Lyceum Theatre
227 S. Spring Street,
Los Angeles,
CA
90012
227 S. Spring Street,
Los Angeles,
CA
90012
4 people
favorited this theater
Additional Info
Previously operated by: Orpheum Circuit, Sullivan & Considine
Architects: J. Lee Burton
Styles: Romanesque Revival
Previous Names: Los Angeles Theatre, Orpheum Theatre, Quinn's Lyceum Theatre
Nearby Theaters
Opened on December 17, 1888 as the Los Angeles Theatre, it became the second Los Angeles Orpheum Theatre in 1903. It was renamed Lyceum Theatre on July 9, 1911. Eventually going over to movies it was renamed Quinn’s Lyceum Theatre by 1926, it was equipped for ‘talkies’ and was closed and demolished in 1941.
Contributed by
David Thompson
Want to be emailed when a new comment is posted about this theater?
Just login to your account and subscribe to this theater.
Recent comments (view all 25 comments)
This was in the LA Times in May 1914:
http://tinyurl.com/lskm3f
Here is a circa 1930s photo:
http://tinyurl.com/luonxp
This is part of a January 1922 article in the LA Times:
Purchase of the Douglas Building at Third and Spring streets as a city hall annex was recommended to the City Council yesterday. A committee has been appointed to investigate the buildings offered to the city for the housing of offices now located in the Normal Hill building, which is to be razed to make way for the new $1,500,000 Central Library.
Originally, the majority of the committee had recommended in its report that the city purchase the Lyceum Theater building and adjoining lot on Spring street between Second and Third. The Perry estate, owners of the Lyceum Theater property, however withdrew its offer to sell, so the committee eliminated this portion of its report.
This was in an LA Times column by Lee Shippey in November 1930:
The new theater on Broadway between Sixth and Seventh is to be called the Los Angeles Theater, and the announcement says “It is the first theater to be named in honor of the cityâ€.
Jay Hunt, veteran actor, writes us that “in 1890, my wife and I appeared in the Los Angeles Theater on Spring Street, the same that is now called the Lyceum and is a picture house. Maude Granger, then a very popular actress, was the star. Harry Wyatt was manager of the theater at that time. We played a three-night engagement, but changed the bill every night because the city then wasn’t big enough to provide more than one good audience for each play.â€
Here is a 1913 LA Times article about the re-opening of the Lyceum:
http://tinyurl.com/y7fls7g
Here is another photo from the LAPL:
http://jpg2.lapl.org/theater2/00015377.jpg
The Los Angeles Herald of September 3, 1905, ran an article about Los Angeles architects. It credited the design of the original Los Angeles Theatre (by then called the Orpheum) to architect J. Lee Burton.
Burton was one of Southern California’s most successful architects in his day, designing many buildings in the then-popular Romanesque Revival and Queen Anne styles. He used an odd and rather awkward hybrid of the two for the Los Angeles Theatre.
There was a Los Angeles Theatre listed in the 1897-98 edition of the Julius Cahn Official Theatrical Guide. No address given. H.C Wyatt was Mgr. Tickets ranged from 25 cents to $1. Seating- Orchestra,532, Balcony,406; gallery-550; total: 1,488. The theater was on the ground floor, had all-electric illumination, and 10 members of the pit band. The proscenium opening was 30 feet wide X 29 feet high; and the stage was 35 feet deep. Two other L.A. theaters were listed in the Guide: the Burbank, with 1,844 seats; and the Orpheum, with 1,500 seats. The 1897 population of L.A. was 97,000.
This was the Los Angeles Theatre listed in the 1897-98 Cahn guide. The Orpheum in the guide was the former Grand Opera House on Main Street, in later years later renamed the Grand Theatre. In 1903, the Los Angeles Theatre became the Orpheum, which it remained until the circuit opened its new Orpheum Theatre on Broadway in 1911.
If a theater called the Los Angeles is listed in editions of Cahn’s guide from the years around 1907-1910, it would be the theater listed at Cinema Treasures as the Capitol.
This reopened as the Lyceum theatre on July 9th, 1911. Grand opening ad posted.