Kenyon Theatre

The Kenyon Building was home to a long running live theatre turned movie theatre in Pittsburgh’s Northside operating as the Kenyon Theatre and briefly as the American Theater (and two periods as the New Kenyon Theater). Its large capacity – some 1,600 seats – ensured that virtually any nearby resident interested in seeing a movie from 1919 to 1963/4 had likely entered the Kenyon’s doors. The building sat on the West Side of what once was a busy retail section of Federal Street with streetcar lines constantly bringing people to the Northside’s many attractions.

The Kenyon Building’s roots were in its previous 19th Century-built precursor, the (William) Semple Building location that was destroyed by a spectacular fire in 1907. Also known informally as the Kenyon Building, Thomas Kenyon, Senior, had opened his first retail shop in the Semple Building. He took control of the structure and had a deal with legendary Pittsburgh showman Harry Davis to retrofit the Semple / Kenyon Building’s main floor into a theatre. But the deal was scuttled followed by litigation.

It was probably just as well as the Semple / Kenyon building was completely destroyed by a gas explosion and fire on February 17, 1907. Kenyon was called to the scene and fainted at the site of his building engulfed in flames. He recovered upon arriving home and went back to the scene only to be overcome a second time by seeing the building collapsing into Ohio Street. The traumatic experience didn’t dissuade Kenyon from building a new structure in the same spot.

In late-1908, a new Kenyon Building was designed and this time a theatre would be at the heart of the project. William Miller & Sons was the contractor of the four-story replacement building at a cost of $200,000 designed by William Kaufman. Steel reinforcement and fire egresses were taken into consideration at the outset. The Kenyon Building would contain not only the Kenyon Theatre but the Kenyon Bowling Lanes and the Kenyon Billiards (both in the basement operated for a period by Pittsburgh police inspector Charles Faulkner with its entry at 823 Federal Street with steps to the lower level), the Kenyon Café (entry at 821 Federal), a second-floor dancing school, a jeweller, and other businesses and offices.

The Kenyon Theatre opened with vaudeville on September 6, 1909 programming by the famed William Morris Agency of New York. Unfortunately, vaudeville at New York prices wasn’t what the Northsiders wanted and the theatre played reportedly to three-quarter empty houses. That despite the Kenyon Theatre hosting a live performance by Charlie Chaplin before he hit it big in the movies. The Kenyons' turned their attention to their Kenyon Opera House that launched December 23, 1912 in downtown Pittsburgh. At the Kenyon Building, new operators tried stock theatre presentations to no better success.

In late-1912 and early-1913, confusion was palpable with two Kenyon nameplated venues; so a renaming contest was held for the Northside venue. The theatre rebooted on March 30, 1913 as the American Theatre – a name selected from more than 15,000 submitted entries. The Kenyon Opera House was soon renamed as the Penn Avenue Theatre and then later in 1913 as the Pitt Theatre freeing up the Kenyon nameplate. In November of 1914, the Kenyon moniker returned to the Northside venue and would stay in place for 50 years.

In 1919, Enterprise Amusements Circuit (presumably under the operation of T. Thomas Kenyon, Jr.), took on the venue moving it to full time movies. It finally found its audience. The New Keynon Theatre had relaunched with a Mable Norman film, “Mickey", on November 1, 1919. During Prohibition, the Kenyon Building housed a third floor speakeasy that had slot machines and décor featuring high-class rugs, marble-topped tables, and other high-end accoutrements. A Victrola presented operettas as well as Jazz. As speakeasies went, this one was high end. It’s unknown if inspector Faulkner from the basement bowling alley and pool hall was aware or simply indifferent to the operation; but it’s most likely the latter as the Pittsburgh police was to have opined that prohibition hit working class cities unfairly.

In 1923, the theatre was upgraded with a 4 manual A. Gottfried & Co. pipe organ to improve film presentations. In 1927, another new organ was installed and was so successful that a simulcast organ show was played on local live radio. F.E. Dilks was often the featured organist. In January of 1929, the venue installed Movietone and Vitaphone to present sound films to remain viable as it passed from family operation to circuit-controlled ownership.

The “New” was dropped from the Kenyon’s moniker in 1930 with Warner Bros. Circuit and Stanley-Warner operating the Kenyon Theatre in its sound era. Leige Brien and Phil Katz were the showmen entrusted by Warner to direct the Kenyon Theatre in its Golden Age. The Kenyon theatrical enterprises ended in 1929 with the transfer to Warner Circuit. (The Kenyon’s historical records can be found at the University of Pittsburgh).

In early-1945, the theatre was modernized to the plans of architect Victor A. Rigaumont. Those plans were then copyrighted in August of 1946 as he must have decided that the design was a success. Also successful was a January 1954 retrofit that to widescreen projection that allowed the presentation of CinemaScope films. Despite the updates, by the 1950’s, the Northside was looking haggard and disheveled thanks in part to the poor air quality caused by pollutant factories nearby. In the 1950’s, the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) and City of Pittsburgh targeted the area for a refresh or possibly a reset.

In 1961, the project had mushroomed to a hard reboot and finally morphed into what would become the Allegheny Center – a 62-acre shopping mall, office building, and residential project, The Allegheny Center would lead to the demolition of the Kenyon Theatre and the entire Federal Street area around it including a second phase that had a major highway project that in the late-1970’s vaporized the Fort Wayne / Federal Railroad Station and another major portion of the Federal Street Business District (including the former Elite Theatre that has its own Cinema Treasure page).

The Kenyon Theatre was on borrowed time from that point in 1961 forward. A 1963 fire nearby on Federal Street almost did the trick but, after 400 patrons were rushed to safety from the Kenyon’s auditorium, the fire was extinguished before it could take the Kenyon Building’s location a second time. Though advertisements were ceased by Stanley Warner in November of 1963, the theatre soldiered on for three more months. A bit shy of its 55th Anniversary, the Kenyon Theatre was shuttered very quietly on February 6, 1964.

Likely because entire blocks were being razed, demolition came quickly and was delivered with expediency. The downside of the magnitude of the demolition project, however, was that locals who were intrigued and open-minded to the transformation at the beginning of the demolition project of their neighborhood early in 1964 grew tired and, a subset of the locals seemed resentful of the scope of the transition and simply moved away.

The neighborhood would never be the same and that area around 819 Federal Street was no longer in existence. The Kenyon Building found closest to Common Street within the former Allegheny Center Mall’s turned Nova Place’s (circa 2017) footprint is used as the primary address above. And while the corporate and tax money fulfilled the commercial and the corporate office spaces dutifully, the promised residential district with over 2,000 affordable, new houses just never seemed to get built.

The execution of the urban renewal plan lacking the new, single-family housing units followed by an invasive, labyrinthian highway system simply drove people out of the Northside / North Shore during the mid-1960’s with another migration away in the late-1970’s that surgically removed the neighborhood’s historical heart… of which the Kenyon Theatre was a 54-year participant and partner.

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