Crystal Theatre

Don Lewis on March 1, 2013 at 2:11 pm

From Albuquerque a postcard view of Gold Avenue along with the Crystal Theater.

rjbuffalo on March 27, 2025 at 2:10 pm

If I may be permitted to elucidate, there were THREE Crystal Theatres in Albuquerque, and this has caused much confusion.

The FIRST Crystal Theatre was a tent on 2nd Street SW by the corner of Lead Avenue SW. It might have been on the NE corner, 324 2nd St SW, but, much more likely, it was probably on the SE corner, 402 2nd St SW. Joseph R. Scotti was the musical director. This was a venue for films and illustrated songs, and it ran from August 1, 1907, through September 15, 1907, as a stop-gap measure while a proper indoor venue was being constructed.

The Crystal combine’s head office in Colorado assigned Mr. Dory H. Cordier, formerly of the Crystal in Pueblo, Colorado, to manage. The Albuquerque Tribune of August 21, 1907, described Cordier as “a short man who weighs about three pounds to the inch, and wears a straw hat and a fashionably tailored suit of soft dark colored material. He has a pair of eyes that twinkle from a good natured countenance in a way that makes one feel like laughing, but yet Mr. Cordier is a serious man. He thinks twice before he speaks, and then he doesn’t say what you want him to. He was out with M. Nash, of the Nash Electrical Building, this afternoon looking at several buildings in the city that could be easily transformed into very comfortable show houses.”

The SECOND Crystal Theatre was carved into an edifice at 120 Gold Ave SW. This is the building we see in the postcard that appears at the top of this page. (This building seems originally to have been the S.E. Ross & Bro. hardware shop, constructed in 1891.) This venue ran from September 16, 1907, through October 8, 1911, with film and small-time vaudeville. The booking agent for the vaudeville was someone named William Weston, who worked with an Edward Ackerman. We may quote from The Albuquerque Tribune of September 17, 1907: “The inside of the house was a surprise. In less than a month the building that previously had been used as a warehouse, had been transformed into a most delightful playhouse. The seats are so elevated from front to back that every one is a good one. The walls are adorned with calsomine decorations and in the front of the house is a stage of ample proportions for any vaudeville stunt that the Crystal theatre company will feel like paying for and delivering to the people of Albuquerque at 10, 20 and 30 cents. The scenery is all new and very pleasing to the eye.” Just as the SECOND Crystal was about to open, a playwright by the name of Walter Russell Orendorff arrived from the Crystal in Pueblo. His job was to handle the publicity for the Albuquerque branch. The evening pianist was ‘Tad Maloy,’ a/k/a Cyrus Paul Baker, who shot himself to death in September 1908, possibly by accident.

Cordier left Albuquerque in November 1907 to manage the Crystal Theatre in Trinidad, Colorado, and so Orendorff was promoted. Then, a year later, in September 1908, Orendorff left for Denver. The Crystal Amusement Company replaced him with Charles C. Carpenter and Thomas F. Burgess, who dumped the vaudeville and went strictly to motion pictures and illustrated songs. For much of November and December 1908, the place went dark, without explanation.

Mr. Ward Carter Robertson took over managerial duties, remodeled the theatre, pondered renaming it Majestic (he didn’t), and re-opened it in late December 1908. If we read between the lines, we conclude that there must have been a fire that prompted the temporary closure, resulting in an assurance in The Albuquerque Tribune of December 21, 1908, about “improvements made in operating the moving picture machine so as to eliminate all danger.” Under Robertson’s new ownership, “The Crystal Orchestra” — a pianist, a violinist, and a drummer — would accompany the motion pictures and provide sound effects as well. The tenor who sang the illustrated songs, William B. Kern, fleetingly joined the management team at about this time. A few months later, Robertson, together with George Hammond and R.G. Munn of the Colorado Film Exchange in Denver, would also open the Pastime Theatre. To all appearances, it would seem that the Crystal Amusement Company vaudeville chain and the Colorado Film Exchange were one in the same corporation. Further to reassure patrons, the Crystal announced in the Albuquerque Journal of July 5, 1909, that henceforth only “films composed of newly invented non-inflammable celluloid” would be presented. That promise was surely made in all sincerity, but it was a promise that could not be kept.

On June 4, 1909, Munn, former secretary-treasurer of the Colorado Film Exchange, purchased the Albuquerque Crystal. He canceled the license with the Colorado Film Exchange and booked instead through the Klein Optical Company. The Colorado Film Exchange then drew up a booking license with Spot Moore for the Colombo Theatre (416 2nd St NW). In April 1911, Joseph Barnett, well-known barkeeper, purchased the Crystal and the Pastime from Munn and Hammond, and hired Joseph R. Scotti as his manager. The head projectionist was now Spot Moore, who had just left the Colombo. Barnett would continue running the SECOND Crystal until the end of the lease in October. In preparation for that time, he had already hired El Paso architect Henry C. Trost to convert another building into the THIRD Crystal.

Once the SECOND Crystal vacated the premises, the building was hardly more than an empty shell that was occasionally rented for assemblies. Wells Fargo then used the structure as an auction house. By 1914 it was Spot Cash Grocery and not long afterwards it was Hayward & Reynolds Grocery, and soon afterwards it was a second-hand shop called The Exchange. By 1937 it was an apartment building and by the mid-1940’s it was the Logan Company repair shop. Then it was the office of I.B. Real Estate, and then the Modern Printing Company, and finally it was demolished in 1964.

The THIRD Crystal Theatre was remodeled from a confectionary and stationery shop at 219 2nd St SW. (This structure seems originally to have been constructed in 1897 as the Whitney Wholesale Company.) This new incarnation opened on October 9, 1911. We may quote from The Moving Picture World of November 4, 1911: “The building was originally a two-story business block, the second floor was torn out and a balcony built in, giving a large and commodious auditorium seating 1,000 persons. The operating room is equipped with a 1911 Motiograph, Hallberg’s economizer and a Mercury Arc Rectifier. Licensed pictures and the best vaudeville that can be secured compose the program.” For its first 3+ years, the head projectionist was, again, local actor, well-known prankster, and general all-around eccentric Spot Moore, who never missed a show, never called in sick, and never took a day off.

This THIRD Crystal was occasionally advertised as the Crystal Opera House. By 1919, Barnett concentrated on his other movie houses, and so he pretty much gave up on films for the Crystal and instead offered it as a presenting house, opening it only for companies that wished to book the space. On the boards were various musical revues, minstrel shows, and such popular plays as In Old Kentucky, Bringing up Father, Abie’s Irish Rose, and so forth. In April 1928, Pathé booked it for two days as part of its tour of De Mille’s film of King of Kings, complete with its touring orchestra. By 1929 the building had seen better days. The pipes froze one night and a show had to be moved to the Albuquerque High School’s auditorium. A few companies continued to rent the theatre through 1932, for shows, lectures, and political meetings, but for the most part the building sat empty and dark. The final show was Vivian Vance in the Little Theatre’s production of The Trial of Mary Dugan on August 14 and 15, 1932. Kathryn Kennedy O’Connor described the place rather romantically: “It was old and drab and shabby when we saw it, but it had a glamorous past. Its name came from imitation cut glass ovals in the heavy oaken doors that opened into the auditorium from a portal painted white and festooned with countless clear-glass electric bulbs.” Yet she fibbed when she told the story about the plaster ceiling falling onto the audience’s heads during a show. That never happened. The building was demolished in May 1933.