Teatro Paramount
19 Avenida Ponce de Leon,
San Juan
00917
19 Avenida Ponce de Leon,
San Juan
00917
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It is with great sadness that I inform you the passing the Andres Roura, a great contributor to these pages about movie theaters in Puerto Rico. I had the privilege of meeting Andres thanks to this site and our long lunch conversations about movies and movie theaters are things I will always treasure. And I will miss his weekly e-mails telling me about movies on TCM. Que en paz descanses.
I am doing a documentary about Cine Roosevelt. If you have any memorabilia or information about Teatros Cobian, the original owners of the cinema, and someone from the Cobian family I might interview please contact me at
Re Paramount photo, you may have to click to photo #5 if it does not come up right away.
Paramount photo of how it looks now:
View link
Just came back from San Juan and the Paramount looks terrific, almost complete. The side walls were reconstructed following the original design and they added picture windows where they meet the facade. The stage house is huge and there is a building behind it, for offices I guess.
Andy Roura
Here is the link I could not find months ago which shows the Paramount in disrepair prior to reconstruction.
View link
If you clic on “Ver fotos” you will see other PR projects such the University Theater and the Teatro Yaguez.
Courtesy of CT’s José Mendez, a 1955 documentary on Puerto Rico. The Paramount can be seen about 1:35 min. into the picture. Could not tell what was playing.
http://www.archive.org/details/Reporton1955
Good, thanks Davsot. Hope it’s finished by the time I go to PR for Thanksgiving and Xmas.
Really well. Everything is just about finished. Last I went by they were placing the air conditioner boxes on the roof.
The Olimpo theater was renamed the Paramount after a hurricane in the 1930’s destroyed the marquee and Paramount Pictures loaned Rafael Ramos Cobián the money to rebuild the marquee on the condition the theater be renamed the Paramount. When Cobián divorced his first wife, Rita, he gave her the Paramount and the Tres Banderas, Imperial and Borinquen in Barrio Obrero as part of their divorce settlement. Cobián and Commonwealth Theaters leased the Paramount from her for $2000 a week, and Rita’s second husband, Jorge, operated the concession stand. The Paramount was the top money making cinema in PR, grossing an average of $12,000 a week and sometimes as much as $15,000 and $16,000 a week, a lot of money in the 1960’s. More than once, Cobián told me that one of his biggest mistakes was giving the Paramount to his first wife as part of the divorce settlement. After Commonwealth was sold to Wometco, Rita took the theater back and was managed and booked by Junior Cobián, a former VP at Commonwealth. Eventually Junior leased it to United Artists when UA opened the Cinema 150. UA tripled it and as we all know it was eventually closed and is now in the process of renovation. By the way, how is the renovation coming along?
A friend tells me the link that had the Paramount interior in disrepair prior to demolition and reconstruction does not have the pictures anymore. Sorry. I remember the interior was a shell full of garbage and debris. You could no tell where the orchestra section ended and the old stage started. I am guessing that maybe the Davis people thought that since the stage was under the office building, there were offices also in the stage area. Also, remember the theater was in hands of a government agency not theater people. Maybe the bureaucrats could not give an exact briefing to Davis of what was where. Just guessing.
I see, yes , you have a very good point. Maybe it was because the theater was in such state of disrepair. There is a page that shows the inside of the theater right before renovation. I’ll try to find it and post the link. Best, AGR.
I understand you completely. What I don’t understand is why the people of Robert Davis Inc. would get their facts wrong if they themselves are the ones in charge of the theater consulting.
Why, Davsot? On the janitor living quarters? The stage behind the screen had 2 levels of dressing rooms and Willie used the ones on the first level as his apartment. He was a terrific worker, had been with Cobian for many many years and was extremely honest — before ATMs he went to the bank, deposited my check and made withdrawals for me — so we looked the other way. The offices? Remember on the driveway to the parking there was an entrance to the office building. Cobian/Commonwealth Theaters had the offices there until we moved to the Cobian Center on Stop 23 next to the Radio City and Excelsior. Hope this clears any confusion. Best regards. As always, Andres,
I’m confused… >_<
The intro in the Davis site — above link — is wrong. The stage was never converted into office space. It was there behind the screen, empty. One of the janitors lived in the dressing rooms and management looked the other way. The offices were built above the stage. It was a six story narrow building. Rafael Ramos Cobian offfice took the entire 6th floor and there was a screening room on the 5th floor.
Once posted the Paramount link above became a direct link so you can just click on it.
So no one has photos of the old interior?
The Paramount will present live performances as far as I know. If you search the site below they have 2 pictures of the new auditorium which is bigger that the old auditorium since it looks like they raised the roof and extended it all the way into the parking lot that was behind the theater. It looks terrific but it is not “our” Paramount. Sorry I could not include a direct link, for some reason this the only way I could paste it.
http://robertdavisinc.com/sjpr.htm
Renewing link.
oops ignoren mi comentario! Pasé por allà el otro dÃa y está brutal! Va full throttle.
La pregunta es qué albergará cuando se termine.
Otro teatro o un Fine Arts? Yo sinceramente prefiero un Fine Arts o hasta otro Caribbean Cinemas! :D
No hay renovación por lo visto.
¿Hay señales de vida en el Paramount? ¿Como va la renovación? ¿Alguien tiene fotos?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/davsot/4230236368/
This is one of my favorite buildings in Puerto Rico. We have highly detailed Existing Condition Drawings of The Paramount and other theaters in Puerto Rico, that we like to share. The drawings posted in Facebook, due to uploading limitations, are shown in low detail resolution, but still shows the essences of the building’s conditions, along with the field photographic samples.
Andy Rivera
www.DesignGraph.net