Lawn Theatre
3419 W. 63rd Street,
Chicago,
IL
60629
3419 W. 63rd Street,
Chicago,
IL
60629
3 people
favorited this theater
The first movie theater to open in the Chicago Lawn neighborhood was the Lawn Theatre, which was built in 1912. It sat about 300 and was located on W. 63rd Street near S. Homan Avenue. The Lawn Theatre operated into the 1940’s, and after closing as a movie house, was used for various other purposes, including its most recent, a church, but has since been demolished and a parking lot for the police station across the street is now on the site.
Contributed by
Bryan
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Recent comments (view all 4 comments)
The church in fact did close,eather side of 63rd street have ben developed the land whare the Lawn was is now owned by the Chicago Police Department it is a parking lot for the 8th dist. Chicago Lawn
station and facing across the street is the new H.Q for the 8th dist. i rember this theatre it (at the time of demolition)was to be a Chicago Fire Station i rember this buld as being a white buld also if i remmber it was in disuse and repare when it was torn down and it was being used a some kind of a church.
In the book IMAGES OF AMERICA CHICAGO LAWN/MARQUETTE MANOR by Kathleen J. Headley Published By Arcadia an Imprint Of Tempus Publishing,INC with an ISBN of 0-7385-1929-4 On page number 28 at the bottom of the page there is a very good picture of the Lawn Theatre in the early times of this theatre.
we moved from the douglas park neighborhood to an apartment in the 3200 block on west 63rd street in the summer of 1944——my dad was in the navy—-i started school at eberhart in the fall of that ——eberhart was at 65th and homan—-about two blocks away from the lawn———as i recall the lawn was a mom and pop operation at that time—-the owner,his wife,son,and daughter sold tickets—-ran a small refreshment stand——acted as ushers ect———admission for the kids was 12 cents——12 cents unbelievable——pop corn——5 cents a box———-10 cents a bag——-most candy bars a nickle——-we usually went to the on sat afternoons——-when many other kids went from eberhart——-the older kids went on friday nites——-with the adults—-saw a movie usuallly a western——-a serial——which you couldn’t hardly wait to get back the following week to see——-a cartoon—-all the cowboy hero’s——-gene aurtry——roy rogers——-hopalong——with their side kicks——my memories of that time are so clear——happy times——even tho my dad was in the south pacific at the time——thank god he came home safely——he would take me sometimes on friday nites——eveen tho i wasn’t one of the big kids
The July 13, 1912, issue of Construction News said that architects Worthman & Steinbach were preparing plans for a 297-seat, one-story, brick, 5-cent theater, 25x125 feet, in Chicago Lawn. If this was the only movie house built in the neighborhood in 1912, the announcement must have been about the Lawn Theatre.