Rialto Theater

Joe Vogel on January 25, 2014 at 12:00 am

Here is an indoor Google Street View of a photo hanging on the wall of the Rialto Cafe, 108 W. Wilshire Avenue in Fullerton. The photo shows the Rialto at the left, probably about the time it opened. This is the only photo of the Rialto I’ve found on the Internet.

Unless the project incorporated an existing building (which it might have done), the building dates from 1917, not 1905. The Rialto itself certainly opened in 1917, though, and the project of which it was a part was mentioned in issues of Southwest Contractor & Manufacturer that year.

The first mention of the project was in the issue of February 3, and did not include the theater, but the March 17 issue described an expanded project in which a theater was now included:

“Frank K. Benchley is completing plans for the 2-story reinforced concrete business block for the Fullerton Improvement Company. Part of the lower floor will be devoted to a moving picture theater and the rest of the ground floor will be occupied by the improvement company as a store. The second story will be equipped as club quarters for the Fullerton Club.”

The April 28 issue of the magazine says that ground had been broken for the project, and notes the location as the corner of Wilshire Avenue and Spadra Avenue (now Harbor Boulevard.) The theater was to have a frontage of forty feet and extend the depth of the building.

Frank K. Benchley was probably Fullerton’s most active architect during this period, and a number of his buildings are still standing.

I don’t think that Walker & Eisen should be credited as architects of the Rialto. The only work they did on the building was after the theater had closed, when it was converted into a bank in 1930. The splendid Art Deco facade they designed would have made a nice front for a theater, but it never was.

CTCrouch on October 3, 2007 at 12:28 pm

The 1930 remodel, in to the First National Trust Bank, was designed by the Walker and Eisen firm.