Astor Theatre

mikebaggi on November 11, 2011 at 9:40 pm

I first noticed the ASTOR Theater in the 1950s. I lived just outside the Loop and spent a great many Summer days wandering around downtown. The thing that called it to my attention were posters advertising the current feature HATCHET MAN starring Edward G. Robinson as a Chinese person. I discovered that the movie was made in the 1930s before I was born and was being rerun at the cheapest rerun house in the Loop. But since I had no money I couldn’t go in to see it. I finally got to see the movie on television on Turner Classic Movies. It wasn’t bad. A few years later I saw a few movies at the Astor. I saw movies at all the Loop theaters, The LaSalle, The Clark, The McVickers, The Monroe, The Chicago, The State-Lake, The Oriental, The United Artists, The Woods, The Garrick, The Apollo, The Michael Todd, The Roosevelt, The Rialto, The Follies, The RKO Palace and the RKO Grand and that little newsreel theater next to the Chicago Theater that I can’t remember the name of.

Mike Baggi

Broan on November 9, 2004 at 2:41 am

Here is a March 15, 1950 closeup of the Marquee, from the Sun-Times archive. View link