving in musicians' wages, and a substage tank into which chorus girls, in perilous deshabille, disappear miraculously, as they do in those New York Hippodrome entertainments which the provincials always see when they visit the more effete metropolis.
This much the kindly neighborhood folk liked. Toward the efforts of the players in "The Land of Evermore,” the initial musical diversion, they exhibited a coolness concerning which silence is the kindest comment. Undoubtedly there will be better shows at Covent Garden later on. Meanwhile, you may find diversion in occupying a loge named for your favorite state, observing the movies of Turkish soldiers at war, and riding in the free bus which the thoughtful management provides for “L” patrons [from Fullerton]."

A special 4-Manual Hope-Jones Wurlitzer, Opus 87 was installed in April, 1916, touted as costing $75,000 and the “World’s Greatest Organ”, it probably was among the greatest organs in Chicago at the time, and if the figures are right, perhaps the greatest Wurlitzer to that time. The water tank barely saw any use, and the theater was inexplicably announced to open for Lubliner & Trinz on August 5, 1916, perhaps their lease didn’t start until then.

Yes, the hotel was originally part of the theatre complex. I wish I could add more detailed information about the Covent Garden but I never saw the theatre’s interior. I did as a younster, however, see the exterior. I vividly remember the hotel because I stepped just inside its entrance hoping to get a glance at the then already closed theatre. There was , of course, no glimpse of the theatre from inside the hotel, but when you are eleven or twelve years old and much further away from home than you are permitted to be, rationalization takes a back seat. I’m also nearly sure the theatre had been demolished by 1960 or before. My older brother who’d been to the Covent Garden told me the Century (just one block away) was the nicer of the two theatres.
The thing I remember most about the Covent Garden was its huge vertical signage of
C
O
V
E
N
T
The huge unlite vertical sign with its super-imposed back to back “C’s” but facing opposite directions made the sign look like
O
O
V
E
N
T
from both directions. When the neon was lit, of course the sign would have been easily read. Not being able to figure out how to pronounce “OOVENT”, I finally gave up my pride and asked my older brother how to pronounce “OOVENT”. He told me the first “O” was a “C”. Although I felt dumb and angry at the sign people, I thought it was nice to have an older brother who could solve life’s many complex problems.

Hi,
Actually, The Covent Hotel was part of the building where the theater once stood, and just the theater portion was razed, to be replaced by a parking lot. The Clark Street entrance to the lot was part of the lobby/foyer of the theater, which when you think of it, can be visualized rather easily.